Alfonso had been attacked by hired killers…
July 1500 CE
Alfonso had been attacked by hired killers on the evening of July 15, 1500, at the top of the steps before the entrance to St. Peter's Basilica, and stabbed in the head, right arm, and leg.
When the assassins attempted to take Alfonso with them, his own guards had put them to flight.
The prince was residing in the palace of Santa Maria in Portico, but so desperate is his condition that he had been taken to the chamber of the Borgia Tower, where he was cared for by his doctors from Naples, his sister, Sancha, and his wife, Lucrezia.
However, on the night of August 18, as Alfonso is still recovering from his wounds, Michelotto Corella and a group of armed men ente his room and strangled him in his bed until he is dead.
Following his death, his body is carried to the Basilica of St Peter and there placed in the Chapel of the Virgin Mary of the Fever.
In the political context of a French campaign against Naples, Cesare Borgia is primarily accused of being behind the assassination.
However, Alfonso's death remains shrouded in mystery.
In his own defense, Cesare argues that Alfonso had attempted to kill him with a crossbow shot as he walked in the garden, but not many believe him.
Alfonso, given his sympathy for the Colonna family, had enemies at Rome among the Orsini too, and it seems possible that the Orsini could have engineered the attempt on his life in July 1500.
Among the accused is also Alfonso's uncle Giovan Maria Gazzera, mysteriously killed in Rome shortly after, and even Pope Alexander VI, because Alfonso, in May 1500, had showed his discontent with the Pope's decision to nullify the marriage between Alfonso's cousin Beatrice of Naples and the late King Matthias of Hungary.
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