Caesar Borgia ill in the vatican

Until his father's death Caesar Borgia remained ruler in Rome. He possessed an ample supply of money and mercenaries, the strongest fortresses in the Campagna, and the serviceable friendship of eight Spaniards in the Sacred College. He could thus procure the election of anyone he pleased. He lay, however, seriously ill in the Vatican, and his illness decided his fate. “I had thought,” he afterwards said to Machiavelli, “of everything that might happen on the death of my father, and provided for every contingency, save that I had never dreamed of being myself sick unto death while he lay dying.”

Learning of the Pope's demise, he gave orders for the immediate future. Micheletto, pointing his dagger at the breast of Cardinal Casanova, forced him to deliver up the keys of the papal treasury. Gold and silver, the contents of two chests, were made over to the ailing son of the late pope. Everything else, the very tapestries on the walls, became the spoils of the servants in the palace. The doors of the Vatican were then thrown open and the death of Alexander VI. was announced. It was evening. Rome re-echoed to a thousand voices rejoicing and clamouring for revenge.