Nearly all contemporary Italian annalists, including Guicciardini, Paolo Giovio, and Sanudo, gave currency to this version of the tragedy, which became the common property of historians, novelists, and moralists.[1] Yet Burchard who was on the spot, recorded in his diary that both father and son were attacked by a malignant fever; and Giustiniani wrote to his masters in Venice that the Pope's physician ascribed his illness to apoplexy.[2] The season was remarkably unhealthy, and deaths from fever had been frequent.

A circular letter to the German Princes, written probably by the Cardinal of Gurk, and dated August 31, 1503, distinctly mentioned fever as the cause of the Pope's sudden decease, _ex hoc seculo horrenda febrium incensione absorptum_.[3] Machiavelli, again, who conversed with Cesare Borgia about this turning-point in his career, gave no hint of poison, but spoke only of son and father being simultaneously prostrated by disease.
[1] The story is related by Cinthio in his _Ecatommithi_, December 9, November 10.
[2] The various accounts of Alexander's death have been epitomized by Gregorovius (_Stadt Rom_, vol.vii.), and have been discussed by Villari in his edition of the Giustiniani Dispatches, 2 vols.

Florence, Le Monnier.

Gregorovius thinks the question still open.

Villari decides in favor of fever against poison.
[3] Reprinted by R.Garnett in _Athenaeum_, Jan.