The history of the popes, from the close of the middle ages : drawn ...

LETTER OF GIOVANNI CARAFA. 169
then you will despise the things of this sorrowful world, and
find no small consolation in the present life. I wish you to
show indomitable courage at my death, not behaving like a
chUd, but as a reasonable man, and not listening to the
promptings of the flesh, or to the love of your father, or to the
talk of the world. For your consolation, ponder well the fact
that whatever happens is ordained by the decrees of the great
God, Who rules the universe with infinite wisdom, and, as it
appears to me, shows me great mercy by taking me hence in
this manner, rather than in any other way, for which I always
thank Him, as you also must do. May it only please Him to
exchange this my life for that other, the false and deceitful
for the true. Do not be troubled by whatever people may say
or write ; say to everyone : My father is dead, because God
has shown him great grace, and I hope He has saved him, and
granted him a better existence. Therewith I die, but you shall
live, and bear no one ill-will of my death. "^
While Giovanni Carafa was writing these lines, the Captain
of the mihtary police, Gasparino de Mehs, proceeded to the
prison of Cardinal Carafa in the Castle of St. Angelo.^ When
^ The letter of the Duke of Paliano to his son is printed in
Cacciaguerra, Epist. spirit. (
/. Novaes, VII., 148), again in
Phil. Honorii Thesaur. poli., II., 137, and finally in the Arch,
stor. Ital., XII., 458 seq. (trans, by Reumont, Carafa, I., 233 seq.,
and Beitrage, I., 505 seq.), the letter to his sister, the Marchesa
di Polignano, in Fr. Cristofori, II pontificato di Paolo IV.
(Miscall. Rom., 2, Ser. i, 1888), 131. Both letters had already
been published in a French translation in a rare pamphlet Sentence
pYononcee contre le card. Carafa etc., Lyons, 1561. The letter
to his son also appeared in a German pamphlet (Abdruck des
Herzogen von Paliano schreybens, etc., .s. /. 1561) and was widely
read ; see Kluckhohn, Briefe, L, 175.
* The execution of Carafa is described in various, for the most
part anonymous accounts, in Italian and Spanish. These accounts
which agree in essential points, but differ in details, are very often
to be found in the collections of manuscripts of the XVIth century ;
in the Vatican Library, Cod. Ottob., 2241, p. 262 seq., and Urb.
1670, p. 92 seq. : in the Corsini Library, 44—B— 13, p. 355 seq. ;
in the Casanate Library, E. III., 30 (see GoRi, Archivio, II., 302) ;