"Is it not of great significance," inquires the German historian, "that the fact should have been related so positively by an ambassador who obtained his knowledge from the best sources ?" The question is frivolous, for the whole trouble in this matter is that there were no sources at all, in the proper sense of the word--good or bad.

There was simply gossip, which had been busy with a dozen names already.
MACCHIAVELLI includes a note in his Extracts from Letters to the Ten, in which he mentions the death of Gandia, adding that "at first nothing was known, and then men said it was done by the Cardinal of Valencia." There is nothing very conclusive in that.

Besides, incidentally it may be mentioned, that it is not clear when or how these extracts were compiled by Macchiavelli (in his capacity of Secretary to the Signory of Florence) from the dispatches of her ambassadors.

But it has been shown--though we are hardly concerned with that at the moment--that these extracts are confused by comments of his own, either for his own future use or for that of another.
MATARAZZO is the Perugian chronicler of whom we have already expressed the only tenable opinion.

The task he set himself was to record the contemporary events of his native town--the stronghold of the blood-dripping Baglioni.