Note 264 — Chapter XVI
Reading edition
The papal legitimation of this Giovanni di Borgia, then in his third year, dated the kalends of September, 1501, proceeds upon this preamble: "Legittime genitos, ex quorum verisimilibus infantilis ætatis indiciis, spes concipi potest quod, succedentibus annis, se in viros debeant producere virtuosos, quousque progenitorum suorum præclara merita, et ortûs generosa propago decorant, naturæ vitium minime decolorat, quia decus virtutum genituræ maculam abstergit in filiis, et pudicitia morum pudor originis aboletur." He is called a son of Cesare, but in another, and probably secret, brief of the same date, the Pope recognises him, nevertheless, as his own offspring by an unmarried woman, this description being also a legal fiction.