"Say, rather, the unnatural father," he replied. "More honour to Ottavio
Farnese in that he has chosen to forget that he is Pier Luigi's son. It is
not a parentage in which any man--be he the most abandoned--could take
pride."
"How so?" quoth I.
"You have, indeed, lived out of the world if you know nothing of Pier Luigi
Farnese. I should have imagined that some echo of his turpitudes must have
penetrated even to a hermitage--that they would be written upon the very
face of Nature, which he outrages at every step of his infamous life. He
is a monster, a sort of antichrist; the most ruthless, bloody, vicious man
that ever drew the breath of life. Indeed, there are not wanting those who
call him a warlock, a dealer in black magic who has sold his soul to the
Devil. Though, for that matter, they say the same of the Pope his father,
and I doubt not that his magic is just the magic of a wickedness that is
scarcely human.
"There is a fellow named Paolo Giovio, Bishop of Nocera, a charlatan and a
wretched dabbler in necromancy and something of an alchemist, who has
lately written the life of another Pope's son--Cesare Borgia, who lived
nigh upon half a century ago, and who did more than any man to consolidate
the States of the Church, though his true aim, like Pier Luigi's, was to
found a State for himself.
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