Already in August the Ferrarese ambassador, Manfredi, had written that the death of the Duke of Gandia was being imputed to Bartolomeo d'Alviano, and in December we see in Sanuto a letter from Rome which announces that it is positively stated that the Orsini had caused the death of Giovanni Borgia.
These various rumours were hardly worth mentioning for their own values, but they are important as showing how public opinion fastened the crime in turn upon everybody it could think of as at all likely to have had cause to commit it, and more important still for the purpose of refuting what has since been written concerning the immediate connection of Cesare Borgia with the crime in the popular mind.
Not until February of the following year was the name of Cesare ever mentioned in connection with the deed.

The first rumour of his guilt synchronized with that of his approaching renunciation of his ecclesiastical career, and there can be little doubt that the former sprang from the latter.

The world conceived that it had discovered on Cesare's part a motive for the murder of his brother.

That motive--of which so very much has been made--shall presently be examined.
Meanwhile, to deal with the actual rumour, and its crystallization into history.

The Ferrarese ambassador heard it in Venice on February 12, 1498.