Two men, both named Tommaso--though it does not transpire that they were related--one a chamberlain of the Palace of Forli, the other a musician, were so devoted to the Countess Sforza-Riario, the grim termagant who ruled the fiefs of her murdered husband, Girolamo Riario, as to have undertaken an enterprise from which they cannot have hoped to emerge with their lives.

It imported no less than the murder of the Pope.

They were arrested on November 21, and in the possession of one of them was found a hollow cane containing a letter "so impregnated with poison that even to unfold it would be dangerous." This letter was destined for the Holy Father.
The story reads like a gross exaggeration emanating from men who, on the subject of poisoning, display the credulity of the fifteenth century, so ignorant in these matters and so prone to the fantastic.

And our minds receive a shock upon learning that, when put to the question, these messengers actually made a confession--upon which the story rests--admitting that they had been sent by the countess to slay the Pope, in the hope that thus Forli might be saved to the Riarii.

At first we conclude that those wretched men, examined to the accompaniment of torture, confessed whatever was required of them, as so frequently happened in such cases.