Note 54 — Chapter I · —How the King of France cajoled the English after the Duke of Burgundy’s Death, for fear they should have interrupted him in the Conquest of the Territories belonging to the said Duke.—1477.

Girolamo Riario was either the son or nephew of Pope Sixtus IV. He was dignified by the Pontiff with the appellation of count; and that it might not to be an empty title, 40,000 ducats were paid out of the papal exchequer for the principality of Imola, which was at once conferred on him, and to which was afterwards added the dominion of Forli. This dilapidation of the patrimony of the Church to aggrandise the relatives of the Pope was one of the most scandalous examples of what was afterwards called the nepotism of the Court of Rome. Girolamo Riario married a natural daughter of Galeazzo Sforza, Duke of Milan; and was assassinated by three of his subjects, over whom he had shamefully tyrannised, on the 14th of April, 1488.