490 that agb it would have been impossible to bring a cardinal publicly to the block. This apoloprv does not apply to the charges of secret poisoning which have mainly given the Borgias their sinister celebrity, and which became fearfully rife in Alexander s latter years. They are unproved as yet, but are certainly countenanced by the opulence of the supposed victims, and the avidity with which the pope pounced upon their effects, especially in the case of his rapacious datary, Cardinal Ferrari. By May 1503 Spain had dispossessed France of her share of ill-gotten Naples. A general war seemed imminent ; Alexander and Caesar leaned to the side of Spain. The Sacred College was already full of Spanish cardinals, docile instruments of their countryman, and Alexander might well deem that he had fettered the Church to the fortune of his house. Men looked for the proclamation of Caesar as king of Romagna, and the division of the temporal and the spiritual power. The ancient mutual relations of pc-pe and emperor would have been revived, but on the narrow area of Central Italy. But this was not to be. On the morning of 12th August "Pope Alexander felt ill;" so did Caesar Borgia. Every one knows the story of the supper given to the ten cardinals in the villa, and the fatal exchange of the poisoned flask. This picturesque tale is almost certainly a fiction. An attempt to destroy ten cardinals at once is inconceivable ; it would be easier to believe Cardinal Castellesi s assertion that he was to have been the victim, as his sickness at the time is confirmed from an independent source. But his character does not stand high, and the symptoms of his disorder, as described by himself, differ totally from Alexander s, which were those of an ordinary Roman fever. The progress of the pope s malady may be minutely traced in the diary of Burcardus and the despatches of the Ferrarese envoy. He expired on the evening of 18th August, duly provided with all the needful sacraments of the Church. From his own point of view his life probably appeared fortunate and glorious ; but the vicissitude of human affairs is ever dramatically illustrated by the death of a pope. Ere the corpse was cold the pontifical apartments were pillaged by the satellites of Caesar Borgia ; at the funeral a brawl between priests and soldiers left it exposed in the body of the church ; when placed before the altar, its shocking decom position confirmed the surmise of poison ; finally, stripped of its cerements and wrapped in an old carpet, it was forced, with blows and jeers, into a narrow coffin, and flung into an obscure vault. The remains were subsequently trans ferred to the Spanish church of St Mary of Montserrat, where they repose at this day. Alexander has become a myth, and his " acts" are in some respects almost as legendary as those of the primitive saints and martyrs. The peculiar odium attached to his memory rests partly on the charge of incest, of which he must be acquitted; partly on that of secret poisoning, which is at least not established; partly on the confusion between his actions and Caesar Borgia s. Nearly every thing actually criminal in his pontificate is subsequent to the preponderance of the latter. Profligate alike in public and private life, he was no malignant tyrant, affable, familiar, easy, he justly took credit for his moderation towards notorious malcontents, and his indifference to personal injuries. These virtues, however, as well as his family affection, were merely constitutional with him, as the many beneficial acts of his administration were rather prompted by a sense of policy than a sense of duty. His ability as a ruler is evinced by the tranquillity he main tained in Rome, his effectual provision against dearth, the regular discharge of financial obligations, the energetic prosecution of useful public works. As a statesman he ranks high in the second class. He was too destitute of morality to have the least insight into the tendencies of his times; but from the point of view of political expe diency, his policy was eminently sagacious and adroit. He cannot be accused of preparing the misfortunes of Italy, but he did not disdain to profit by them. His licentiousness and contempt of ecclesiastical decorum are partly palliated by the circumstances of his initiation into the Church. He was untrained to the ecclesiastical pro fession, never felt himself a priest, and was wholly regard less of the Church s interest as such. In this respect he is almost unique among the successors of St Peter. Were controversies regulated by reason rather than by con venience, the parties to this would change sides, Alex ander s accusers would become his advocates, and his advocates his accusers. The Church in her secret heart must rate him the lowest of her chiefs; the world must feel that he deserves much better of it than many much better popes. The principal contemporary authority for the reign of Alexander is the diary of the papal master of the ceremonies, Joannes Bur cardus, a record replete with trivialities and not exempt from inter polations, but containing indisputable evidence of perfect candour. An excellent edition, commenced in 1855 by the Abbe Gennarelli, was discontinued after the publication of a few parts. The un critical histories of Gordon and Tomasi are indebted to Bureardus for any value they possess. The paltry productions of modern Roman Catholic apologists (Jorry, Fave, Cerri, &c.) are beneath contempt. The Abbe Ollivier (Alcxandre VI. et Us Borgia, torn. L, Paris, 1870) excites respect by his good faith and amusement by his strange alliance of perverse ingenuity with infantine unsuspi- ciousness. Of late years the archives of the Italian courts have become accessible, and the transactions of Alexander s reign have been sagaciously investigated from this source by two German scholars, Von Keumont (Die Stadt Rom, Bd. 3, Abth. 1, Berlin, 1868) and Gregorovius (Rom in MUtdalter, Bd. 7, Stuttgart, 1870). The latter is the more copious, but his general estimate of Alex ander is much too low. By far the ablest English contribution to the history of Alexander is a notice of Gregorovius in the North British Revieiv, vol. lii., entitled The Borgias and their Latest Historian. (R. G.) ALEXANDER VII. (Fabio Chigi), was born at Siena on. the 13th February 1599, and occupied the papal chair from the 7th April 1655 to the 22d May 16G7. Before his elevation he had filled successively the offices of inquisitor at Malta, vice-legate at Ferrara, and nuncio to Germany at the conference of Munster. The conclave elected him in the belief that he was strongly opposed to the nepotism and other abuses that had characterised the reign of his immediate predecessor, Innocent X., and at the beginning of his pontificate he went so far in this direction as to forbid his relatives even to visit Rome. In a year, however, all was changed, and nepotism pre vailed to as great an extent as under any former pontiff. Alexander was a patron of learning, and himself wrote a volume of Latin poems which appeared at Paris in 1G56 under the title Pkilomatki Labores Juveniles. He also encouraged architecture, and in particular constructed the beautiful colonnade in the piazza of St Peter s. The most noteworthy events of his pontificate were the reception of the ex-queen Christina of Sweden into the Catholic Church, the promulgation of a bull against the Jansenists, and a protracted dispute with Louis XIV. of France, during which the papal see lost possession of Avignon (1662). Alexander canonised Francis of Sales in 1665. ALEXANDER VIII. (Pietro Ottoboni), born at Venice in 1610, was raised to the pontificate in October 1689 in succession to Innocent XI. He assisted his native state in its wars with the Turks. Although an enemy of the Jansenists, he condemned certain doctrinal errors of the Jesuits as advanced by Professor Bougot of Dijon. He carried nepotism to such an extent that the salaries and gifts bestowed on his relatives during his reign, short
though it was, exhausted the papal treasury. He added
