Note 283 — Chapter XXXVII

Such is the opinion of a monkish chronicler who wrote in 1522. Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 1023, f. 297. Even in 1517 the Venetian envoy Giorgi reported him as afflicted by an internal plethoric disease, a catarrh, and fistula. Vettori discredits the rumours of poison, and Guicciardini says they were hushed up by his cousin the Cardinal, lest they should give umbrage to the French monarch, with whom it was his interest to stand well at the approaching conclave. On the whole, the opinion of most weight is that of the Master of ceremonies, who distinctly asserts that poison was detected on a post-mortem examination. Roscoe's innuendo inculpating Francesco Maria is a glaring proof of his aptitude to do scanty justice to that Duke, whose admitted hastiness of temper cannot, in absence of one contemporary or serious imputation, be considered any relevant ground for suspecting him of slow and stealthy vengeance. Another Venetian ambassador mentions, in proof of the utter exhaustion of the papal treasury, from the profusion of Leo and the greed of his Florentine retainers, that the wax lights used at his funeral had previously served for the obsequies of a cardinal.