Cesare Borgia

"However much Rome may be in the habit of speaking and writing, for my own part, I shall give these libellers a lesson in good manners."

"Diet of bankrupts... To-day, Messer Paolo is to visit me, and to-morrow there will be the cardinal; and thus they think to befool me, at their pleasure. But I, on my side, am only dallying with them. …"

"The constellations this year seem unfavourable to rebels."

"There is no city, country-side, or castle, nor any place in all Romagna, nor officer or minister of the duke's, who does not know of these abuses; and, amongst others, the famine of wheat occasioned b…"

"Most Illustrious and most Excellent Lady, our very dear Sister,- Confident of the circumstance that there can be no more efficacious and salutary medicine for the indisposition from which you are at p…"

"To all our Lieutenants, Castellains, Captains, Condottieri, Officers, Soldiers and Subjects, to whom these presents may be known, we commit and command that to our Most Excellent and Most Beloved Priv…"

"This is what I wanted to tell Monsignor di Volterra when he came to Urbino, but I could not entrust him with the secret. Now that my opportunity has come, I have known very well how to make use of it,…"

"This government of yours does not please me, and I cannot trust it; you must change it and give me a pledge that you will observe everything you promised; otherwise you will soon realize that I do not…"