According to some, he married him to Vannozza in order to afford her an official husband and thus cloak his own relations with her.

It is an assumption which you will hesitate to accept.

If we know our Cardinal Roderigo at all, he was never the man to pursue his pleasures in a hole-and-corner fashion, nor one to bethink him of a cloak for his amusements.

Had he but done so, scandalmongers would have had less to fasten upon in their work of playing havoc with his reputation.

What is far more likely is that della Croce owed Cardinal Roderigo's protection and the appointment as apostolic secretary to his own complacency in the matter of his wife's relations with the splendid prelate.