infamous scenes passed: Report said the dissipations were of so dissolute
a character that their equals had never been seen in Rome. With a view
to checking the rumours that began to spread abroad, Roderigo sent Caesar
to study at Pisa, and married Lucrezia to a young gentleman of Aragon;
thus there only remained at home Rosa Vanozza and her two sons: such was
the state of things when Innocent VIII died and Roderigo Borgia was
proclaimed pope.

We have seen by what means the nomination was effected; and so the five
cardinals who had taken no part in this simony--namely, the Cardinals of
Naples, Sierra, Portugal, Santa Maria-in-Porticu, and St.
Peter-in-Vinculis--protested loudly against this election, which they
treated as a piece of jobbery; but Roderigo had none the less, however it
was done, secured his majority; Roderigo was none the less the two
hundred and sixtieth successor of St. Peter.

Alexander VI, however, though he had arrived at his object, did not dare
throw off at first the mask which the Cardinal Bargia had worn so long,
although when he was apprised of his election he could not dissimulate
his joy; indeed, on hearing the favourable result of the scrutiny, he
lifted his hands to heaven and cried, in the accents of satisfied
ambition, "Am I then pope? Am I then Christ's vicar? Am I then the
keystone of the Christian world?"

"Yes, holy father," replied Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, the same who had
sold to Roderigo the nine votes that were at his disposal at the Conclave
for four mules laden with silver; "and we hope by your election to give
glory to God, repose to the Church, and joy to Christendom, seeing that
you have been chosen by the Almighty Himself as the most worthy among all
your brethren."