19 Also Cardinal
Giambattista Orsini will not escape the Pope's ire. Giambattista had been elected
Cardinal in 1483. Pope Innocent VIII made him a papal legate for Romagna, the
Marches, and Bologna, and was entrusted with the administration of these provinces
of the Ecclesiastical States. In the conclave of 1492, the election of Pope Alexander
Vi was almost entirely due to him. However, not only he had espoused the case
of the Florentines and the French in the Italian wars, but had also taken part
in the Diet of La Magione. And so he was taken prisoner in the Vatican at the
command of Pope Alexander VI and thrown into the dungeon of Castel Sant'Angelo,
where he died on February 22, 1503. The report was current that he had been poisoned
by Alexander VI.