Yes, Julius's being godfather surely did play a role in his tendency to favor Ferrante.

Somehow I cannot imagine a duke in c. 1500 Italy eating mainly corn (maize). But according to Wikipedia, pellagra, as mainly a niacin deficiency disease, frequently occurs secondary to alcoholism. Any chance of that?

mikeh wrote:Yes, Julius's being godfather surely did play a role in his tendency to favor Ferrante.

Somehow I cannot imagine a duke in c. 1500 Italy eating mainly corn (maize). But according to Wikipedia, pellagra, as mainly a niacin deficiency disease, frequently occurs secondary to alcoholism. Any chance of that?

Well, wikipedia isn't always correct. Guidobaldo had been sick [whatever this was) a longer time. At his deathbed were various witnesses. My suspicion was, that it might have been "an arranged death" in the interest of the Rovere. But, as I already wrote, the closer circumstances make it look like a natural death.

Though, one doesn't know about all the used poisons in this time, maybe there were some, which needed a long time. ... as far I got it, in the attack on Alfonso also poison was tried. Pope Alexander, arch enemy of Pope Julius in his earlier life, likely died through poison (1503).
The young Giuliano della Rovere (= Julius II) likely attempted to kill Girolamo, his cousin (1476; n action, which involved Lorenzo Zane, who as earlier of interest in the Lazzarelli material). Another favored cousin died surprising, rather young (28) in 1474. The uncle himself, Pope Sixtus IV, ordered the attempt to assassinate the Medici brothers (1478).
Ippolito d'Este feared for his life at specific times and avoided then to be close to Julius, likely with good reasons. We don't know, if the true background for Ippolito's action against Giulio d'Este (1505) had been really just jealousy and a woman's remark about Giulio's beautiful eyes.

A change in the reign was always dangerous in the first years of the new rulers. Father Ercole had to finish with blood a family revolution (nephew Niccolo) in 1476.

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We live in a "censored" world-view. There were centuries of opportunities to close not-pleasant content out of public attention. Julius II died as an "Italian hero", so there were not so much interest to have the dark points show up.