Note 3 — Chapter XXXIX

It is difficult to reconcile the varying accounts of the sack, for which, besides the many printed authorities, we have drawn largely upon a collection of unpublished and very minute details, Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 1677. It is doubtful whether Bourbon arrived on the evening of the 4th or of the 5th of May, but the assault was unquestionably made upon Monday the 6th. Many of the incidents given in that MS. are too horrible for admission into these pages. The narratives of Guicciardini and Giacomo Buonaparte, and those printed in the second volume of Eccardius, may be consulted for such; the two first, indeed, have done little beyond arranging some documents of that MS. collection. We have also consulted the Narrative of Leonardo Santori, Vat. Ottob. MSS. No. 2607, and Sanuto's MS. Diaries; checking the whole by minute examination of the localities. *On the 3rd May Bourbon had passed Viterbo, on the 4th he was at Isola Farnese. As to the number of men which Renzo da Ceri had at command, 3000 seems nearer the truth than 30,000. Bourbon had scaling ladders but no artillery. Cf. Guicciardini, Il Sacco di Roma, Milanesi, p. 163, and Casanova, Lettere di Carlo V. a Clement VII. (per nozze Firenze, 1894).