Can we still imagine it--as we are desired to do--to have sprung from a lofty, Christian piety?
Let us track those tears to their very source, and we shall find it to be compounded of rage and fear.
Ferrante saw trouble ahead of him with Lodovico Sforza, concerning a matter which shall be considered in the next chapter, and not at all would it suit him at such a time that such a Pope as Alexander--who, he had every reason to suppose, would be on the side of Lodovico--should rule in Rome.
So he had set himself, by every means in his power, to oppose Roderigo's election.

His rage at the news that all his efforts had been vain, his fear of a man of Roderigo's mettle, and his undoubted dread of the consequences to himself of his frustrated opposition of that man's election, may indeed have loosened the tears of this Ferrante who had not even wept at the death of his own children.

We say "may" advisedly; for the matter, from beginning to end, is one of speculation.

If we leave it for the realm of fact, we have to ask--Were there any tears at all?
Upon what authority rests the statement of the Florentine historian?
What, in fact, does he say?
"It is well known that the King of Naples, for all that in public he dissembled the pain it caused him, signified to the queen, his wife, with tears--which were Unusual in him even on the death of his children--that a Pope had been created who would be most pernicious to Italy." So that, when all is said, Ferrante shed his kingly tears to his wife in private, and to her in private he delivered his opinion of the new Pontiff.

How, then, came Guicciardini to know of the matter?
True, he says, "It is well known"-- meaning that he had those tears upon hearsay.
It is, of course, possible that Ferrante's queen may have repeated what passed between herself and the king; but that would surely have been in contravention of the wishes of her husband, who had, be it remembered, "dissembled his grief in public." And Ferrante does not impress one as the sort of husband whose wishes his wife would be bold enough to contravene.
It is surprising that upon no better authority than this should these precious tears of Ferrante's have been crystallized in history.
If this trivial instance has been dealt with at such length it is because, for one reason, it is typical of the foundation of so many of the Borgia legends, and, for another, because when history has been carefully sifted for evidence of the "universal dismay with which the election of Roderigo Borgia was received" King Ferrante's is the only case of dismay that comes through the mesh at all.