N0.2-The BORGIAS CHAPTER I (1) N0.2-Die BORGIAS KAPITEL I (1) N0.2-Las BORGIAS CAPÍTULO I (1) N0.2-The BORGIAS 第1章 (1) N0.2-BORGIAS I SKYRIUS (1) N0.2-BORGIAS ROZDZIAŁ I (1) N0.2-As BORGIAS CAPÍTULO I (1)

Towards the end of the fifteenth century—that is to say, at the epoch when our history opens the Piazza of St. Doğru|||||||yani, şu|||demek ki|||çağ|||||||| Peter's at Rome was far from presenting so noble an aspect as that which is offered in our own day to anyone who approaches it by the Piazza dei Rusticucci. ||||||sunmakta olan||||||||||||||||||||||| Peter's at Rome was far from presenting so noble an aspect as that which is offered in our own day to anyone who approaches it by the Piazza dei Rusticucci. In fact, the Basilica of Constantine existed no longer, while that of Michael Angelo, the masterpiece of thirty popes, which cost the labour of three centuries and the expense of two hundred and sixty millions, existed not yet. En effet, la basilique de Constantin n'existait plus, tandis que celle de Michel-Ange, le chef-d'œuvre de trente papes, qui coûta le travail de trois siècles et la dépense de deux cent soixante millions, n'existait pas encore. The ancient edifice, which had lasted for eleven hundred and forty-five years, had been threatening to fall in about 1440, and Nicholas V, artistic forerunner of Julius II and Leo X, had had it pulled down, together with the temple of Probus Anicius which adjoined it. L'édifice antique, qui durait depuis onze cent quarante-cinq ans, menaçait de s'effondrer vers 1440, et Nicolas V, précurseur artistique de Jules II et de Léon X, l'avait fait démolir, ainsi que le temple de Probus. Anicius qui le jouxte. In their place he had had the foundations of a new temple laid by the architects Rossellini and Battista Alberti; but some years later, after the death of Nicholas V, Paul II, the Venetian, had not been able to give more than five thousand crowns to continue the project of his predecessor, and thus the building was arrested when it had scarcely risen above the ground, and presented the appearance of a still-born edifice, even sadder than that of a ruin. In their place he had had the foundations of a new temple laid by the architects Rossellini and Battista Alberti; but some years later, after the death of Nicholas V, Paul II, the Venetian, had not been able to give more than five thousand crowns to continue the project of his predecessor, and thus the building was arrested when it had scarcely risen above the ground, and presented the appearance of a still-born edifice, even sadder than that of a ruin. A leur place, il avait fait poser les fondations d'un nouveau temple par les architectes Rossellini et Battista Alberti ; mais quelques années plus tard, après la mort de Nicolas V, Paul II, le Vénitien, n'avait pu donner plus de cinq mille écus pour continuer le projet de son prédécesseur, et ainsi l'édifice fut arrêté alors qu'il s'était à peine élevé au-dessus du sol, et présentait l'aspect d'un édifice mort-né, encore plus triste que celui d'une ruine.

As to the piazza itself, it had not yet, as the reader will understand from the foregoing explanation, either the fine colonnade of Bernini, or the dancing fountains, or that Egyptian obelisk which, according to Pliny, was set up by the Pharaoh at Heliopolis, and transferred to Rome by Caligula, who set it up in Nero's Circus, where it remained till 1586. Quant à la place elle-même, elle n'avait encore, comme le lecteur le comprendra de l'explication qui précède, ni la belle colonnade du Bernin, ni les fontaines dansantes, ni cet obélisque égyptien qui, selon Pline, fut érigé par le pharaon à Héliopolis, et transféré à Rome par Caligula, qui l'a installé dans le cirque de Néron, où il est resté jusqu'en 1586. Now, as Nero's Circus was situated on the very ground where St. Maintenant, comme le cirque de Néron était situé sur le terrain même où St. Peter's now stands, and the base of this obelisk covered the actual site where the vestry now is, it looked like a gigantic needle shooting up from the middle of truncated columns, walls of unequal height, and half-carved stones. Peter's now stands, and the base of this obelisk covered the actual site where the vestry now is, it looked like a gigantic needle shooting up from the middle of truncated columns, walls of unequal height, and half-carved stones. Peter's se dresse maintenant, et la base de cet obélisque couvrait le site actuel où se trouve maintenant la sacristie, cela ressemblait à une gigantesque aiguille jaillissant du milieu de colonnes tronquées, de murs de hauteur inégale et de pierres à moitié sculptées. On the right of this building, a ruin from its cradle, arose the Vatican, a splendid Tower of Babel, to which all the celebrated architects of the Roman school contributed their work for a thousand years: at this epoch the two magnificent chapels did not exist, nor the twelve great halls, the two-and-twenty courts, the thirty staircases, and the two thousand bedchambers; for Pope Sixtus V, the sublime swineherd, who did so many things in a five years' reign, had not yet been able to add the immense building which on the eastern side towers above the court of St. A droite de cet édifice, ruine de son berceau, s'élevait le Vatican, splendide tour de Babel, à laquelle tous les architectes célèbres de l'école romaine contribuèrent pendant mille ans : à cette époque les deux magnifiques chapelles ne n'existent pas, ni les douze grandes salles, les vingt-deux cours, les trente escaliers et les deux mille chambres à coucher ; car le pape Sixte V, le sublime porcher, qui fit tant de choses en cinq ans de règne, n'avait pas encore pu ajouter l'immense édifice qui, à l'est, domine la cour Saint-Pierre. Damasius; still, it was truly the old sacred edifice, with its venerable associations, in which Charlemagne received hospitality when he was crowned emperor by Pope Leo III Damasius; still, it was truly the old sacred edifice, with its venerable associations, in which Charlemagne received hospitality when he was crowned emperor by Pope Leo III Damase; encore, c'était vraiment le vieil édifice sacré, avec ses vénérables associations, dans lequel Charlemagne reçut l'hospitalité lorsqu'il fut couronné empereur par le pape Léon III

All the same, on the 9th of August, 1492, the whole of Rome, from the People's Gate to the Coliseum and from the Baths of Diocletian to the castle of Sant' Angelo, seemed to have made an appointment on this piazza: the multitude thronging it was so great as to overflow into all the neighbouring streets, which started from this centre like the rays of a star. All the same, on the 9th of August, 1492, the whole of Rome, from the People's Gate to the Coliseum and from the Baths of Diocletian to the castle of Sant' Angelo, seemed to have made an appointment on this piazza: the multitude thronging it was so great as to overflow into all the neighbouring streets, which started from this centre like the rays of a star. Pourtant, le 9 août 1492, Rome tout entière, de la Porte du Peuple au Colisée et des Thermes de Dioclétien au château Saint-Ange, semblait s'être donnée rendez-vous sur cette place : la multitude l'affluence était telle qu'elle débordait dans toutes les rues voisines, qui partaient de ce centre comme les rayons d'une étoile. The crowds of people, looking like a motley moving carpet, were climbing up into the basilica, grouping themselves upon the stones, hanging on the columns, standing up against the walls; they entered by the doors of houses and reappeared at the windows, so numerous and so densely packed that one might have said each window was walled up with heads. La foule du peuple, ressemblant à un tapis hétéroclite mouvant, montait dans la basilique, se groupait sur les pierres, s'accrochait aux colonnes, se dressait contre les murs; ils entraient par les portes des maisons et reparaissaient aux fenêtres, si nombreux et si serrés qu'on eût dit que chaque fenêtre était murée de têtes. Now all this multitude had its eyes fixed on one single point in the Vatican; for in the Vatican was the Conclave, and as Innocent VIII had been dead for sixteen days, the Conclave was in the act of electing a pope.

Rome is the town of elections: since her foundation down to our own day—that is to say, in the course of nearly twenty-six centuries—she has constantly elected her kings, consuls, tribunes, emperors, and popes: thus Rome during the days of Conclave appears to be attacked by a strange fever which drives everyone to the Vatican or to Monte Cavallo, according as the scarlet-robed assembly is held in one or the other of these two palaces: it is, in fact, because the raising up of a new pontiff is a great event for everybody; for, according to the average established in the period between St. Rome est la ville des élections : depuis sa fondation jusqu'à nos jours, c'est-à-dire au cours de près de vingt-six siècles, elle n'a cessé d'élire ses rois, ses consuls, ses tribuns, ses empereurs et ses papes : ainsi Rome pendant les jours du Conclave paraissent assaillis d'une fièvre étrange qui pousse tout le monde au Vatican ou à Monte Cavallo, selon que l'assemblée en robe écarlate se tient dans l'un ou l'autre de ces deux palais : c'est, en effet, parce que le la résurrection d'un nouveau pontife est un grand événement pour tout le monde ; car, selon la moyenne établie dans la période entre St. Peter and Gregory XVI, every pope lasts about eight years, and these eight years, according to the character of the man who is elected, are a period either of tranquillity or of disorder, of justice or of venality, of peace or of war. Peter and Gregory XVI, every pope lasts about eight years, and these eight years, according to the character of the man who is elected, are a period either of tranquillity or of disorder, of justice or of venality, of peace or of war.

Never perhaps since the day when the first successor of St. Never perhaps since the day when the first successor of St. Peter took his seat on the, pontifical throne until the interregnum which now occurred, had so great an agitation been shown as there was at this moment, when, as we have shown, all these people were thronging on the Piazza of St. Pierre s'assit sur le trône pontifical jusqu'à l'interrègne qui se produisit alors, si une agitation aussi grande s'était manifestée qu'il y en avait à ce moment où, comme nous l'avons montré, tout ce peuple se pressait sur la place Saint-Pierre. Peter and in the streets which led to it. Петра и на улицах, которые к нему вели. It is true that this was not without reason; for Innocent VIII—who was called the father of his people because he had added to his subjects eight sons and the same number of daughters—had, as we have said, after living a life of self-indulgence, just died, after a death-struggle during which, if the journal of Stefano Infessura may be believed, two hundred and twenty murders were committed in the streets of Rome. Il est vrai que ce n'était pas sans raison ; car Innocent VIII — qu'on appelait le père de son peuple parce qu'il avait ajouté à ses sujets huit fils et autant de filles — avait, comme nous l'avons dit, après avoir vécu une vie de complaisance, vient de mourir, après une mort -lutte au cours de laquelle, si l'on en croit le journal de Stefano Infessura, deux cent vingt meurtres furent commis dans les rues de Rome. The authority had then devolved in the customary way upon the Cardinal Camerlengo, who during the interregnum had sovereign powers; but as he had been obliged to fulfil all the duties of his office—that is, to get money coined in his name and bearing his arms, to take the fisherman's ring from the finger of the dead pope, to dress, shave and paint him, to have the corpse embalmed, to lower the coffin after nine days' obsequies into the provisional niche where the last deceased pope has to remain until his successor comes to take his place and consign him to his final tomb; lastly, as he had been obliged to wall up the door of the Conclave and the window of the balcony from which the pontifical election is proclaimed, he had not had a single moment for busying himself with the police; so that the assassinations had continued in goodly fashion, and there were loud cries for an energetic hand which should make all these swords and all these daggers retire into their sheaths L'autorité était alors dévolue, selon la coutume, au cardinal camerlingue, qui, pendant l'interrègne, avait des pouvoirs souverains ; mais comme il avait été obligé de remplir tous les devoirs de sa charge, c'est-à-dire de faire frapper de l'argent à son nom et portant ses armes, d'ôter la bague du pêcheur du doigt du pape mort, de l'habiller, de le raser et de le peindre. , faire embaumer le cadavre, descendre le cercueil après neuf jours d'obsèques dans la niche provisoire où le dernier pape décédé doit rester jusqu'à ce que son successeur vienne le remplacer et le consigner dans son tombeau définitif ; enfin, comme il avait été obligé de murer la porte du conclave et la fenêtre du balcon d'où se proclame l'élection pontificale, il n'avait pas eu un instant pour s'occuper de la police ; de sorte que les assassinats avaient bien continué, et qu'on réclamait à grands cris une main énergique qui ferait rentrer toutes ces épées et tous ces poignards dans leurs fourreaux. Now the eyes of this multitude were fixed, as we have said, upon the Vatican, and particularly upon one chimney, from which would come the first signal, when suddenly, at the moment of the 'Ave Maria'—that is to say, at the hour when the day begins to decline—great cries went up from all the crowd mixed with bursts of laughter, a discordant murmur of threats and raillery, the cause being that they had just perceived at the top of the chimney a thin smoke, which seemed like a light cloud to go up perpendicularly into the sky. This smoke announced that Rome was still without a master, and that the world still had no pope; for this was the smoke of the voting tickets which were being burned, a proof that the cardinals had not yet come to an agreement.

Scarcely had this smoke appeared, to vanish almost immediately, when all the innumerable crowd, knowing well that there was nothing else to wait for, and that all was said and done until ten o'clock the next morning, the time when the cardinals had their first voting, went off in a tumult of noisy joking, just as they would after the last rocket of a firework display; so that at the end of one minute nobody was there where a quarter of an hour before there had been an excited crowd, except a few curious laggards, who, living in the neighbourhood or on the very piazza itself; were less in a hurry than the rest to get back to their homes; again, little by little, these last groups insensibly diminished; for half-past nine had just struck, and at this hour the streets of Rome began already to be far from safe; then after these groups followed some solitary passer-by, hurrying his steps; one after another the doors were closed, one after another the windows were darkened; at last, when ten o'clock struck, with the single exception of one window in the Vatican where a lamp might be seen keeping obstinate vigil, all the houses, piazzas, and streets were plunged in the deepest obscurity. At this moment a man wrapped in a cloak stood up like a ghost against one of the columns of the uncompleted basilica, and gliding slowly and carefully among the stones which were lying about round the foundations of the new church, advanced as far as the fountain which, formed the centre of the piazza, erected in the very place where the obelisk is now set up of which we have spoken already; when he reached this spot he stopped, doubly concealed by the darkness of the night and by the shade of the monument, and after looking around him to see if he were really alone, drew his sword, and with its point rapping three times on the pavement of the piazza, each time made the sparks fly. At this moment a man wrapped in a cloak stood up like a ghost against one of the columns of the uncompleted basilica, and gliding slowly and carefully among the stones which were lying about round the foundations of the new church, advanced as far as the fountain which, formed the centre of the piazza, erected in the very place where the obelisk is now set up of which we have spoken already; when he reached this spot he stopped, doubly concealed by the darkness of the night and by the shade of the monument, and after looking around him to see if he were really alone, drew his sword, and with its point rapping three times on the pavement of the piazza, each time made the sparks fly. This signal, for signal it was, was not lost: the last lamp which still kept vigil in the Vatican went out, and at the same instant an object thrown out of the window fell a few paces off from the young man in the cloak: he, guided by the silvery sound it had made in touching the flags, lost no time in laying his hands upon it in spite of the darkness, and when he had it in his possession hurried quickly away.

Thus the unknown walked without turning round half-way along the Borgo Vecchio; but there he turned to the right and took a street at the other end of which was set up a Madonna with a lamp: he approached the light, and drew from his pocket the object he had picked up, which was nothing else than a Roman crown piece; but this crown unscrewed, and in a cavity hollowed in its thickness enclosed a letter, which the man to whom it was addressed began to read at the risk of being recognised, so great was his haste to know what it contained. Thus the unknown walked without turning round half-way along the Borgo Vecchio; but there he turned to the right and took a street at the other end of which was set up a Madonna with a lamp: he approached the light, and drew from his pocket the object he had picked up, which was nothing else than a Roman crown piece; but this crown unscrewed, and in a cavity hollowed in its thickness enclosed a letter, which the man to whom it was addressed began to read at the risk of being recognised, so great was his haste to know what it contained. Так неизвестный прошел, не оборачиваясь, половину Борго Веккьо; но там он повернул направо и пошел по улице, на другом конце которой стояла Мадонна с лампой; он подошел к свету и вынул из кармана поднятый им предмет, который был не чем иным, как римским часть короны; но эта корона отвинчивалась, и в выдолбленной в ее толще полости заключалось письмо, которое человек, которому оно было адресовано, начал читать, рискуя быть узнанным, так велика была его спешка узнать, что в нем было.

We say at the risk of being recognised, for in his eagerness the recipient of this nocturnal missive had thrown back the hood of his cloak; and as his head was wholly within the luminous circle cast by the lamp, it was easy to distinguish in the light the head of a handsome young man of about five or six and twenty, dressed in a purple doublet slashed at the shoulder and elbow to let the shirt come through, and wearing on his head a cap of the same colour with a long black feather falling to his shoulder. It is true that he did not stand there long; for scarcely had he finished the letter, or rather the note, which he had just received in so strange and mysterious a manner, when he replaced it in its silver receptacle, and readjusting his cloak so as to hide all the lower part of his face, resumed his walk with a rapid step, crossed Borgo San Spirito, and took the street of the Longara, which he followed as far as the church of Regina Coeli. When he arrived at this place, he gave three rapid knocks on the door of a house of good appearance, which immediately opened; then slowly mounting the stairs he entered a room where two women were awaiting him with an impatience so unconcealed that both as they saw him exclaimed together:

"Well, Francesco, what news?" "Good news, my mother; good, my sister," replied the young man, kissing the one and giving his hand to the other. "Our father has gained three votes to-day, but he still needs six to have the majority"