CHAPTER I.THE FRENCH INVASION.
You see Cesare Borgia, now in his nineteenth year, raised to the purple with the title of Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria Nuova--notwithstanding which, however, he continues to be known in preference, and, indeed, to sign himself by the title of his archbishopric, Cardinal of Valencia.
It is hardly necessary to mention that, although already Bishop of Pampeluna and Archbishop of Valencia, he had received so far only his first tonsure.

He never did receive any ecclesiastical orders beyond the minor and revocable ones.
It was said by Infessura, and has since been repeated by a multitude of historians, upon no better authority than that of this writer on hearsay and inveterate gossip, that, to raise Cesare to the purple, Alexander was forced to prove the legitimacy of that young man's birth, and that to this end he procured false witnesses to swear that he was "the son of Vannozza de' Catanei and her husband, Domenico d'Arignano." Already has this been touched upon in an earlier chapter, here it was shown that Vannozza never had a husband of the name of d'Arignano, and it might reasonably be supposed that this circumstance alone would have sufficed to restrain any serious writer from accepting and repeating Infessura's unauthoritative statement.
But if more they needed, it was ready to their hands in the Bull of Sixtus IV of October 1, 1480--to which also allusion has been made--dispensing Cesare from proving his legitimacy: "Super defectum natalium od ordines et quoecumque beneficia." Besides that, of what avail would any false swearing have been, considering that Cesare was openly named Borgia, that he was openly acknowledged by his father, and that in the very Bull above mentioned he is stated to be the son of Roderigo Borgia?
This is another instance of the lightness, the recklessness with which Alexander VI has been accused of unseemly and illicit conduct, which it may not be amiss to mention at this stage, since, if not the accusation itself, at least the matter that occasioned it belongs chronologically here.
During the first months of his reign--following in the footsteps of predecessors who had made additions to the Vatican--Alexander set about the building of the Borgia Tower.

For its decoration he brought Perugino, Pinturicchio, Volterrano, and Peruzzi to Rome.

Concerning Pinturicchio and Alexander, Vasari tells us, in his Vita degli Artefici, that over the door of one of the rooms in the Borgia Tower the artist painted a picture of the Virgin Mary in the likeness of Giulia Farnese (who posed to him as the model) with Alexander kneeling to her in adoration, arrayed in full pontificals.
Such a thing would have been horrible, revolting, sacrilegious.
Fortunately it does not even amount to a truth untruly told; and well would it be if all the lies against the Borgias were as easy to refute.
True, Pinturicchio did paint Giulia Farnese as the Madonna; true also that he did paint Alexander kneeling in adoration--but not to the Madonna, not in the same picture at all.

The Madonna for which Giulia Farnese was the model is over a doorway, as Vasari says.