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Innocent VIII consented to be gaoler to the fugitive Prince Djem, for a salary paid by the prisoner's brother Bajazet II, and Alexander VI supported the steps taken by Lodovico il Moro in Constantinople to further a Turkish assault upon Venice , whereupon the latter threatened him with a Council.
It may be mentioned that this is a circumstance which those foolish or deliberately malicious calumniators either did not trouble to ascertain or else thought it wiser to slur over. Although, had they been pressed, there was always the death of Djem to be cited and the fiction of the slow-working poison specially invented to meet and explain his case.
Prince Djem had taken some of it in a sweet draught, before Alexander surrendered him to Charles VIII , and at the end of their career father and son poisoned themselves with the same powder by accidentally tasting a sweetmeat intended for a wealthy cardinal.
Thus, by a bold and brazen invention, an impossible falsehood was made to wear a possible aspect. And in that you have most probably the origin of the famous secret poison of the Borgias. Having been invented to fit the alleged poisoning of Prince Djem, which it was desired to fasten upon the Pope by hook or by crook, it was found altogether too valuable an invention not to be used again.
"As yet no vision has broken my slumbers, but I continue to hope that the Oriental features of Sultan Bajazet's brother may presently revisit the place of his taking off, and that Prince Djem will some night afford me the pleasure of a conversation. How much might we tell each other that neither of us knows!
Charles determined to compromise matters. He demanded a few fortresses, a red hat for Briçonnet, Cesare Borgia as a hostage for four months, and Djem, the brother of the Sultan. After these agreements had been made and ratified, Alexander ventured to leave his castle and receive the homage of the faithful. Charles staid* a month in Rome, and then set out for Naples.
He prepared to abandon the person of the young Turk to Charles of France, and effectively checkmated the formidable Rovere for a season. But then, as we know, Prince Djem suddenly perished, and while latest writers declare that he actually reached France, only to die there, ruined by his own debaucheries, I, for one, have not accepted that story.
Innocent VIII consecrated a chapel for the Lance of Longinus, which he had received from the Turk as part-payment for the guardianship of Djem. The Venetian Senate offered 10,000 ducats for the seamless coat of Christ . The whole of Italy was agitated by the news that S. Andrew's head had arrived from Patras . The Pope and his Cardinals went forth to meet it near the Milvian bridge.
"You must, however, restrain your natural impatience a little longer, until another night has passed. I will, if you please, myself spend some hours in the Grey Room after dark, and learn what the medieval spirits have to tell me. Shall I see the wraith of Prince Djem, think you? Or the ghost of Pinturicchio hovering round his little picture?
Bajazet II. was more inclined to study than to war: his brother Djem, who tried to supplant him, passed as a prisoner into the hands of Pope Alexander VI. An annual tribute was paid by the Sultan for keeping him from coming back to Turkey; and when, at last, he was released, rumor declared that he had been poisoned. He defeated the Persians, and made the Tigris his eastern boundary.
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