Note 273 — Front matter (continued 5)

M. Brosch, the scholarly author of a study of Julius II. (Papst Julius II., 1878), observes that research in the Rovere archives has discovered no trace of the Paolo Riario who is assigned as the father of Sixtus's nephews, and concludes that they were his natural sons. But Paolo Riario is expressly mentioned in the funeral oration on Cardinal Pietro Riario, and is more fully described in Leone Cobelli's Cronache Forlivesi. There is no sound reason to impeach the chastity of this Pope, as even Creighton does.