"cenci11" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dumas Alexandre)

is buried Beatrice Cenci, whose tragical story cannot but impress you
profoundly.

She was the daughter of Francesco Cenci. Whether or not it be true
that men are born in harmony with their epoch, and that some embody
its good qualities and others its bad ones, it may nevertheless
interest our readers to cast a rapid glance over the period which had
just passed when the events which we are about to relate took place.
Francesco Cenci will then appear to them as the diabolical
incarnation of his time.

On the 11th of August, 1492, after the lingering death-agony of
Innocent VIII, during which two hundred and twenty murders were
committed in the streets of Rome, Alexander VI ascended the
pontifical throne. Son of a sister of Pope Calixtus III, Roderigo
Lenzuoli Borgia, before being created cardinal, had five children by
Rosa Vanozza, whom he afterwards caused to be married to a rich
Roman. These children were:

Francis, Duke of Gandia;

Caesar, bishop and cardinal, afterwards Duke of Valentinois;

Lucrezia, who was married four times: her first husband was Giovanni
Sforza, lord of Pesaro, whom she left owing to his impotence; the
second, Alfonso, Duke of Bisiglia, whom her brother Caesar caused to
be assassinated; the third, Alfonso d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, from
whom a second divorce separated her; finally, the fourth, Alfonso of
Aragon, who was stabbed to death on the steps of the basilica of St.
Peter, and afterwards, three weeks later, strangled, because he did
not die soon enough from his wounds, which nevertheless were mortal;

Giofre, Count of Squillace, of whom little is known;

And, finally, a youngest son, of whom nothing at all is known.

The most famous of these three brothers was Caesar Borgia. He had
made every arrangement a plotter could make to be King of Italy at
the death of his father the pope, and his measures were so carefully
taken as to leave no doubt in his own mind as to the success of this
vast project. Every chance was provided against, except one; but
Satan himself could hardly have foreseen this particular one. The
reader will judge for himself.

The pope had invited Cardinal Adrien to supper in his vineyard on the
Belvidere; Cardinal Adrien was very rich, and the pope wished to
inherit his wealth, as he already had acquired that of the Cardinals
of Sant' Angelo, Capua, and Modena. To effect this, Caesar Borgia
sent two bottles of poisoned wine to his father's cup-bearer, without
taking him into his confidence; he only instructed him not to serve