Duke of Gandia, that it no more lacks historical authority than do
any other of the explanatory narratives adopted by history to assign
the guilt to Gandia's brother, Cesare Borgia.

In the "Cambridge Modern History" our most authoritative writers on
this epoch have definitely pronounced that there is no evidence
acceptable to historians to support the view current for four
centuries that Cesare Borgia was the murderer.

Elsewhere I have dealt with this at length. Here let it suffice to
say that it was not until nine months after the deed that the name
of Cesare Borgia was first associated with it; that public opinion
had in the mean time assigned the guilt to a half-dozen others in
succession; that no motive for the crime is discoverable in the case
of Cesare; that the motives advanced will not bear examination, and
that they bear on the face of them the stamp of having been put
forward hastily to support an accusation unscrupulously political in
purpose; that the first men accused by the popular voice were the
Cardinal Vice-Chancellor Ascanio Sforza and his nephew Giovanni
Sforza, Tyrant of Pesaro; and, finally, that in Matarazzo's
"Chronicles of Perugia" there is a fairly detailed account of how
the murder was perpetrated by the latter.

Matarazzo, I confess, is worthy of no more credit than any other of
the contemporary reporters of common gossip. But at least he is
worthy of no less. And it is undeniable that in Sforza's case a
strong motive for the murder was not lacking.

My narrative in "The Night of Hate" is admittedly a purely
theoretical account of the crime. But it is closely based upon all