Page:Historical Essays and Studies.djvu/445

Rh sent for it, on arriving at the Vatican, beheld the pontiff lying dead in his chamber.

No authority is more often cited for the early part of the sixteenth century than the diary of Marin Sanuto. Mr. Creighton quotes sometimes from the printed edition, sometimes apparently from the Vienna transcript, which does not always agree with the original. In the conspiracy of the cardinals in 1517 his reliance on the fidelity of Marin Sanuto's précis of despatches raises an interesting problem of historical criticism. The statement of Pope Leo, as quoted vol. iv. p. 245, is inaccurate. There is no question of a letter written by Sauli, or of a promise made by him, or of a prisoner having confessed that the cardinal had actually plotted the death of the pope. The text of the despatch, which, upon all these points, has been distorted, is as follows : "Sapiate che za alchuni giorni io feci retenir uno de i suo, apresso dil qual furono ritrovate alchune scritture, et tandem alchune lettere che lui scriveva al Cardinal, per che 'l non si havea potuto exeguir quanto lui li havea commesso cum molte altre parole ; per modo che si poteva judicar ditto Cardinal haver trattato di voler avenenar Sua Bne. et posto de tormento confesso la verita, et etiam chel Cardinal de Sauli era conscio di tal ribaldaria." This prisoner, who was in the service of Petrucci, not of Sauli, confessed under torture ; but the words auto corda assai do not apply to him, as Mr. Creighton supposes. They describe the fate of the physician whom he denounced. Marin Sanuto writes in the passage which seems to have been misunderstood : "Quel Zuan Baptista di Verzei a confessato il tutto, qual a auto corda assai." On the next page Leo is made to say : "4 zorni poi fussemo fatti Papa tramono questi di darmi la morte." The Venetian copy of the diary has : " 4 zorni poi fossimo Papa tramono questi darne la morte." The words actually reported by the envoy are : "Ouatro giorni da poi la nostra creatione questi Cardinali tractorono de far un altro Pontefice, da poi la nostra morte." Of Riario, whom the Venetians call the cardinal of St. George, Mr.