Our aim has been to correct the adjustment of the focus and properly to trim the light in which Roderigo Borgia is to be viewed, to the end that you may see him as he was--neither better nor worse--the creature of his times, of his environment, and of the system in which he was reared and trained.

Thus shall you also get a clearer view of his son Cesare, when presently he takes the stage more prominently.
During the seventeen days of the interregnum between the death of Innocent and the election of Alexander the wild scenes usual to such seasons had been taking place in Rome; and, notwithstanding the Cardinal-Chamberlain's prompt action in seizing the gates and bridges, and the patrols' endeavours to maintain order, crime was unfettered to such an extent that some 220 murders are computed to have taken place--giving the terrible average of thirteen a day.
It was a very natural epilogue to the lax rule of the lethargic Innocent.

One of the first acts of Alexander's reign was to deal summarily with this lawlessness.

He put down violence with a hard hand that knew no mercy.

He razed to the ground the house of a murderer caught red-handed, and hanged him above the ruins, and so dealt generally that such order came to prevail as had never before been known in Rome.
Infessura tells us how, in the very month of his election, he appointed inspectors of prisons and four commissioners to administer justice, and that he himself gave audience on Tuesdays and settled disputes, concluding, "et justitiam mirabili modo facere coepit." He paid all salaries promptly--a striking departure, it would seem, from what had been usual under his predecessor--and the effect of his improved and strenuous legislation was shortly seen in the diminished prices of commodities.
He was crowned Pope on August 6, on the steps of the Basilica of St.Peter, by the Cardinal-Archdeacon Piccolomini.