Book the Second The Roaring Blaze
“A fire that is kindled begins with smoke and hissing, while it lays
hold upon the faggots; bursts into a roaring blaze with raging
tongues of flame, devouring all in reach;
The subject of this book has furnished occasion for liars of all ages—reckless liars, venal liars, raving liars, careless liars, clever liars, and futile liars, to perform their functions.
The Lord Innocent P.P. VIII died on the twenty-fifth of July 1492. The Lord Rafaele Galeotti Sansoni-Riarjo, Cardinal-Deacon of San Giorgio in Velum Aureum, Cardinal-Chamberlain of the Holy Roman Church, sent guards to seize and hold the gates of Rome. Caporioni, priors of the fourteen Regions, patrolled the city to deal with seditions and disorders. Patarina, the great bell on Capitol, that only tolls when the Pope is dead, knelled unceasingly.
At this time the Sacred College consisted of seven and twenty cardinals. Four of these were absent in distant sees, and were unable to reach the Eternal City in the nine days at their disposal. They were:—
(α) The Lord Luis Juan de Mila y Borja, Cardinal-Prior-Presbyter of the Title of Santi Quattro Coronati; (β) The Lord Pedro Gonsalvo de Mendoza, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme; (γ) The Lord André Spinay, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Martino in Monte t.t. Equitii; (δ) Frère Pierre d’Aubusson, Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes, Cardinal-Deacon of Sant’ Adriano.
Twenty-one cardinals entered the Conclave. They were:—
(α) The Lord Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja, Cardinal-Bishop of Porto and Santa Rufina, Dean of the Sacred College, Vicechancellor of the Holy Roman Church, etc.; (β) The Lord Giovanni Michele, Cardinal-Bishop of Praeneste, Bishop of Verona; (γ) The Lord Oliviero Carafa, Cardinal-Bishop of Sabina, Archbishop of Naples; (δ) The Lord Giorgio Costa, Cardinal-Bishop of Albano. (ε) The Lord Antoniotto Pallavicini, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Sant’ Anastasia; (ζ) The Lord Girolamo Basso della Rovere, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Crisogono, Bishop of Recanata; (η) The Lord Domenico della Rovere, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Clemente, Archbishop of Taranto; (θ) The Lord Giuliano della Rovere, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Pietro ad Vincula; (ι) The Lord Paolo Fregosio, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Sisto, Archbishop of Genoa; (κ) The Lord Giovanni de’ Conti, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Vitale, Archbishop of Consano; (λ) The Lord Giangiacomo Sclafenati, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Stefano in Monte Celio, Bishop of Parma; (μ) The Lord Ardicino della Porta, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Giovanni e San Paolo, Bishop of Alba; (ν) The Lord Lorenzo Cibo, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Cecilia, Archbishop of Benevento; (ξ) The Lord Francesco de’ Piccolhuomini, Cardinal-Archdeacon of Sant’ Eustachio, Archbishop of Siena; (ο) The Lord Rafaele Galeotti Sansoni-Riarjo, Cardinal-Deacon of San Giorgio in Velum Aureum, Cardinal-Chamberlain of the Holy Roman Church; (π) The Lord Giovanni Colonna, Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria in Aquiro; (ρ) The Lord Giambattista Orsini, Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria Nuova; (σ) The Lord Giovanni de’ Medici, Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria in Domnica; (τ) The Lord Giovanni Savelli, Cardinal-Deacon of San Niccolo in Carcere Tulliano; (υ) The Lord Giambattista Zeno, Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria in Portico; (φ) The Lord Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti, Cardinal-Deacon of San Vito e San Modesto in Macello, Martiri.
At the last moment, before the Conclave finally was immured, there came:—
(χ) Fra Mafeo Gheraldo, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Nereo e Sant’ Achilleo, Patriarch of Venice; (ψ) The Lord Friderico Sanseverini, Cardinal-Deacon of San Teodoro.
On the sixth of August 1492, this Conclave of twenty-three cardinals listened to the preliminary exhortations of Fra Bernardino Lopez de Caravajal, and the business of election was begun.
Man mercifully has been left unable to foresee the effect which his actions will have upon the future. Many of these cardinals had assisted before at the election of a Pope; it was a routine with which they were acquainted. But by no means could they know what a mark upon the world’s history they would make with this election. Subsequent events, however, have shewn that the seed of tremendous issues here was sown, issues as great as the consolidation of a European kingdom under a sovereign dynasty that endured until 1870. As such, the Conclave of 1492 must be regarded as one of the most pregnant that ever have occurred; and its details, as worthy of intent consideration.
There was a faction and a shadow of a faction among the cardinals. The candidate of the first was the Dean and Vicechancellor-Cardinal Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja, nephew of the Lord Calixtus P.P. III. He actively was supported by the very influential cardinals Sforza-Visconti, Colonna, and Riarjo, whose friendship he is said to have cultivated during the reign of the late Pope, by promises of preferment and by gifts. He also is said to have won the alliance of fourteen other cardinals by similar inducements, and so to have placed himself at the head of a faction of eighteen. His supporters were led to believe that his Spanish nationality would make him neutral to the political parties of Italy; and much stress was laid upon the fact that Spain was now the rising power in Europe, with whom the Church would do well to be allied. The standard of morality of the day prevented objections to the character of Cardinal Rodrigo; and it was made clear to all that he was by far the richest cardinal, holding all the most lucrative appointments, which last would have to be vacated, and would be his to give away, in the event of his election.
The candidate of the second faction was Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, a nephew of the Lord Xystus P.P. IV. He was the life-long disappointed rival, in more senses than one, of Cardinal Rodrigo. His candidature was an attempt on the part of the Christian King Charles VIII of France to set up a Pontiff devoted to French, and not to Spanish, interests; to which end the King’s Majesty deposited two hundred thousand ducats with a Roman bank for the purchase of cardinalitial votes.
There was an independent candidate, Cardinal Lorenzo Cibo, a nephew of the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII, to whom Cardinal Pallavicini was bound by ties of gratitude: but he had no other supporter, and became submerged in the majority.
Of the two contestants, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere had the poorer chance. His own cousins, Cardinals Girolamo and Domenico della Rovere, would not support him. His personality was universally antipathetic; his opponent’s was universally sympathetic. The French money which he had taken, was but as a drop in the ocean compared with the enormous wealth and desperate determination of the Spaniard. Also, there were no votes for sale. Four cardinals—the Lords Oliviero Carafa, Giorgio Costa, Francesco de’ Piccolhuomini, and Giambattista Zeno—announced that they would vote independently and under no influence; while the remnant of the Sacred College, consisting of seventeen cardinals, having been fiercely canvassed by Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti, representative of the reigning House of Milan and hereditary foe of France, were already in the pocket of the Vicechancellor-Cardinal-Dean.
The third night of the Conclave concluded the preliminary discussions; and at dawn, on the eleventh of August 1492, Cardinal Rodrigo was elected Pope, by the large majority of twenty-two out of twenty-three, consisting of his own vote with those of the Cardinal-Bishops Giovanni Michele, Oliviero Carafa, Giorgio Costa, the Cardinal-Presbyters Antoniotto Pallavicini, Lorenzo Cibo, Mafeo Gheraldo, Girolamo Basso della Rovere, Domenico della Rovere, Paolo Fregosio, Giovanni de’ Conti, Giangiacomo Sclafenati, Ardicino della Porta, the Cardinal-Archdeacon Francesco de’ Piccolhuomini, the Cardinal-Deacons Rafaele Galeotti Sansoni-Riarjo, Giovanni Colonna, Giambattista Orsini, Giovanni de’ Medici, Giovanni Savelli, Friderico Sanseverini, Giambattista Zeno, and Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti.
Rome was exciting herself about this election. Four mule loads of silver had been taken from the palace of Cardinal Rodrigo to the house of Cardinal Sforza-Visconti before the immuring of the Conclave, most conceivably to be guarded there more safely. Rome guessed that the Spaniard was so certain of his own election as to be preparing for the pleasant custom, which the citizens used, of pillaging the palace of the cardinal who was elected Pope. Some of the silver perhaps may have passed into Sforza’s possession; but there is no direct evidence to prove the absurd statement of Monsignor Burchard that it was the price of his vote. In the first instance, the security of the silver, was most probably the motive for its transference. After the election the Pope would naturally wish to reward his most useful supporter; and no doubt left the silver22 with Cardinal Sforza-Visconti while bestowing on him other and more proportionate acknowledgments.
In the Conclave, if one can believe reports, there was no less excitement. All the sombre dignity of Spain left Cardinal Rodrigo at the supreme moment of his life. He showed himself as just a human man, successful in the most daring, most immense, of all ambitions, when his quondam colleagues lowered their green or purple canopies to his, as he joyfully cried: “We are Pope and Vicar of Christ!”
The cardinals knelt at His feet, and Cardinal Sforza-Visconti said that undoubtedly the election was the work of God. Then the new Pope recovered at least decorum of speech, replying that He was conscious of His Own weakness, and relied entirely upon Divine Guidance; but His order to Monsignor Burchard, the Caerimonarius, to write His name on little slips of paper, and fling them from a window for the satisfaction of the citizens who swarmed impatiently outside the Vatican; and His haste to retire behind the altar for the purpose of changing His cardinalitial scarlet for the papal habit of white taffetas with cincture, rochet of fair linen, embroidered crimson stola, house-cap, almuce, and shoes of ermine and crimson velvet (of which vestments three sizes are prepared, to suit the stature of any Pope); this order and this haste shew that the Pope’s Holiness was most deeply moved, as any human being well might be.
Outside, Rome rejoiced. Inside, the cardinals asked what name the Pope would choose, suggesting Calixtus as a compliment to His dead Uncle and Creator, Who had brought Him first to Rome. But, now, the Pontiff had regained His magnificent composure, and He answered mightily: “We desire the name of the Invincible Alexander.” Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici, a clever, serious boy of the age of seventeen years, whispered to Cardinal Cibo: “Now we are in the jaws of a ravening wolf, and if we do not flee he will devour us.” But the gigantic Cardinal Sanseverini lifted the Lord Alexander P.P. VI in his strong arms and throned Him on the altar; and the Sacred College paid Him the first adoration, kissing the cross embroidered on His shoe and on the ends of the stola at His knee, and the Ring of the Fisherman on His right forefinger, while Cardinal-Archdeacon Franceso de’ Piccolhuomini and the second Cardinal-Deacon made proclamation to the crowd at the re-opened door of the Conclave:
“I announce to you great joy. We have for a Pope the Vicechancellor-Cardinal-Dean Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja, Who wills to be called Alexander the Sixth.”
If these gifts were given and taken as the price of votes, then an enormous act of Simony technically was committed, the buying and selling of ecclesiastical power. Afterwards, His enemies continually were charging Him with Simony; but, at the time, no serious accusation was made. Even the four cardinals, who had announced that they did not intend to be bribed, voted for the Lord Alexander P.P. VI. And here it may be noticed, that though Simony, by the Bull of the Lord Julius P.P. II De Simoniaca Electione, is held to invalidate an ecclesiastical election; yet the said Bull was not issued until after the death of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, and was not retrospective in effect, although the vehement personal hatred of Julius for Alexander, hatred worthy rather of Carthaginian Hannibal than of the Vicar of the Prince of Peace, leaves no doubt whatever of the intention to defile the memory of the preceding Pontiff with an insinuation which never has been made valid. Under these circumstances, it perhaps may be permitted to those irrational persons who habitually usurp the functions of the Eternal Judge, and who already have condemned the Borgia Pontiff, to remember that, if this election was invalidated and annulled by Simony, He never was a Pope at all, and therefore cannot be blamed, attacked, condemned, in a papal capacity. Much satisfaction of a kind may be derived from that reflection. At the same time, though the theory might be allowed for private consumption, as a “pious opinion” distinguished from a “dogma,” it would be highly injudicious to court collision with another Bull—the Bull Execrabilis of the Lord Pius P.P. II—which provides all proclaimed aspersions of the Popes with pains and penalties. But when all has been considered, no evidence is forthcoming to prove that a single cardinal sold—sold—his vote to Cardinal Rodrigo buying. None but a purchased or unpurchased cardinal can testify that he sold, or did not sell; and none of these have testified. That the new Pope gave great gifts is not denied. Popes always do. They cannot help Themselves. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI vacated so much preferment, that He had much to give. To give that preferment was one of the duties of His office; and, naturally, He gave it to His friends, and not to His single enemy and envious rival, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, who, in revenge, alleged Simony.
The Lord Innocent P.P. VIII died on the twenty-fifth of July 1492. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI began to reign on the eleventh of August. During the seventeen days that intervened, while the city was under the rigid rule of the white-faced Cardinal-Chamberlain Riarjo, a matter of some two hundred and twenty assassinations took place: in such order had the deceased Pope left His capital that more than nine murders were committed every day among a population of a mere five and eighty thousand. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI acted with decision to end this abominable state of lawlessness. An assassin was caught redhanded—there was no difficulty about that—he and his brother were forced to look on while their house was rased to the ground (the worst disgrace possible to a Roman); and then they were ceremoniously hanged among the ruins. A commission was established to decide all quarrels, which, formerly, had been settled by cold steel. Official inspectors of prisons were appointed; arrears of official salaries paid up to date; and a bench of four judges established for dealing with capital crimes. So the first act of this pontificate was the restoration, at least provisionally, of public order. The admiring Romans said that this vigorous administration of justice was due to the direct disposing of the Almighty.
The coronation, on the steps before the Basilica of St. Peter in the Vatican, of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI by the Cardinal-Archdeacon on the twenty-sixth of August was a scene of unlimited magnificence, attended by the Orators of the Powers who hailed the Pope with the most laudatory congratulations. Canon Angelo Ambrogini (detto Poliziano), who spoke for Siena, said:—
“Præstans animi magnitudo quae mortales crederes omnes antecellere—Magna quaedam de te, rara, ardua, singularia, incredibilia, inaudita, pollicentur.24
The Orator of Lucca said:—
“Quid iste tuus divinus, et maiestate plenus, aspectus?
The Orator of Genoa said:—
“Adeo virtutum gloria et disciplinarum laude, et vitae sanctimonia decoraris, et adeo singularum ac omnium rerum ornamento dotaris, quae talem summam ac venerandam dignitatem praebeant ut valde ab omnibus ambigendum sit, tu ne magis pontificatui, an illa tibi sacratissima et gloriosissima Papatus dignitas offerenda fuerit.
The Venetian Senate rejoiced:—
“propter divinas virtutes ac dotes quibus Ipsum insignitum et ornatum conspiciebamus, videbatur a Divina Providentia talem Pastorem gregi, dominio et sacrosancto Romanae Ecclesiae Vicarium Suum fuisse delectum et praeordinatum.
Manfredi, the Ferrarese Orator at Florence, wrote to his Duchess:—
“Dicesi che sara glorioso pontifice!
Those words were re-echoed from Milan, from Naples, even from far Germany, “They say that this will be a glorious Pontiff!” All who were permitted to approach Him were enchanted by His magnificent presence and His honeyed tongue; every one praised His talents, His notable mastery of affairs, His active benevolence and beneficence. He was admired because His habits were of the simplest kind, and His magnificence free from prodigal ostentation: though it must be added that the Ferrarese Orator said that people disliked dining with the Lord Alexander P.P. VI because His meals consisted of a single dish. But Rome and Italy generally were very proud of Him, because, at sixty-one years of age, He combined the vigour of manhood’s prime with the wisdom of experience of life. If peace could be maintained, while a strong hand guided politics, the auspices were all propitious.
On the thirty-first of August, at the First Consistory, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI named his nephew, Don Juan de Borja y Lançol (Giovanni Borgia, detto Seniore) Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Susanna. This Most Worshipful Purpled One was the son of the Pope’s sister, Doña Juana. He had been Apostolic Prothonotary, Corrector of Pontifical Breves, and Archbishop of Monreale, under the Lord Xystus P.P. IV; and powerless Governor of Rome under the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII. He was a great man of business, dexterous and capable with plenary powers, and competent to deal with grave matters. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI, like His August Uncle, lost no time in securing the services of blood relation near to His Own person.
The chorus of flattery was not altogether free from discords. The sinister Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, every day becoming more and more aggrieved by the success of his abhorred rival, called for a General Council (according to the ridiculous custom of his age) to adjudge the Lord Alexander P.P. VI guilty of Simony. In Florence the eccentric Fra Girolamo Savonarola, a friar of the Religion of St. Dominic, was prophesying evil days. Lorenzo de’ Medici, “that monster of genius,” was dead; and he, literally, had been the Keeper of the Peace. His sons, Don Piero and Don Lorenzo Secondo, brothers to Cardinal Giovanni, were no fit successors to their renowned father. Fra Girolamo really ruled in Florence; and his rule was baneful, because he let his personality over-ride his principles. Starting, a few years before, to convert the sinners of Florence, he had preached naked Christianity. When he had smitten many souls to penitence, his converts (in the manner of converts) leaned upon him. He allowed himself to become a director. From director it naturally was but a step to dictator: and there is the human error of Fra Girolamo Savonarola. That is the point from which he went astray. As dictator, he brought not peace but a sword—privilege of not a human man. He ordained what the world calls eccentricities; he became impatient of opinion, of resistance, of control; his penitents were the Salvation Army of the fifteenth century, making singular exhibitions of frenetic benevolence. He had made himself, by perfectly legal means, independent of his local Dominican superiors; the Archbishop of the province had no jurisdiction over him; he was subject only to the General of Dominicans and to the Pope in Rome. He was absolutely sincere; he was a fervent Catholic; of his bonafides there can be no doubt whatever. He had no attraction of manner; his personal aspect was vulgar, terrible, appalling. Yet there must have been some charm in his teaching, for great and holy men left all to follow him; Messer Alessandro Filipepi (detto Botticelli) joined him. And now he claimed to be the prophet of the Most High, prophesying of evils at the door.
Milan menaced the peace of Italy. By the assassination of Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza-Visconti in 1476, the duchy passed to his infant son Duke Giangaleazzo; whose widowed mother, the Duchess Bona of Savoja, ruled as Regent. Four brothers of her dead husband conspired against her; and in 1479, the eldest, Don Ludovico Maria Sforza-Visconti (detto Il Moro), took possession of her child and deprived her of the regency. Cardinal Ascanio Maria, brother of Il Moro, exerted himself in Rome to obtain confirmation of this heartless deed. Duchess Bona, distracted when she found her young son torn from her arms, knowing his infant life to be the only bar between his uncle Don Ludovico Maria and the throne of Milan, made frantic appeals for the intervention of France. But the Christian King Louis XI died before he could reply to that poor mother: and Don Ludovico Maria, as Regent, thrived, keeping the boy-duke at Pavia in a palace that was, in fact, a prison, in conditions not cruel nor fatal but assuredly not ducal, nor suited to the enjoyment and maintenance of life. In 1489 Duke Giangaleazzo reached the age of twenty years; and then it was remembered that his mother; the Duchess Bona, had affianced him in his infancy to Madonna Isabella, daughter of the heir of Naples, Duke Don Alonso de Aragona of Calabria. There appeared to be no reason why Don Ludovico Maria should exacerbate the royal House of Naples by interference with the keeping of this contract; the boy was eager, the girl was marriageable; and the wedding was celebrated with appropriate pomp. The usurping Regent insisted, however, that, as the young Duke was a minor, he should still remain in the condition of a ward; and the newly-wedded children retired to try conjugal life at Pavia. A year later, 1492, a son was born; and then Duke Giangaleazzo, by paternity emboldened into manlihood, became restive against his uncle’s yoke, protesting that he no longer would submit to the treatment of a boy. But Don Ludovico was well aware that long confinement shortens life; and he had kept his nephew a prisoner for ten years. He was not precisely of the stuff of which murderers are made; or a knife-blade delicately pushed between the youngster’s neck and spine long ago would have made the sceptre of Milan his. As Regent he had absolute power; and he was well content to wait. So he took no notice of Duke Giangaleazzo’s remonstrances; and, to pass the time, he practised marriage in his proper person, wedding the lovely Madonna Beatrice d’Este of Ferrara in 1491. (Don Francesco Sforza, son of Don Bosio Sforza and Madonna Cecilia Aldobrandeschi, heiress of Santafiora, the kinsman of Don Ludovico Maria, who arranged this marriage, was the Orator of Milan at the coronation of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI in 1492.) After the nuptials of the usurping Regent, the young Duke Giangaleazzo resigned himself to bear his lot. But his wife was furious, and thought of the interests of her baby son. “In real truth,” cried Madonna Isabella to her feeble spouse, “thou art Duke of Milan, and I thy Duchess. But thou art content to abide in Pavia while that Black, Don Ludovico, ruleth in thy duchy, and seateth Madonna Beatrice near him in my place on thy throne. I will have that girl to know that she is no duchess, and that I, I Isabella, am Duchess of Milan.” And the lady wrote to her father, Don Alonso de Aragona Duke of Calabria, who was heir to the crown of the Regno, inciting him to resent the insult put upon her, his daughter, to end the usurpation of Don Ludovico Maria, and to restore Duke Giangaleazzo to his duchy.
Duke Don Alonso was not unwilling. War was imminent between Naples and Milan. Then the Pope died; the Lord Alexander P.P. VI succeeded Him; and, it being an age when the Pope frankly was admitted to be Ruler of the World, Father of princes and of kings, etc., all Italy and Christendom waited to know the new Pope’s pleasure.
This was the first of a series of extremely delicate positions in which the Lord Alexander P.P. VI found Himself involved. On the one hand, the Papacy was at peace with Naples. On the other, the Pope’s Holiness found His brilliant young Vicechancellor-Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti to be exceedingly valuable; and he was own brother to that Don Ludovico Maria (detto Il Moro) against whom Naples was invoked. Momentous consequences waited on His action.
On the eleventh of December 1492, there arrived in Rome Don Federigo de Aragona, Prince of Altamura, second son of King Don Ferrando I, ostensibly to offer to the Pope’s Holiness the obedience of Naples, with congratulations on His coronation. The royal envoy sumptuously was entertained by Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, whose chief occupations at this period appear to have been the feeling of the pulses of the Powers, and the search for a potentate willing to be used against the Borgia.
Manifestations of goodwill between Papacy and Regno pleased the Romans. The frontier of Naples was but a day’s ride from Rome; and the Romans liked to feel that beyond that frontier flourished a friend, not lurked a foe. In private audience, however, Don Federigo said that the assistance of the Pope’s Holiness was required in a family affair; and he made it clear that the attitude of Regno to Papacy would be determined by the extent to which the Lord Alexander P.P. VI would go on behalf of Naples.
This was the case in question. King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary had married Madonna Beatrice, a bastard of King Don Ferrando I. On the death of King Matthias Corvinus, his childless widow Queen Beatrice had intrigued to get the Hungarian crown settled upon King Wladislaw of Bohemia, who, in return for her Majesty’s services, had promised to marry her. Such a promise of marriage was equivalent to a betrothal, and a betrothal was only less binding than an actual marriage in that it was capable of being dissolved; whereas a marriage was, and is, indissoluble. King Wladislaw of Bohemia had been crowned King of Hungary through the exertions of Queen Beatrice. She, preferring the situation of Queen Regnant to that of Queen Dowager, had performed her part of the contract; and now King Wladislaw had changed his mind, and was about to ask the Pope for a dispensation from the obligation of fulfilling his promise of marriage. This was a grievous insult to the bastard of the King of Naples, whose counterpetition to the Lord Alexander P.P. VI was that no such dispensation should be granted to King Wladislaw, and that he should be compelled to perform his part of the bargain. Nothing was said at this time regarding the affair of the Duchess Isabella of Milan, in which the Regno also was interested. The cases of queens take precedence of those of duchesses.
The Lord Alexander P.P. VI, with the experience of seven and thirty years of curial diplomacy behind Him, required time in which to reflect upon His answer; and would enter into no immediate engagement with the Neapolitan prince. Don Federigo, who imagined that the Regno had but to ask and have, was much aggrieved; and his host, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, inflamed him with sardonic sympathy, and eyed the Regno, for a purpose, from that day forward. An uncouth pugnacious schemer was this Most Illustrious Lord Cardinal. As a captain of condottieri he might have captured a kingdom: but as an ecclesiastic he was at all times utterly disedifying. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI seems to have treated him with admirable forbearance, with contemptuous indifference, than which no attitude is more calculated to sting and irritate an angry mediocrity. He had been allowed to proceed in his turn to the cardinal-bishopric of Ostia without let or hindrance: he had rank, riches, and power. But he was discontented, jealous, filled with envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness.
It is imperatively important to be able to distinguish between the Office and the Man; and to avoid the excessively vulgar error of confounding the general with the particular. The pontifical acts of Rodrigo, Who is called Alexander P.P. VI, will compare favourably with those of any Supreme Pontiff, from Simon, Who is called Peter P.P., to Gioacchino Vincenzo Rafaele Luigi, Who is called Leo P.P. XIII. His comportment as man, and Italian despot, is another matter. The just necessity of the distinction insistently is laid upon the student of His history.
Man does not yearn to please a person who is playing ugly tricks upon him. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI particularly did not yearn to please the King of Naples. While the envoy of the Regno was displaying his royal father’s petition at the feet of the Father of princes and of kings, the Pope’s Holiness was digesting news of a trick which had been played upon Him by the intrigues of King Don Ferrando I.
Don Franciotto Cibo, bastard of the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII, had been enriched by his Father with the lordships of Cervetri and Anguillara. These were pontifical fiefs, held by feudal tenure from the Pope. Being a silly avaricious weakling, rather frightened of the responsibility of baronage, Don Franciotto Cibo sold the said lordships to Don Virginio Orsini for forty thousand ducats; and went to live at Florence under the protection of his brother-in-law Don Piero de’ Medici. Now Don Virginio Orsini had borrowed those forty thousand ducats from the King of Naples, who was his firm friend, and perfectly qualified to understand the loan to be a super-excellent investment. The lordships of Cervetri and Anguillara lay between the Regno and the territories of the Republic of Florence; and their transference into the hands of Orsini, Naples’ friend, signified the opening of a road from Naples into Tuscany, along which a Neapolitan army easily might travel, should King Don Ferrando be pleased to campaign in a northerly direction.
It was Don Ludovico Maria Sforza-Visconti (detto Il Moro), the usurping Regent of Milan, who first saw the serious portent of this move: but, though he communicated his discovery to the Holiness of the Pope, he laboured under a slight misapprehension; for usurpers are the most touchy of mankind, and see an enemy in everything which they do not understand. The northern frontier of Tuscany impinged upon the southern frontier of Milan. Now that the southern frontier of Tuscany was connected, by Cervetri and Anguillara, with the Regno, Don Ludovico Maria suspected an alliance between Don Piero de’ Medici and King Don Ferrando I, between Tuscany and Naples, an alliance which most possibly implied designs detrimental to the duchy of Milan—after all the real Duchess Isabella was Naples’ bastard, thought Don Ludovico Maria, the usurper—; and he envoyed swift couriers to his brother the Vicechancellor-Cardinal in Rome, with instructions to advise the Pope’s Holiness of the imbroglio.
That was the news of which the Lord Alexander P.P. VI chewed the cud at the time when He gave audience to the Prince of Altamura. With His magnificent talent for resolving diplomatic problems into their elements, from which He could discard those that He deemed useless while reserving those possessing salient features, the Pope’s Holiness concluded that the politics of Milan, of Tuscany, of the Regno, and the affairs of their respective rulers, were of secondary importance and altogether negligeable; but that the secret unauthorised transfer of papal fiefs into the hands of dangerous malcontents of the very powerful House of Orsini, required prompt decisive assertion of the rights of the Pontifical Suzerain.
At the beginning of 1493, Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti was found to be urging the Supreme Pontiff to act against the illegal transfer of Cervetri and Anguillara. Loyalty to his brother, the usurping Regent of Milan, and his duty as Vicechancellor bound to maintain the paramountcy of the Holy Roman Church—these make clear his point of view.
A clashing of interests between Papacy and Regno was an opportunity which Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere greatly relished. He did not hesitate to take the part of Naples. If he had one enemy whom he hated as perfervidly as he hated the Pope, that enemy was Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti whose exertions on behalf of his rival had deprived him of the tiara or triregno; and, having sworn that either he or Sforza-Visconti should quit the Sacred College, he avidly seized the present chance of belabouring the cardinal as well as the Pope. He had the support of Orsini, naturally. Colonna, always more Ghibelline than Guelf, was not unwilling to espouse the cause of a man who went about saying that the Pope’s Holiness was plotting to ruin his reputation—his reputation!—and to deprive him of his dignities: and hence arose a very singular and unusual combination.
The Papacy generally has been allied with Colonna or with Orsini. Such was the importance of these houses, that during many hundred years all European treaties and concordats contained their names on one side or the other. But here, for once in their mysterious and interminable feud, these mighty barons of Rome, with all their collateral branches and their myriads of armed retainers, were found united in a common cause. The phenomenon may be explained by the rise of other baronial houses, who were becoming quite as numerous and quite as potent as Colonna or Orsini; and who were equally desirable as allies. The most prominent of these, in 1493, were the Sforza and the Cesarini. The Sforza descended from Don Giovanni Muzio Attendolo (detto Sforza); and included the Sovereign-Duchy of Milan, by the marriage of the great Francesco with the heiress of Duke Giangaleazzo Visconti; the Sovereign-County of Santafiora, by the marriage of Francesco’s brother Bosio with the heiress of Aldobrandeschi; and the Tyrannies of Pesaro, Chotignuola, Imola and Forli. The Sforza blazon the lion rampant with the holy flower of the quince for Santafiora, and the salvage boy couped at the thighs issuant from a serpent statant for Milan. The Cesarini were a Roman house of enormous wealth and distinction, claiming a Cesarian origin. It was already allied with the Lord Alexander P.P. VI by the marriage in 1482 of His bastard Madonna Girolama Borgia with Don Giovandrea Cesarini. Its representative, Don Gabriele Cesarini, was the Gonfaloniere of Rome, who fought the Prior of the Caporioni for precedence at the coronation of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, Who, in person, accorded the first place to Cesarini. Don Giangiorgio Cesarini, the heir, was allied with Sforza by marriage with Madonna Maria Sforza di Guido di Santafiora; and Don Giuliano Cesarini held office in the Apostolic Chamber. It was a house which, during centuries, had been content with secondary rank, while accumulating immense reserves of power, now to be brought into action. These were the two patrician Houses which the Pope’s Holiness found ready to His hand when Colonna leagued with Orsini against His peace. In fact, Sforza and Cesarini were the right and left hands of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, as Colonna or Orsini were of His predecessors and successors.
Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, after relieving himself of some treasonable speeches, considered Rome to be unsafe; and fled down Tiber to his bishopric of Ostia, where he fortified himself and advertised for mercenaries.
The word war, to the bloody men of valour of the end of the fifteenth century, signified a game like that of chess. The sole object of war was profit. It was undertaken simply to deprive an enemy of his goods. Prisoners were captured, and held to ransom. Cities and fortresses were reduced by starvation, or by a display of overwhelming force. But bloodshed—and this is noteworthy—was avoided as far as possible; and the game chiefly was played by strategic marches, counter-marches, and manœuvres. It was a business, a profession, “not more hazardous than that of a professional football-player.” The superfluous men of Europe, and the temperamental fighters, served as hired mercenaries under the captains and the princes who could pay their price and afford them a roystering life. Patriotism, the honour of the fatherland, were unknown. Except in the case of England, there was no national army. When a position had been won, a city captured, the conquerors satisfied themselves with the ransoms and the richest spoils. If the citizens wished to avoid the inconvenience of a sack, they collected a sum sufficient to pay off the rank and file. Otherwise the mercenaries took the women, and had licence to recoup themselves by pillage. Resistance meant torture and death: but bloodshed was an accident, not an essential of war.
The action of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere was an invitation to the Lord Alexander P.P. VI to engage in war. He had thrown down the gauntlet. He had made the first move in the game; and his gambit was a very fine one, for the fortress of Ostia dominated Tiber mouth, and enabled him to paralyse Rome by stopping sea-borne supplies.
Like all important characters, the Pope’s Holiness was neurotic; not by any means a coward, but quick to scent danger, susceptible of momentary fright. Early in the spring of 1493 He was going to a picnic, at the villa which the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII had built for pontifical refreshment at La Magliana, outside the walls; and when a cannon saluted His approach He was stricken with a sudden panic, and galloped back to the Vatican amid the frank execrations of His escort disappointed of their dinner.
Here was the situation. The Pope was comfortably embroiled with Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere and his allies of Naples, of Colonna, of Orsini. To some extent His interests tied Him to Sforza and Milan. Tuscany was undecided between the Pope and Naples. The other Powers looked on.
While Don Ludovico Maria Sforza-Visconti was suggesting an alliance between the Pope, the duchy of Milan, and the Republic of Venice, to overawe the Neapolitan Bond, King Don Ferrando was intriguing with a view to discover whether he could make a better bargain with the Sovereign Pontiff than with Colonna + Orsini + della Rovere. This was not treachery. It was merely the Neapolitan method, of which all Italy was fully cognizant. The King’s Majesty sent envoys to Rome, to Milan, and to Tuscany, to try to settle the Cervetri-Anguillara affair by pacific means.
The Lord Alexander P.P. VI was well aware that no confidence could be placed in King Don Ferrando I: but by way of giving him a chance He proposed a marriage between His bastard, Don Gioffredo Borgia, now of the age of twelve years, and Madonna Lucrezia, a grand-daughter of the Majesty of Naples. At the same time He gathered troops and fortified the Vatican and the Mola of Hadrian, with the gallery-passage, called Lo Andare, which connects them, enabling Pope and cardinals to run, in time of danger, from the Apostolic Palace to the impregnable fortress tomb by Tiber.
The Republic of Venice flung itself into the arms of Don Ludovico Maria Sforza-Visconti; for the Doge and Senate were dreadfully afraid lest the impassioned appeals of the Duchess Isabella on behalf of her husband, the pathetic Duke Giangaleazzo, should receive the attention of Naples. If the said Duke Giangaleazzo should come to owe his throne to King Don Ferrando I, then Milan would be, to all intents and purposes, a fief of the Regno; and to have Naples lording it in Northern Italy would by no means satisfy Venice, which, on this account, preferred alliance with the usurping Regent, even at the cost of winking at his usurpation of the Regency of Milan. Now Milan and Venice in alliance were a menace to their own neighbours; and, acting on the principle that made those two Powers one, the duchies of Mantua and Ferrara, and the Republic of Siena, hastened to fall into line with them. This concatenation, being superior to anything that Naples could exhibit, also caused the Lord Alexander P.P. VI to arrive at a decision: and, on the twenty-fifth of April 1493, accompanied by an armed cavalcade of Sforza and Cesarini for the ocular instruction of Colonna and Orsini, the Holiness of the Pope proceeded through Rome to the Venetian church of San Marco, on Piazza Venezia, where He ceremonially published the Bull of League between the Papacy, the duchies of Milan, Mantua, and Ferrara, and the Republics of Venice and Siena; after which, the river-port of Rome at Ostia being in His enemies’ hands, He began to fortify the land-port of Rome at Civita Vecchia, by way of giving effect to His warlike proclamation.
At this call of check, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere howled aloud for a General Council to depose the Lord Alexander P.P. VI; and Don Alonso de Aragona, Duke of Calabria, wanted immediately to unite with Don Piero de’ Medici and the Signoria of Florence, and, aided by the Colonna of Paliano and Marino and the Orsini of Gravina and Bracciano, to assault Rome from the outer side, while Colonna + Orsini, who were in the city, engaged in similar diversions. But King Don Ferrando was too sly. He had yet another piece to play. He knew, and none knew better, that the territories of the Holy See during a long course of centuries had been distributed among pontifical relatives and favourites; that, at present, the States of the Church were smaller than an ordinary duchy; and he had heard of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI as a singularly affectionate father, devoted to His children’s interests. Wherefore the Majesty of Naples conceived, and with absolute correctness, that the Pope’s Holiness intended, by hook or by crook, by diplomacy, by marriages, or by war, to recover the possessions of the Papacy, and to use them to promote the fortunes of His family. Secondly, King Don Ferrando I knew France to be Milan’s northern neighbour; and he saw the exceeding possibility of an alliance between the usurping Regent, Don Ludovico Maria Sforza-Visconti, and the Christian King Charles VIII of France; a combination which, with the Papacy, the duchies, and republics, already joined in league, would be absolutely and permanently overwhelming and disintegrating to the very Regno itself. To turn the flank, as it were, to give France occupation in another direction, he resolved on courting an alliance with Spain.
To this end he indited an invective against the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, adopting all the gratuitous insults and lying babble foamed out by the malignant Cardinal-Bishop Giuliano della Rovere. “He leads a life that is abhorred by all, without respect to the seat He holds.” [Compare the speeches of the Orators and contemporary dispatches.] “He cares for nothing save to aggrandise His children by fair means or by foul.” [So far He had done nothing at all, by foul means or by fair, for His children; except to deprive His reputed bastard Don Cesare (detto Borgia) of the revenues of the cathedral of Cartagena, in favour of that very Cardinal Giambattista Orsini who now deserted Him.] “From the beginning of His pontificate He has done nothing but disturb the peace.” [This is partly true. The Pope’s Holiness wonderfully had done more than any preceding Pontiff to restore good government and order and security to Rome. But He had behaved, in a certain instance, in a way that was extremely offensive to the Spanish ideal of peace. According to the notions of King Don Ferrando I de Aragona, himself a Spaniard—according to Spanish notions, and the Majesty of Naples was a Spaniard writing to Spaniards—the Lord Alexander P.P. VI was indeed a disturber of the peace. But the facts are these. In 1492, the horrible Spanish Inquisition—that frightful and diabolical atrocity constantly condemned by Rome—under the guidance of the Grand Inquisitor Torquemada, had procured the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. The Spaniards have much of the Moor, a touch of the oriental, the element of the human devil, in their blood. Throughout Christendom the Jews were looked upon with horror, by no means undeserved. Many long years before, England had cast them out; and now they were forced from Spain. The sufferings, with which the fiendish Spaniard visited them, were so fearful as to excite pity even in Papal Italy, whose loathing of Jews was a habit of mind, an article of faith, not an inhuman vice. Messer Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (detto Fenice degli Ingegni) said:—
“The sufferings of the Jews, in which the glory of Divine Justice delights, were so extreme as to fill us Christians with commiseration.
Senarega said:—
“The matter (i.e., the expulsion of the Jews) at first sight seemed praiseworthy as regarding the honour done to our religion; yet it involved some amount of cruelty, if we look upon them (the Jews) not as beasts but as men, the handiwork of God.
Many of this miserable race came to Rome, where, under the expressed order of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, they were protected, and allowed to share in that security of life and limb which He, at the beginning of His pontificate, had ordained. The Romans did not like these Marañas, as the Moorish Jews were called, any more than they liked, or like, Catalans, or Franks, or Goths, or any other foreigners save the English-speaking race; and, following hereditary instinct, there were occasional attempts at persecution, the rigorous stamping out of which, by the justice of the Pope, caused intermittent rioting and disaffection of the citizens who only could look upon the Jews as fair game. That was the only disturbance of the peace with which King Don Ferrando could charge the Holy Father; and it was an act of justice and humanity. But the fifteenth century, in common with the nineteenth (the twentieth is too young yet to be judged), was very wont to give a bad name to the dog that it had failed to hang.]
Any success that might have attended the rabid calumnies of the Majesty of Naples was prevented by an occurrence of the most startling species.
A mariner of Genoa, called Messer Cristoforo Colombi, announced to the Spanish Court, in March 1493, the astounding news of his discovery of a continent. An explorer’s ardour, combined with religious zeal, had made him seek to extend the boundaries of Christendom. He had set out in the hope of finding a few islands. He returned to Europe solemnly asserting that he had found a world. Universal curiosity was awakened, and a fresh expedition planned, with which the intrepid mariner set forth on a second voyage to prove, and to secure, his prize. Meanwhile, Don Hernando and Doña Isabella, the Catholic King and Queen of Spain, thought it would be prudent to bind this new world to their domain by a bond that easily could not be broken. The Pope, as Ruler of the World and Earthly Vicar of Jesus Christ, was held to have authority over all heathen lands, and to His Holiness an envoy went from Spain commissioned to announce the discovery, and to pray Him graciously to confirm it to the Catholic King and Queen.
Precipitevolissimevolmente (no other word describes the act) was issued a Bull, dated “At Rome by St. Peter’s, the year of our Lord’s Incarnation, 1493, the fourth day of the nones of May, and the first year of Our pontificate,” giving to Don Hernando and to Doña Isabella, and to their heirs and successors, all islands and continents, discovered or yet to be discovered, in the western ocean, west and south of a line to be drawn from the North Pole to the South Pole, one hundred leagues west of the Açores and Cape Verde Islands. The language of this Bull is exquisitely touching; strong, pregnant, earnest, and majestic, as the Authorised Version of the Epistles of St. Paul. The motive undoubtedly is the motive of an Apostle to convert a world to Christ. The grant is made to the Majesty of Spain, with commands to send honest God-fearing learned and expert men to teach the Christian Faith; and the penalty of excommunication latae sententiae is imposed upon anyone, even royal or imperial, who shall interfere. This supremely beautiful Pontifical Act, the Bull Inter caetera of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, is given verbatim in Raynaldus, sub anno 1493. So in return for the Borgia, which Spain gave to Italy, Italy and the Borgia gave Messer Cristoforo Colombi and the New World to Spain.
Don Hernando and Doña Isabella, the Catholic King and Queen, were Spaniards. And when that is said all is said; and all the hideous history of the New World under Spanish domination is explained. Those sovereigns bore no goodwill for the Lord Alexander P.P. VI although He was a Spaniard. They, like every other sovereign of Europe, were quite prepared to harass and to flout an unobliging Pope up to the verge of excommunications and interdicts; when they, of course, would cringe and cower like the villainous usurper John Plantagenet: but the quick granting of their petition in this matter of the New World, the immense distinction which the Bull Inter caetera conferred on them and on Spain, turned them, from suitors prepared with impertinence, into the abjectly devoted adherents of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, at least for the time; and absolutely prevented King Don Ferrando’s application for an anti-pontifical alliance from meeting with success. This, no doubt, is that on which the Pope’s Holiness counted. Very seldom in life does a man so clearly see his duty with the certainty of reward for its prompt performance. And very rarely, in the pontificate of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, did He deign, so immediately and so unreservedly, to grant a favour. He must have perceived, with that marvellous instinct of His, which led Him inevitably to the very roots of matters, that for once the paths of duty and of pleasure coincided. Certainly He unhesitatingly walked therein.
On the twelfth of June the Lord Alexander P.P. VI married His bastard, Madonna Lucrezia Borgia, of the age of fifteen years, to the Tyrant of Pesaro, Don Giovanni Sforza, of the age of twenty-six years, with all the magnificence due to His secular rank as an Italian despot; and thereby set wagging the tongues of those who lamented the decay of ecclesiastical discipline, and who could not distinguish between the dual and contradictory offices which the Pope was expected to reconcile; as well as the pens of professional manufacturers of squibs and lampoons. The wedding-banquet took place at the Vatican, in the presence of the Pope, ten cardinals, and fifteen Roman patricians with their wives. The Holy Father presented to the ladies silver cups filled with sweetmeats, throwing them into their bosoms ad honorem et laudem Omnipotentis Dei et Ecclesiae Romanae, says the golden-mouthed, venomous, untrustworthy historian, Messer Stefano Infessura. In the evening there was dancing, with comedies of the conventional coarse but common type. This event is one of the bases from which disgusting charges have been levelled against the Lord Alexander P.P. VI. It summarily may be stated that those charges consist entirely of the unprintable gossip of enemies or inferiors, and that not one of them satisfactorily can be proved. That the Vicar of Christ should have condescended so far is impossible; that a temporal sovereign should have condescended so far is probable, and, perhaps, regrettable; but the status of the guests, the ten cardinals, and the fifteen Roman patricians with their wives, guarantees the utter respectability of the Despot’s little private party from a contemporary point of view.
In June, also, arrived in Rome Don Diego Lopez de Haro to offer to the Holiness of the Pope the homage and obedience of Spain. These having been accepted, the Orator proceeded to remonstrate with the Pope, in the name of the Catholic King and Queen, regarding the asylum extended to the Marañas who were fled from the Spanish Inquisition to Rome. Thousands of these unfortunates were encamped among the tombs on the Appian Way, and had brought the plague with them. Spain execrated the Papal tolerance, and wondered that the Holy Father, as the Head of Christianity, should protect those whom Spain had driven away as being enemies of the Christian Faith. Further, the Spanish Orator said that the Christian King Charles VIII of France was threatening to invade Italy and to take advantage of the quarrels of the Italian Powers; wherefore he urged the necessity of peace, and an agreement among the sovereigns of whom the Pope was chief. By way of showing that concessions would ensure the unanimity of Italy, he set forth a list of ecclesiastical grievances that needed remedies; grievances “which, since the days of the Council of Constance, had been standing complaints against the Papacy, to be urged in all negotiations for other purposes.” (Creighton iv. 199.)
Publicly Don Ludovico Maria Sforza-Visconti harped upon the league between Venice, Milan, and the Papacy. Privately he entered into a secret treaty with the Christian King Charles VIII through Belgioso, Orator of Milan. Being an usurper he trusted not even his allies: preferring to have two strings to his bow, he believed that he could consolidate his position only by disturbing the peace of Italy.
Publicly, from his fortress of Ostia, that psychic epileptic, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, continued to shout for a General Council to depose his Rival. The abominable character of this cardinal well may be exposed by stating that he was endeavouring to rend the Church and Christendom with a Fortieth Schism, in order to satiate his personal revenge.
And, like Gallio, the Pope’s Holiness cared for none of these things—for Spain, for Milan, for the contemptible cardinal. He believed in Himself, and in His Own power to rule. At least, He officially had been saluted as Ruler of the World.
The intrigues and invectives of the King of Naples deservedly having failed, his Majesty made the experiment of a hostile demonstration. His second son, Prince Don Federigo of Altamura appeared with eleven galleys at Ostia on Tiber mouth; and rapturously was hailed by that traitor-cardinal-bishop, with the Colonna and Don Virginio Orsini.
The Lord Alexander P.P. VI was willing to negotiate. Borgian negotiations invariably meant that Borgia would give its opponents something, but not the something that they wanted, and always in such a way that it could not be refused. The Naples + Colonna + Orsini + Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere conspiracy had demanded Cervetri and Anguillara for Orsini (and Naples) and the disgrace of the Vicechancellor-Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti to satisfy the spleen of him of Ostia. On the twenty-fourth of July the cardinal, the Neapolitan prince, and Don Virginio Orsini came to Rome to hear the pontifical terms, which were:—
(α) That the Pope’s Holiness would confirm Cervetri and Anguillara to Don Virginio for life; at his death they would revert to the Holy See: but he must pay into the pontifical treasury their price of forty thousand ducats, which he previously had paid to Don Franciotto Cibo: (β) That the Pope’s Holiness was willing to forgive and to show favour to Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere: but He refused to disgrace the Vicechancellor-Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti: (γ) That the Pope’s Holiness would consent to ally Himself with the Royal House of Naples by the marriage of His bastard, Don Gioffredo Borgia, to Madonna Sancia, bastard of Don Alonso de Aragona, Duke of Calabria and heir of King Don Ferrando I. This agreement was ratified by betrothal; and Don Gioffredo set out for Naples to see the girl, and to receive her dowry with the title Prince of Squillace. The marriage was postponed for the present, because neither bride nor bridegroom had completed their thirteenth year.
No sooner was the treaty of peace signed, than the Sieur Perron de Basche, Orator of the Christian King Charles VIII of France, arrived in Rome, armed with instructions to prevent an alliance between Papacy and Regno, and to obtain pontifical confirmation of the election, by the Rouen chapter, of Messire Georges d’Amboise as Archbishop. The Supreme Pontiff, by way of emphasising His independent attitude to France, refused to receive the Orator in audience, annulled the election of Messire Georges d’Amboise, and named one of His Own court to the Archbishopric of Rouen. This was what the twentieth century timidly calls an “unfriendly act”; and the Christian King forthwith began to sympathise with Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere’s recent clamour for a General Council to depose the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, and to meditate thereon day and night.25
To strengthen His influence in the Sacred College by adding creatures of His Own, at the Second Consistory of the twentieth of September 1493, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI named twelve new cardinals.
These were:—
(α) The Lord John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord High Chancellor of England, whose virtues have been praised by another English Chancellor, the Blessed Sir Thomas More;—Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Anastasia; (β) The Lord Giovantonio di Sangiorgio;—Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Nereo e Sant’ Achilleo; (γ) Frère Jean Villiers de la Grolaye, Lord Abbot of Saint Denys by Paris;—Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Sabina; (δ) The Lord Bernardino Lopez de Caravajal, Apostolic Legate to Caesar Friedrich IV, the eloquent preacher at the Conclave of 1492;—Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Marcellino e San Pietro: (ε) The Lord Raymond Perauld,26 a Frenchman, Apostolic Nuncio in Germany;—Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Giovanni e San Paolo: (ζ) The Lord Cesare (detto Borgia), reputed bastard of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, and of the age of eighteen years;—Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria Nuova: (η) The Lord Ippolito d’Este, of the age of fifteen years, a great athlete and fighter from boyhood to youth, and a prince of the Royal House of Ferrara; “tall he was of frame, brawny of sinew, mighty of limb, strengthening his robustitude with exercises, archery, and hurling javelins; grace and charm bloomed on the face of him; his bright eyes beamed with grave tranquillity, worthy of all praise; most royal was his whole aspect; he was an expert swimmer; and with whatsoever weapons he adroitly strove he innured himself to heat and cold and night-long vigils”;—Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Lucia in Silice, alias in Orfea: (θ) The Lord Fryderyk Kasimierz Jagelone di Polonia, son of King Kasimierz of Poland, Bishop of Cracow;—Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Lucia in Septisolio, alias in Septizonio: (ι) The Lord Giuliano Cesarini (detto Giuniore), Apostolic Prothonotary, Canon of the Vatican Basilica;—Cardinal-Deacon of San Sergio e San Bacco: (κ) The Lord Domenico Grimani, Apostolic Prothonotary;—Cardinal-Deacon of San Niccolo inter Imagines: (λ) The Lord Alessandro Farnese, Apostolic Prothonotary (nicknamed “Cardinal Petticoat,” on account of the Pope’s partiality for his sister, Madonna Giulia Orsini nata Farnese);—Cardinal-Deacon of San Cosma e San Damiano: (μ) The Lord Bernardino de’ Lunati, Apostolic Prothonotary, friend of the Cardinal-Vicechancellor;—Cardinal-Deacon of San Ciriaco alle Terme Diocleziane.27
The vigour of this deed struck Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere and his friend King Don Ferrando into frantic silence. By a mere act of His Sovereign Will the Holiness of the Pope immensely had increased His Own potentiality. Two of the new creatures were scions of reigning dynasties, whose loyalty thereby was secured. The virtue and eloquence of the English cardinal were as twin towers of strength. The two French creatures were as a sop to France. The minor diaconate conferred on Don Cesare (detto Borgia) gave him a standing, from which the splendour of his youth might do great things. And the other cardinals were proved adherents, who, by being made to owe their promotion to the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, became bound (in so far as human foresight went) to His interests by the bond of gratitude. It was a most paralysing and disheartening stroke for the enemies of the Sovereign Pontiff; and the year 1493 ended amid renewed demands for a General Council from Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, and renewed invectives from the Majesty of Naples.
On the twenty-fifth of January 1494, King Don Ferrando I died, in the seventieth year of his age and the thirty-fifth of his reign. He was a cautious and experienced politician; and, since the Lord Pius P.P. II, Lorenzo de’ Medici, and the great Duke Francesco Sforza-Visconti, the greatest secular statesman of his century. His policy was directed to the preservation of Italy from French invasion, and to the destruction of the Papal States. He was not harsh in his dealings with his subjects: but to his barons and to his opponents he behaved with cruelty and treachery. He liked to have his enemies always near him, either alive in the dungeons of his palace, or dead, and embalmed, and clothed in their habits as they lived. Yet he died regretted; for his heir, the thick-haired, thin-lipped, narrow-eyed, fat-jowled, asymmetrically-featured Don Alonso de Aragona, Duke of Calabria, enjoyed a reputation for violence and brutality the bare idea of which created universal terror.
The game of politics entered on a new phase. The Christian King Charles VIII of France was burning for an opportunity of asserting himself; and had collected an army, ostensibly for a Crusade against the Great Turk, the Sultán Bajazet, really for purposes of French aggrandisement—purposes yet undefined. He was a self-conceited little abortion, this Christian King, of the loosest morals even for a king, of gross semitic type, with a fiery birth-flare round his left eye, and twelve toes on his feet hidden in splayed shoes, which set the fashion in foot-gear for the end of the fifteenth century in Italy; and, like all vain little men, he was anxious to cut a romantic and considerable figure. He announced a claim to the crown of Naples.
This made it necessary for the Lord Alexander P.P. VI to compare the advantages of France as an ally with the Regno; and, in the meantime, that He might lead the Christian King to declare himself with more particularity, the Pope’s Holiness addressed a Brief to him in which the subject of Naples was not named: but which assured him of pontifical favour, and gave him leave to pass through Rome with his army on the way to his contemplated Crusade. There was dissatisfaction in the Sacred College about the matter of the Archbishopric of Rouen; and some of the cardinals were beginning to think that the time was come for turning coats, especially as it was known that the Orator of France had made overtures of friendship on the part of his sovereign to Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere.
The Supreme Pontiff finally concluded that He would rather have an ally on His frontier, than an ally whose territories were separated from His by the domains of other princes. He decided to leave France out of the question; and to recognize the heir of the late King Don Ferrando I. Accordingly He conveyed this news to Don Alonso de Aragona Duke of Calabria, adding that He would envoy a Legate to Naples to concede investiture and to perform the ceremony of coronation. At the same time, the Pope’s Holiness sent the Golden Rose to the Christian King; and it is hard to know whether this gift symbolized consolation or contempt. If the former, then the gift should have been a sword; for the Sword is the pontifical gift to kings. If the latter, then it was bitterly appropriate, for the Golden Rose is the pontifical gift to queens. Yet only with difficulty one can conceive of the Pope as deliberately setting himself to provoke a reigning sovereign who heads a mobilized army; and the act may have been merely one of those slipshod performances which the greatest geniuses, from time to time, provide to remind mankind of the maxim non semper arcum tendit Apollo. But all the same the Lord Alexander P.P. VI was a very strong man, guilty of hiding none of His human weaknesses.
When the Pope issued His Bull on this matter of the Investiture in Public Consistory, storms ensued. Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, again diplomatically deprived of his Neapolitan friends, flitted from Rome to Ostia with the pontifical condottieri at his heels. From Ostia, he shipped to Genoa, and made haste to present himself to the pink-eyed Majesty of France. The French Orators in Rome shrieked “We are betrayed” in the consecrated formula; and hurried to safe places. And the fortress of Ostia capitulated to the Pope.
In May, the Lord Giovanni Borgia, Archbishop of Monreale and Cardinal-Priest of the Title of Santa Susanna, received his Brief as Apostolic Ablegate, and went to Naples to crown the new king. The fourteen-year-old Don Gioffredo Borgia accompanied his Most Worshipful cousin; and was married on the coronation-day, the seventh of May.
Madonna Sancia, bastard of King Don Alonso II, who confirmed to him the title of Prince of Squillace with a revenue of forty thousand ducats. Also, as an earnest of his gratitude to the Pope, the King of Naples conferred the Principalities of Teano and Tricarico on Don Juan Francisco de Lançol y Borja, eldest surviving bastard of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI (who already had procured for him the Spanish duchy of Gandia;) and enriched Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) with Neapolitan benefices. The Papacy and the Regno now were a Dual Alliance.
In Italy of the fifteenth century, men’s minds chiefly were occupied with the accumulation and disposition of matters connected with the intellect and the tastes. The Elect-Emperor Maximilian, who in 1493 succeeded the Pacific Caesar Friedrich IV on the throne of Central Europe (called the Holy Roman Empire) was adding outlying territories to the possessions of his dynasty, the Habsburg House of Austria. Spain was freeing herself, by means of steel and faggot, from her brain, i.e., the Moors and Jews; and in exploiting her New World. England was enjoying peace and a new dynasty, since the close of the War of the Roses in 1485. France had made peace, at a price, with King Henry VII Tudor in 1492; and with Spain, at the cost of her frontier provinces of Cerdogne and Rouissillion, in 1493. Lastly, the Christian King Charles VIII of France had pacified the rage of the Elect-Emperor Maximilian, whom he had robbed of his betrothed the Duchess Anne of Bretagne, by ceding to him the greater part of Burgundy. For the rest, nearly all the kingdoms, duchies, and fiefs of France had fallen into the hands of the vaunting Charles, by conquest, inheritance, lapse or marriage. Finding himself at the head of a great army experienced in the art of war, and with a domain smiling with prosperity, he looked for fresh fields to conquer. The chivalric glamour of the Crusade had by no means faded: it dazzled the pink eye of France: and, at one time, undoubtedly the Christian King intended to march on the Muslim Infidel, now settled in Europe and unmolested. But, with the death of King Don Ferrando I, the fickle Frenchman revived an old claim of the House of Anjou to the crown of Naples, intrigued with Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, and brought his veteran army south to Lyons; where he spent his time in lubricity, until he should have felt the pulses of the Italian Powers with reference to his undertaking. French envoys reported to him that the Papacy was allied with Naples, and Naples with Don Piero de’ Medici of Tuscany; that Don Filiberto the Fair, (the boy-duke of Savoja, married to the Elect-Emperor’s daughter Anne,) with Duke Ercole d’Este of Ferrara, the Marquesses of Monserrat and Saluzzo, and the Republic of Venice, were neutral. The auguries were not propitious for France; but the Christian King, emboldened by the presence, and attentive to the rhodomontades of, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, and stupidly believing it possible to reduce a Pope by fear, joined in the duet and cried for a General Council. Indeed, he placed more confidence in the virtue of this threat than in his army; for he definitely threatened the Lord Alexander P.P. VI with deposition and deprivation of the Apostolic dignity, not by force of arms, but by canonical proof of His simoniacal election—unless He would concede to France the crown of Naples. (Corio, Storie di Milano. III 525)
It is very difficult to understand these shouters for a General Council. They were so clever, so logical, in other matters, that it is perfectly impossible for them to have been unaware of the extreme futility of their cry. They could not have been ignorant: then they must have been malignant. Suppose that an assemblage calling itself a General Council had been convened by the Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia and the Majesty of France, and had proved to its own satisfaction that Cardinal Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja had bought, by bribery, the votes of his brother-cardinals, raising himself by these means to the throne of God’s Vicegerent; what end would have been served? There was a moral but no legal prohibition then, as already has been shewn, to prevent a cardinal from buying votes, if he could find cardinals criminal enough to sell. The money-changers were, as now, in possession of the Temple; and the whip of small cords still on the Knees of God.
Suppose that a self-called General Council had decreed the deposition of the Pope on the ground of simony; the decrees of a General Council are ineffective until they have been promulgated with the expressed sanction of the Roman Pontiff. Is it probable that the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, that the sanctimonious Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, that any human man, would sanction the promulgation of the decree that ordained his own deposition? If he did so declare himself to be no Pope, what would be the value of such a declaration? If he were Pope, he would not; if he were not Pope he could not, depose himself. Then what would have been the good, (if the Sokratic method be so far permitted,) of a self-called General Council which only could compile ineffectual decrees?
We are dealing with this matter in its human aspect only. Humanity was master of the mighty then, as now; Morality of the humble and meek. Suppose that a self-called General Council had decreed the deposition of the Pope: what would have happened? This—the Sacred College would have split into two or more factions; let us say two, to keep the argument in reasonable bounds. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI would have headed one faction; the envious Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere the other. Both would have gone into Conclave; the one in Rome, the other in France. The Roman Conclave would have affirmed the Lord Alexander P.P. VI to be the Pontiff-Regnant. The French conclave would have elected Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, who incontinently would have blossomed forth as Pseudopontiff Julius II. Each would have created cardinals. Each would have administered as much of the Church and Christendom as he could have persuaded to submit to his administration. There would have been a Pontiff in Rome, a pseudopontiff in France. The sheep of Christ’s Flock would have been neglected, while the shepherds exchanged anathemas. It all had happened before—many times before. It would have been the Fortieth Schism. In course of time, death would claim the Pontiff or the pseudopontiff. His party would replace him. In course of time subdivision would take place, a schism in a schism. A section of cardinals would secede from Pontiff, or from pseudopontiff; call themselves the Sacred College in Conclave, and elect a second pseudopontiff. Christendom would have been torn asunder. The crime would have been capable of infinite development. All had been seen before, many times before—last, in this identical Fifteenth Century—the century of the Thirty-ninth Schism of the Holy Roman Church, the Thirty-ninth Rending of the Seamless Robe of Christ.
And that was the atrocious turpitude to which Revenge was leading Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, and Vanity was leading the Christian King Charles VIII, all light-heartedly.
Being now in amity with Colonna and Orsini through the Neapolitan alliance, as well as with Sforza and Cesarini, the Holiness of the Pope proceeded to the Regno for the purpose of concerting a plan of campaign with King Don Alonso II, whom He met at Vicovaro on the fourteenth of July. There it was arranged that the King should hold the Abruzzi provinces with part of the Neapolitan army, while his son, Don Ferrandino de Aragona, with another part should make a swift advance on Milan by way of the Romagna, sending out flying columns to sweep the country free from rebels; and, after expelling the usurping Regent, Don Ludovico Maria Sforza-Visconti, and restoring Duke Giangaleazzo to the throne of Milan, he should force the French to engage in Lombardy. Meanwhile, Don Virginio Orsini with the pontifical condottieri was to protect the Papal States; and Don Federigo de Aragona, brother to King Don Alonso II, was to take the Neapolitan fleet, capture Genoa, and command the northern coast.
No better plan could have been invented for a war of the chess-game species: but in two places it was weak. It would occupy too long in performance; for the French army was on Milan’s frontier which half the length of Italy separated from Naples. It caused the defection of some Sforza: it alienated the Supreme Pontiff from His vicechancellor, His closest friend, for the Neapolitan scheme involved the expulsion from Milan of the brother of Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti, who thereupon became neutral, Sforza holding by Sforza.
Before the Regno was ready, the French fleet reached Genoa, and the French army crossed the Alps to Milan. Admiral Don Federigo de Aragona, finding Genoa in his enemy’s hand, led the Neapolitan galleys to Porto Venere on the Gulf of Spezzia, only to sustain a repulse which caused him to retire to Livorno to repair his fleet. Seeing from which direction he might expect attack, the Christian King garrisoned Genoa with Swiss mercenaries under Duke Louis d’Orleans. On the eighth of September, the Admiral of Naples took Rapallo, a little city six leagues from Genoa, and landed troops. The French commander made an accipitrine swoop from Genoa, cut up the squadrons of Naples, and put Rapallo to sack and pillage for entertaining them. All Italy was amazed, paralyzed with horror, at war conducted on these bloodthirsty lines. The idea of being killed, except perhaps accidentally by being trampled underfoot in a rout, or in a simple personal quarrel, was terrible to people accustomed to battles which were processions, and sieges which were decorative occupations for gentlemen of leisure. Admiral Don Federigo led the remnant of his fleet to Naples without an hour’s delay.
Vicechancellor-Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti now became aggressive, and successfully detached from the Pope the Houses of Colonna and Savelli; (the last, until their dynasty became extinct, held the office of Hereditary Marshal of the Holy Roman Church.) Colonna and Savelli then collected their retainers and menaced the Eternal City. On the eighteenth of September Don Fabrizio Colonna recaptured Ostia, and held it in the name of its renegade Cardinal-Bishop. French galleys transporting troops anchored in the mouth of Tiber. Crippled Naples dared not to advance on Milan leaving Rome unprotected. Then Madonna Caterina Sforza-Riario, countess and witch, (daughter of the great Francesco, and widow of the infamous Count Girolamo Riario of the Pazzi Conspiracy,) declared for France in her citadel of Imola, and made things worse for Naples and the Papacy by showing them that an enemy was in their midst. In this strait, and having no sovereign friend in Europe save the Majesty of Naples, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI applied to the Great Turk, the Sultán Bajazet. That wily oriental agreed to help, on condition that his brother and rival, the Sultán Djim, long years held hostage by the Papacy, should be delivered to his tender mercies. This the Pope’s Holiness refused, not caring to connive at fratricide; and so completed the isolation of Himself and King Don Alonso II.
On the sixth of October, the Supreme Pontiff thundered from the Vatican a demand for the restitution of Ostia, (held by Don Pierfrancesco Colonna (?)) on pain of the Greater Excommunication. He “fills a great place in history because he so blended his spiritual and temporal authority as to apply the resources of the one to the purposes of the other.” (North British Review.) At the same time, having intelligence of a Colonna plot to capture the Sultán Djim on behalf of France, He moved His mysterious ward from the Vatican by way of Lo Andare to the Mola of Hadrian on Tiber; and sent the Lord Francesco de’ Piccolhuomini, Cardinal of Siena, as Apostolic Envoy to the Majesty of France. But the Christian King would not receive him, saying that he was coming to Rome to see the Pope Himself.28
The Sultán Djim was a Mystery—the Fifteenth Century equivalent for the Man in the Iron Mask. The brother and rival of the Great Turk, the Sultán Bajazet, who reigned at Constantinople, he was given as a hostage to the Knights of Rhodes at a time when Bajazet wished to win the good graces of the Christian Powers, and to rid himself of a dangerous menace to his throne’s security. The Great Turk offered to pay forty thousand ducats every year, so long as the Sultán Djim was kept away from Byzantium; and he sent also the celebrated emerald, on which is carved an Image of our Divine Redeemer, to the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII. After a long detention, Frère Pierre d’Aubusson, Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes and Cardinal-Deacon of Sant’ Adriano, transferred this valuable hostage to the Pope for greater security. The Sultán Djim was accorded apartments in the Vatican Palace, and kept a court of his own there in oriental luxury. The crumpled roseleaf of his existence was his constant fear lest his brother should envenom him; and envoys from the Great Turk were only allowed to enter his presence when rigorous and ceremonial precautions had been taken;—for example, an envoy bringing a letter from Bajazet was compelled to lick it all over, outside and inside, under Djim’s own eyes, before the last would touch it. The Lord Innocent P.P. VIII, and His successor the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, regarded the Sultán Djim as a precious guarantee for the good conduct of the Great Turk. “As long as Djim is in Our hands, Bajazet continually will be uneasy, and neither raise armies, nor molest the Christians;” wrote the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII. Later, the Great Turk conceived an alarm lest his discontented mamelukes should depose him in favour of his brother; and he proposed to pay a hundred and twenty thousand ducats to the Pope for the restoration of the Sultán Djim: undoubtedly intending to put him out of the way according to the methods observed by oriental potentates in reference to their rivals. But the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII refused to have art or part in crime, though He would have been very glad of the money for His family; and the Sultan Djim continued to remain in Rome. The same policy was pursued by the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, notwithstanding that the Great Turk had ceased to send the yearly forty thousand ducats, thus making his brother the pensioner, as well as the ward, of the Papacy. Then in October 1494, when the Eternal City was about to be the scene of war and tumult, the Pope’s Holiness placed His ward for safety in the Mola of Hadrian, the fortress tomb which also was His own refuge.
On the same day when Admiral Don Federigo de Aragona fled with the Neapolitan fleet from Rapallo to Naples, the Christian King followed his army across the Alps. Being but a shallow-pated Frenchman, enervated with the most horrible of all diseases, he already was in a quandary: he had no money wherewith to pay his troops; his march for some weeks would lie through friendly territory, and, until he reached the pontifical states, he could find no cities to sack for the appeasing and encouragement of his mercenaries. To meet him, hurried Don Ludovico Maria Sforza-Visconti, also in a quandary: he was an usurping regent, with his legitimate sovereign under lock and key; and he was going to meet a legitimate sovereign-regnant. Whether Don Ludovico Maria would complete a little loan, was the question agitating the mind of the Christian King. Whether the Majesty of France would want to champion his Order, to release his brother sovereign and place him on his throne, and to behave severely and unpleasantly to an usurping regent, was the difficulty of Don Ludovico Maria. The two met at Asti. The Christian King at once broached his trouble; and Don Ludovico Maria, with his capacious Sforza brain-pan and his determined Sforza jaw, instantly perceived that he could recommend himself by being useful. He advised France rapidly to advance southward through the Romagna where rich spoils awaited him. And he found the means. Of the man who will lend money at the very moment when it is urgently required, none but the very best opinion can be formed. The Christian King was quite prepared to accept Don Ludovico Maria’s own estimation of himself, now. It was even safe to let him see the pathetic sovereign of Milan in his prison.
After being detained a few weeks by that which Italians call the French disease, because it was introduced into Italy by this Christian King, Charles VIII dawdled on to Pavia; and visited Duke Giangaleazzo Sforza-Visconti. The condition of that luckless prince was scandalous in the extreme. He was of the age of five and twenty years. He had been a prisoner during fifteen years. He was decrepid of body, helpless and dull of mind. His only joy in life was in his Duchess Isabella and in his four-year-old son, for whose protection he piteously entreated the Christian King. France put on a sympathetic aspect—it was perhaps the most gracious moment in the little creature’s life—; the nostrils of his ham-shaped nose wore an air of disgust at Duke Giangaleazzo’s suffering; the glare of his boiled eyes in their congenital flush, and the severe fat line of his mouth, horrified the usurping Regent. Had the money of Don Ludovico Maria been in the coffers of any one just then except the Christian King’s, undoubtedly right would have been done by the might of France. But, with promises to return, with excellent intentions to attend to the affairs of Milan when Naples should have been reduced with Milan’s money, the Christian King was persuaded to hasten on to Piacenza.
There, on the twenty-first of October, news came to him that the prince whom he had left in his prison, Duke Giangaleazzo Sforza-Visconti, was dead; and that Don Ludovico Maria had proclaimed himself, and had been accepted as, Duke of Milan. It was also said that the uncle had envenomed the nephew, having observed him to have gained the sympathy of France, and fearing lest that sympathy should restore him to his throne. It may have been so: but there is no evidence whatever on the subject beyond the mere assertion. But it equally might have been the effect of concentrated despair, at seeing deliverance come and pass away, acting on a body, naturally weak, worn by passion and imprisonment, which killed Duke Giangaleazzo Sforza-Visconti of Milan. The Fifteenth Century (and also the first decades of the Sixteenth) was so radically ignorant of the art and science, as well of venoms, as of their practical exhibition, that, unless direct in addition to circumstantial evidence be forthcoming, mere unproved charges based on “on dit,” “aiunt,” “fertur,” or “dicant,” may be disregarded and a natural cause of death assigned.
Florence, capital city of Tuscany and ancient friend of France, was in a critical condition. Lorenzo de’ Medici was just dead. His son, Don Piero had succeeded him. Don Piero’s brother Messer Giovanni, raised to the purple at the age of thirteen years, red-hatted at seventeen, was a Cardinal of Rome. The genius of the great Lorenzo had made him disguise his power. He had married at his own mother’s bidding Madonna Clarice Orsini, a patrician of Rome. His sons, educated by Canon Angelo Ambrogini (detto Poliziano), had grown up intellectual, grand, and gay, with an overweening sense of their own consequence; and, when the sceptre fell into his young inexperienced hands, Don Piero forgot his father’s advice, “Remember that thou art but a citizen of Florence, even as am I;” and he behaved autocratically, despotically, independently, to the immense antipathy of the Lily-City.
When the Majesty of France began his interference with Italian politics, Don Piero de’ Medici and Florence, being contracted to the Regno, declined the offer of a French alliance. The Christian King retorted by banishing Florentine merchants from France. This gave occasion for the enemies, (which, in common with all great Houses, Medici had) to blaspheme, muttering of the evils of a tyranny, of the advantages of a republic: and Don Piero’s cousins, Don Giovanni and Don Lorenzino, fled to the Christian King at Piacenza; saying that not Florence, but Don Piero only, was the foe of France.
Fra Girolamo Savonarola, friar of the Religion of St. Dominic, became a prominent and responsible figure in this imbroglio. Ecclesiastically he was a subject of the Dominican Congregation of Lombardy, who was led to desire independence and a pied à terre in Florence. Don Piero de’ Medici, seeing naught amiss, supported his application to Rome for the separation of the Tuscan Dominicans from allegiance to the Lombard Congregation; for, it was urged, the erection of a separate Congregation for Lombardy would add to the dignity of Florence, and would be a slight to Milan. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI, when the case was laid before Him in 1493, was inclined to favour Milan on account of the Vicechancellor-Cardinal who was brother to the usurping Regent: but, on the advice of Cardinal Oliviero Carafa, who officially had examined the matter on its merits, and who reported in favour of Don Piero de’ Medici and the weird friar, the Pope’s Holiness issued the Bull of Separation on the twenty-second of May that same year. Fra Girolamo Savonarola then transferred himself to the new Tuscan Congregation, was elected Prior of San Marco and Vicar-General; and so became the absolute ruler of the Dominicans in Florence, and subject only to the General of the Religion of St. Dominic, and to the Pope, in Rome.
He was a truly pious man, of the hard ascetic type, and very masterful. He used his independence rigorously to reform his Convent of San Marco, with, for a wonder, the complete concurrence of his friars; and so he formed a centre of the exclusively religious life. He would make no compromise whatever. He would have God entirely served; and countenanced no paltering with Mammon. He utterly spat upon and defied the World. He burned every pretty worldly thing. Lewd lovely Florence executed a quick change, and followed him in sackcloth and ashes. The alluring melody of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s Canti Carnaleschi was drowned in the chaunting of the Miserere mei Deus and the Seven Penitential Psalms with Litanies; while disciplines and scourges in the public streets fell like flails on youth’s white flesh. Fra Girolamo preached penance in the Advent of 1493. In the Lent of 1494, he preached from the book of Genesis. When he arrived at Noe’s Ark, he dwelled upon it; his subject fascinated him; each plank, each nail, became a symbol: but the moral of his allegory was, “Enter the Ark of Salvation that ye may escape the wrath to come.”
Florence was disturbed by expectation of the French invasion; which, said Fra Girolamo, (mixing his metaphors in the only way that the vulgar really understand) was the Scourge of God for the Purification of the Church. In September, he preached again. Visions came to him; and he preached of them in parables. His success, his ever-growing power, produced in him an effect like inebriation. Not yet having lost his self-control, he was able to see his danger. He made an effort, and ceased to preach. His brain was in a ferment; sleeplessness gnawed the remnant of his physical strength. Again he mounted the pulpit of San Marco, and thundered like a prophet, like a seer, not his own words now, but “Thus saith The Lord.” He claimed εἰσπνοή—Divine Afflatus—Inspiration. Humanly speaking, he had gone out of his mind—was mad.
The excitement of Florence became a frenzy. “Behold,” Fra Girolamo Savonarola tremendously declaimed, “Behold I bring a flood of waters on the earth!” And the French army entered Italy.
Florence was half-dead with terror, terror of the French, terror of the Wrath to Come. She had exasperated the Christian King, was disunited in herself, and she had no troops. Yet—she might resist. On her frontier were the strong fortresses of Sarzanella and Pietrasanta. A few resolute patriots might hold the mountain-passes on the road through Lunigiana; and an initial check which ruined French prestige would restore self-confidence to Florence. This was the time of the trial of the stuff of Don Piero de’ Medici; who, being in three minds, failed to stand. First, he sent his brother-in-law, Don Paolo Orsini, to garrison Sarzanella. Secondly, he quavered, because the Florentines appeared sulkily to him. Thirdly, he dallied with the notion of submission to the Christian King. From the fortress of Pietrasanta he whined for a safe-conduct. Arrived in the French camp he collapsed: lying prostrate at the twelve-toed feet of the Majesty of France, he implored pardon for his impertinence in thinking to defend his fatherland; and he offered reparation. He assented to the French demand for the withdrawal of the Tuscan army from the Romagna; for the castles of Sarzana, Sarzanella, Pietrasanta, Pisa, and Livorno, to be held as pledges until Naples should capitulate; for a forced-loan of two hundred thousand ducats; the pledges immediately to be delivered and a treaty signed at Florence. The French had never dreamed that the road should open to them as though by miracle; and by simplest Induction they said that God was on their side.
Florence was dismayed. Don Piero de’ Medici stayed with the French: his brothers were in the vast Medici Palace (now Palazzo Riccardi) at the corner of Via Larga, which Michellozzo built for mighty Cosmo. “It is time to make an end of this government by children and to recover our liberty,” said the grave and sterling Don Piero Capponi; and the Signoria sent out an embassage to undo the mischief. There were five ambassadors, including Fra Girolamo Savonarola whom Florence loved, and Don Piero Capponi whom she admired. They left the city on the sixth of November with plenary powers to modify the disgraceful conditions of surrender. On the seventh, they found the Christian King at Lucca; and followed him to Pisa. He received them very coldly, saying that he would arrange no terms except in Florence. To diseased France the degenerate Fra Girolamo forthwith prophesied, “Know thyself for an instrument in the hands of the Lord, Who hath sent thee to heal the woes of Italy and to reform the prostrate Church. But if thou dost not shew thyself just and pitiful, if thou respectest not Florence and her people, if thou forgettest the work for which the Lord hath sent thee, then He will choose another in Thy place, and in His Wrath engulph thee. I speak in the name of the Lord.” (Savonarola’s Compendium Revelationum.)
On the eighth of November, Don Piero de’ Medici reappeared in Florence. The City of Lilies knew that Don Paolo Orsini held the Porta di San Gallo for him, with troops disposed about the district; and suspected that he would summon her citizens and force himself upon them as Dictator. On the ninth, suspicion redoubled, because he went with an imposing retinue to the Palace of the Signoria where the magistrates were in conclave. The door was shut: a voice bade him enter by the postern, but alone. Don Piero de’ Medici turned away. A partisan of Medici in the Signoria followed him, and brought him back. In attempting the little gate, there was some scuffle, some dispute; and the gate was slammed upon him in a gathering crowd which cried “Away—away—and leave the Signoria in peace.” In a storm of hissing where stones were flying Don Piero de’ Medici flashed out his sword,—and—irresolutely—let it fall. His escort closed him in, and hurried him to old Cosmo’s palace, where all of the few Medici were arming. Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici, not nineteen years of age, risked his sacred person—risked, because a Florentine mob had flung an archbishop in pontificals (Archbishop Salviati of Pisa) at a rope’s end from a window; and bleached with mortal terror the visage of a boy-cardinal (the Lord Rafaele Galeotto Sanzoni-Riario Cardinal-Deacon of San Giorgio in Velum Aureum, aet 16,) not sixteen years before,—his sacred person, because he who suadente diabolo lifts hand against the person of one tonsured ipso facto incurs the Greater Excommunication,—he risked his sacred person among a Florentine mob, endeavouring to rouse them as of old to follow Medici with the war-cry “Palle—Palle—Palle.”29 All was in vain.
The well-worn cry had lost magnetic virtue; and none in Florence now dared to own himself a friend of Medici. Don Piero rushed to the Porta di San Gallo, where Medici had never cried in vain. None answered him. His courage left him there. He infected with fear Don Paolo Orsini and his bands; and all fled to Bologna. At night Cardinal Giovanni and his sixteen-year-old cousin, Messer Giuliano Knight of St John of Jerusalem of Malta, escaped in the frocks of Friars Minor; and from Bologna these three Medici journeyed on to Venice where Italian exiles always found a home: while Florence sacked the Medici Palace, plundered the priceless Medici Library of Manuscripts, and set a price upon the head of Lorenzo’s son Don Piero.
This revolt was the work of Fra Girolamo Savonarola. For sixty years Florence had enjoyed prosperity under Medici. She was the centre of learning, the mediating power of Italy with influence in every state; in fact, as the Lord Boniface P.P. VIII said on receiving the Orators of the Powers in Rome at the Jubilee of 1300, “i fiorentini sono il quinto elemento.” But the Dominican Friar had roused in Her those moral aspirations which Medici had lulled to atrophy; and the contemptible blunders of Don Piero had proved a final exasperation. The newly-formed republic set up Donatello’s statue of Judith with the Head of Holofernes on a pedestal before Palazzo Vecchio, with this inscription for the benefit of budding despots, Exemplum Salutis Publicae Cives Posuere MCCCCXCV. And on the day of the expulsion of the Medici, little Pisa revolted also, and threw off the yoke of Florence.
The fortune of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI appeared to be in serious danger. The French unhindered were advancing, and sedition was sown in Rome. One more overture the Supreme Pontiff made, sending Cardinal Raymond Perrauld, a creature of His Own, to treat with the Christian King, who with no difficulty persuaded the French Cardinal to turn traitor to the Pope. A Brief, appealing to the Elect-Emperor Maximilian for help proved ineffectual. The forces of Colonna beleaguered the Eternal city. Within the walls, three disaffected cardinals, the Lords Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti, Friderico Sanseverini, and Bernardino de’ Lunati, were interned with the Pope in the Mola for the sake of safety. When the pontifical citadel of Civita Vecchia fell, the loyalists became yet more disheartened. Orsini turned its coats and joined the French. Cesarini alone of all the patricians of Rome continued to be staunch and true. Resistance was useless, things being as they were; and the Lord Alexander P.P. VI gave leave to the Christian King to enter Rome. He came. He humanly was master of the City and of the situation, face to face with the Holiness of the Pope, practically having His person in his power. The Majesty of France demanded the calling of a General Council; and God’s Vicegerent opposed him with a blunt and unconditional Non Possumus. Whenever the World has driven the Church against the wall, She has become inexorably invincible.
The year 1495 opened with Rome in panic and disorder, in the clutch of a foreign army bringing desolation and a new disease. The Christian King, who had come to accomplish the conquest of the Regno by means of the deposition of the Pope, found the way completely blocked. He had strutted on his twelve-toed feet to Rome, prepared to crow so very gallically. The decree of deposition actually was prepared, and only required confirmation by a competent authority. Inflated with gigantic megalomaniacal illusions, he had believed that an evil conscience would have made the Lord Alexander P.P. VI obedient to him. He thought by the threat of a General Council (which he intended to convoke at Ferrara,) to blackmail the Pope into conceding the investiture of Naples. He ineffectually had battered the defences of the Pope with cannon. And now his Frenchmen would fight no longer, as some say; but others, like Briçonnet and de Commines, assert that it was the king who blenched. At last, with his shallow mind congested with half-thought thoughts and uncompleted facts like these, he became aware that a General Council was not a General council unless it had the Pope’s authority, which last he was not likely to obtain; and that, without some means of bending the pontifical will, he could not hope to win the crown of Naples. Evidently, he could not depose the Pope. He might, however, conquer Naples by force of arms; and, perhaps, the question of investiture by the Ruler of the World, the Father of princes and of kings, the Earthly Vicar of Jesus Christ our Saviour, which he realized to be imperative, would wear a different aspect when he should ask for it as a conqueror with the Regno in his hand.
While the Christian King was stumbling to these conclusions, the invincible Lord Alexander P.P. VI remained with His little court in the Mola of Hadrian where He had His hostages secure, viz., the Sultán Djim, earnestly desired by France as a weapon against the Great Turk, and the renegade cardinals, friends of Colonna and the French. Here, He was practically impregnable. The Papal States might go to wrack and ruin: Rome Herself might be crushed by an alien heel, but from the Mola of Hadrian a Pope, surrounded by His faithful few, could, and often did, defy blockade as long as provisions held out; could, and often did, launch the lightnings of the Church, censures, excommunications, interdicts; and force acknowledgment, and reluctant obedience, from rebellious sovereigns who, after all, believed and admitted Him to be Ruler of the World, Father of princes and of kings, Earthly Vicar of Jesus Christ our Saviour, titles, in defence of which (so very glorious are they) Pontiffs of these clear ages did not hesitate to court the death, admitting of no compromise of no rebate. Our potency, said they, if worth having, is worth fighting for, is worth dying for. And, as invariably is the case, when a man shews that he wishes nothing better than to lose his life for a cause, he saves both cause, and life.
From the Mola of Hadrian then, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI deigned to make these terms with the Christian King:—The French army was to be withdrawn from Rome. The Pope’s Holiness would not interfere; and would lend to France as hostages for six months, the Sultán Djim with whom to menace the Great Turk Bajazet, and Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia). The question of the investiture of Naples was not even named. Having secured Himself by this agreement, in which He had conceded neither of the two French claims, the Supreme Pontiff received in formal audience the Christian King, who shortly after marched his troops southward along the Appian Way by Albano, Ariccia, and Genzano, toward the Neapolitan frontier.
At the Third Consistory of the sixteenth of January 1495, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI named one cardinal, who was the Lord Guillaume Briçonnet, Overseer of the Treasury to the Christian King Charles VIII, editor of a book of prayers dedicated to the said king (Encheiridion precum); Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Pudentiana.
At Velletri there lived a certain Don Pietro Gregario Borgia, son of that Don Niccolo Borgia of the Junior Branch, Regent of Velletri and Familiar of King Don Alonso V, by his marriage with the Noble Giovanna Lamberti. In 1495 this Don Pietrogorio was about the age of twenty-one years (the age in fact of Cardinal Cesare;) and, when the French king halted for the night at Velletri, he found means to exchange habits with the said Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) and to help him to disappear, remaining as hostage in his place. It was a daring act, and soon discovered: but the cardinal was safe in Rome concerting new schemes with the Pope. The Majesty of France grave instant orders for the hanging of Don Pietrogorio and for the firing of the city; and hurried on to Naples. But the king’s first secretary, who had been commissioned to execute his master’s vengeance, out of sheer admiration for the courage of Velletri’s Regent’s son, gave him a swift horse and leave to reclaim his own clothes from Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) in Rome; nor did he give Velletri to the flames.
Immediately on hearing of the French approach, King Don Alonso II abdicated in favour of his son Don Ferrandino de Aragona. Envoys from the Catholick King Don Hernando of Spain embarrassed the Christian King Charles VIII of France with remonstrances on his invasion of the territories of the House of Aragon: but the latter was not to be rebuffed. The fortress of Monte San Giovanni capitulated to him. His march through the Regno was a series of victories; and, in the capital, he announced his intention altogether to relinquish the Crusade, and to add Naples as a fief to France.
But three causes prevented this from becoming more than a French boast:—the action of the Pope, the action of the Powers, the action of Providence. Directly after the French had quitted Rome, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI retired to the pontifical castle of Viterbo, a mighty fortress in a cool air, and pleasant as a summer residence; where He was joined by Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) with Don Pietro Gregorio Borgia (now the last Most Worshipful Lord’s lieutenant and standard-bearer); and whence He commenced vigorous diplomatic negotiations directed against the French.
The Powers of Italy had taken alarm. It had never been contemplated that France would meet submission all along the line, and actually become arbiter of the whole country. Milan, Florence the Papal States, and now the Regno, had fallen: with the French in France in the north, and the French in Naples in the south, these intermediate duchies, states and republics found themselves in the position of an uncracked nut in a monkey’s jaw: wherefore Italy gave way to fear. Also, Spain was the enemy of France, so was the Holy Roman Empire; and the Elect-Emperor Maximilian and the Catholic King realized the arrival of a unique opportunity for invading France by south and east, seeing that the French army was in Naples, cut off from its base by the Italian states. All these circumstances and considerations, skilfully perceived and engineered by the Pope’s Holiness from His eyrie at Viterbo, quite naturally resulted in the conclusion of a Holy League, consisting of the Papacy, the Empire, Spain, and the Italian Powers, against France.
His position having become untenable, the Christian King resolved upon retreat. Half his army he left in Naples; and marched northward with the rest. His coming had been a triumphal procession. His going was a flight through hostile territory. A second time he entered Rome with the hope of retrieving his lost prestige: but the Pope again retired, this time to Orvieto, and refused to meet him. Enraged by the slight, the polite chivalry of France to pain the Pope avenged itself on women, pillaging the house of Madonna Giovanna de’ Catanei, and making Madonna Giulia Orsini (nata Farnese) a prisoner. Onward, northward, went the Christian King, conferring with the mattoid Fra Girolamo Savonarola at Poggibonzi; fighting a desperate battle at Fornuovo, where he lost his army stores; reaching France with his forces disgraced and in disorder; and he himself disabled by the sentence of the Greater Excommunication which the thoroughly angry and triumphant Pontiff fulminated after him.
In Florence, Fra Girolamo ceased not to labour on behalf of the Christian King, sowing seeds of political discord, and preparing the germs of certain calumnies which, in later years were used by Florentine friends of France. His sermons were French manifestoes, and denunciations of Medici. He had stepped from the pulpit of the pastor to the platform of the politician. His power was admirable and admired, his sincerity unquestionable; and earnest efforts were made to reclaim him from the doubtful practices in which he was embarked. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI summoned him by a kindly and paternal Brief to Rome; saying that He wished to hear him personally, and to confer with him as to the methods which he advocated. How revoltingly inconsistent are the writers who rail against the Pope for His treatment of this degenerate friar! Leaving out of the question matters of dogma, articles of Faith, in reference to which the Founder of Christianity definitely promised to permit no error, it must be admitted that, regarding ordinary affairs of government and discipline, a Pope-well-advised is superior to a Pope-ill-advised. Well, here is the Pope having heard many hard things of Savonarola, definitely and gently offering to hear that madman’s own defence, definitely trying every means, every most intimate and stringent means, to render Himself well-advised before proceeding to judgment. If the subsequent actions of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI deserve to be called ill advised, it is not He Who should be blamed, but Fra Girolamo Savonarola, who with inconsequent evasion, excused himself and continued his traitorous machinations against the peace of his country, in defiance of the law, and in contempt of the powers that be. Order issued from Rome, inhibiting him from public preaching, and placing his Convent of San Marco again under the rule of the Lombard Congregation. Then, Fra Girolamo professed ready obedience to the Pope; but begged for the independence of his convent, a prayer which he supported with such arguments as to obtain a favouring response, though the inhibition was repeated. Before the formal Brief arrived Don Piero de Medici attempted to return to Florence from Venetian exile; being foiled solely by a violent diatribe in which Fra Girolamo denounced him. As time passed, the friar intrigued with Ferrara, gained over and cultivated many influential Florentines; and then the Signoria took up his cause and formally appealed to Rome for the removal of his inhibition.
The passage of the French through the Papal States, like a blight of caterpillars, brought famine into the country districts. In the Fifteenth Century, armies were not encumbered by a commissariat. They robbed right and left, living on the produce of the land in which they were, paying for nothing, and invariably leaving utter desolation and destitution in their rear. Distress and discontent ravaged Rome. Winter storms brought Tiber down in flood and the City was under water. So the year 1495 ended.
At the beginning of the new year, Don Virginio Orsini joined the French in Naples, against the King Don Ferrandino II, the Pope and Venice. At Atella the French were defeated, and the Holy League grew powerful. England joined it. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI, who, with His magnificent ability for doing many things, had been superintending the decoration of the quire of Santa Maria del Populo by the Flaminian Gate which opens on the great north road, (the nearest gate to England), went, with a solemn cavalcade, to hold a papal chapel for publishing the Bull of Alliance with King Henry VII Tudor. France had no friend save Florence, where the Signoria had taken upon itself to remove the inhibition from Fra Girolamo Savonarola. That incontinent friar preached a course of Lenten sermons defending himself, violently denouncing Rome, particularizing certain vices which everywhere were general. His incorrigible attitude appears like “the rage of a man who knows that he has chosen the lower when he might have chosen the higher.” He was in open revolt, not against the Catholic Faith, but against the laws of the land, and the Rule of the Religion of St Dominic to which, voluntarily, under no compulsion whatever, he had chosen to swear allegiance on the Sacrament of the Lord’s Body. To make things easy for him, the Pope’s Holiness proposed to erect a new Dominican Congregation which he might be willing to obey, under Cardinal Carafa who already had given evidence of his sympathy with the friar. But Fra Girolamo intractably refused to hear: and it must be said that the minacity and violence, with which he attacked his superiors, form a bitter contrast to the patience and moderation which the Lord Alexander P.P. VI extended to him, in this—and let this be noted—the third year of his disgraceful extravagance and disloyalty.
At the Fourth Consistory of the twenty-first of January 1496, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI named one cardinal, who was The Lord Philippe de Luxembourg; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Marcellino e San Pietro.
The condition of the country improved as the year 1496 expanded. An ill-advised attempt of the Elect-Emperor Maximilian to revive the waning Imperial power by a progress through the Italian realms, was averted by the opposition of Venice and the remonstrances of the Sovereign Pontiff. The Elect-Emperor having withdrawn into the Tyrol, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI was free to deal with the Pontifical States. The Regno flourished under the young King Don Ferrandino II, and the French occupation was becoming a thing of the past. Only the rebellious vassals of the Holy See remained; and, of these, Colonna and Savelli appear to have made their submission; but the Orsini were still in arms, and Malatesta, Riario, Manfredi, and Sforza, were fortified at Cesena, Imola and Forli, Faenza and Pesaro.
At the Fifth Consistory of the nineteenth of February 1496, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI named four Spanish cardinals, who were
(α) The Lord Don Bartolomeo Martino, Bishop of Segovia; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Sant’ Agata in Suburra: (β) The Lord Don Juan de Castro, Prefect of Santangelo, Bishop of Girgenti, (Άκραγαντῖνος) in Sicily; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Prisca: (γ) The Lord Don Juan Lopez, Canon of the Vatican Basilica, Apostolic Datary; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Maria in Trastevere, tit. Callisto: (δ) The Lord Giovanni Borgia (detto Giuniore), a Pontifical Nephew, Bishop of Melfi; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Maria in Via Lata.
Appointing His bastard, Don Juan Francisco de Lançol y Borja, as Captain-General of the pontifical army, and assisted by the Majesty of Naples, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI proceeded to reduce Orsini. At the opening of the campaign, Don Virginio Orsini was captured by the Neapolitans; but when Orsini’s stronghold of Bracciano was relieved by Don Vitellozzo Vitelli of Città di Castello, the papal condottieri were forced to raise the siege. And before the end of the year the Pope lost His ally King Don Ferrandino II, who died at the age of twenty-eight “worn out with fatigue and with the pleasures of his marriage to his aunt Joanna whom he loved too passionately.” (Symonds, Renascence, I. 513.) The year 1497 began with the defeat of the papal troops by Orsini at the battle of Soviano, a reverse which was counterbalanced by the success of Don Gonsalvo de Cordova. This captain was at the head of a band of mercenaries sent by Spain in aid of the Papacy; he took the fortress of Ostia from Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, whose five years of treachery and recalcitrancy were now punished by the Holiness of the Pope, with deprivation of his benefices (which took from him the “sinews of war”) and the deposition of his brother, Don Giovanni della Rovere, from the Prefecture of Rome. As for the French Orators who made protest at this unaccountably long-delayed act of precautionary justice,—unaccountably-long-delayed, except on the hypothesis of this Pope’s singular patience, long-suffering, and dislike of proceeding to extremities,—the Supreme Pontiff contemptuously remarked that they were come from an Excommunicated King; and that it was well for them that Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) did not hear them. This, by the bye, is the first instance of the amazing influence which that young Porporato was beginning to attain, an influence which within the next few years increased by leaps and bounds until the name of Cesare (detto Borgia) stood among the most important names in Europe.
Further to emphasize the slight to France by shewing His appreciation of Spain’s support, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI decorated His bastard, Don Juan Francisco de Lançol y Borja Duke of Gandia and Prince of Teano and Tricarico, as representing the Spanish branch of His House, with the titles of Count of Chiaramonte, Lauria, and Cerignuola, Tyrant of Benevento and Tarracina, and Grand Constable of Naples.
In honour of her son’s good fortune, Madonna Giovanna de’ Catanei gave a supper at her villa by San Pietro ad Vincula, where were present the young Duke of Gandia of the age of twenty-two years, and Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) his senior by a year. Their sister Madonna Lucrezia, who had had much unpleasantness with her husband, Don Giovanni Sforza the Tyrant of Pesaro, had left him; and was living in the Convent of San Sisto in Rome, as noble ladies do who wish to guard their reputations in delicate circumstances.
When supper was over, and the night advancing, the Cardinal advised Don Juan that it was time to return to the Vatican where they lodged. In view of the popular delusions concerning this occurrence, it may be advisable to refer to the fact that sunset was taken to end a twenty-four hours day; that “one hour of the night,” i.e., one hour after sunset, was the fashionable supper-time, which at this time of the year (the fourteenth of June) would be about 9 P.M. Before midnight then, at a generous computation, the Cardinal and the Duke of Gandia mounted their horses and rode through Rome together as far as the palace of the Vicechancellor attended by a small escort. It is worth noting that the palace of the Vicechancellor was not the Cancelleria, the palace of the Chancery at San Lorenzo in Damaso, perhaps the most beautiful palace in the world, which Messer Bramante Lazzari built for the white-faced Cardinal Rafaele Galeotto Sanzoni-Riario: but the new palace built by Cardinal Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja, and given by him after His election to the Supreme Pontificate, to the Vicechancellor-Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti; (now Palazzo Sforza-Cesarini on Banchi Vecchi).
There, the ardent Duke (he already was married to a princess of Spain, and the father of two children,) said to the Cardinal that, before going home, he wanted to amuse himself somewhere; and, taking leave of the said Most Worshipful Lord, and dismissing his suite with the exception of a certain bully whom he kept, he took on his crupper an unknown man in a mask who waited there, and who daily during a month had come to see him at the Vatican, as well as on this very night during the supper in the garden of his mother. Then he turned his horse in the direction of the Jews’ Quarter, (there was no Ghetto till 1556), and disappeared in the twilight of a midsummer night. He never again was seen alive.
When the City awoke in the morning, (Romans always were early risers,) the Duke of Gandia’s bully was found on Piazza Giudei, wounded by the steel of an assassin; and all efforts to obtain information from him proved futile. He died without having spoken.
The news trickled into the Vatican, and was mentioned to the Pope; who thought that perhaps Don Juan was staying with some courtesan, wishing out of consideration for his Father to avoid the scandal of being seen to issue from such a house in open day. But when night came again, and the Duke did not appear, the Pope’s Holiness took alarm; and ordered an inquisition and the usual dragging of Tiber. The wags of Rome instantly said that, notwithstanding all that Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere had alleged concerning the election of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI as being simoniacal, it was now certain that He was a true Successor of St. Peter as a Fisher of men.
Among other bearers of news, there came to the inquisitors a certain Giorgio, of the Schiavoni, a waterman, asserting that, while guarding his boat on Tiber during the night, he had seen two men, who came to the shore to look whether any one was there; behind them came two others making the same inspection. He, the speaker, being in the shadow of his beached boat escaped all notice. When these four had assured themselves that the place was empty, there came one on a white horse, conveying behind him a dead man, whose feet and arms hung down, held by two foot-men. Having come to the water’s edge, they turned the crupper of the horse to the river; and, lifting the corpse, swung it into the stream. The rider looked on: but seeing a dark object which floated,—it was the dead man’s cloak,—he ordered the others to throw stones at it until it sank.
After hearing this tale, the Pope groaned, and reproached the waterman in that he did not give immediate notice to the bargelli (police) of the crime which he had witnessed. The man impudently answered that he had seen such sights a thousand times: but never had he known of any one who cared to hear about them.
The Vicechancellor-Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti wrote to his brother the Duke of Milan, relating the deposition of Giorgio the waterman, and the disquietude of the Pope.
Later, the corpse was found in Tiber, completely clothed in the sumptuous garments of the Duke of Gandia, the dagger in its sheath, the pouch intact adorned with jewels of great value. Eleven—some say fourteen—wounds, of which an enormous one was in the throat, were the cause of death. The unfortunate young Duke was buried at Santa Maria del Popolo. (Maricont.) That, actually, is all that is known of the murder of the Duke of Gandia.
The only person, except the murderer or murderers, who could give any salient information, was the bully; and he expired without uttering a word. The mystery of the unknown man in a mask has never been solved (nor the archives of a Roman patrician House published); and, for a time, the matter rested there.
The effect upon the Lord Alexander P.P. VI was terrible. He had loved Don Juan Francisco with a very great love. Notwithstanding the fact that Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) was a year older than the Duke of Gandia, the Pope had always treated the latter as His heir30; and had foreseen in his vigorous manlihood the foundation of a dynasty of Grandees of Spain who would render more illustrious the House of Borja. The founding of a family has always been an object very near to the hearts of great men.
And now the irruption of hideous and ruthless Death turned the Pope’s Holiness, for a moment, from a spiritual and temporal sovereign and despot into a very human man. At such a moment, when man most poignantly is reminded of the Inevitable Universal waiting in the background, he feels his utter helplessness, his entire unworthiness, and would appease, make satisfaction. Broken-hearted, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI spoke of abdication, and a change of life; as other famous men have done, whom trouble, or fear, have driven to La Trappe. He made good resolutions. He gave munificent gifts to churches; for His revived piety manifested itself in practical form. He appointed a Commission of six cardinals, including Cardinals Carafa and Costa, to reform ecclesiastical abuses. He named Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) as Apostolic Legate for the pacification of Umbria. By way of restoring unity to Italy, He endeavoured to persuade Florence to annul her alliance with excommunicate France: in which admirable intent He was thwarted solely by the indescribable efforts of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, who, during the Lent of this year, had preached in favour of unswerving subservience to the Christian King. The Powers of Europe, especially England, the Holy Roman Empire, Venice, Naples, and Spain, who formed the Holy League with the Papacy, on receiving official intimation of the Pope’s bereavement and His bitter sorrow, sent Orators with suitable expressions of condolence.
During summer and autumn, which should have been occupied in drafting the Bull of Reform (a task subsequently performed by the Council of Trent,) the Reform Commission had to study, and deal with, and advise the Pontiff in, the more urgent case of the friar of Florence. Riots and affrays between the partisans and opponents of Fra Girolamo Savonarola disgraced the Lily-City of Tuscany: and, at last, after more than four years forbearance, all gentler measures having failed, he was placed under sentence of excommunication.
Meanwhile, Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) proceeded to Naples as Apostolic Ablegate for the coronation of King Don Federigo de Aragona. (The Sword of State which was borne before His Worship on this occasion is in possession of Caïetani Duke of Sermoneta: but the scabbard of embossed leather is in the Victoria and Albert Museum.)
In September 1497 the Lord Alexander P.P. VI published the creation of one cardinal, whose name, for political reasons, He had reserved in petto since the Second Consistory of September 1493, who was The Lord Don Luis de Aragona, son of King Don Ferrando I; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Maria in Cosmediv. (He was commonly called “The Cardinal of Aragon.”)
At the incoming of winter arrived an opportunity for the enemies of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI to blaspheme.
Madonna Lucrezia Borgia was living in the Convent of San Sisto, separated from her husband, Don Giovanni Sforza the Tyrant of Pesaro; and seeking a decree of nullity of marriage, alleging a canonical impediment. This young man was cousin to the Duke of Milan, very handsome in person, and intelligent. He already had been married to Madonna Maddalena Gonzaga, who in 1490 had died di cattivo parto (Gregorovius). In 1493, being then in his twenty-sixth year, he had married Madonna Lucrezia, from whose Father he held his Tyranny of Pesaro by way of fief, consolidating the alliance of Sforza and Borgia. He had most of the advantages of life, illustrious birth, rank, youth, health, a splendid position, intimate relationship with his feudal lord, and a wife acknowledged by all contemporaries as the most beautiful woman of her time: and now, after little more than three years, he was to be held up to the derision of all by the annulment of his marriage on the score of αδῆνᾶμία.
Nothing, at any time is more certain to enrage a man than this; and, in the Fifteenth Century, the Century of the Discovery of Man, when ἀvδpeίa was prized and worshipped, a charge which made him look ridiculous in the estimation of his species, which struck at the very root of his manlihood, was sure to be furiously resented. When his wife left him to enter her petition, Don Giovanni Sforza sped to Milan invoking the support of his kin, the Vicechancellor-Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti and the Duke Ludovico Maria (detto Il Moro). On news reaching them to the effect that evidence had been given before the legal tribunal in Rome, which proved the marriage to lack consummation and Madonna Lucrezia to be παρθένος ἀδμήτη, he violently protested, and with unrestrained rancour. Don Beltrando Costabili, the Orator of Ferrara, writing from Milan to his government, asserted that Don Giovanni said to Duke Ludovico Maria, “Anzi haverla conosciuta infinite volte, ma chel Papa non gliela tolta per altro se non per usare con lei.” It is most improbable that a reigning sovereign would admit a foreign ambassador to a discussion of his family affairs; and unless Costabili actually heard those words, they can only be accepted as a piece of gossip reported, not as legal evidence. Duke Ludovico Maria ingenuously proposed to Don Giovanni an ordeal which, in that naive age, was usual in similar cases, of submitting formally and publicly to the judgment of a jury of men of bonafides and the papal legate: and, on his refusal, his own relations, the Duke and the thin-faced clear-witted Vicechancellor-Cardinal, obtained from him a written confession that Madonna Lucrezia was justified in her petition, and advised him to let the law take its course. The case of a man temporarily άδύνατος at the age of Don Giovanni physiologically is no uncommon one. Much has been made of the circumstances under which his first wife died, and of the fact that his third, Madonna Ginevra de’ Tiepoli, bore him a son, Don Costanzo Sforza, eight years later (1505). As for the infernal calumny against the Pope’s Holiness, Don Giovanni Sforza was its inventor, says the Orator of Ferrara, and the mortifying humiliation of a libidinous laughing-stock its proximate occasion. On the twentieth of December 1497, the decree of nullity of the marriage was published in Rome, the Tyrant of Pesaro refunded the lady’s dowry of thirty thousand ducats; and Madonna Lucrezia Borgia was free.
The cause of the visit to Milan of the Vicechancellor-Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti, at this time, was that he had come under most undeserved suspicion of having been connected with the murder of the Duke of Gandia. Bitter as it must have been to the Pope’s Holiness to suspect his oldest friend, at least the latter’s recent treachery with Colonna made estrangement unavoidable. The Vicechancellor retired to Gennazano by Praeneste, (Palestrina), a fief of Colonna, ostensibly to worship Madonna of Good Counsel. An investigation of his Roman palace during his absence was without fruit; and, angered at the suspicion, he had retired to Milan, where his unprejudiced and straightforward action in the matter of the nullity, at a time when he naturally went in disgust of Borgia, should go a long way in favour, not only of his own bonafides, but also of that of the Lord Alexander P. P. VI.
Savonarola’s attitude toward the sentence of excommunication that had been launched against him, was incorrigible. His influence caused the Signoria of Florence unsuccessfully to appeal to the Pope’s Holiness for the withdrawal of the Brief; and the friar accompanied this appeal with an open defiance. On Christmas Day he sang the three high masses at San Marco, and announced the resumption of his frenzied discourses. The physiognomy of this mattoid is the key to the secret of his misbehaviour. He was cast in the mould of the animal-man. He had the long head with immense hinder development, the great thick nose, the enormous lower lip, coarse mouth, and heavy jowl, of a ram. Above all, in him the little lateral muscles of the nose-root were of opulent growth, a sign which is unmistakable. But, contrariwise, the narrow temples with their overhanging brows pointed in the middle, struck the note of ideality, and conquered the animalism of the man. It was this cataclysmal violence of difference, this trenchant contrast, that made him what he was. In him there were two inimical characters, the character of the saint, the character of the ram. That of the saint vanquished that of the ram: but the poignant struggle overthrew the mental balance of the saint. His proper place was not the Convent of San Marco in Florence: but the Hospital of Santo Spirito in Rome.31
So in sorrow, in anger, in horrid uncertainty, the year 1497 ended.
After the coronation of Don Federigo de Aragona as King of Naples, Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) announced a determination which he had nourished since the murder of the Duke of Gandia. Whether he was the Pope’s bastard or another’s, it was his pose to aggrandise the House of Borgia; moreover he was young, only twenty-four years of age, and of an ardent and forceful habit of mind and body. Don Gioffredo Borgia was occupied with his wife Madonna Sancia de Aragona and his principality of Squillace; and his age of seventeen years did not render him a capable representative of his illustrious House. Cardinal Cesare felt that his scarlet hat debarred him from the pursuits for which Nature had devised him. The foes of Borgia were active on all sides: the territories of the Holy See were a hot-bed of revolt. Sforza sulked in Milan; Orsini, never forgetful of injury, entrenched themselves in their strongholds; their fierce brigands ravaged the country far and wide: and there was no Borgia to hold them in check. Wherefore Cardinal Cesare requested leave to renounce his cardinalate, to receive secular rank, to marry a royal princess, that he might be free to adopt a military career, and to perpetuate the Borgia dynasty. It was an extraordinary plan: but, though it presented advantages of high political value, it was opposed and shelved by the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, whose behaviour to Cardinal Cesare was never that of a father, but of a patron and benefactor who patronized, and benefited, him for the sake of another than himself. Yet, though the attitude of the Pope to the Cardinal was one of life-long distinct antipathy, He set immense value on his advancement, and incurred peril and made sacrifices to promote it. What was the motive of conduct which presents such contradictory features? Is it possible that Cardinal Cesare was the son of Madonna Giovanna de’ Catanei, not by Cardinal Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja, but by the eternal rival of the last, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere? It is extremely possible and extremely probable. Cardinal Rodrigo undoubtedly had loved Madonna Giovanna very greatly since 1474. She undoubtedly was the mother of Cardinal Cesare, who was born in 1474. She had had relations with Cardinal Giuliano before that. And Cardinal Rodrigo never acknowledged the paternity of Cardinal Cesare, although he never denied it. The theory, which lacks not some proof (to be given in a proper place), would explain the unconquerable malice of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere towards the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, Who had deprived him of his mistress as well as of the triregno, the object of his ultimate ambition; and the loathing of the Pope’s Holiness for His enemy’s bastard, whom He, at the same time held as a hostage to be used against Cardinal Giuliano in an extremity, feared for his incorrigible and antipathetic disposition, and advanced and enriched for the love which He had borne to his mother. That is the only rational explanation of certain mysteries which, otherwise, remain inexplicable.
The proposal of Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) had many recommendations. The lax and feeble government of the late Pope, the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII, had played havoc with order in the vast domain of Umbria, of the Mark of Ancona, of the Romagna, that splendid realm in north-eastern Italy verging on the Adriatic Sea. A few strong men, tyrants of petty fiefs, threw off allegiance to the Pope as their Over-Lord. Don Oliverotto da Fermo, a brigand of the worst kind, made himself Tyrant of Fermo by the simple process of assassinating his uncle, Don Giovanni Fogliani, and all the chief citizens, at a banquet. Don Vitellozzo Vitelli garrisoned Citta di Castello, Don Paolo Orsini was fortified at Sinigaglia, Madonna Caterina Sforza-Riario at Imola and Forli, the Oddi and Baglioni at Perugia, the Manfredi at Faenza, the Varani at Camerino, the Bentivogli at Bologna. Safe in their strongholds these Tyrants paid no dues, no feudal tribute to their Lord Paramount. From time to time they sallied forth with armed condottieri to replenish their stores from the pillage of towns and villages. The province was ravaged from end to end by their excesses. In the Library of San Marco at Venice may be read letters (Lat. Cl. x. 176) which report on the condition of Umbria when the Lord Alexander P.P. VI began His reign; a condition of horror unspeakable, which He was determined to abolish.
To this end, He had sent Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) as Apostolic Legate into Umbria, in the summer of 1497, just a month after the murder of the Duke of Gandia. The Legate went unarmed save by his sacred office, and with too small an escort for offence. The idea was to test the moral authority of the Suzerain of Umbria, the Roman Pontiff, in a place where the civil power practically was helpless, and where a man’s life depended only on the fear which he inspired.
On the day of his arrival at Narni, the sixteenth of July 1497, Cardinal Cesare already had formed an opinion which he communicated to the Pope’s Holiness in these words: “It is very necessary to provide me with an army against these kakodaimones; for they go not out by holy water.”32
The brigand Don Bartolomeo d’Alviano seized a town belonging to the Pope in despite of the Legate, and sacked it before his face. Cardinal Cesare summoned him to keep the peace: he refused; and matters went from bad to worse.
“They offend as they did at first, and will not hearken unto my commandments”;33 he wrote to the Pope eleven days later.
The inhabitants of Todi fled from their town to save their lives. Brigandage was in its hey-day. “Your Holiness can well understand that the only remedy for these evils lies in the coming of men of arms, whose delay has caused Todi to be desolated and the city, from my departure till now, totally derelict and left empty.”34 At Perugia, the Legate took the bull by the horns in a singularly daring manner and with singular success; putting the more uproarious of the ringleaders under the ban of expulsion, “which thing was done with such obedience and calm that nothing better could be desired.”35
But he did better than that. He caught a murderer in flagrante delicto. “I captured two robbers and murderers; and with no tumult, but to the delight of the people, they were put in gaol—a thing long unknown in this city—and this morning I hanged one.”36
’Twas immense. There was no tumult, and the people were pleased. That a murderer should pay a penalty for his crime was a charming and fantastic novelty to Perugia. The strong arm of the law struck the city with consternation, and deeds of violence ceased as though by magic. In this manner Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) gave a taste of his quality; and came before the world, for the first time, in the rôle which Nature intended him to fill, with his splendid personality, and swift unerring pitiless masterfulness of action.
The prosecution of this work was prevented by the condition of affairs in Rome. It was impossible for the Holiness of the Pope to gather an army while the marriage of Madonna Lucrezia was before the courts, and the frenzy of Fra Girolamo Savonarola before the Reform Commission. Cardinal Cesare, also, was required for other service.
But now, at the beginning of 1498, after the coronation of King Don Federigo, at the close of his legation to Naples, Cardinal Cesare reverted to the work begun the year before; and preferred his petition for leave to doff the scarlet of an ecclesiastic, and to embark on a secular career. The news was bruited about Rome on the eighth of February. Four days later, on the twelfth, the Ferrarese Orator at Venice heard it said that Cardinal Cesare was the murderer of the Duke of Gandia, and that His Worship and Madonna Lucrezia Borgia were seeking matrimonial alliances with the Royal House of Naples. Four days would be exceedingly quick travelling for a piece of gossip from Rome to Venice, when news was carried by mounted couriers, or a-foot, and would have to pass through the Romagna hell: and it is also most important to note that this suspicion was not published till eight months after the murder; and, then, in Venice. No evidence was offered to support it. It emanated from the numerous Orsini whom Venice sheltered, and who said that Cardinal Cesare had killed the Duke in order that he might take his place as the Pope’s soldier-son. Once started, the accusation was repeated by Cappello the twenty-eighth of September 1500; and by Don Silvio Savelli in November 1501; three and four years after the event: nor does it lack repetition by cheap and showy panderers to a guileless public fond of having its flesh made to creep at the present day. All that is known of the murder already has been set down here. But one vital consideration remains to be stated, one new point of view to be described; and it is due to the rumour of Orsini invention mentioned above.
According to Monsignor Hans Burchard the Caerimonarius, Cardinal Cesare and the Duke of Gandia parted, on the night of the fourteenth of June 1497, by the Vicechancellor’s palace (Palazzo Sforza-Cesarini) on Banchi Vecchi; whence the latter, saying that he was going to amuse himself, etc., went in the direction of the Jews’ Quarter with his two attendants, the bully, and the unknown mask who undeniably had come by appointment.
Rome of 1497 was divided for purposes of government into fourteen Regions (Rioni) ruled by captains (caporioni) under a prior. The Vicechancellor’s palace on Banchi Vecchi is in the Region called Ponte, which extends from the church of San Giovanni de’ Fiorentini to the Region called Santangelo after the church of that dedication in the Fishmarket (Pescheria). Now this Region of Ponte was inhabited chiefly by the Orsini faction; as the region of Trevi and the Region of Ripa were inhabited by the Colonna and Savelli factions respectively. In this Region of Ponte lived also Jews: it was the quarter of the bankers and the money-changers, as well as of the prisons, public and private torture-chambers, (no evidence was taken from commoners except under torture,) all under the official protection of the House of Orsini. Here is Cord Lane (Vicolo della Corda), where the ordinary Question or Torture of the Cord37 was applied. Here is Old Pillory Square, (Piazza della Berlèna Vecchia.) Here is Executioner Lane, (Vicolo dello Mastro.) And here were four Orsini fortresses, Monte Giordano, Tor Millina, Tor Sanguigna, and Torre di Nona. The Region of Santangelo, also, almost exclusively was inhabited by Jews under the protection of Orsini who held yet another palace-fortress here in the Theatre of Marcellus, (formerly the stronghold of the great mediæval Jewish House of Pierleoni,) near by the site on which the Ghetto was built in 1556 under the Lord Paul P.P. IV, and abolished in 1890 under the Lord Leo P.P. XIII.
These topographical facts appear to point in one direction. A conclusion may be reached by the following degrees.
(α) The Duke of Gandia took eleven (or fourteen) wounds. (β) His pouch with its precious jewels was intact. (γ) He had parted from Cardinal Cesare before witnesses in Banchi Vecchi. (δ) He said that he was going to amuse himself. (ε) He went towards the Jews’ Quarter. (ζ) Cardinal Cesare returned to the Vatican. (η) Banchi Vecchi is in Ponte, the Region of Jews and of Orsini. (θ) The Jews’ Quarter stricte dicte was in Santangelo, a Region also dominated by Orsini. (ι) The Orsini were in mortal strife with the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, Who had visited them with appalling disaster, Who was likely to cause them infinite loss of life and spoil in the near future, Whose favourite son, heir, and military right hand, was the Duke of Gandia. (κ) It was Orsini who started the rumour, eight months later, that Cardinal Cesare (of whom Orsini went in horrid fear by reason of his exploits in the Romagna) had murdered the Duke of Gandia.
The human and natural conclusion would seem to be that Don Juan Francisco de Lançol y Borja, Duke of Gandia, Prince of Teano and of Tricarico, Count of Chiaramonte of Lauria of Cerignuola, Tyrant of Benevento of Tarracina, Grand Constable of Naples, and Captain-General of the pontifical army against Orsini, living apart from his wife Doña Maria de Aragona who was with his two children at his duchy in Spain, being a handsome pleasure-loving youth of twenty-two years, went to keep an assignation on that night of the fourteenth of June 1497; and fell by the furious dagger of one of Orsini’s Jews, a rival? a father? an outraged husband?—or by the vengeful poignards of his own and his Father’s deadly foes, the Orsini.
The great number of his wounds, the safety of his valuables, may be thus accounted for. The unknown mask would be the decoy, disguised as pandar. The murder of the bully speaks of more assassins than one.
Then, did not Orsini strike at the heart of the Pope in the slaughter of His eldest son?
At all events, no formal accusation of the guilt of this most foul and treacherous crime has ever been laid against Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia.) There is absolutely no evidence against him—only suspicion, rumour and conjecture. And the three spring from a tainted source—the lair of the Bear—Orsini.
Plans for the settlement of the Romagna had to be set aside. The affair of Fra Girolamo Savonarola monopolized the attention of the moment.
That friar began the year 1498 by preaching a fierce defence of his disobedience to the inhibition and to the sentence of excommunication; and by a frenetic onslaught on the Roman as distinguished from the Tuscan clergy. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI, the acknowledged Head of the Christian Church, (indeed He was the only representative of Christianity in Authority at that time) found Himself in the position of a commander-in-chief dealing with a mutinous mad sergeant whom captains, colonels, and generals have failed to reduce to order. The Pope’s moderation and long-suffering, prior to his allowing the law to take its course, are perfectly marvellous. Fra Girolamo had been in a state of mutiny for more than four years. Preaching the duty of obedience, he would not practise it. He was totally insensible to the many graces with which he had been indulged; and he met all overtures for peace with evasion or with insolence. After all, he was “a man under authority,” under authority to which voluntarily he had vowed, and refused, submission while admitting the right of that authority to claim it:—an anomalous position, illogical, scandalous,—the position of a mad man. To the Signoria of Florence, then, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI issued a Brief commanding the withdrawal of support from the excommunicated friar; threatening Florence with an Interdict (a hideous lash that invariably brought curs to heel) if His commandment were disobeyed: but, at the same time, offering to absolve the rebellious son of St. Dominic, upon submission. The Signoria replied, defending Savonarola; and the Pope’s Holiness replied that, either he must be imprisoned, or be sent to Rome: a decision which was explained at greater length to the Signoria by the Florentine Orator in Rome, who also described the Pope’s natural feelings of embitterment at finding His reasonable demands so spurned and set aside. Half measures only were taken. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI justly was dissatisfied when the Signoria simply forbade the friar to preach. His Holiness commanded, then, the entire vindication of His supreme authority.
Here, Fra Girolamo Savonarola committed his final sin. He joined in the stale howl appealing to the Powers of Europe for the convocation of a General Council; and he redoubled his treacherous intrigues with the Christian King Charles VIII: completing the exasperation of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI.
Events moved swiftly then. Defying the commands of his acknowledged superior, the Pope, as well as the injunctions of the Signoria, he fell on disrepute. His influence in Florence waned and withered; his prophecies fell thick and fast on no believers: and then the Signoria insisted on his submission to the Pope.
He replied by demanding the Ordeal Of Fire; offering to walk through a blazing furnace with one of the many who opposed him, the person who should take no hurt from that Ordeal to be adjudged innocent and under the special protection of God.
Fra Francesco of Apulia a Friar Minor (a Religion always bitterly antipathetic to the Religion of St. Dominic) accepted the challenge thus thrown down. He said that he knew that both parties to the Ordeal would be burned to death: but it would be better so, than that one heresiarch should be left free to carry on his treasons to Christ’s Church and State.
Again Fra Girolamo Savonarola put forth an evasion. He refused, after challenging—he refused the Ordeal in his proper person: but he offered one of his friars of San Marco, one Fra Domenico, as his representative.
From Rome the practical common sense of the Pope’s Holiness fulminated disapproval: but the Ordeal went on. Faggots were piled in the great square of Florence, and set in flame. The skin of the faces of the crowd grew hot and scarlet and crackled in the glare. The Friar Minor came forward in readiness to die for the good of the people. Fra Girolamo made delays—delays—he said that Fra Domenico must bear our Lord-in-the-Sacrament, the Sacred Host, Gesù Sagramentato, in an ostensorium through the raging flames. The pious simple souls of the Signoria knew this for irreverence, for sacrilege; retired to discuss the point; returned; refused permission. Fra Girolamo persisted while the fire burned lower. The long slow day was passing. Already his dictatorship, the day when he ruled Florence with a word, had passed. The fire was dying: and then, finally, except upon his own mad terms, Fra Girolamo refused the Ordeal which he had challenged, evaded, delayed, denied.
All faith in him was gone. Objurgated by a thousand raucous throats, torn at by a thousand furious hands, the people’s broken idol sought refuge in his Convent of San Marco. Florence rose in riot, blood was shed, the blood of Francesco Valori in cold murder. The Convent of San Marco suffered storm; and the friars with their mattoid Prior were cast in prison.
In the interests of justice and of mercy, the Pope’s Holiness strove to have their trial held in Rome: but events had roused the Signoria to vindicate the honour of Florence “to satisfy the people who so long had been duped and trained in sacrilege and rebellion.” Wherefore, from Rome came Commissioners for the trial of Fra Girolamo Savonarola and his accomplices. Put to the legal torture, he confessed himself charlatan and criminal. He and his lieutenants, Frati Domenico and Silvestro, were found guilty as heretics, schismatics, and rebels against the Holy See, of political fanaticism amounting to high treason and mutiny against his lawful rulers. Handed to the secular judges for sentence, he was condemned, with the two friars, to death by hanging and the burning of their bodies after death. Handed back to the ecclesiastical power the three were degraded from their priesthood, to enable them to undergo the death penalty, avoiding the sacrilege of violence to the persons of those tonsured and anointed. At the very last, by the express commandment of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI there was offered to the condemned a Plenary Indulgence-in-the-article-of-death, with release from all Canonical Censures and Excommunications. Gratefully, thankfully, it was accepted; and the prisoners paid the legal retribution of their crimes.
Had he been an Englishman of the Twentieth Century, instead of a Florentine of the Fifteenth, Fra Girolamo Savonarola would not have been hanged or burned: but censured; suspended, from the exercise of sacerdotal functions, by ecclesiastical authority; and, at last, by medical authority, interned at Broadmoor during the Pleasure of the King’s Majesty, as a criminal lunatic.
This year 1498, was born Don Giovanni Borgia, called “Infans Romanus”; who was said to be a bastard of Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) by “a Roman spinster.”
This year also, died the twelve-toed chin-tufted excommunicated little Christian King Charles VIII of France; and was succeeded by his cousin Louis XII, a thin man with a fat neck and lip, and an Ethiopic nose, and exquisite attire, who immediately made two startling claims—for the nullification of his marriage with Madame Jeanne de Valois, and for the confirmation of his claim to the Duchy of Milan. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI always preferred friends to enemies; and, now that Charles VIII was gone to his own place, He gladly welcomed an opportunity of winning the allegiance of France. A commission of jurists went from Rome, who, on the legal facts, declared the marriage between the King and Madame Jeanne to be null and void. A papal dispensation legalized the marriage of the Christian King Louis XII and Queen Anne, his predecessor’s widow, whereby her duchy of Bretagne was retained to the crown of France. The claim to the Duchy of Milan was a matter which required consideration.
At the Sixth Consistory of the twelfth of September 1498, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI named one cardinal, who was the Lord Georges d’Amboise, Gentleman of the Bedchamber to the Christian Kings Charles VIII and Louis XII; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Sisto.
At last, the Pope’s Holiness consented to allow Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) to renounce the scarlet cardinalitial hat and the sapphire cardinalitial ring, for a secular duchy, a royal wife, and a military career; saying that his presence among the clergy was sufficient to prevent reformation.38 A marriage was proposed for him with Doña Carlotta de Aragona Princess of Naples; but rejected by King Don Federigo, who at the same time favoured the marriage which took place between Madonna Lucrezia Borgia and Don Alonso de Aragona Prince of Bisceglia. The plan of Cardinal Cesare was aided by fresh outbreaks at the pontifical baronage, especially by a new league of Colonna and Orsini on behalf of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere. Now, no more time was lost. Don Cesare (detto Borgia) renounced his cardinalate in full consistory; and journeyed into France to cultivate the friendship of the Christian King on behalf of the Papacy. New alliances were in the air. King Louis XII saw no reason why he should remain in the ridiculous and paralysing isolation which the braggadocio of his predecessor had won. The Pope’s Holiness was by no means secure with Naples whose King Don Federigo, though owing all to Him, was inclined to be obstreperous and to show contempt, and to whose dominions the Catholic King and Queen were reaching. An alliance with the Papacy would suit the plans of France. An alliance with France would be of eminent service to the Papacy, at this moment when Colonna and Orsini were on the war-path, and the Muslim Infidel stirring the East. So, the mission of Don Cesare (detto Borgia) met with great success; a working understanding was arranged by his diplomacy; and the Christian King conferred on him the French Duchy of Valentinois.
It became evident that Milan must cede to France, the new ally of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI; and this signified the final rupture of the alliance of Borgia and Sforza. First, firm friends; next, strong supporters of the House of Borgia; then, indifferent neutrals; later, declared traitors; last, negligeable quantities; the conduct of the House of Sforza was influenced by one idea—loyalty to their name. It was the head of the House who was responsible, Duke Ludovico Maria Sforza-Visconti, a coward, a scoundrel, a traitor, a murderer in intention, the wretch who brought invading Frenchmen into Italy to aid his usurpation of the throne of Milan—to him be all the blame. The Vicechancellor-Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti and all the Sforza of Pesaro, Santafiora, Chotignuola, Imola and Forli, followed the head of their House; and, as he led them astray, so he must be decried. Sforza has produced cardinals a many; but never a Pope. Sforza was never nearer to the pontificate than in this reign. Ascanio was more than likely to succeed the Lord Alexander—far more likely than the diabolical plebeian who did succeed. But Sforza followed the head of its House; committing political suicide. Loyalty in any age is rare: under all circumstances it is heroic, admirable.
From the Catholic King and Queen of Spain, Don Hernando and Doña Isabella, came the sometime pontifical captain Don Gonsalvo de Cordoba, charged to scold the Holiness of the Pope because of His new alliance with France. A very old weapon again was refurbished, and Catholic Spain, in fear or envy, menaced a Spanish Pontiff, Who had given her the New World, with Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere’s stupid General Council. So, in the shuffling of the cards, misery made strange bed-fellows acquainted.
Then the Orient blazed with sudden war, and the Muslim Infidel began hostilities with Venice. Christendom had lost Lepanto39; the Turks were intoxicated with success; and in Rome the Lord Alexander was deep in the scheme of a new Crusade when the year 1498 died.
Naples looked with sallow eyes on the amicable relations of the Papacy and France. The Christian King Louis XII married Duke Cesare de Valentinois to Madame Charlotte, daughter of Sieur Alain d’Albret and sister of King Jean of Navarre; and then entered into a treaty with the Venetian Senate for the partition of the duchy of Milan. These acts were discomfiting to the Regno, which could only regard the triumph of its enemy and the ruin of its friend as auguries of evil fortune. For Duke Cesare de Valentinois undoubtedly was the enemy of Naples now after the rejection of his suit to Doña Carlotta de Aragona, and in despite of the fact that his mother’s daughter, Madonna Lucrezia Borgia, was allied by marriage to the Neapolitan Prince Don Alonso of Bisceglia. The fruit of this last union was a son, born in November 1499, baptized in the Xystine Chapel by the name Roderico after the August Father of Madonna Lucrezia.
Troubles were brewing for the Sforza. The Vicechancellor-Cardinal left Rome, and the French invaded his brother’s duchy of Milan, driving Duke Ludovico Maria Sforza-Visconti (detto Il Moro) to ignominious flight. Ever ready to take advantage of the weakness of another Power, also ever ready to be jealous of another Power’s success, Europe eyed the triumph of France with apprehension and disgust. And when the Lord Alexander P.P. VI shewed pleasure at the fall of Milan, Spain and Portugal in their chagrin sent Orators to annoy His Holiness with invectives against His morals,40 (as Satan sometimes denounces Sin,) and the validity of His election,41 demanding impossible reforms, and a General Council at the Lateran. These petty incidents met the fate which they deserved. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI magnificently and magnanimously received the envoys in a public consistory, and made no efforts to prevent them from reciting their lessons. His Holiness invariably treated personalities with good-humoured scorn; and bore the vented spleen of kings as a mere essential inconvenience of His rank, to be brushed away and forgotten with the little muscarial nuisances of a Roman summer.
The year 1499, being the penultimate year of the Fifteenth Century, was occupied as far as the City was concerned with preparations for the Jubilee; that curious ceremony wherewith the Church affords an opportunity to the faithful to cleanse their souls from stain of sin by penitence and pious works. Penitence is an affair entirely personal, to be entreated of between a sinner and his Judge: but the Church, who (according to the Thirty Nine Articles) “hath power to ordain its rites and ceremonies,” prescribes the ceremonial works to be performed. In brief, these works consist in certain visits to certain basilicas of Rome, which must be entered by certain doors, and where certain prayers must be prayed. The Church, being a system, is systematic. In return for these works always supposing them to be accompanied by the appropriate penitence, She promises, from the infinite treasury of the Merits of our Divine Redeemer remission of the canonical punishment incurred, during his past life, by the sinner now penitent and purposing amendment. This Complaisance on the part of the Church technically is called an Indulgence; and the Jubilee Indulgence is in high esteem and eager acceptation. It is not in any sense a licence to sin; as, by a singularly silly misconception of its name,42 it has been supposed to be: but, absolutely, a formal wiping of the slate, a ceremonial enabling of the soul to start anew. The Jubilee begins on Christmas Day with the opening, by the Supreme Pontiff, of a certain door in the Vatican Basilica, which remains an ingress until the Christmas Day of the century-end; and vast pilgrimages are used to flock into the City at such times. The year 1499 saw erected accommodation for visitors in the Borgo Nuovo, and numerous improvements on the Vatican side of Tiber. Churches were restored and furbished, the Mola of Hadrian strengthened; and the new wing of the Apostolic Palace of the Vatican called the Borgia Tower, which the Lord Alexander P.P. VI had built, was decorated in fresco by the brush of Messer Bernardino Betti (detto Il Pinturicchio).
In his book on the lives of artists which Giovanni Vasari wrote half a century later it is said that Il Pinturicchio painted on a wall of the Borgia Tower a picture of the Blessed Virgin Mary before whom the Borgia Pontiff kneels in adoration. Vasari also says that the painter used, as his model for Deipara, Madonna Giulia Orsini (nate Farnese) who was the Pope’s mistress: and this statement is repeated by many, to this day, including the German historian Herr Gregorovius (who pretends to have been guided by documents and by documents alone), as an example of the flagitious profligacy and profanity of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI.
Painters of the Fifteenth Century, in the manner of painters of the Twentieth, took their models as they found them. If the perpetuation of the world’s loveliness be no sin,—and on that point there are diversities of human opinion, and one Law,—then the person who is graced with natural beauty incurs, not disgrace, but honour in allowing it to be preserved by painting or by sculpture. Perfect beauty does not seek concealment, but simply admits the world to share its joy, without emotion of vanity or shame, without regard to rank or dignity. Pauline Buonaparte Princess Borghese was the model for Canova’s Venus. Bernini modelled his David (in Villa Borghese) from his own yυμνότης, while Cardinal Barberini (afterwards the Lord Urban PP. VIII) held the mirror. That amiable rake Messer Rafael Sanzio da Urbino painted his baker’s daughter as Madonna. Messer Jacopo Sansovino sculptured his Dionusos from a lad called Lippo Fabri, who, from long posing bare, took cold and died of fever; and, in his last delirium, continually leaped from his bed to pose as the god to whom his life was sacrificed. Messer Michelangelo Buonarroti, lost in admiration of his model the son of Messer Francesco Raibolini of Bologna (detto Il Francia), with his naif and customary depreciation of his brother-painters, told the boy that his father made better men by night than by day. Messer Andrea Verrocchio did his slim lean David from one of his alert apprentices. Messer Luca Signorelli painted his own dead son. Messer Rafaele Sanzio himself, times without number, sat for his master Il Pinturicchio. The beautiful Simoneta of Florence was the Venus of Messer Alessandro Filipepi (detto Botticelli); and the sons of Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici (two of whom in after years wore the Triregno) did not disdain to sit as models for this master. All the works of art of the Borgian Era, representing saints and sinners, gods and demigods, eudaimones and kakadaimones, all obviously were portraits; the very imperfections, which the century of the Discovery of Man was too eager and too unsophisticated to plane away to fit arbitrary conventions, shew this: and volumes might be written of the models of great masters, who let their youth or beauty be set down for all time, and then achieved fame as Rafaele did, or Messer Simone Fiorentini’s (detto Donatello) nitid David or superb Saint George, or Messer Andrea del Sarto’s wistful Young Saint John.
Wherefore, not only may it be admitted, but defended, that Madonna Giulia Orsini (nata Farnese), who had come to share with Madonna Lucrezia Borgia the distinction of being the fairest young mother in Rome, sat as model to Il Pinturicchio for the Θεοτόκος of the Borgia Tower.
But, in proof of the ghastly ignorance or devilish malice which has sought to introduce an element of lubricity into this affair, it is necessary that three important facts should not go unconsidered. They are
(α) that the Borgia Tower contained three or four large halls: (β) that the portrait of Madonna Giulia Orsini (nata Farnese), detta La Bella, in the character of the Blessed Virgin Mary with her Child, is a round picture over the door of the third hall; She is encircled by angels, and there are no other figures in the composition: (γ) that the portrait of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI is a square picture in the second hall; and the Holiness of the Pope is presented in His pontifical habits but bare-headed and without the triregno, devoutly kneeling before the Apparition of our Divine Redeemer Who rises from the tomb.
That is the little matter of the calumny, in support of which the German historian with others of like mind have solved the problem of the squaring of the circle!43
Now that the French alliance was secure, with the help of the Christian King Louis XII, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI proceeded with the conquest of the Romagna and the reduction of the rebellious vassals of the Holy See. Duke Cesare de Valentinois was named Generalissimo of the pontifical army; and a Papal Bull declared the fiefs of Rimini, Pesaro, Imola, Forli, Camerino, Faenza, etc., to have forfeited their rights until they should have made satisfaction, paying the arrears of annual tribute into the chancery of their paramount lord. The fact was fully realised that it was useless to attempt to pacify “these kakodaimones” with “holy water”; as, as a last resort, after seven years forbearance, force was to be used against Sforza of Pesaro, Sforza-Riario of Imola and Forli, Manfredi of Faenza and the rest. The glowing splendour of the personality of Duke Cesare de Valentinois, without emotion and without remorse, fitted him for his task. He was a perfect egoist, splendidly indifferent to all the world. During his life, his enormous talents, his swift success, his summary acts gained him the reputation of being superhuman, inevitable as Fate. On the eleventh of November 1499, he left Rome with four thousand condottieri and three hundred lancers. His lieutenant and standard-bearer was the same noble and vigorous knight, Don Pietro Gregorio Borgia, of the Veliternian Branch, who had changed clothes with him in 1495, enabling him to cheat the Christian King. On the seventeenth of December, he stormed and captured Imola, whence Madonna Caterina Sforza, widow of Count Girolamo Riario, had fled, refusing obedience or tribute to her suzerain, and anew entrenching herself at Forli, her other fief. She left at Imola such an odious memory of her rule, that in after years the citizens would blush for shame of it, while blessing Duke Cesare de Valentinois, who, as the minister of Divine Justice, made an end.
The encounter between Madonna Caterina and Duke Cesare caused extraordinary exhibitions of vigour and agility on both sides. When a desperate unscrupulous woman struggles with a strong and ruthless man, she will do much damage: but, in the end, she must succumb. Directly after the fall of Imola, Duke Cesare received letters from Rome announcing that the Pope’s Holiness narrowly had escaped violent death: for Madonna Caterina, to save herself and her fiefs, believing that Duke Cesare would be compelled to relinquish his expedition if the Pope were dead, had tried to slay the Holy Father by means of venom. To this end, she had sent two Orators charged with proposed conditions of peace; and also she sent a letter (enclosed in a hollow stick, say some) which would cause the Supreme Pontiff to fall dead as soon as He should open it. When the plot was discovered, Tommaso da Forli, a papal chamberlain who had brought the missive, admitted his guilt; (under the Question guilt was commonly admitted); and said that he hoped, by the death of the Pope, to raise the siege of Imola and Forli. This extraordinary story is recorded by several chroniclers, including Monsignor Hans Burchard the Caerimonarius, the dull and stupid defamer of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI. The name of the chamberlain gives rise to curious speculations. Tommaso da Forli presumably might be a bastard of the city of Forli of insufficient birth to warrant the adoption of the appellation of his unknown father or mother; and who might very well have taken the name of his native city with the preposition “da” (not “de’,” be it noted) as a surname. Papal chamberlains are nothing more than pontifical flunkeys, and “Thomas from Forli,” being a lackey with access to the Pontifical Person, might have been employed by Madonna Caterina to stab the Pope. That is not unlikely: but the story of the envenomed letter obviously is false; and interesting only as shewing the trend of men’s minds in 1499; and as a proof, perhaps, that if, as has been alleged in the purest ignorance, the envenoming of its foes was a custom of the House of Borgia, at least one other Italian court indulged in the same horrible habit upon occasion.
Madonna Caterina’s second recorded act of treachery took place after she had surrendered the city of Forli to Duke Cesare. She retained possession of the castle, and refused to give it up. As soon as the pontifical artillery began to bombard her fortress on Christmas Day, she flew, from one of the fortalices, a banner bearing the Lion of St. Mark, to make believe that she was leagued with Venice, a republic then at peace with the Holy See. It was a Venetian attached to the staff of Duke Cesare who exposed the ruse, with the affirmation that his Senate had no alliance with Madonna Caterina. The day following, she gave signs of weakening; and requested a parley with her beleaguerer. When Duke Cesare approached, and just was about to put his foot on the drawbridge over the moat by which the castle was surrounded, suddenly and without warning the machine swung up and in. Madonna Caterina indignantly disclaimed any perfidious intent, and threw all blame on the castellan, Don Giovanni Casale: but all beholders were aware of a deliberate attempt to capture and hideously to kill the Generalissimo, which only had failed through too eager precipitancy. No parley took place; the siege continued; and, in time, this audacious war-wife was compelled to capitulate. Duke Cesare sent her to Rome as a prisoner-of-state, with every chivalrous consideration for her sex as well as for her illustrious birth as daughter of the great Duke Francesco Sforza-Visconti of Milan: and on her arrival in the City she was lodged in the Belvedere Apartment of the Vatican, whence, after a futile attempt at escape, she was transferred to honourable captivity in the Mola of Hadrian.
During the siege of Forli an event occurred, of secondary importance, except as evidence of the mystery surrounding the paternity of Duke Cesare. The Most Worshipful Lord Giovanni Borgia (detto Giuniore) Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Maria in Via Lata died at Urbino. He was one of the bastards of that beautiful splendid sneak and coward Don Pedro Luis de Lançol y Borgia, (Duke of Spoleto, younger brother of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, who had been named Prefect of Rome and Castellan of Santangelo by his Uncle, the Lord Calixtus P.P. III, and who died in his flight from Rome in 1458). The said Most Worshipful Lord Cardinal Giovanni Giuniore had been Bishop of Melfi since 1492. In 1496, he was elevated to the Sacred College, and given command of the condottieri which the Lord Alexander P.P. VI was preparing against France; and, when Duke Cesare renounced his scarlet early in 1499, he had ceded to this cardinal his Metropolitan Archbishopric of Valencia. The Lord Giovanni Giuniore had held Legations to Umbria, Bologna, Ravenna and France, and was acting as Legate to Umbria when he died at Urbino. Duke Cesare himself announced this death to the Pope in a letter written from Forli, and dated the sixteenth of January 1500, in these words: “I have news of the death of Cardinal Borgia, my brother, who died at Urbino.” Duke Cesare wrote a kind of Latin neither Golden nor Silvern but particular to himself, as also was his Italian and there is no known instance of his using “frater” or “fratello” in the tertiary sense of “cousin.” If the dead Cardinal and the Duke were uterine brothers, then Don Pedro Luis was their father; and Duke Cesare was not the son, but the nephew, of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI. The death of the Cardinal, however, has been alleged by some chroniclers to have been caused by venom administered by Duke Cesare. The charge is essentially absurd. There was no motive; for Cardinal and Duke were comrades, brothers-in-arms, equally engaged in the reduction of the rebellious Romagna; there could have been no jealousy, for they occupied separate and independent ranks, (of which Duke Cesare had chosen his,) the Cardinal Giovanni Giuniore as Legate, being the older man (41), and Duke Cesare the younger (26) as Generalissimo: nor was the Cardinal rich enough to make his death desirable. But, at all events, it was impossible that Duke Cesare should envenom him for the simple reasons that the two were many miles apart during seventeen days before the death, and that no venom of slow action was known to the Fifteenth Century any more than it is to the Twentieth.
At the Seventh Consistory of the sixteenth (or twentieth) of March 1500, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI named three cardinals, who were
(α) the Lord Don Didaco Hurtado de Mendoza, a Spaniard; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Sabina: (he was afterwards called “The Cardinal of Spain:”) (β) the Lord Amaneus (Amanateus) d’Albret, of Navarre; Cardinal-Deacon of San Niccolo in Carcere Tulliano: (γ) the Lord Don Pedro Luis de Borja, a Pontifical Nephew, brother of the Cardinal of Monreale (Giovanni Seniore); succeeded his deceased cousin Cardinal Giovanni Giuniore as Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria in Via Lata.
The Christian King Louis XII, now calling himself the “Second Caesar,” was not idle during this year 1500. Duke Ludovico Maria Sforza-Visconti certainly recovered his duchy of Milan; but, after the Triumph given to Duke Cesare de Valentinois in Rome on his return from the Romagna with Madonna Caterina Sforza-Riario as his prisoner-of-war, the prestige of the Papacy was so increased that the French took heart and gained a notable victory at Novara, capturing Duke Ludovico Maria and his brother the Vicechancellor, who then were incarcerated safely in France.
In July, Don Alonso de Aragona, Prince of Bisceglia, Quadrata, and Salerno, and husband of Madonna Lucrezia Borgia was murdered; and the opinion carefully and carelessly has been cultivated that this was one of the crimes of Duke Cesare de Valentinois and the Lord Alexander P.P. VI.
According to the account of Don Paolo Cappello the Orator of Venice, as given by Herr Gregorovius, Prince Don Alonso, going to the Vatican at eleven o’clock at night on the fifteenth of July, was assaulted on the steps of St. Peter’s by masked men armed with poignards, and wounded in the head and arms and thighs. Weak from loss of blood, he dragged himself into the Apostolic Palace, where his wife Madonna Lucrezia swooned at the sight of him. He was carried into one of the rooms; and a cardinal, believing him to be in the article of death, imparted the usual absolution. But his youthful vigour enabled him to progress on the road to recovery, under the nursing of his wife and of his sister-in-law Madonna Sancia, who, with their own hands, prepared his food (they were royal princesses), while the Pope’s Holiness provided a body-guard of men-at-arms. No one knew who had wounded the prince: but gossip said that it was the same hand that had slain the Duke of Gaudia. Duke Cesare de Valentinois had issued an edict forbidding any one bearing arms to pass between the Mola of Hadrian and the Vatican. Don Paolo Cappello further records that Duke Cesare had said, “I did not wound the prince: but, if I had “done so, he had well deserved it.” Duke Cesare was not ashamed to visit the invalid; and, in coming away, he had said, “That, which is not done at noon, can be done at sunset.” More than a month later, at nine o’clock on the night of the eighteenth of August, Duke Cesare again visited Prince Don Alonso; and, having driven Madonna Sancia and Madonna Lucrezia from the room, he introduced his captain Don Michelotto who strangled the wounded man. After this, Duke Cesare publicly declared that he had killed the Prince of Bisceglia, because the latter had tried to murder him by setting an archer to shoot him silently in the Vatican gardens:—so far Don Paolo Cappello.
Monsignor Hans Burchard the Caerimonarius says, that, at eleven o’clock on the night of the fifteenth of July, Prince Don Alonso the husband of Madonna Lucrezia Borgia was found on the steps of St. Peter’s, wounded by assassins in the head, the knee, and the right arm. After the assault, the assassins were escorted by forty knights beyond the City-gate called Porta Pertusa. Prince Don Alonso lived near the Vatican in the palace of the Cardinal of Santa Maria in Portico; but, owing to the serious nature of his wounds, he was carried into the pontifical palace, and lodged in a room of the Borgia Tower. When King Don Federigo heard of the attempt upon his nephew, he sent Messer Galieno his own leech to cure him. Later the prince was strangled; and the leeches with a certain hunchback servant were put to the Question in the Mola of Hadrian, and afterwards released as innocent.
A chronicle of Pavia of much later date says that Duke Cesare killed Prince Don Alonso at a time when he was in bed with his own wife Madonna Lucrezia.
Before examining the divergences of this evidence, it may as well be said that the original despatches of Don Paolo Cappello the Orator of Venice are not attainable. Many years later, a learned patrician of Venice, Don Marino Sanuto, wrote the History of the Venetian Republic from 1496 to 1533 in fifty-six folio volumes. He cited the state-archives, despatches of orators, etc., and his work is marvellously well done: but when all is said, the fact remains that the despatches of Don Paolo Cappello, with those of many others, have been edited by a stranger to the writers, and to the circumstances under which they wrote. Monsignor Burchard held an important office at the Vatican. He was German, and inimical to Borgia. On matters connected with his office of Caerimonarius, i.e., the superintendence of public functions, he might speak with some authority: but beyond that he is an inveterate gossip and scandalmonger. In his case, also, it is impossible to know what he really wrote, because the original holograph of his Diarium (with the Diarium of Infessura and other similar works) even now awaits discovery by students of ancient archives.
What charges lie against Duke Cesare de Valentinois? It is Cappello who states that he drove away the women, and caused Prince Don Alonso to be strangled by Don Michelotto. Burchard appears ignorant of these details. It is Cappello who states that Duke Cesare admitted and defended the murder. Of this Burchard says nothing: he relates that the prince was strangled; and, from his mention of the interrogation of the leeches and of the hunchback, it would appear that others beside Duke Cesare were suspected. Cappello says that the prince was poignarded in head, arms, and thighs; Burchard, in head, right arm, and knee. Cappello speaks of a guard appointed by the Pope to watch the wounded man. Burchard does not record this. There are discrepancies between the two accounts; some, of reasonable importance: e.g., Burchard’s account of the forty knights who escorted the assassins from the City; and of the sending of the royal leech without mentioning any suspicions on the part of King Don Federigo. But nowhere can be found a proved accusation against Duke Cesare de Valentinois, or against the Holiness of the Pope.
From a study of the various statements, (derisable though to some extent they be,) and of known facts, a reasonable enough history of the affair may be compiled, and one which happens to be exculpatory of Borgia.
Don Alonso de Aragona Prince of Bisceglia, Salerno, etc., was a nephew of King Don Federigo of Naples. At the age of nineteen, he married Madonna Lucrezia Borgia, on political grounds to consolidate friendly relations then existing between Papacy and Regno. All accounts agree that this was a genuine love-match as well; and the chronicler Talini says of the prince, “he was the most beautiful youth that I have ever seen in Rome.”
A year after the marriage Madonna Lucrezia bore him an heir, Don Roderico; who immediately was provided-for with the duchy of Sermoneta. The young Prince and Princess of Bisceglia lived in the palace of the Cardinal of Sante Maria in Portico by the Vatican, in order to be near to the Pope.
In the year 1500, the relations of Papacy and Regno had undergone a change. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI was now allied with France, the old and still-distrusted enemy of Naples; and King Don Federigo had joined the unmitigable handful of men who were blackmailing the Pope’s Holiness with threats of a General Council. The Prince of Bisceglia as a Neapolitan, therefore, would not be persona gratissima to the supporters of Borgia.
When it was desired to reward and exalt a subject, the sovereigns of the Borgian Era had the naïve habit of dispossessing one of their enemies, and conferring the vacated fief on their new protégé. In order to enrich Prince Don Alonso with the principality of Salerno, the Majesty of Naples had deprived the noble Neapolitan House of Sanseverini. In order to enrich His grandson the baby Don Roderico with the duchy of Sermoneta, the Holiness of the Pope had despoiled the noble Roman House of Caïetani. And it readily will be understood that Caïetani and Sanseverini were extremely likely to view these losses with anything but resignation.
Regarding the edict of Duke Cesare de Valentinois, that none should go armed between the Mola and the Vatican, it must be admitted that this was only a very ordinary precautionary measure. The district named is the immediate precincts of the pontifical palaces of peace and war, which were connected by the fortified gallery-passage, through the Region of Borgo, called Lo Andare; and the baring of arms within the presence of royalty was, at all times, and in all courts, a capital crime. Duke Cesare as Generalissimo was responsible for the maintenance of order; and he was no laggard in any official capacity. If then, the truth of the stabbing on the steps of St. Peter’s and the strangulation in the Borgia Tower be granted, they might be defended as an execution of the death penalty prescribed for a breach of the law, such as the fiery Neapolitan prince is extremely likely to have committed. Royal or patrician criminals were frequently done to death in private, by quasi-assassination, to avoid the degradation of the touch of the public carnifex.
Again, granting the said stabbing and strangling, and regarding them as an act of private vengeance on the part of Duke Cesare against the prince; it should be remembered that people had the custom of defending their lives by slaughtering an enemy who set archers to shoot at them in the garden.
But, during the pontificate of the Lord Julius P.P. II (Giuliano della Rovere) the eternal enemy of the House of Borgia, (whose not mean portrait by Messer Rafaele Sanzio da Urbino may be seen at the National Gallery,) the captain Don Michelotto, who is supposed to have strangled the Prince of Bisceglia by order of Duke Cesare, was seized and put to the Question in the usual manner. It was attempted to find out, by means of this rigour, the truth about the various crimes which he was said to have committed for his master; and particularly the murder of Prince Don Alonso. But although he was in the hands of a ruthless despot, who, legally could have broiled him alive like a forger or could have broken with iron bars every bone of every limb of his body on the Wheel, with none to hinder, Don Michelotto soon was set at liberty as having given no evidence of guilt, either on his own part or of that of Duke Cesare. It will appear from this fairly convincing test that there is a strong reason for regarding the story of strangulation as a piece of fiction. As a last contribution to the theory, it is suggested that contortions caused by tetanus, which might have set in by reason of the poignard wounds, may have simulated, to the ignorant and casual observer, the appearance of strangulation. The bacillus of tetanus is of earth origin, and every one knows the vulgar method of wiping a dagger. Otherwise the strangulation theory may be dismissed.
Of the stabbing on the steps of St. Peter’s there is no such room for doubt. The discrepancy between Cappello (edited by Sanuto, understood,) and Burchard, (a copy of him by an unknown hand, also understood,) as to the position of the wounds has no material significance. Head, arms, and thighs, says Cappello; head, right arm, and knee, says Burchard. It is quite clear that the unfortunate youth (he was just of the age of twenty-one years) wore beneath his doublet one of the fashionable mail-shirts of the day, strong enough to turn a tempered blade at closest quarters and yet so fine that it could be hidden in two hands; and which caused him to be wounded anywhere except in his handsome trunk.
The number of wounds and their wide distribution speak of more than one occasion. The frightful loss of blood (the wound in the thigh), the delusions of Fifteenth Century chirurgeons, the elementary condition of the pharmacopœia, the time of year—Sol in Leone—when Rome fizzles in fevers and insanitary stenches, preclude possibility of recovery: and it is only reasonable to conceive that Prince Don Alonso died, after a month’s lingering weakness and fever, of the poignard wounds and the attentions of the leeches, unassisted by a problematic noose, or the compression of his windpipe by strong thumbs.
Then who were the masked men with poignards, and who is responsible for them?
In this connection, Duke Cesare de Valentinois has not been named. The Pope’s Holiness did not alter His behaviour to him. He found him antipathetic as always: some said He was afraid of him.44 But He did not cease to use him, to allow him access to His person, to decorate him with titles; and the Lord Alexander P.P. VI was far too magnificently invincible and too conscious of His power, not to have resented the murder of the beloved husband of His charming and favourite daughter. A Pontiff Who could, and did, crush reigning sovereigns at His will, was not likely to fear a mere duke. The clergy treated Duke Cesare, as always, with profound respect. And—Madonna Lucrezia Borgia, until the very end of his life, maintained friendly relations with him; and it was to her that the death of the Prince of Bisceglia brought most grievous trouble. Evidently the people most intimately concerned with Duke Cesare did not look upon him as an assassin: at any rate, the legend of his guilt subsequently emanated, not from them but, from his foes.
There was a total absence of motive on the part of Duke Cesare, unless the theory of legal but private execution, or the theory of justifiable homicide, be maintained. And for want of proof of strangulation, these can be dismissed with deserved contempt.
But—there was a very strong motive for the stabbing present in the Neapolitan House of Sanseverini, and in the Roman House of Caïetani, who had suffered loss of the principality of Salerno, and of the duchy of Sermoneta, in order to the enrichment of Prince Don Alonso of Bisceglia and Salerno and his infant son Duke Roderico of Sermoneta. Is it probable that great barons of the Fifteenth Century, or of any other century, calmly would submit to deprivation of their choicest fiefs, without at least an attempt to gain satisfaction of one or another kind? It may be concluded, then, that in all human probability Prince Don Alonso was the victim of a vendetta. His assassination was a private affair. The assassins were professionals in the pay of Sanseverini, or Caïetani, or both together; who, when the deed apparently was done, (here Burchard recording probability is valuable,) were surrounded by forty knights (Sanseverini or Caïetani of course) and escorted out of the City by the nearest gate, Porta Pertusa behind St. Peter’s, (the nearest gate to avoid attracting the attention of the bargelli in Borgo or Trastevere), whence, by a short circuit to the south, they would attain the Via Portuense, sixteen miles of which would bring them to Porto on the right bank of Tiber, opposite to the fortress at Ostia on the left bank belonging to Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere.
At the Eighth Consistory of the twenty-eighth of September 1500, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI named ten cardinals, who were,
(α) the Lord Don Jaime Serra, a Catalan, Vicegerent of Rome; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Vitale: (β) the Lord... Bacocz, an Hungarian, Chancellor of Hungary; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Martino ai Monti: (γ) the Lord Don Pedro Isualles, a Sicilian; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Ciriaco alle Terme Diocleziane: (δ) the Lord Don Francisco de Borja, bastard of the Lord Calixtus P.P. III; who had lived obscurely from his birth in 1441 until now; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Lucia in Silice alias in Orfea: (ε) the Lord Don Juan Vera, a Spaniard, Archbishop of Saliterno; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Balbina: (ζ) the Lord Alois Podachatarios, a noble of Cyprus, the Pontifical Greek Secretary; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Sant’ Agata in Suburra: (η) the Lord Giovantonio Trivulzio, a noble of Milan, elevated to oblige the Christian King Louis XII; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Anastasia: (θ) the Lord Giambattista Ferrari, Bishop of Modena; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Crisogono: (κ) the Lord Gianstefano Ferreri, Abbot of San Stefano di Vercello; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Sergio e San Bacco: (ι) the Lord Marco Cornaro, brother of Madonna Caterina Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus; Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria in Portico.
In view of the danger looming in the near East, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI issued a Bull proclaiming a new Crusade; and addressed a Brief in the same sense to the Christian King Louis XII. Venice being in serious and immediate peril received His help in the shape of money and troops. Nevertheless though Modon fell to the Muslim Infidel, even this disaster, giving point to the Pope’s exordium, failed to arouse the Christian Princes of Europe from their disgraceful apathy. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI now imposed a graduated crusade tax on the revenues of the Sacred College, each cardinal being mulcted on the value of his benefices. This, though a righteous and elevating ensample, was looked upon with extreme disgust; for, like other men, cardinals are very sensitive in the pouch. Cardinal Raymond Perauld, forgiven for his treachery with Charles VIII, was named Apostolic Ablegate to Germany charged with authority to reform the abuses, which avarice and ambition on the part of German prelates were causing, to the shame of all right-minded men. But the Elect-Emperor Maximilian—(who, in a picture by Albrecht Durer in the British Museum, modestly is styled Imperator Caesar Divus Maximilianus Pius Felix Augustus;45 and, in another, on vellum in the same collection, bears, after the imperial titles, the styles of all sovereigns of Europe, including Rex Angliæ, in despite of King Henry VII Tudor then happily reigning,)—the Elect-Emperor Maximilian remembered that in 1496 his ill-advised advance into Venetia had been opposed and not received with obsequious adulation; and he now refused to allow the Papal Ablegate to enter his Empire. In such pettiness did the Holy Roman Emperor of the Habsburg House of Austria have continual joy.
This year in Rome was the Holy Year, the last of the Fifteenth Century, the year of Jubilee. The Holy Father extended the privilege to Christendom; and huge pilgrimages of persons of rank and distinction from all Christian countries save Germany and Switzerland flocked to the Eternal City throughout the year. The pilgrims’ alms considerably added to the papal treasury; and, by order of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, these exclusively were set aside for the pacification of the States of the Church in the Romagna; a magnificent example of the political foresight which secured the temporal possessions of the Holy See during three hundred and seventy years, till 1870. Before the end of the year 1500 the splendour of Duke Cesare de Valentinois was increased by the title of Gonfaloniere of the Holy Roman Church: and, with the ample funds of the Jubilee, he had enlarged his army by the acquisition of several squadrons of French mercenaries, for a new expedition into the rebellious provinces.
During the first year of the Sixteenth Century, A.D. 1501, the Apostolic Ablegate Cardinal Raymond Perauld came to an agreement with the Diet at Nürnberg: and the project of a Crusade was improved by the formation of a new league of the Papacy with Venice and Hungary, (the two countries which lay at the mercy of the Muslim Infidel;) and by some naval successes with the conquest of Santa Maura by Bishop Giacopo da Pesaro.
In the spring, Duke Cesare marched his reinforced army to beleaguer Faenza. There, the citizens had constructed a bastion during the winter at the convent of the Friars Minor-of-the-Observance outside the walls. On the twelfth of April, this defence was taken by Duke Cesare, who installed a park of artillery to breach the citadel. The brave Faenzesi made sorties from their city for grain and cattle: but the effect of famine soon began to tell. (This account of the siege is Canon Sebastiano di Zaccaria’s.) The rich shared their bread and wine with the poor. When money for paying the soldiers failed, the priests and monks gave the sacred vessels. Women took part in the defence, throwing stones from the walls, or strengthening the gabions with earthworks; while the most daring fought, with casque and pike and harquebus, when their men slept. Matrons prayed in the churches. Barefooted boys and girls ran about the streets praying for Divine Assistance for their fathers on the ramparts. On the eighteenth of April, the sixth day of siege, the assault was made. Duke Cesare had advised the neighbouring princes; and Don Alfonso d’Este, heir of Ferrara, with his heraklean brother the athletic young Cardinal Ippolito were come post-haste to see the sight. (It is worth noting that advantage was taken of this visit to plan a marriage between the young widow Madonna Lucrezia Borgia and Don Alfonso d’Este.) The assault lasted from one o’clock in the afternoon till four. The assailants severely suffered from harquebuses, and flaming darts, and showers of stones, with which the beleaguered greeted them, intrepidly fighting on the smoking débris of their walls. Nothing was seen to equal Faenza’s valour: but Duke Cesare’s condottieri also gave signal proof of bravery. Don Taddeo della Volpe of Imola, on being struck in the eye by an arrow, tore it out and went on fighting, saying that he was fortunate enough to see but half the danger now. Duke Cesare conceived so great an admiration for the courage of his enemies, as to say that, with an army of Faenzesi, he cheerfully would undertake the conquest of all Italy. During seven hours on the twenty-first of April, artillery bombarded the citadel, which now was little more than a heap of ruins. Every night, some of the beleaguered slid over the walls, and escaped into the camp of Duke Cesare, worn by famine and the fatigue of the siege. On the night of the twenty-second, one Bartolomeo Grammante, a dyer, fled from a fortalice where he was on guard and came to the Duke, saying that there was mutiny in Faenza, that ammunition was exhausted, and offering to point out a moment favourable for assault. Incontinently Duke Cesare hanged this traitorous felon near the city-wall, out of respect for the brave Faenzesi and their admirable resistance. Three days later, the end came. The conqueror offered most honourable terms: complete liberty for the Tyrant Don Astorgio Manfredi, and his relations, to go and come at will; the integrity of his property and payment of his debts; confirmation of all rights and privileges for the citizens.
On the twenty-sixth of April, the municipal officers came to the convent of the Observantines where Duke Cesare lodged; and swore between his hands the feudal oath of fidelity to the over-lord, the Holiness of the Pope. At three o’clock in the afternoon, came also Don Astorgio Manfredi with his kin. This unfortunate youth was only of the age of sixteen years, the servant of his own subjects, and an orphan whose father, Don Galeotto Manfredi, had been murdered by his mother, Madonna Francesca Bentivogli. A Venetian chronicler says of him that he was “a sickly lad (puto mal san) but beautiful fair and rosy,” obviously rotten with struma; and as such he appears in his portrait in the Palazzo Zauli-Naldi of Faenza, wearing an expression of profound melancholy. The young Tyrant and his bastard brother, Don Gianevangelista Manfredi, (who was of the age of fourteen years, and had had a command during the siege,) received so courteous a reception from Duke Cesare that they decided to remain with him. So far, the behaviour of the Generalissimo appears to have been inspired by noble magnanimity.
And here, there is a lacuna. The history of Don Astorgio becomes blank. Research so far has failed to discover any trace of him for months.
Some time after his capitulation, Don Astorgio and his brother were found incarcerated in the Mola of Hadrian, in the royal apartment which Madonna Caterina Sforza-Riario had vacated on going into exile in France: and of this, also, there has been no explanation yet discovered.
It is permissible to suppose that after Duke Cesare generously had granted their unconditional liberty, some imperious political necessity intervened; such as that Don Astorgio and Don Gianevangelista, held as hostages, would guarantee the tranquillity of Faenza, preventing further rebellion. Duke Cesare’s apparent breach of faith is not without its parallels in ancient, modern, and contemporary history; a political crime, perhaps necessary, but for which there is neither extenuation nor excuse.
But later still, the story ends in tragedy. The two boys are said to have been killed, and their bodies cast in Tiber. The only two chronicles which have the slightest value are those of Don Antonio Giustiniani the Orator of Venice, who was in Rome; and of Monsignor Hans Burchard the Papal Caerimonarius, who might have been there: though the originals of these chronicles, be it remembered, are yet to seek.
The former wrote to his government,
“They say that this night those two young lords of Faenza with their steward have been slain and thrown in Tiber.”
The latter records in his journal,
“There were found in Tiber, suffocated and dead, the lord of Faenza, a youth of about the age of eighteen years, beautiful and well-shaped, with a stone at his neck; and two youths bound together by the arms, the one of fifteen and the other of twenty-five years; and near them a certain woman, and several others.”
It is said also that the victims were floating in Tiber in the sight of all.
The affair is the occasion of another of the calumnies which have been cast upon the House of Borgia. Not one word is said by contemporaries implicating Borgia in this crime: yet the modern fiction-monger or quoad-historian who without hesitation did not place it to Borgia’s debit would consider himself guilty of dereliction of duty.
The statements of the Venetian and the German, quoted above, will not bear examination in the light of common sense. A rational and unprejudiced observer will have noticed that Giustiniani does not speak of having seen with his own eyes. He is not imparting official information: he reports a mere on dit. But Burchard’s account is a miracle of Teutonic completeness at all costs, and lack of sense of the ridiculous. He does not say that he has seen the show. He gives no authority for his statements. But he adds, to Don Astorgio and Don Gianevangelista, a youth of twenty-five, a certain woman, and several others! Is any reliance to be placed on Burchard, uncorroborated and unashamed? He says that the corpse of Don Astorgio had a stone at his neck, yet he was floating on Tiber in the sight of all! How can a cadaver float when weighted with a stone? The density of Tiber is not like that of the Dead Sea or Droitwich Brine Baths. Also, Tiber notoriously is a swift current, far too turbid to permit a crowd of corpses placidly to float in the sight of all. Also, Tiber exclusively was used for drinking and household purposes, and constantly by all Romans, high and low, for swimming: the heraklean Lord Cardinal Prince Ippolito d’Este swam there. Also, the Borgia were pre-eminently clever—cunning, their calumniators say. Then, is it probable that men of any common sense would offer a hecatomb of assassinations to Tiber, and to the sight of all, weighted only by Burchard’s single stone? Finally, how is it that in the history of Faenza, and of the relations of these young lords, there is not a single allusion to the manner of their death? The learned Padre Leonetti justly contends that the story of the murder is a mere fabrication; that the scribes, with Burchard and Giustiniani, have seen no floating bodies; but that they have contented themselves, according to their custom, with fresh vilifications of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI and of Duke Cesare de Valentinois.
Let it be remembered that Don Astorgio Manfredi was “un puto mal san,” a sickly or strumous lad. Let it be remembered how extremely easy it is to kill strong boys off, between their fourteenth and their eighteenth year, simply by depriving them of hope and joy. Let the most pathetic history of Don Astorgio Manfredi, of which the barest briefest extract has been given, let his situation, and that of his young brother Don Gianevangelista, be realized with care; and the humanly natural supposition will arise, that these two died natural deaths due to constitutional defects aggravated by hopeless imprisonment in the Mola of Hadrian.
It would be hard, however, if the enemies of Borgia could find nothing worse to say; and the abominable Messer Francesco Guicciardini of Florence, pandar of France, minion of Ghibelline Colonna, does not fail to make use of that curiously common and invariably inconsequent calumny which mediocrity, in all ages, hurls at genius. He writes, “Astorgio was not deprived of life before having first been used, they say, to satiate the passions of a certain person.” Under the pen of historians who followed Guicciardini, this “certain person” quite naturally has become the Lord Alexander P.P. VI. It is on the authority of this Guicciardini that writers, far from the scene, and long after the deed, have allowed them to assail an old man, a priest, the Head of the Church, with a shameful and execrable accusation. Did Guicciardini make the very difficult examinations of this problematic corpse which medical-law ordains? He was inspired, and very badly, by his hatred. He has not proved the crimes of the Pope. He has only exhibited the fertility of a monstrously unclean and salacious imagination, the dévergondage of a mind stuffed with reminiscences of Tiberius, of Nero, of Elagabalus! (Réné, Comte de Maricourt.)
The Lord Alexander P.P. VI had now reached the summit of His magnificent pontificate. With the States of the Church slowly but surely being brought under domination by the splendid gains of Duke Cesare de Valentinois, with the interested support of the Christian King of France and the Catholic King of Spain, (for the latter had the sense to cease from annoying a powerful pontiff), and with His neighbour the Regno under its weak King Don Federigo of no importance, there was nothing that He might not do for the enrichment of the Papacy or the aggrandisement of the House of Borgia. His policy was beginning to take shape. The enormous and magnificent project, which appears to have dictated all His actions, was assuming a concrete form. Difficulties of every kind had beset Him from the beginning; and difficulties, He doubtless knew, would be His constant portion: but by patience, agility of mind, diplomatic skill, singleness of purpose, and His invincible indomitable will, He had beaten down His opponents one by one, or had turned their opposition into support which now enabled Him to act independently and upon His own initiative.
He made short work with the rebellious barons of Rome. He blasted Don Pierfrancesco Colonna with excommunication. He confiscated the fiefs of the Houses of Colonna and Savelli, both of the Ghibelline faction, who had defied Him by secession to Charles VIII and the unmitigable Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere in 1494. He distributed the titles and estates so acquired among members of the House of Borgia.
On the first of September 1501, He issued a Brief legitimating that bastard of Duke Cesare de Valentinois and a Roman spinster, who had been born in 1498, and was known as Infans Romanus; to whom He gave the name Giovanni, after His favourite son the murdered Duke of Gandia, as well as the duchy of Nepi. But, by a second Brief of the same date (in the Archives of Modena) He declares this Don Giovanni Borgia to be the son not of the aforesaid Duke (Cesare) but of US and the said spinster.46
There exists no explanation of the contradiction in these two Briefs. It is, however, certain that no human temptation could induce a Pope to publish such a statement as that of the second, unless the thing were true; and, in the case of a Pope as powerful as the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, there was no superior power which could force Him against His will. As to one of the Briefs being truth and the other falsehood, it may be remembered that there is a general law, a Necessary Proposition, “The lesser is contained in the greater.” The thing was true. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI, at the age of sixty-seven years, was the father of Don Giovanni Borgia, whom He created Duke of Nepi in 1501.
The Lord Alexander P.P. VI was a very great man; guilty of hiding none of his human weakness: and on this account a Terror to hypocrites of all ensuing ages. Nothing in the world is so unpleasant, so disconcerting, so utterly abhorred, as the plain and naked truth.
After the spoliation of the Houses of Colonna and Savelli—an act which reduced them from that of premier barons of the Holy See to a position of such insignificance that they no more appear in the history of this pontificate,—the Pope’s Holiness married Madonna Lucrezia Borgia to Don Alfonso d’Este, the heir of Duke Ercole of Ferrara. This was after her year of widowhood. She was now the wife of royalty, with a near prospect of a throne, worshipped by the poor for her boundless and sympathetic charity, by the learned for her intelligence, by her kin for her loving loyalty, by her husband for her perfect wifehood and motherhood, by all for her transcendent beauty and her spotless name. Why it has pleased modern writers and painters to depict this pearl among women as a “poison-bearing maenad” a “veneficous bacchante” stained with revolting and unnatural turpitude, is one of those riddles to which there is no key. If physiognomy be an index to character, the most superficial inspection of the effigy of Madonna Lucrezia Borgia must put her calumniators to endless shame. In that simple profile, of features clean-cut, delicate, refined; in those chaste contours so gently rounded, so sweetly fresh and feminine; in the carriage of that flavian head well-poised and nobly frank, there can lurk no taint of decadent degeneracy. In the Ambrosian Library at Milan, is a long tress of her beautiful yellow hair, shining and pale; with her scholarly letters to a learned poet and cardinal the Lord Pietro Bembo, who had dedicated to her a genial Dialogue on platonics in Italian; an Elegy in Latin, in praise of her singing and recitation,
“quicquid agis, quicquid loqueris, delectat: et omnes
“praecedunt Charites, subsequiturque decor;
with an Epigram on a gold serpent bracelet that she wore,
Armilla Aurea Lucretiae Borgiae Ferrariae Ducis In Serpentis Effigiem Formata
“Dypsas eram: sum facta, Tago dum perluor, aurum
“tortile nympharum manibus decus; at memor dim
“Eridani, auditaque tua Lucretia forma,
“Eliadum ne te caperent electra tuarum,
“gestandum carae fluvius transmisit alumnae.”
Another poet of even greater fame, the limpid Ariosto, praised Madonna Lucrezia as “a second Lucrece, brighter for her virtues than the star of regal Rome.” And even a modern writer of the eminence of John Addington Symonds, (who, in his “Renascence” habitually credits calumnies against Borgia in his text, half-heartedly refuting the same in footnotes,)—even he says, “Were they (the calumnies) true, or were they a malevolent lie? Physiological speculation will help but little. Lucrezia shewed all signs of a clear conscience.” Precisely. Then it is right and reasonable to presume that this much-maligned lady had a clear conscience; and to surcease from shouting any longer in the ordure which has been cast upon, and falls from, her fair memory. Let the fact that Herr Gregorovius, brilliant writer, painstaking scholar, German Protestant, fierce and unscrupulous foe of the papacy and of the House of Borgia, has destroyed all accusations against Madonna Lucrezia, silence all suspicion. In his huge work,47 devoted entirely to her history he has shewn her to be the victim of inventions due to the paid pens of her Father’s enemies.
It would be contrary to human nature, had Colonna and Savelli meekly submitted to the confiscation of their fiefs. Armed resistance was out of the question. The heads of those Houses only saved their lives by flight into exile in discontented Germany: but they were not left without one weapon, the last refuge of the unscrupulous. The anonymous libellous pamphlet or epigram lay to their hands.
In the Region of Monti, (the largest district of Rome, including three of the seven hills, Quirinal, Esquiline, Caelian,) which was inhabited by the faction of Colonna, there stood an antique statue of some river-god whom the Romans called Marforio. In the Region of Parione by Piazza Navona, which was the heart of the mediæval City, near Palazzo Braschi, there stood another antique statue whom the Romans called Pasquino and said that under him the Book of Wisdom for all time was buried. And it was the fashion to pretend that these two statues conversed on current topics, emitting epigrams in the darkness of the night, which were found in writing on their pedestals in the morning. All persons who had an axe to grind at an enemy’s expense made use of this convention: and a folio volume would not contain the witty caustic cynical pasquinades (ecce nomen,) which from the Fifteenth to the Twentieth Century have been found at Pasquino and Marforio. This method of spleen-splitting was not neglected by Colonna and Savelli. Pasquino became loquacious, bitter, oh and smart—but, smart! One epigram may be quoted as a specimen of the railing accusations brought against the Holiness of the Pope by way of reflection on His alleged simoniacal election, at times when He levied taxes or forced loans for the Crusade, or gave no remission of the chancery fees on promotion to fiefs and benefices.
“Alexander sells the Keys, the Altars, Christ.
“He bought them; and He has the Right to Sell.
But the most virulent of all anonymous attacks, was a pamphlet called A Letter to Silvio Savelli which pretended to have come from the Spanish camp at Taranto. It proclaimed to the Elect-Emperor Maximilian and the sovereigns of Europe the crimes which were said to have been committed by the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, Duke Cesare de Valentinois and Madonna Lucrezia Borgia d’Este: perfidy, carnage, rapine, adultery, incest, the heresy of Bulgaria, simony, assassination. Men who have noticed the rabid inconsequence, the grotesque impossibility and filthiness, which characterises certain foreign abuse of England at the present time, will understand the extent to which envious rage will go. Men of the Twenty-fifth Century, who read that degenerate literature, may attach to it an importance as undeserved as that which the Twentieth Century attaches to the Letter to Silvio Savelli of the Fifteenth. Humanity, with slight external differences, is identical in all ages. The Borgia were only men and women, boys and girls, when all is said; and the charges made against them are infinitely too monstrously inhuman to be true. Nature terribly would have avenged Herself on such infringements of Her law.
The Lord Alexander P.P. VI read the Letter to Silvio Savelli. It is recorded that His Holiness deigned heartily to laugh with His courtiers over the exaggerated absurdity of the satire. As for its coarseness—the Romans always value simplicitas and urbanitas of speech, i.e., hideous grossness and brutal jest. As for taking offence—well, Consul Caius Julius Caesar laughed at the crabbed little couplet of Caius Valerius Catullus, and invited him to supper; and the Lord Alexander P.P. VI had lived too many years in Italy not to have taken the correct measure of Milanese, Florentines, Venetians, Neapolitans; and He was well able to apportion its just value to extravagance of praise or to extravagance of blame. With His magnificent dignity of temper, He said that in Rome there was liberty of speech: and that He cared nothing for libels against Himself. (Costabili to Duke of Ferrara, 1 Feb. 1502). They amused Him, if they were witty; they pleased Him, if their language shewed distinction: and that was all.
Duke Cesare de Valentinois was not of so gracious a humour. Towards the end of November after the publication of the Letter to Silvio Savelli, a certain Messer Girolamo Manciani, a Neapolitan, was taken in the Region of Borgo on a charge of publishing calumnious epigrams against the Duke which proved him to be the author of the famous Letter. His right hand and tongue were promptly cut off and out. Two other defamers employed by the Aragonese Dynasty (as Pontano had been, and Sannazar “the Christian Vergil” was) to flout the Borgia underwent a similar mutilation; and when the Orator of Ferrara spoke of them to the Pope, it is said that He answered, “What can We do? The Duke means well; but he does not know how to bear insults. We often have advised him to follow Our ensample, and to let the mob say what it will: but he answered Us with choler that he intended to give those scribblers a lesson in good manners.” The good heart of the Pope spoke there. The Duke was only carrying out the law by this severity; laws, which it would ill-become the Lawgiver to set aside. Still, the offence being against the person of that Lawgiver, it was open to Him privately to recommend leniency: and that He did. No man could do more.
Florence, having cast off the despotic rule of the House of Medici, and settled herself as a true republic, was at peace with the Holy See. After the capitulation of Faenza Duke Cesare de Valentinois was created Duke of the Romagna. King Don Federigo of Naples, apprehensive of danger from the alliance of the Papacy and France set abroad the rumour that the Duke intended to conquer Florence and add it to the pontifical state; and, to curry favour with the Holiness of the Pope, he suggested that Tuscany should be erected into a kingdom, with Duke Cesare de Valentinois della Romagna as its crowned king. This attempt to deflect the wave of conquest into North Italy, and away from his own dominions, met with no success. If Duke Cesare ever had entertained the notion of proceeding against Tuscany, he made no efforts whatever in that direction. On the contrary, it was the Regno that was the object of attention. Chance after chance had been given, alliances diplomatic and matrimonial had been made with it: but it continued to be as a thorn in the eye of the papacy, its sovereigns vicious, treacherous, its people dangerous, degenerate. It was cankered to the core; and its time was come. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI signed a treaty with the Christian and Catholic Kings of France and Spain for the division of Naples. The three signatories each had a claim of sorts: the Pope’s Holiness as suzerain of certain fiefs and tyrannies, such as Benevento and Tarracina; the Christian King Louis XII as representative of the Angevin dynasty; the Catholic King Don Hernando as legitimate head of the House of Aragon. And incontinently King Don Federigo de Aragona fled into exile, while his kingdom was divided and given to France and Spain.
In 1502 the plans of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI for the defence of Christendom met with success and rebuff. The Elect-Emperor Maximilian sulkily withdrew his prohibition; and Cardinal Raymond Perauld, as Papal Legate, passed through the Empire preaching the Crusade. But Hungary played traitor to the League which she had formed with Venice and the Papacy a year before; and the Majesty of England, King Henry VII Tudor, refused to help. The last perhaps may be explained by the uneasy condition which the realm owed to rebellions fomented by Burgundy for the affliction of the House of Tudor—those of Lambert Simnel in 1487 and Duke Richard Plantagenet of York (vulgarly called Perkyn Werbecke) in 1494–1499.
The movement in the direction of ecclesiastical reform slowly progressed. Germany was still reiterating the cry which, as long ago as the reign of the Lord Calixtus P.P. III, she had raised anent the extortions of the Papal Chancery; and not by any means without some reason. But then, as now, the cry for reform arose from tainted sources. It was not genuine, or sincere; but only a species of blackmail. However the Lord Alexander P.P. VI was willing enough and he gave the idea due consideration, by the advice of Cardinal Francesco de’ Piccolhuomini. But, remembering that this Most Illustrious Lord was a nephew of the Lord Pius P.P. II (who, in His earlier years, had assisted at the Council of Basilea); and had the reputation of being a “concilionista,” i.e., one whose remedy for ecclesiastical ills is not a Pope, but a Council; the Supreme Pontiff resolved to delay, until that He should see His way more clearly. In a sense the Pope’s Holiness deceived Himself; for Cardinal Francesco de’ Piccolhuomini (who succeeded Him as the Lord Pius P.P. III) was, as Caesar’s wife was not, “above suspicion.” In ordinary matters, when suitable advice is not forthcoming, a Pope is liable to hesitate. Of course, in matters of teaching, His position is secure; but, as has been said, in worldly affairs the Pope-well-advised is superior to the Pope-ill-advised. Seeing no present method of securing permanent reform, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI waited. The fruit was not ripe. The psychological moment had not come. It was well to wait; and to let the movement shape itself: for, later, when the hour of reform sounded there arose the majestic Council of Trent. To the Borgia the world greatly owes the Tridentine Decrees—decrees that govern the Church at this day.
In this year 1502, Duke Cesare de Valentinois della Romagna escorted the Lord Alexander P.P. VI to Piombino when he made a state-progress through the conquered states; shewing Him that from that city He could threaten the Republics of Venice, Siena, and Florence, with the tyrannies of Bologna and Ravenna, the last with its interminable feud of the Sforza and the Pasolini dell’ Onda.48 The chief independent states paid tribute to him. By hideous treachery, he captured the duchies of Urbino and Camerino, drove the Duke into exile, proclaimed an amnesty, and observed it against his worst enemies: but he hanged all those who betrayed to him, loving the treachery, hating the traitors.49 The duchy of Camerino was conferred upon the four-year-old Duke Giovanni Borgia of Nepi and Camerino.
The Christian King Louis XII had a spasm of envy this year, in consequence of Duke Cesare’s phenomenal triumphs; and shewed some signs of interrupting the policy of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI with cries for a General Council. A model of his, bearing his effigy with the lilies of France and the legend Perdam Babylonis Nomen, made a great sensation in Rome.50 But French motives never are disinterested. The moment another Power wins a success by expenditure of blood and treasure, that is the time for pretentious incompetent France, cane che abbaia non morde, to clamour for a share of what she never won, never could hope to win,—for what, with inconsequent impertinence, she calls “compensation”! The Holy Roman Church was not worse off, under the rule of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, but better off than it had been before: but the election of His Holiness was always useful as a means of blackmail. However, Duke Cesare was Generalissimo of an enormous army. In addition to the four thousand condottieri and three hundred lancers with which he had begun the campaign, he had enlisted the many thousand mercenaries of the Tyrants whom he had dispossessed, and also recruited far and wide throughout Italy, where all the temperamental fighters gladly took service under the most successful general. And to these he added a foreign battalion of three thousand five hundred fantassini (infantry), pikemen and arbalisters, all Frenchmen, of whose quality the Christian King was well aware; and, therefore, sensible enough to refrain himself before a worse thing happened to him. Indeed, such was his anxiety to give evidence of his desire for peace that he actually offered,—he, the Christian King of France, the representative of the Angevin dynasty, offered to resign his claim to the kingdom of Naples in favour of Duke Cesare de Valentinois della Romagna. He was painfully anxious not to purchase a General Council at the cost of the conquest of France; and preferred that a Borgia sovereign, (if such a personage were to be,) should reign in Naples rather than in Paris.
The Romagna immensely was benefited by a strong and decent government where law—martial law, certainly; but law—at last was observed. Duke Cesare’s army was the only great Italian army. He, representing the Pope, was absolute in Central Italy, where no Pope had had direct authority for centuries. He was hated; hated by the great baronial Houses which he had ruined, whose heirs he had slain: but he was not even disliked by the people whom he ruled.51 It was not extraordinary; for the mob always adores the strong bowelless man, the rigid fearless despot, the conquering autocrat who brings peace with security. He took no different measures against rebellious vassals than those taken by his contemporaries, Louis XII of France, Hernando of Spain, Henry VII Tudor of England. He was more precise, more systematic: that is all. All the sovereigns who were his contemporaries congratulated him. The Duke was cruel; almost as cruel as his splendid parallel of the Nineteenth Century; and as fervently disliked and decried: but he was just, with a justice as far above the mawkish humanitarian system of compromise, (which, nowadays it is the mode to applaud,) as the sun is above the stars. Through the length and breadth of his dominions he continually went, to oversee the restoration of order, to consolidate his victories. The slightest spark of opposition he relentlessly crushed out. It was a hundred-headed hydra with which he had to deal. As he passed from city to city of his provinces, he left governours in charge of each, bloody men, ruthless giants, equal to the work in hand; for the work was dangerous; and men, whose hearts were triply-cased in hardened bronze, were needed, where each man’s life was in his own hands until it was in his enemy’s. Messer Lionardo da Vinci, that “scientific sceptic,” was his engineer in chief and designer of fortifications: and Messer Niccolo Machiavelli said that, of all Princes, he could discover no ensample more blooming and more vigorous than Duke Cesare. The headquarters of the Duke were at Cesena; and that same Messer Niccolo Machiavelli—the only man who ever knew the real Cesare (detto Borgia) naked face to naked face, naked soul to naked soul,—advised the Signoria of Florence that an Orator kept at Cesena would profit the republic more than an Orator at Rome.52 In his absences from headquarters, Duke Cesare left Messer Ramiro d’Orco there as governor. Cesena was a nest of would-be brigands. Messer Ramiro d’Orco was a governor who made these quail with the steel of his garrison and his own iron will.
It was the winter of 1502. Snow lay deeply round Cesena. In the Citadel the governor was at supper by the hearth, where huge logs blazed and crackled. Halberdiers were standing in attendance; and, on the walls wax torches flamed in their sockets, for the sun was set and the first hour of the night was come. Messer Ramiro d’Orco called for wine; and a page brought a fresh flagon from the buffet. He stumbled among the rushes on the floor in coming, tripped over the feet of a guard; and the falling flagon spilled the wine on the ankle of Messer Ramiro d’Orco. That monster made no more ado. He took the lad by the belt, and slung him into the fire, seizing the nearest halberd and pinning the twitching body to the flaming logs. The hair, in a flash, was gone. The slim legs violently writhed outward, and fell still. Hose and leathern jerkin peeled, and the white flesh hissed and blackened. Then, naught but small ash showed where a boy had died; and the smell of roasted human flesh mingled with the smell of the meats. Again, Messer Ramiro d’Orco called for wine, unmoved, only inconvenienced. He was the governor of Cesena: he had but punished a clumsy serving-boy.
That is the kind of man who could rule in the Romagna: and it easily will be understood that acting in this way, armed with plenipotentiary authority, Messer Ramiro d’Orco froze his district into a state of comparative tranquillity—a state which gave him the opportunity of looking further afield, and, so it happened, fatally for himself. A very little cruelty of this callosity goes far. Even truculent Cesena grew faint with horror of this fiend.
Duke Cesare acted upon the principle that it is better to be feared than loved—if one must choose: but he knew that there is a point beyond which no wise ruler goes: he knew the supreme art of making an end. Murmured rumours of atrocities reached his ears. Sooner or later he would have to bear the odium of the ill-deeds of his deputy. He never shirked responsibility. To shine in the reflected glare of Messer Ramiro d’Orco’s evil fame would not suit his purpose. And there were other things.
On the twenty-second of December, when the setting sun cast long blood-red lights across the snow, without warning Duke Cesare gallopped into Cesena with an armed escort of lancers. The cowed Cesenesi, turning out of doors to do him reverence, caught bare glimpses of flashing mail and the bull-bannerols of Borgia passing over the drawbridge of the citadel. Presently, from that citadel came Messer Cipriano di Numai, the Duke’s secretary, to the house of Messer Domenico d’Ugolini, the treasurer; seeking the governor in the city. Messer Ramiro d’Orco was arrested, and conducted to the presence of his chief.
Surmise that night was rife as to the import of these acts. New vengeance? New taxes? New horror? None could say.
The next morning, letters-patent went to all cities of the Romagna proclaiming that Duke Cesare had arrested his governor Messer Ramiro d’Orco, on the charge of numberless frauds, illegal cruelties, and other crimes. The plaints of the oppressed had grieved the Duke, natural enemy of exaction, avarice, and cruelty, who, having freed the citizens from the ancient terror, wished to impose no new charges on them. The letters-patent concluded, “for the doing of justice to Ourself and to all persons who have been injured, and for a salutary example to all Our servants present and future, Messer Ramiro d’Orco will stand his trial on depositions against him collected.”
The trial was not a long one. Legally put to the Torture of the Question, that frightful ruffian admitted the truth of the said depositions; and, chiefly he accused himself of having sold the store of corn belonging to the province, applying the price to his own purposes, to such an extent that Duke Cesare only averted a famine by importing a fresh supply from foreign countries. Lastly, Messer Ramiro d’Orco confessed that he was conspiring with the Orsini to betray to them the city of Cesena; and with Don Vitellozzo Vitelli, Tyrant of Citta di Castello, and Don Oliverotto da Fermo, to pose an arbalister53 to assassinate Duke Cesare with a bolt from his arbalist.54 Citizens of Cesena who passed the little square before the citadel, going to the dawn-mass of Christmas Day, saw a joyful sight—the Justice of the Duke. They saw a glittering axe, fixed in a block upon the snow. They saw on the one side a headless body in rich garments, exposed on a blood-stained mat upon the snow. They saw on the other side the bodiless head of Messer Ramiro d’Orco on a pike.
All chroniclers of the period congratulate Duke Cesare on having delivered his subjects from a tyrannous subaltern as cruel as he was rapacious; and Machiavelli records that His Excellency was pleased to shew that he had the power to make men—and to mar them. Duke Cesare in teaching made use of the sense of sight. He made the peoples of the Romagna see his power, see his justice, see his ever-present indefatigable energy. What wonder then that he was looked upon as superhuman. In the citadel of Cesena a milder governor reigned.
Leaving Cesena on the Festival of St. Stephen, Duke Cesare reached Pesaro on the twenty-eighth of December, where he learned that the conspirators whom Messer Ramiro d’Orco had betrayed, (except the Baglioni of Perugia, and Don Giulio and Don Giovanni Orsini who were in Rome with Cardinal Giambattista Orsini and other prelates of their faction) were at Sinigaglia, which place they were supposed to be besieging on the Duke’s behalf; and they sent to him to announce that they had captured the city, but that the governor refused to surrender the citadel save to the Generalissimo in person. Duke Cesare sent avant couriers heralding his arrival with artillery.
At dawn on the Festival of St. Sylvester, the thirty-first of December, he appeared before Sinigaglia. His trusty confidant and captain Don Michelotto led the van with two hundred lancers. Behind these Duke Cesare rode, accompanied by three and a half thousand Italian condottieri and as many foreigners. At the city-gate, Don Michelotto halted his cavalry on the bridge, and the infantry defiled between their ranks, entering the city where the forces of Don Oliverotto da Fermo were paraded. Don Paolo and Don Francesco Orsini, Duke of Gravina, also were present, with Don Vitellozzo Vitelli who wore an ermine mantle and rode a mule like any cardinal. Duke Cesare appeared to be pleased at seeing them and allowed them to kiss his hand in the French style. The atrocious character of these brigands already has been described.
Duke Cesare engaged them in conversation, siding with Don Francesco Orsini and Don Vitellozzo Vitelli. When they reached the palace which he was to occupy, the four prepared to take their leave; but he begged them to stay and dine, and to assist him in certain deliberations. As soon as they had crossed the threshold, the Duke’s gentlemen made them prisoners.
Messer Niccolo Machiavelli, the official representative of the Signoria of Florence on the staff of Duke Cesare, (a capacity equivalent to that of foreign attaché with an army in the field,) reached Sinigaglia later in the day; and found the city filled with the Ducal mercenaries, who were engaged in stripping the troops of the conspirators and in doing a little pillage of some Venetian merchants. He was going to the palace to get the news, when Duke Cesare, rode out, armed cap-à-pie, and said to him, “I have had a chance, and I have taken it; and I have done a service that should cause your Signoria to rejoice.” Then he rode away and reduced his turbulent troops to order.
During the night the fate of the conspirators was decided. In deference to their rank, the two Orsini were to be sent to Rome and judged there according to law: meanwhile they were detained at the palace of Sinigaglia under guard. The trial of the others began at once. Put to the Torture of the Question in the usual manner, they soon shewed of what poor stuff they were made. The lily-livered assassin Don Oliverotto da Fermo wept and groaned and reproached Don Vitellozzo Vitelli with having led him—innocent lamb as he was—into mischief by inducing him to intrigue against Duke Cesare. On the first day of the new year 1503, at four o’clock in the morning, they were ceremonially strangled in the courtyard of the palace. While Don Vitellozzo was struggling with the carnefex, dying by slow degrees, with blackening face and bulging eyes, he screamed continually to Duke Cesare begging hard that he would implore the Lord Alexander P.P. VI to grant him absolution after death and a plenary indulgence, until the red cord (which was his baronial privilege) cut into his gullet, and stilled his swollen tongue.
An ensample of this kind can leave no doubt in the mind but that, in spite of all to the contrary, the Pontifex Maximus of Rome, simoniacally elected or not, implicitly and explicitly was regarded then as God’s Vicegerent, as Earthly Vicar of Christ, by the most flagitious of men. Then what can be thought of the good and clean-living majority?
The bodies were buried in the chapel of the hospice of the Misericordia, the Brotherhood of Pity, one of whose obligations is the care of criminals condemned on the capital charge.
This account of the colpo-di-stato of Sinigaglia differs from that to which the world is accustomed. It is said that, when Messer Niccolo Machiavelli returned to Florence, he was induced to make a different statement to the one which he previously had made from personal observation in his first dispatches. According to this second version, there was no conspiracy; and the brigands Vitelli and da Fermo were simply massacred by order of Duke Cesare. It is the execrable Messer Francesco Guicciardini who has prostituted his golden pen to record this so-called version of Machiavelli, which has come to be regarded as veracious history.
“Duke Cesare de Valentinois, acknowledged sovereign of the Romagna, judged his subjects who were guilty of high treason: as chief of the State, he condemned the assassins who sought his life: as generalissimo, he punished treacherous and rebellious subalterns. It is known from other sources, that these two barons were only brigands stained with murders, and that their death was a deliverance for Italy. Without insisting on this point, and if it be said that the procedure of Duke Cesare was odious,—the capture by a ruse and the summary execution,—it may be pointed out that everywhere and in all ages criminals are taken by whatever method may be possible, and that military tribunals have never wasted time in long formalities. There was accusation, trial, and execution, all in regular though rapid form. We well may call the action of Duke Cesare a coup-d’-Etat. He is not more blameworthy than the Emperor Napoleon III who in 1852 was loudly applauded. Neither is it necessary for his justification to urge the barbarous customs of his age; for we should be forced to remember that, in the Nineteenth Century, our (French) national hero, in a time of peace, caused to be seized on foreign territory, to be carried to Vincennes, and, after the mockery of a trial, to be shot like a dog in the castle-ditch, an innocent man who was a prince of the blood-royal of France. [Duc d’Enghien?] Yet no man has ever dared to liken the Emperor Napoleon I to a Borgia! (Réné, Comte de Maricourt.)
The news reached Rome on the night of the second of January. The blow had been struck with such rapidity as to put complicity of the Lord Alexander beyond the dimensions of time and space.
In the Eternal City, the year had opened with the ceremony called L’Ubbedienza, in which the cardinals renew their vow of fidelity to the Pope, as, formerly, Roman Senators vowed fidelity to the Princeps on each New Year’s Day. A cardinal, who would omit this duty except for a valid reason, would cause precisely such a scandal as P. Thrasea Paetus caused to Tacitus by neglecting to swear to Nero. Notwithstanding this renewal of allegiance on the first of January, only three days later the Pope’s Holiness found reason to arrest Cardinal Giambattista Orsini, with Archbishop Alviano of Florence, and Don Giacomo Poplicola di Santacroce, Orsini’s partisans, being determined once for all to crush that House of incorrigible rebels. This Don Giacomo Poplicola di Santacroce had only himself to blame. His House, the most illustrious of all the sixty conscript families of Rome, had been outlawed in 1482 by the Lord Xystus P.P. IV by reason of the furious feud between Santacroce and Dellavalle which had turned the Eternal City for months together into shambles. He should have known better than to put his head in the lion’s mouth. Giustiniani, the Orator of Venice, received an account of what had happened from the Pope’s Own mobile lips; and embodied the same in a dispatch to his government dated the fourth of January 1503. It appears to be perfectly logical on the part of the Pope’s Holiness, that, in view of the coming trial of the two Orsini whom Duke Cesare was bringing to Rome, evidence should be sought among the members of their faction.
The behaviour of Orsini was impolitic and suspicious to the last degree. They were under the shadow. Two of their alleged accomplices had been executed at Sinigaglia. The cardinal was detained in the Mola of Hadrian. Don Paolo Orsini and Duke Francesco Orsini of Gravina were prisoners of Duke Cesare. Their circumstances required a patient policy of inaction pending coming trial, the result of which they needed not to fear supposing them to be innocent of conspiracy. On the contrary, they gave clear evidence of guilt, desperately maintaining an armed rebellion in pontifical territory, ravaging the Viterbo country, and continuing to make leagues with other rebels whether these were Roman barons or chiefs of independent banditti.
The Orator of Venice wrote to his government on the seventeenth of January: “The Pontiff is much disturbed, and more than ever on his guard. They say that Colonna and Savelli and all the discontented barons have joined Orsini. This night there was a panic at the Vatican: no one knows the cause. The captain of the guard called out his troops and watched all night under arms.”
Prince Gioffredo Borgia of Squillace, now in his twenty-second year and father of four children, raised a squadron of condottieri and attacked his August Father’s enemies: but on the night of the twentieth of January, the Orsini cavalry captured the Bridge of Nomentano where a fortress was; and all the Borgo rose in tumult. Messer Francesco Remolino Bishop of Sorrento, and the Orator of Siena, left the City for the camp of Duke Cesare carrying orders that he should leave everything and advance on Rome, which was in imminent peril. But before the envoys reached him, on the night of the seventeenth of January, at Citta di Pieve he suddenly had beheaded Don Paolo Orsini and Duke Francesco Orsini of Gravina, the two prisoners to whom he had promised a legal trial in Rome. The attitude of Orsini perfectly justified Duke Cesare in exercising his rights as sovereign justiciary and breaking his promise. His camp was surrounded by Orsini castles, the two barons undoubtedly were caught in the article of conspiracy; and their summary decapitation became a sudden necessity to intimidate the Orsini conspirators in and about Rome. It was not the custom of the Sixteenth Century to mince matters, from any silly humanitarian motives, by sacrificing thousands of proletariat lives when the fierce slaughter of a brace of notabilities would serve the purpose. The modern accusation, that the Lord Alexander P.P. VI was privy to the execution of these two Orsini, falls to the ground when the dates of His dispatches to Duke Cesare, and of their deaths, are compared.
Cardinal Giambattista Orsini remained a state-prisoner in the Mola of Hadrian, within whose walls he had full liberty. By his own request, his food was sent in daily from his own House; and also he received visits from his relations. There he lived, attended by his own physicians, until the twenty-second of February when he died, and was buried in the church of San Salvatore in Lauro. Soon it was said that the Pope’s Holiness had envenomed him; and this is a charge which it is utterly difficult to prove.
Giustiniani, the Orator of Venice, who was a friend of the House of Orsini, and always inimical to the Borgia, said without explanation or remark in a dispatch to his government dated the fifteenth of February: “The Lord Cardinal Orsini in prison shews signs of frenzy.”
In the dispatch dated the twenty-second of February, he said: “The Lord Cardinal Orsini is reduced to the last extremity, and his physicians say that there is no hope of saving his life.”
In the dispatch dated the twenty-third of February, he said: “I give notice that, yesterday, after the departure of my courier, the Lord Cardinal Orsini died; and this evening, with an honourable escort, he was taken to the church of San Salvatore, and there interred.”
Brancatalini, in his Diarium, wrote: “This day XXII February 1503, Cardinal Orsini left the Castle of Santangelo dead, at a half-hour of the night; (5.30–6 P.M.) and Mariano di Stefano with many other Romans accompanied him; and he was borne to San Salvatore in Lauro.”
Soderini, Orator of the Signoria of Florence, in a dispatch dated the twenty-third of February 1503 wrote to his government:
“Cardinal Orsini died yesterday: and was buried at the twenty-fourth hour (5–5.30 P.M.) at San Salvatore the church of the House of Orsini; and, by order of the Pope, the body was escorted by his relations, and by the cardinals of the Curia, uncovered and resting on a bier draped with cloth-of-gold, vested in a red chasuble brocaded with golden flowers, on the head was a white mitre, and at the feet were two hats in token of his cardinalitial rank. The monks performed the funeral service; and there were about sixty or seventy lighted torches. May he rest in peace.”
Obviously, the Orators of the Powers had no suspicion of venom. Giustiniani gladly would have reported such a rumour had he found himself in a position to do so which would have been consistent with his dignity and duty to the Venetian Senate. When He heard what His enemies were saying, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI took prompt action. On the day after the obsequies He convoked the physicians who had attended the dead Cardinal during his illness and agony; and required them to certify that death was owed to natural causes without any violence due to venom or other means; He made them swear on the Sacrament to the truth of their depositions, which were recorded with the facts of the case in the usual form.
It was customary to consider certain signs as indicating venom; e.g., the spots, the colour, the odour of the corpse. There is no mention made of these. The Pope’s Holiness ordered a public funeral, the body was uncovered; and carried openly through Rome. Every one might see it; and, had the Orsini faction discovered any signs which pointed to an unnatural death, they surely would have proclaimed their suspicions. The interment on the day after death was, and is, the wholesome Roman custom. The hour, after sunset, was, and is, the hour of burial.
It has been said by modern idealists that the Lord Alexander P.P. VI envenomed Cardinal Orsini in order to inherit his riches. The idea is absurd and ridiculous; for the Orsini would have been the heirs of their dead kinsman. In fact they were. The imputation discredits itself by reason of the gross ignorance on which it is based. It is alleged that the Pope is the heir-at-law of cardinals. He is. But He was not, in the reign of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI. It was the Lord Julius P.P. II (1503–1513) who cupidinously issued the Bull which names the Roman Pontiff heir-at-law of all cardinals, and of all clergy dying in Rome; and this Pope (as Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere) was no friend to Borgia. And this fact ought to dispose of all allegations of cupidinal motive in this, as in other cases.
The Lord Alexander P.P. VI had the Orsini at His mercy. Duke Cesare had executed two chiefs of that House. The Cardinal was secure in the impregnable Mola of Hadrian. If the Pope’s Holiness had wished to rid Himself of this one He was quite strong enough to do so, without resort to venom, by a regular execution in public, or in private if preferred, and so defy the odium which inevitably attends the exhibition of venom. But that He had no intention of visiting His prisoners with death, or with anything more than incarceration to keep them out of mischief, may be seen from the fact that a few months later (August 1503) Archbishop Alviano of Florence was released alive and well from the Mola of Hadrian.
As there appears to have been no motive and no necessity for the alleged crime, so also there appears to have been no possibility of its commission. Cardinal Giambattista Orsini was visited daily by his people, and his food was brought to him by them. His physicians also made deposition on oath that his death was not caused by venom.
It is only reasonable to conjecture, then, that being a very old man, conscius criminis sui (conspiracy), alarmed by the execution of his accomplices, terrified at his own peril, he succumbed to an entirely natural collapse. The dysentery, which carried him off, goes to support this theory,
The French in the Regno were not prospering; and the favour of the papacy appeared to be leaning towards Spain. The Crusade languished, not for lack of funds (for the Pope’s Holiness envoyed a grant of money to Hungary); but because of the want of martial spirit on the part of, and the customary disgraceful dissensions among the Christian Powers. Venice and Hungary threw up the sponge, and came to terms with the Muslim Infidel. The conquest of Eastern Europe and the settlement of the Turks therein was an accomplished fact.
Duke Cesare de Valentinois della Romagna occupied Pesaro. This was the fief of that young Tyrant, Don Giovanni Sforza, whose marriage with Madonna Lucrezia Borgia had been annulled by a canonical impediment. The spoliation of his appanage was a ground of fresh offence. The rupture between the Houses of Borgia and Sforza was irremediable. People spoke of Duke Cesare, now, as the Caesar Augustus of a new Roman Empire, independent, and ruled by the sceptre of a Princeps of the House of Borgia. After the execution of the conspirators at Sinigaglia, the Venetian chronicler Priuli, who loathed the very name of Borgia, wrote on the eleventh of January 1503: “Some wish to make and crown him King of Italy; others wish to make him Emperor: for he prospers so that no one dare forbid him anything.”55
The establishment of a Borgia Dynasty would have been no treason against the rights of the Papacy. The rebellious tyrants whom Duke Cesare had overthrown were unprofitable and even menacing. In their place was the Duke who brought law, order, and prosperity. Of course Duke Cesare derived benefit from his victories. The labourer is worthy of his hire, and even successful English generals are not begrudged their peerages. Duke Cesare’s duchy of Romagna, his commanding position, his power to enrich himself by the taxation of his subjects, were a fair reward for the immense services which he had rendered. The Papacy had now, instead of a lost territory infested by the scum of European ruffianry refusing to acknowledge authority or natural law, a vast province inhabited by law-abiding prosperous contented vassals ready and glad to pay the traditional tribute to their over-lord, in return for the unwonted safety of their lives and property. Duke Cesare was in the position of a viceroy. He held office at the pleasure of the Roman Pontiff. He was persona ingrata to the rulers of the other Italian states, who were envious of his splendid beauty, of his imperious character, of his extraordinary success, and of his tremendous potentiality. And they feared this tawny prince who had the tiger-strength to crush them one and all. Backed by the spiritual and temporal influence and wealth of the Pontiff, he could keep his irresistible army of veterans always on a war-footing, and himself its generalissimo; and so the Papacy itself acquired, through him, and in him, and for the first time, a material basis of independence: while, in opposition to the Pope, he could not exist.
There was the policy of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI.
He planned it with deliberation. He spared no pains to put it into effect. He did not want to ruin the Church, because She was the foundation upon which He would build His dynasty. Something of the kind was of absolute and imperious necessity. The Forged Decretals and Donation of Constantine, (which foist had been put forth in a Brief of the Lord Hadrian P.P. I to the Emperor Charlemagne,) “the magic pillars of the spiritual and temporal monarchy of the Popes,” severely had been criticized as early as the Twelfth Century. It was left, however, to Messer Lorenzo della Valla mercilessly to denounce them as forgeries in 1440, as already has been shewn here. When the Lord Alexander P.P. VI ascended the pontifical throne fifty-two years later, both Decretals and Donation had been thrown overboard from the Barque of Peter, to lighten the ship: and the Pope had no title-deeds to shew, forged or otherwise, for Peter’s Patrimony. Any diplomatist would see that a right, of some kind more inexpugnable than Prescription, was desirable. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI chose Conquest, and the Founding of a Borgia Dynasty. The office of the Church He magnified, that She the better might help the state. He intended that His descendants, members of the House of Borgia, though nominally the vassals should be the suzerains of His Successors: that Borgia should wear the double-crown of Princeps, as well as, and by means of the triple crown of Pontifex Maximus,—that a dynasty of Borgia should occupy both pontifical and imperial thrones.
There was ruin in the scheme: but not that ruin which vulgarly might be supposed.
It was an intelligent enough policy—of a worldly sort. Only—it was not inspired by religion, nor restrained by morality. When it fell to pieces, the Lord Julius P.P. II was able of its fragments alone to build the Papal States which lasted more than three centuries and a half until 1870.
The power of the House of Borgia was so well founded that the mere death of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI would not have affected it. There was a strong party of Spanish cardinals in the Sacred College, and three of these were of the House of Borgia. The Vicegerent of Rome, the Lord Jaime Serra, Cardinal-Priest of the Title of San Vitale, was a Spaniard also. The Roman barons, Colonna, Orsini, Savelli, Dellavalle were broken; Poplicola di Santacroce outlawed; Sforza-Visconti of Milan, Sforza of Santafiora, Sforza of Chotignuola, Sforza of Pesaro, Sforza-Riario of Imola and Forli, all were exiled. The Roman Cesarini were loyal to Borgia, and had their Cardinal (Giuliano) in the Curia. Spain was friendly, and occupied in the New World. France was friendly, and feeble. Germany was feeble and internally distracted. England was only a fifth-rate power. And the invincible army of Duke Cesare de Valentinois della Romagna was ready to carry into effect its leader’s will. But chance, molecules, Providence,—the reader will choose,—disabled Duke Cesare, made him unable to act, or unwilling to act,—the reader again will choose,—at the very moment when his action was imperatively necessary. If, on the death of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI he had had his health, he easily might have done anything, said Machiavelli.56
“The Worldly Hope Men set their Hearts upon
Turns Ashes—or it prospers; and, anon,
Like Snow upon the Desert’s dusty Face,
Lighting a little Hour or two—is gone.57
At the Ninth Consistory of the thirtieth (or thirty-first) of May (or June) 1503, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI named nine cardinals; five of whom were Spaniards, three Italians, and one German. They were:
(α) the Lord Don Juan de Castellar, Bishop of Oleron; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Maria in Trastevere tit. Calixtus: (β) the Lord Don Francisco Remolino, Bishop of Sorrento, a friend of Duke Cesare; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Giovanni e San Paolo: (γ) the Lord Don Francisco de Sprata, Bishop of Leon; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Sergio e San Bacco: (δ) the Lord Francesco Soderini da Volterra, Canon of the Vatican Basilica; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Susanna inter Duas Domos: (ε) the Lord Niccolo da Flisco, Bishop of Forli, Orator of the Republic of Genoa to the Christian King; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Prisca: (ζ) the Lord Adriano Castellense di Corneto, Orator of the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII to Britannia Barbara (Scotland); Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Crisogono: (η) the Lord Melchior Copis, Bishop of Brixen; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Niccolo inter Imagines: (θ) the Lord Don Jaime Casanova, Apostolic Prothonotary; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Stefano in Monte Celio: (ι) the Lord Don Francisco Iloris, Apostolic Treasurer, Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria Nuova.
Why a learned Catholic historian58 should go out of his way to call this a simoniacal creation, and his English editor to repeat the calumny, is hard to say. It is bad policy to cry stinking fish, at all times; it is especially silly to do so when the fish are fresh. The Bull De Simoniaca Electione directed against Simony was not issued until 1505, in the reign of the Lord Julius P.P. II; and it was not retrospective. In 1503, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI was actually a temporal sovereign, “an Italian Despot with certain sacerdotal additions.” The cardinals were the highest degree of His peerage. No doubt they paid for their promotion in the usual way; fees to officials, the crusade tax on the revenues of their Titles, perhaps even a handsome contribution to the Treasury: but why call this Simony, when it was not Simony stricte dicte till two years later? A Red Hat no more can be bought than Strawberry Leaves. A man may use his gold to recommend himself for these head-gears. A man may present £25,000 to the best of all princesses’ Hospital Fund, or land worth a quarter of a million to the proletariat; he may “bang a saxpence” in fees to officials for his knighthood, he even may pay pounds sterling in fees to officials for his barony: but he righteously would be enraged if people said that he had bought his knighthood or his barony. The word Simony must be taken as belonging to the Genus Blessed, (e.g., Mesopotamia;) or as the bark of a dog who dare not bite. Either it is a mere incantation; or a war-whoop “full of sound and fury signifying nothing.” In sober logical earnest, it is inapplicable here.
As the heat of summer increased, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, now of the age of seventy-two years, used to sit and take the air in the shady gardens of the Vatican, and amuse Himself by watching two little boys at play. They were His bastard and his grandson; Duke Giovanni Borgia of Nepi and Camerino, of the age of five years; and Duke Roderico of Sermoneta, Madonna Lucrezia’s son, of the age of four years.
When the sun entered the constellation of Leo—Sol in Leone, the dog-days—the heat became abnormal; and plague and fevers appeared in Rome.59 The Orators of the Powers promptly made arrangements to quit the City, for a cool and wholesome villegiatura.
Don Antonio Giustiniani, the Orator of Venice, sent to his Senate a dispatch dated the eleventh of July 1503, in which he wrote: “I went to the palace; and, on entering His apartment, I found our Lord the Pope in His habits reclining on a couch. He received me with good humour, saying that for three days He had been inconvenienced by a slight dysentery, but that He hoped it would be unimportant.”
On the next day Giustiniani wrote: “The Pope’s Holiness reviewed His troops from a balcony.”
On the fourteenth of July, he wrote again: “I went to the palace; and, on entering, I found His Holiness on His throne in the Hall of Pontiffs. He was a little depressed: but looked well.”
Messer Francesco Fortucci, the Orator of Florence, sent to his Signoria a dispatch dated the twentieth of July, in which he wrote: “There are many people sick of fevers, and many have died.”
On the twenty-second of July, he wrote: “I thank the Signoria for leave of absence, because I myself am uneasy, and almost out of my mind with fright; for so many people are dying of fever, and there is also something like the Pest.”
On the evening of the fifth of August, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI rode with Duke Cesare and several prelates to a supper al fresco at the villa of the Cardinal of San Crisogono outside the walls. Rome and the surrounding country are particularly unwholesome, though cool, during the hour after sunset. It is said that the Holiness of the Pope was much heated by the exertion of riding there; and that, while He was in this condition, He drank a cup of wine for the sake of coolness. No more hazardous action can be imagined; except on the part of one desiring to court a malarial fever.
Two days later, on the seventh of August, the Orator Giustiniani wrote to his government: “I found the Pope less cheerful and more dull than usual. He said to me Sir Orator, all these sick people in Rome, all these daily deaths, make Us fearful, and persuade Us to take more care of Our person.”
Monsignor Hans Burchard, the Caerimonarius, wrote in his Diarium: “On the twelfth of August, after vespers, between the twenty-first and twenty-second hour, (5–6 P.M.) He (the Pope’s Holiness) shewed signs of a fever which does not abate.”
It should be noted that this is seven days after the garden-supper.
On the thirteenth of August, Giustiniani wrote to his sovereign the Doge of Venice, that the Pope had vomited after eating, and had been feverish all night; that Duke Cesare also was sick: and that no one was admitted to the Vatican. He tells about the supper in the garden of the Cardinal of San Crisogono; and adds: “To-morrow morning I will try to have precise information to send to Your Sublimity.”
These dispatches give an excellent idea of some of the duties of a Sixteenth Century ambassador, to hang about doors of palaces, to chronicle performances of natural functions, to bribe royal flunkeys and report their gossip in state-dispatches.
On the fourteenth of August, the same Orator wrote that the Pope had been phlebotomized,—“some speak of fourteen, some of sixteen ounces: perhaps it will be true to say ten; and that is an enormous quantity for a man of seventy-three years, which is the age of His Blessedness.”
(The Lord Alexander P.P. VI was born in 1431; and was of the age of seventy-two years in 1503.)
“Still the fever does not abate. The Pope has it yet; though less violently than yesterday. To-day the Duke is worse.”
The same day, the fourteenth of August, Don Beltrando Costabili, the Orator of Duke Ercole of Ferrara wrote at some length, no doubt because Madonna Lucrezia Borgia, the consort of Ferrara’s heir, would expect detailed information when the health of her august and affectionate Father was concerned. He said:
“Yesterday morning, I was informed on good authority that His Holiness has commanded the attendance of the Bishop of Venosa who was sick at home, and of another physician of the City; and that these are not allowed to leave him. I was informed that the Pope had vomitings and fever yesterday: and that they have relieved him of nine ounces of blood. During the day, His Holiness caused some cardinals to play at cards before Him while He rested. I was informed also that last night He slept fairly well. But to-day between the eighteenth and nineteenth hour, (2–3 P.M.) there was a crisis like that of Saturday, of a kind which makes His courtiers uneasy; and every one is unwilling to speak of His condition. I have sought by all means to obtain information: but the more I seek, the less I learn; for the physicians, the chirurgeons, and the apothecaries are not allowed to quit the Presence: from which I conclude that the malady is grave. The Duke of the Romagna also, is very sick with fever, vomitings, and disorder of the stomach. It is not astonishing that His Holiness, and His Excellency should be ill; for all the courtiers, especially those who are in the palace, are in the same state, by reason of the unwholesome conditions of the air, which, there, they breathe.”
The last sentence, in italics, is of exceedingly great importance. The operation of venesection did not effect a lysis, as appears from the dispatches of Giustiniani which continue the tale. On the fifteenth of August, he wrote to the Venetian Senate that it was difficult to get positive information: but that the affair was serious; and, that there was likely to be disorder in the City if the Pope died.
On the sixteenth of August, he wrote that the Pope and the Duke continued to be tormented with fevers, and that the Duke’s was the more violent. He added that the condition of the Pope must be aggravated by His anxieties and cares, and by the sickness of the Duke.
On the seventeenth of August, Giustiniani wrote again:
“Yesterday I wrote to Your Sublimity by Girolamo Passamonte the courier, who arrived here. To-day I inform you that our Lord the Pope has taken medicine. The fever continually torments Him, not without danger. I am informed by a sure authority that the Bishop of Venosa, chief-physician of His Blessedness and a familiar of the Cardinal Giovantonio di Sangiorgio, (or, perhaps, the Cardinal of San Giorgio in Velum Aureum, Rafaele Galeotto Sansoni-Riario,) has told his steward that the sickness of the Pope is very dangerous, and that he ought to make the said cardinal hasten hither; which thing has been done.”
He adds that the partisans of Duke Cesare, expecting a riot on the death of the Pope, have made secure their property and have taken precautions to prevent ill news from being bruited abroad. This was ordinary political prudence.
On the eighteenth of August, the same Orator wrote,
“Early this morning, our Lord the Pope, knowing of the danger of His sickness, has received His rites; and some cardinals have been admitted into the presence of His Blessedness. The Viaticum was given in secret; for His familiars try to conceal His condition as much as possible. They say, that the Bishop of Venosa, early this morning before the Communion, came from the Pope’s Chamber, weeping, and saying to one of his people that the danger was very grave, and complaining with chagrin of the inefficacy of some potions which, yesterday, he had administered.... The Duke also is very sick. It has been said to my secretary, Sir Secretary, this is no time for ceremonies or fine words. Tell the Orator to hasten to inform the Senate of Venice that the Pope GRAVITER LABORAT. Also, the same informant said that the Pope cannot live much longer without a miracle.”
On the eighteenth of August, Giustiniani also wrote a second dispatch to the Doge of Venice, in which he said:
“To-day I sent the latest news to Your Sublimity by Lorenzo da Camerino. After he was gone, Messer Scipione, a physician from the palace, came to tell me that yesterday at the sixteenth hour (noon), the Pope, wishing to rise for a certain need, was taken with a fit of choking, and is in evil plight, going from bad to worse; and that in his opinion His Holiness will die to-night:—and, from what he says, I judge the malady to be an apoplexy. Such also is the opinion of this physician so excellent is his art.”
The Orator adds that, now, Duke Cesare is neglected; and is preparing secretly to take refuge in the Mola of Hadrian.
Monsignor Burchard makes the following entry in his Diarium, a work of which the original is undiscovered, and copies only accessible to the student. He was perfectly qualified to speak on this subject from personal knowledge; the demise of the Pope being a ceremonial function which he would have to arrange and superintend. He says:
“On Wednesday the eighteenth of August between the twelfth and thirteenth hour (8–9 A.M.) He (the Lord Alexander P.P. VI) confessed Himself to the Lord Bishop Pietro of Culen who said mass in His presence; and, after his Communion, administered the Sacrament of the Eucharist to the Pope, who was seated on His bed; and then finished the mass. Five cardinals were present, d’Oristano, di Cosenza, di Monreale,60 Casanueva, and di Constantinople, to whom the Pope said that He felt ill. At the hour of vespers the said Bishop of Culen administered the Sacrament of Extreme Unction to Him; and He died in the presence of the datary and the bishop.”
This event took place in the third room of the Borgia Tower occupied by the Library counting from the Library side.
On the nineteenth of August, Giustiniani announced the news to the Senate, and added, “to-day He was carried de moro,61 and shewn to the people; but His corpse was more hideous and monstrous than words can tell, and without human form. For decency, it was kept for some time covered; and before sunset they buried it in the presence of two of the cardinal-deacons attached to the palace.”
In reading this dispatch, it must be remembered that Giustiniani hated the Borgia; and that the Lord Alexander P.P. VI was an old man of an obese habit of body, Who had died of a fever in the height of summer, in a most unwholesome quarter of the City, and at a time when antiseptic treatment was unknown.
The Notary of Orvieto, on his return from Rome four days later, publicly described to his municipality all that he had seen of the novendiali; and added that he had kissed the feet of His Holiness in St. Peter’s62: but said nothing of any hideous or monstrous appearance of the corpse.
Soon after death, a rumour was heard to the effect that the Lord Alexander P.P. VI and Duke Cesare de Valentinois della Romagna had died envenomed.
For three months it was only a rumour. A new Pope was elected—Cardinal Francesco de’ Piccolhuomini of Siena, who took the name of the Lord Pius P.P. III out of respect to His Uncle, the Lord Pius P.P. II,63—and was dead after a two months’ reign.
Then Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, irreconcileable enemy of Borgia, attained the object of his ambition; and was elected Pope by the name of the Lord Julius P.P. II. And then the rumour took a concrete form.
On the tenth of November it definitely was said that, at the garden-supper of the fifth of August venom had been put into some wine by order of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI; that by a butler’s blunder that envenomed wine had been served to the Pope’s Holiness and to Duke Cesare: that the former being old had died therefrom; that the latter being young had endured heroic treatment for a cure. Some said that he had been plunged into the ripped-up belly of a live mule or bull amid the steaming palpitating entrails profusely to sweat the venom out of him: others, that he had been dipped in iced-water, and so cured.
Writing several years later, Messer Francesco Guicciardini and Messer Paolo Giovio added new details. Guicciardini definitely settled the falsehood in the form in which it generally appears. He gave a list of cardinals, also, and prelates who were to have been envenomed by the Lord Alexander P.P. VI that He might inherit their wealth. Giovio named and described the venom which, he said, the Borgia commonly used. He called it Cantarella64; and said it was a sugared powder, or a powder under the guise of sugar, which was of a wonderful whiteness, and of a rather pleasant taste. It did not overwhelm the vital forces in the manner of the active venoms by sudden and energetic action: but, by penetrating insensibly the veins, it slowly worked with mortal effect. (Paolo Giovio, Hist. II. 47. VIII. 205.) Is there any toxicological chymist who from this description can give the formula of this extraordinary venom?
The testimony of these two men is tainted. Messer Francesco Guicciardini, who wrote long after the event and solely from hearsay, was a Florentine. Whatever is, and was, of Florence, is cultured, pedantic, artificial, in the highest degree: whatever is, and was, of Rome, is nakedly natural, original, free, and absolute, in the highest degree. It was, and is, a habit of mind in the Florentine to decry Rome and all things Roman. Politically, Messer Francesco Guicciardini was an adherent of the House of Medici; and Medici were naturally the mortal foes of Borgia, seeing that Borgia had acquiesced in and profited by their expulsion from Florence. And he was in the pay of the Roman Colonna, who were Ghibelline by inherited tradition, i.e., upholders of the imperial against the papal prerogative. He was born in 1482; and was of the age of twenty-one years at the death of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI. In 1530, having exhorted the Lord Clement P.P. VII to punish Florence for insults which he (Guicciardini) had received in 1527, he turned traitor against the Medici, writing invectives against them till his death in 1540. He divinely wrote at all times a sonorous and courtly Tuscan, which makes his reader believe that one who could write so exquisitely must needs write truly. Yet he did not hesitate to boast that he had a pen of gold for his friends, and a pen of iron for his foes. Regretfully then it must be said that Messer Francesco Guicciardini does not deserve belief unless his statements can be corroborated.
Touching the matter of the Borgia venom, and especially of the envenoming of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI and Duke Cesare, he is corroborated by Messer Paolo Giovio.
Messer Paolo Giovio was born in 1483, and was of the age of twenty years at the death of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI. He issued no books till twenty-one years later. His first was a quoad-scientific treatise on Roman Fishes (De Piscibus Romanis), published in 1524. He was a dilettante of a kind. He practised amniomancy, or the art of divination by inspection of the membrane, Amnios, in which the unborn child is wrapped—fantastic effort of a seeker after Truth. He was one of those double-faced historians, who wrote one set of memoirs for the highest bidder; (Popes whom they despised, Dukes whom they privately reviled,) and a second set of memoirs for the enemies of the patrons of the first. His Life of the Lord Leo P.P. X (Giovanni de’ Medici) is a specimen. Even during his life, he was considered to be a flagrant liar. He used to say, with a dog-like knowledge of his masters the “people” who “desire to be deceived,” that the centuries would give his written lies the force of truth. He used an affected and flamboyant rather than a pure style; and was the inferior of Guicciardini. The Lord Clement P.P. VII (Giulio de’ Medici), to be rid of his incessant importunity, gave him the bishopric of Nocera; and he died in 1552.
Who, therefore, wishes to believe Messer Francesco Guicciardini uncorroborated, or corroborated by Messer Paolo Giovio, will do so on his own responsibility.
Let it be noted that both Giovio and Guicciardini were Roman Catholics. Their calumnies against the Lord Alexander P.P. VI are their own; and were not invented by dissenters from their creed. The said calumnies very naturally have been adopted by these last as articles of faith; and repeated usque ad nauseam; or resented, with the most unconvincing and inane half-heartedness, by a majority of modern and soi-disant enlightened Roman Catholics, who fear (positively they shew every sign of fear) to credit their own learned clergy of the present day, Leonetti, Velron, Cerri, and Ollivier, to say nothing of the laity, e.g., Comte Réné de Maricourt, who have laboured for justice to the maligned Borgia. Will these astonishingly inconsistent persons prefer to believe the opinion of an atheist, who was incidentally a man of common sense? It is Voltaire who, in speaking of Guicciardini’s statement, (that the Lord Alexander P.P. VI was the victim of venom which He had set for his cardinals, that, having killed them, He might take their treasure,) says,
“All the enemies of the Holy See have welcomed this horrible anecdote. I myself do not believe it at all; and my chief reason lies in its extreme improbability. It is evident that the envenoming of a dozen cardinals at supper would have caused the Father and the son65 to become so execrable, that nothing could have saved them from the fury of the Roman people, and of the whole of Italy. Such a crime never could have been concealed. Even supposing that it had not been avenged by all Italy leagued together, it was directly contrary to the interests of Cesare (detto) Borgia. The Pope was on the verge of the grave. The Borgia faction was powerful enough to elect one of its own creatures: was it likely that the votes of cardinals would be gained by envenoming a dozen of them? I make bold to say to Guicciardini, ‘Europe has been deceived by you, and you have been deceived by your feelings. You were the enemy of the Pope; you have followed the advice of your hatred. It is true that He had used vengeance cruel and perfidious, against foes perfidious and cruel as Himself. Hence you conclude that a Pope of the age of seventy-two years could not die a natural death. You maintain, on vague rumour, that an aged sovereign, whose coffers at that time contained more than a million of gold ducats,66 desired to envenom several cardinals that He might seize their treasures. But were these treasures so important? The treasures of cardinals nearly always were removed by their gentlemen before the Popes could seize them. Why do you think that so prudent a Pope cared to risk the doing of so very infamous a deed for so very small a gain; a deed that could not be done without accomplices; and that sooner or later must have been discovered? May I not trust the official accounts of the Pope’s sickness, more than the mere rumours of the mob? That official account declares the Pope to have died of a double-tertian fever. There is not the slightest vestige of proof in favour of the accusation which you have brought against His memory. His son Borgia67 happened to fall sick at the time when his Father died. That is the sole foundation for the story of the venom.’”
It will appear that the death of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, from venom, is improbable. It may also be said that it was impossible, for reasons here forthcoming.
The Legend of the Borgia Venom
One of the stock phrases used by biographers and historians of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries was “he (or she)—died in the odour of sanctity.” Another was “he (or she)—died not without suspicion of venom.” Both phrases are the merest expression of private opinion, the importance of which depends upon the integrity and knowledge of the user: but in no case do they amount to a dogmatic, final, infallible, or authoritative, decision.
When a person is said to have departed this life in the odour of sanctity, (a purely technical phrase, insusceptible of literal translation,) sooner or later the process of ecclesiastical law is begun for obtaining for the deceased the successive titles, Venerable Servant of God, the Blessed ——, and Saint ——. These titles, only being conferred after stringent examination of quality lasting many years and sometimes many centuries,68 are taken to prove the pious opinion “died in the odour of sanctity” to have been founded on a verity.
But when a person is said to have died “not without suspicion of venom,” it is very rarely that steps are taken, juridically to examine that suspicion with a view to proving it to be founded on fact or falsehood. The world deliberately prefers to believe the worst of man, deliberately prefers suspicion. The expression in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries was as randomly and as inconsequently used as the cry for a General Council, by every one who found occasion to go “against the government”; and it certainly does not command respect by reason of its absurdly frequent repetition. It was the fashion for their enemies to accuse the Borgia of compassing the death of some by venom. It was also the fashion for the Borgia to retort upon their enemies in the same formula. There can be no human doubt that the Borgia and their enemies would have envenomed each the other, had they known how to do so with security and certainty. It was a habit of the Latin Races to see no distinction between venom and steel when the idea was to get rid of a foe. Cold northern nations, the English in particular, always have had a horror of venom, preferring boots, fists, bullet, or blade; indeed one of the most hideous penances ordained by English and Post-Reformation law was awarded to criminals who had envenomed the lieges. They were boiled alive. “This year, the XVII March, was boyled in Smithfield one Margaret Davis, a maiden which had poisoned three households that she dwelled in.” (Wriothesley’s Chronicle, 1542.)
Perhaps to this habit, of regarding the use of venom as so horrible a crime, is due the fascination which those, who are supposed to have attained high eminence in its practice, have for Englishmen. Undoubtedly, Lord Alexander P.P. VI and Duke Cesare de Valentinois della Romagna are regarded as having been artists in venom, possessing knowledge far surpassing that of modern alchymists. They are believed to have envenomed their foes, named and unnamed, by the score; and, at last, to have fallen into the pit that they have digged for others.
Of the cases named, Cardinal Giovanni Borgia (detto Giuniore), the Sultan Djim, and Cardinal Orsini, are the most important. The improbability in the case of the first already has been shewn: Duke Cesare and he were friendly; their interests were asymptotic; and they were apart during the seventeen days before the cardinal died. The improbability in the case of the Sultan Djim lies in the fact that the Pope lost 40,000 ducats annually, and the only means of keeping the Turks from Christendom, by his death which was due to natural causes, and took place when he was in the hands of the Christian King Charles VIII at Naples, some weeks after he had left Rome. The improbability in the case of Cardinal Orsini is proved by the tainted source from which the charge emanated; by the publicity of all proceedings before and after his death; and by the sworn testimony of his leeches. Cases of this kind must be considered together; and rejected or accepted together; for rumours do not gain credibility from vociferous repetition: nor does it avail to plead that because advantages accrue from the death of such a one, therefore, the person benefited by the death is likely to have envenomed the deceased. Death is always advantageous to some one living: but in no case named did the Lord Alexander P.P. VI and Duke Cesare reap any gain whatever, but contrariwise loss. As for the statement, that the venom of the Borgia was a slow venom, slow in action, dirigible in absence, it safely may be said that no such venom existed then any more than it does now.
This slow venom is an invention of purveyors of a certain class of fiction, doing vast credit to their imaginative powers, but possessing no tangible existence. These writers of fiction are merchants who must supply their customers with goods upon demand. The Legend of the Borgia Venom is a department of their trade. The public has read it and cried for more according to the sample. The public is pleased to amuse itself. At other times the public has the humour to inform itself; and takes spiritual pastors, and masters, cunning in all learning, in all verities of past and present. From these, the truth is required for mental profit; from the others invention and imagination for mental recreation. The public pays and has the right to choose what it will buy. A grocer, who would venture to supply pickles instead of pepper ordered, would encounter his patron’s discontent. A teacher, who would venture to purvey fiction instead of fact required, would meet with similar disaster, one would think. But in sober earnest, the Legend of the Borgia Venom so very industriously has been propagated, that modern serious writers have adopted it as one of the items which safely may be included in their serious writings: and the public finding it there, in places where truth is expected to be, looks upon the false as true because it comes with the imprimatur of authority.
Herr Eugene Burckhardt’s very learned modern work, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, of which an English Translation is accessible, is a case in point. It purports to be gravely written, and is a mine of accurate information. Yet, among continuous ropes of pearls of wisdom, occasionally one is startled by the discovery of a bead so base, that one wonders how it has escaped detection and damnation. Here is an example,
“Strictly speaking, as we are now discussing phases of Italian civilization, this pontificate (1492–1503) might be passed over, since the Borgia are no more Italian than the House of Naples. Alexander spoke Spanish in public with Caesar; Lucrezia at her entry into Ferrara, where she wore a Spanish costume, was sung to by Spanish Buffoons: their confidential servants consisted of Spaniards, as did most of the ill-famed company of the troops of Caesar in the war of 1500; and even his Hangman Don Michelotto, and his Poisoner Sebastian Pinzon, seem to have been of the same nation.”
That is a specimen of the slipshod way in which serious writers are false to their trust, of the half-truths which they make to serve for the truth about the Borgia. It is exceedingly necessary to lay great stress upon the Spanish origin of the Borgia, lest odium undeserved should light on their adopted country Italy. They were very fine examples of their race: but never let it be forgotten that their vices, (for, being men, they had their vices) were Spanish and not Italian vices. Herr Burckhardt does well to emphasize this fact, and to enrich and illuminate it with a wealth of illustration: but when he comes to speak of Don Michelotto as Duke Cesare’s Hangman, and of Sebastian Pinzon as his Poisoner, with the light and easy freedom which one uses in speaking of “the unquestioned things that are”; then one is compelled to conjure up the horrible and fantastic picture of the Generalissimo of the Pontifical Army stalking about the continent of Europe with an official Hangman and an official Poisoner in his entourage. Don Michelotto was a captain of Duke Cesare’s condottieri, a valued confidential servant, perhaps, on sudden occasion, as at Sinigaglia, his executeur des hautes œuvres: but never a professional Hangman. And Sebastian Pinzon? Is it to be believed that Duke Cesare—for this really is what Herr Burckhardt’s amazing statement implies—did so much venenation in the way of business, that it was as necessary to have a Lord High Poisoner attached to his staff as a Groom of the Stola or a Clerk of the Hanaper?69 The thing is absurd; worthy of comic opera, not of serious history. But the origin of Herr Burckhardt’s error shall be traced.
Giustiniani the Orator of Venice, to whom the Borgia were intensely antipathetic, and who neglected no opportunity of relating rumours detrimental to them, sent to his government a dispatch dated the twentieth of July 1502, stating, that the Most Illustrious Lord Giambattista Ferrari, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Crisogono, vulgarly called the Cardinal of Modena, had died; that, in accordance with his testament, his goods and benefices had been distributed; that his archbishopric of Capua had been given to the young and lusty Lord Cardinal Prince Ippolito d’Este (now of the age of twenty-four years and a person of fashion;) that his bishopric of Modena had been given to his brother; that the greater part of his goods had been given to his secretary Messer Sebastiano Pinzoni; that this last bequest was called “the price of blood” for the secretary had envenomed his master, to have his goods; that the Pope had endowed the said secretary with a canonry in Padua, the prefecture of Sant’ Agata in Cremona, a benefice in Rome, another in Mantua valued at five hundred ducats, and had received him inter familiares.
Now there is no word in that dispatch which implicates Duke Cesare. We learn that Messer Sebastiano Pinzoni, secretary to the Cardinal of Modena, was said, by rumour, to have envenomed his master in order to profit thereby; and also that the said secretary had been patronised by the Lord Alexander P.P. VI. That is all. It would be unpleasant to think of the Pope’s Holiness as the patron of a murderer: yet that would be the obvious conclusion, if the matter ended here. But it does not. There is further record of Messer Sebastiano Pinzoni, which makes it clear that his crime at first was unknown to the Pope; and that on its discovery he was forced to take refuge in flight. It is Monsignor Burchard who records in his Diarum under date Wednesday the twentieth of November 1504, that the Ruota (the supreme secular tribunal of the Holy Roman Church) delivered sentence against Sebastiano Pinzoni, Apostolic Scribe, who was contumacious and absent, depriving him of all benefices and offices, for that he had slain with venom the Lord Cardinal of Modena his patron who had raised him from the dung-hill.70 Ciacconi says that the Cardinal of Modena was envenomed by Sebastiano Pinzoni, his gentleman-of-the-bedchamber; who, being imprisoned on another charge in the reign of the Lord Leo P.P. X, when put to the Question, confessed this crime, which he before had denied.
Let it be admitted that Sebastiano Pinzoni envenomed his master, then. But Herr Burckhardt brings no evidence to prove that he was connected with Duke Cesare; nor is it established that he was employed by His Excellency in any capacity, private, or official. But every crime of every criminal in the Borgian Era is attributed to Borgia as a matter of course; and Herr Burckhardt, writing serious history, introduces fiction, and passes off Sebastiano Pinzoni as Duke Cesare’s Poisoner!
To turn from the historian to the novelist will afford a little recreation in this quest of the Venom of the Borgia; and, also, the diversion will not be unprofitable: for the novelist is an exceedingly important person by reason that he commands an infinitely wider audience than the historian, and influences, forms, or moulds, an infinitely larger section of opinion. M. Alexandre Dumas in his Crimes Célèbres has much to say about the Borgia. Knowing, as a practised hand, that the best fiction is that which has a substratum of fact and an air of truth, M. Dumas quotes the precious Messer Paolo Giovio and his Cantarella which already has been mentioned here. Further, with a wealth of “corroborative detail calculated to give verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative,” he describes the preparation of a liquid venom which, he says, the Borgia used. A bear was caught and made to swallow a strong dose of arsenic. When this began to take effect, the bear was suspended by his hind-legs head-downward; and incontinent he would fall into convulsions, while from his throat there poured a copious deadly stream of foam, which was collected on a silver plate, bottled in vials hermetically sealed; and this was the liquid Venom of the Borgia.
There were plenty of bears in the Apennines, perhaps, even in the Alban Hills within twenty miles of Rome; so the bear is probable enough. Having caught his bear, Duke Cesare would convey him to the Vatican—a large palace truly, but rather too full of people to be desirable as a private venom-factory. On a dark night in a lonely courtyard, the Pope’s Holiness and the Duke’s Excellency would administer the arsenic to the bear. The method of administration is not described, nor the slinging up of the beast prior to his convulsions, nor the picture of the aged Pontiff skipping round with the silver plate in His solicitude that no drop of the fluid should be lost, nor the solemn bottling of the vials, nor their hermetic sealing with what seal? The Ring of the Fisherman? And M. Dumas carefully omits to say that the nasty mess so secretly and arduously obtained would have been far less venomous than the original dose of arsenic; which, administered neat, without the intervention of an ill-used bear, certainly would have slain: but which would be deprived of most, if not of all, of its venomous potency, by its submission to the digestive processes of M. Dumas’ improbable and impossible bear.
Undoubtedly, there were the same venomous substances in and on this earth in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries, as there are now: some few were known; but many more, and these the most sure and deadly, were not even dreamed of, e.g., strychnine, prussic acid, or the hideous bacilli, accessible as dust to any Twentieth Century medico who, on the sole condition that he is not instigated by criminal motives, with perfect security to himself can envenom and slay a street, a district, or a city. In the year 1164, Abd-el-Mumin-ben-Ali the Moorish King of Spain chased from his dominions all Jews and Christians who refused the faith of Islam. Among these, to Egypt went the celebrated Moses ben-Maimon. All that was known, he knew; and he knew sixteen venoms; litharge, verdigris, opium, arsenic, spurge or milk-wort, cashew-nut, hemlock, henbane, stramonium or thorn-apple, hemp, mandrake, venomous fungi, plantain, black-nightshade or felon-wort, belladonna, and cantharides. To these, were added in the Borgian Era four centuries later, the tri-sulphite of arsenic, orpiment, antimony, corrosive sublimate, aconite or wolfsbane or monkshood, and perhaps white hellebore, and black or Christmas-Rose; making two and twenty substances known to be venomous.
Undoubtedly, much damage might be done with this arsenal of venoms: but only in the event of the existence of the will to use them, and of the knowledge of the method of their exhibition.
Undoubtedly, there was the will. The fact that Madonna Caterina Sforza-Riario (author of a wonderful collection of recipes, domestic and medicinal, a good housewife as well as witch and warrior,) was said to have attempted the envenoming of the Pope’s Holiness, as described in Book II, speaks for the fact that venom was feared, and therefore likely to be used. Governments experimented with venoms: for what purpose, who can tell? M. Lamanshy published an interesting document dated 1432 which he found in the Venetian Secret Archives.71 “Trial has been made, on three porcine animals, of certain venoms, found in the chancery, sent very long ago from Vicenza, which have been proved not to be good.”
Undoubtedly, there was the will. Undoubtedly, also, there was not the ability.
Strange and paradoxical though it may seem to be, alchymical knowledge, alchymical art, was in a lower condition during the years succeeding the Renascence of Learning, than it had been in the Middle Ages, the so-called Dark Ages, which had gone before. The Dark Ages were the ages of Simples. The Age of the Renascence was the age of Compounds. And, in those compounds, virtue was changed, or lost, by sublimation, by distillation, or annulled by heterogeneous admixture. The following will make this plain.
In the Dark Ages, medicaments were made from single herbs exhibited in the form of draughts, poultices, lotions, or unguents. The old herbaries of Dioskorides, or of Appulejus, were used as text-books; and a few extracts from these will be curious, perhaps valuable, certainly a help to understanding.
(α) The herb Betony or Bishopwort (Betonica officinalis) must be gathered in August without the help of iron, the mould shaken from the roots, and dried in the shade. When triturated, two drachms of it, mixed with hot beer or wine or honey, is an antidote to venom, a digestive, a cure for hydrophobia, constipation, toothache, and prevents monstrous nocturnal visitors, or frightful sights and dreams. A lotion, made from the herb seethed in fresh water till two-thirds are evaporated, cures broken-head, epistaxis, fatigue, and rupture; or the leaves may be used as a poultice. (As a matter of fact, Betony is intoxicating, emetic, and purgative.) (β) The herb Vervain or Ashthroat (Verbena officinalis) must be pounded as a poultice for wounds and carbuncles. It is an antidote to all venoms, and dogs may not bark at him who bears it. (γ) The herb Clovewort (Ranunculus acris), wreathed with red thread on the neck during the waning of the April or October moon, cures lunacy. (δ) The herb Mugwort (Artemisia dracunculus), pounded to an unguent with well-boiled olive-oil, will make strained sinews supple. (This is excellent.) (ε) The herb Ravensleek (Orchis, Σατύριον) will cure sore eyes when they are smeared with its juice. (ζ) The herb Watercress (Nasturtium officinale) will with its juice stop hair from falling. (η) The herb Madder (Rubia tinctoria) as a poultice cures sciatica. (θ) The herb Clover (Trifolium pratense) prevents him who carries it from suffering sore jaws. (ι) The herb Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) is good for the teeth. (κ) The herb Rue (Ruta graveolens), eaten green is an antifat; a twig stops nose-bleeding; macerated in vinegar and soused on the brow induces forgetfulness. Recommended for priests who wish to observe their vow of continence. (λ) The herb Dwarfdwostle or Pennyroyal (Mentha pulegium), as unguent, cures sea-sickness; as a salve, or burned as incense, cures fever and bellyache. (μ) The herb Sage (Salvia), as a lotion, cures itch. (ν) The herb Marjoram (Origanum vulgare), steeped in vinegar, cures headache, or may be chewed for a cough. (ξ) The herb Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea), as a poultice, cures sores and pimples, ἕρπης. (Its venomous principle appears to be unknown.) (ο) The herb Wildthyme or Shepherdspurse (Thymus campestris) will remove all inward foulness by the drinking of its ooze. (π) The herb Violet (Viola odorata), made into an unguent with lard or honey, cures wounds. (ρ) The herb Wildgourd (Cucumis colocynthus, κολοκύνθος ἀγρía), its inward neshness pounded in lithe beer without the churnels, will stir the inward.
Those are Simples, i.e., medicaments derived from single herbs, easily come-by, within the reach of all; suited to a simple, but by no means silly, race of men content with simple things, gifted with faith and sense, and unconcerned to dive below the surface and explore, or experiment with, nature’s sacrosanct arcana.
The Renascence of Learning, when the works of ancient writers were rediscovered, devoured, put in practice, filled men’s minds with new ideas, and completely changed their point of view.
The Most Salubrious Precepts of Medicine written by Quintus Serenus Sermonicus in the Third Century; the Thirty Seven Books of Natural History by C. Plinius Secundus (Pliny Senior) which first saw light in A.D. 77; the eighty-three Treatises of Claudius Galenus, (A.D. 130–200); the thirty-four chapters of the Animal Medicaments which Sextus Placitus wrote in the Fourth Century after the Incarnation; the eight books of Alexandros of Tralles in Lydia, On Medicine, first given to the world in the Sixth Century;—these were the keys that opened the door of speculation to the alert and eager men of the Fifteenth Century, already intoxicated by the glorious Discovery of Man.
Weird and wonderful effects were produced by this flood of knowledge. Weird and wonderful were the new significances given to natural things, the combinations of natural objects projected, the doctrines evolved from observation of natural phenomena. The study of nature became a sacred thing, reserved for the reverent and wise. Its followers were called magi, or magicians; their pursuit was magic. The magical art was either white or black, for the good or ill of men. Great and holy personages practised white magic: the black was damned by the Church, and the bare suspicion of its practice sufficed to burn. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI distinguished Himself by His severity to the black magi. White magic included the art of healing; divination by cheiromancy, amniomancy, lithomancy, astrology, and also experimented to find out the hidden properties and virtues of all things strange, as well as common. It was a vast field for research; and the men who walked therein were just like boys, eager, sensible, ardent, inexperienced, ready to assume and take for granted.
A most eminent mage was Messer Eurico Cornelio Agrippa. During the pontificate of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI he wrote his learning in a book which he called The Book of Occult Philosophy. In the year 1510 he shewed his work to a friend, the celebrated Abbot Trithemius, who was charmed with it, added to it, and advised Messer Eurico to impart it to the elect alone. The advice apparently was taken; for the book was not published till 1531. The mage largely dealt with kabbalistic writing, giving various mysterious alphabets for use in magical recipes. He set forth the sigils planets and planet-signs of certain archangels, patrons of the days of the week, Michael, Gabriel, Samael, Raphael, Sachael, Anael, Cassiel, with their proper perfumes, red wheat, aloes, pepper, mastic, saffron, pepperwort, sulphur. He placed great importance on charms and periapts or amulets.
“St. Thomas Aquinas,” he wrote, “that holy Doctor, in his Book De Fato saith that even Garments, Buildings, and other artificial Works whatsoever, do receive a certain Qualification from the Stars: and Magicians affirm that, not only by the Mixture and Application of natural Things, but also in Images, Seals, Rings, Glasses, and some other Instruments, being opportunely framed under a certain Constellation, some celestial illustration may be taken, and some wonderful thing may be received.”
This being his idea, it is not surprising to find him prescribing for the reduction of an intermittent fever, the following charm of Quintus Serenus Sermonicus to be written on parchment and worn round the neck:
a b r a c a d a b r a
a b r a c a d a b r
a b r a c a d a b
a b r a c a d a
a b r a c a d
a b r a c a
a b r a c
a b r a
a b r
a b
a
or, as a protection against evil spirits and dangers of journey, water, enemy, or arms, the beginning and end of the first five verses of Genesis:
written on virgin parchment, or on most pure gold, back and front, with an ink made of the smoke, of incense, or of consecrated wax tapers, mixed with holy water. This charm also must be worn round the neck, and its efficacy is conditional upon the belief of the wearer in God the Creator of All.
Men of the Borgian Era knew that the tail of an ibex, dried with its flesh and skin and worn about the person, would ward off magic unless the wearer should consent thereto. This they learned from St. Hildegard’s treatise De Animalibus. They knew that the herb Heliotrope or Turnsole (Heliotropion Europaeum), placed under the pillow of a man who has been robbed, will bring him a vision of the thief and his spoil; and that, when it was set up in a church, unfaithful wives would be unable to go away until it was removed. Their faith in the virtue of gems was very precious; and chiefly derived from the physician Alexandros of Tralles. A cockatrice engraved on green jasper preserved from the Evil Eye. A metal cross tied on the left arm cured epilepsy. A live spider tied in a rag on the same arm cured ague. A metal ring, engraved with the sacred tau Τ (the “Mark on the Forehead”), also freed from epilepsy. A ring, set with ass-hoof, cured ἀδυναμία. A ring, carved with a council of ravens for Apollo, conferred conjugal joy and the gift of clear-seeing. A brownish-yellow jacinth gave sleep. An agate, carved with St. John the Divine, protected from venom. Oriental jasper or heliotrope (blood-stone), engraved with a youth wearing a necklace of herbs, when anointed with marigold juice, conferred invisibility. A copper ring, figured with a lion, a crescent, and a star, and worn on the fourth finger, cured calculus. Amethyst kept the wearer sober, and a papal bull ordained it for episcopal rings. Coral delivered from incubi and succubi. Herakles strangling the lion of Nemea, carved on a honey-coloured sard, cured colic. Carnelian carved with a Hermes Psuchopompos gave cheerfulness and courage. A man might live as long as he liked if he looked at a presentment of St. Christopher (the Christian Herakles) every day.72 The toad-stone or bufonite (the fossil palatal tooth of the ray-fish Pycnodus) when set in a ring was a most potent periapt against black magic. In the University Galleries at Oxford, No. 691, there is a splendid specimen of a double-toad-stone ring; i.e., the stones are set outward on opposite sides of the ring so that the one always touches the closed hand, while the other is free to dismay a magical enemy.
Cheiromancy was expounded by Messer Andrea Corvo da Carpi, whose deeply religious little treatise adorned with diagrams was published at Venice in 1500.
But the chief of the men of science of the Borgian Era was Messer Giambattista della Porta of Naples. Born in 1445, dying in 1515, he was an exact contemporary of Borgia. What he did not know of natural science, no other man of his epoch knew. His house in Naples was a resort of literary and scientific men of every nation. He established public and private academies of science in all directions, the chief of which were Gli Ozioni of Naples and one called Il Secreti which met in his own house, and to which no mage was admitted unless he had made some new and notable discovery of natural phenomena. This was the academy whose name and air of mystery excited intense ecclesiastical suspicion at Rome, which by hinting at black magic procured the order to close the meetings of the mages.
Messer Giambattista della Porta was a copious writer. He gave to the world a treatise On Physiognomy, in which he judges men’s characters by comparing their faces to those of certain beasts; and a diffuse and learned work on cyphers, De Occultis Literium Notis. His great work, however, was The Book of Natural Magic. He says that he began it in 1460, when he barely was of the age of fifteen years;—these were the precocious times when Messer Giovanni de Medici was a Lord Cardinal at thirteen and Prince Gioffredo Borgia of Squillace a married man and captain of condottieri at fourteen;—and thirty-five years later in 1495, by the help of that lusty young Maecenas the Lord Cardinal Prince Ippolito d’Este, he published the matured work from which the following recipes are taken.
Very few English people realize the doctrine of Sympathy and Antipathy; or admit that Attraction and Repulsion are Primary Forces. “I do not love thee, Doctor Fell, the reason why I cannot tell,” says the Englishman, and worries to find that reason instead of recognising the Law. “She is simpatica and he is antipaticissimo,” says an Italian, stating and admitting a natural law. Messer Giambattista della Porta is very clear on the point of Antipathy, which he illustrates by saying that Vine and Colewort are natural enemies, because Colewort cures drunkenness; that Rue and Hemlock are natural enemies, because Hemlock heals blisters raised by Rue: as well as on the point of Sympathy which he illustrates by saying that a wild bull, tethered to a fig-tree, will become tame and gentle; and a dog, laid to a diseased part of a man’s body, will absorb the disease.
He says that beasts have knowledge all their own: that ravens use ivy, eagles use maidenhair, herons use carrots, on their nests as natural preservatives against enchantments: that cats eat grass, and pigeons pellitory, for their ailments: that lions with quartan agues eat apes, that dim-eyed hawks eat sow-thistle, that serpents rejuvenate on fennel, and that partridges eat leeks to clear their voices.
To prove that he has not gone about the world with eyes closed, he remarks that mice are generated of putrefaction, frogs of rotten dust and rain, red toads of dirt and καταμήνια, and serpents of the hair of horses’ manes or of a dead man’s back-marrow.
He advises the creation of new animals by crossbreeding; a hunting dog, of a mastiff and a lioness or tigress; a trick dog, of a bitch and an ape; and birds with delicious flesh for gourmets, of a cock and a peahen, or of a cock pheasant and a plain hen. His method of making a bird sociable and friendly is quaint and unique. He says that, before the creature has got its feathers, you must break off its lower beak even to the jaw. Then, having not the wherewithal to peck up food, it must come to its master to be fed.
He advocates the creation of new fruits which sound most daintily, by grafting a mulberry on a chestnut tree, a peach on a nut, a quince on a pear, a citron on an apple, and a cherry on a bay. He advises the making of bread with dates and walnuts; and of wine with quinces.
He will make precious stones—a jacinth by putting lead into an earthen pot, and setting it in a glass-maker’s furnace until the lead is vitrified: or an emerald by dissolving silver in aqua-fortis, casting in plates of copper to which the composition will adhere, drying the plates in the sun, setting them in an earthen pot for some days in a glass-maker’s furnace.
He says that green and merry dreams may be procured by eating balm, or bugloss, or bows of poplar; and black and melancholy dreams by eating beans, lentils, onions, garlic, leeks.
He will cure toothache with roots of pellitory or of herbane, bruised. For the care of the teeth he recommends a wash made of leaves of mastic, rosemary, sage, and bramble, macerated in Greek wine, (i.e., a strong rich wine grown in dry volcanic soil:) or a tooth-powder made of barley bread-crumbs browned with salt. But his recipe for white and pearly teeth is a master-piece.
“Take three handfuls each of flowers and leaves of sage, nettle, rosemary, mallow, olive, plantain, and rind of walnut roots; two handfuls each of rock-rose (κίστος), horehound, bramble-tops; a pound of flower and half a pound of seed of myrtle; two handfuls of rose buds; two drachms each of sandal-wood, coriander, and citron-pips; three drachms of cinnamon; ten drachms of cypress nuts; five green pine-cones; two drachms each of mastic and Armenian bole or clay. Reduce all these to powder. Infuse them in sharp black wine. Macerate them for three days. Slightly press out the wine. Put them in an alembic and distil them on a gentle fire. Boil the distillation till two ounces of alum is dissolved in it. Keep in a close-stopped vial: and, for use, fill the mouth with the lotion, and rub the teeth with a finger wrapped in fine linen.”
An excellent specimen this, of a Compound as distinguished from a Simple; of the sophistication, and of the meticulous personal cleanliness, of people of the Borgian Era.
To cure a man of Envy, says this mage, keep him in the fresh air, hang carbuncles and jacinths and sapphires on his neck, let him wear a ring made of ass-hoof and smell to hyssop and sweet lilies.
Messer Giambattista Porta’s ninth Book teaches how to make women beautiful. There was a fashion which continued the forehead to the middle of the skull; and a depilatory is recommended made of quicklime four ounces, and orpiment two ounces, boiled until a hen’s feather dipped into it is bared. This frightful compound must not long remain on the skin; and the burns should be dressed with the gum of aspen-bark (Populus Tremula) and oil of roses or of violets. Or, hair may be removed by fomentation with hot water, plucking out with nippers one by one, and anointing the holes with a saturated solution of saltpetre, or with oil of brimstone or vitriol, the process being repeated once a year. Where hair is only thin and downy, the roots of wild hyacinth rubbed on will keep it back.
To dye the hair yellow, (in imitation of Madonna Lucrezia Borgia, whose beautiful yellow hair was much admired,) add enough honey to soften the lees of white wine and keep the hair wet with this all night. Then bruise roots of celandine and greater-clivers-madder, mix them with oil of cummin seed, box-shavings, and saffron; and keep this on the head for four and twenty hours, when it should be washed off with a lye of cabbage-stalks and ashes of rye-straw.
To make the hair grow it should be washed in the liquid that first distils from honey by the fire: or it should be anointed with an unguent made of marsh-mallow bruised in hog’s grease, boiled long in wine, added to bruised cummin seed, mastic, yolk of egg, boiled again, and strained through linen.
To make hair thick and curly, boil maidenhair with smallage seed in wine and oil; or roots of daffydillies, or dwarf-elder, boiled with wine and oil.
Water, in which the bulbous tops of lilies have been boiled, makes the skin fair: and corrosive sublimate and cerusa (white lead) makes the face white and shining.
For sunburn, white of egg and sugar-candy on the face at night, washed off in barley-water in the morning, is prescribed: and a clear skin is to be had by rubbing with the rind or bruised seeds of melons. It will be obvious that there were “plain” as well as “coloured” women in the Borgian Era; i.e., those who went about their duty (of cultivating their charms) in a wholesome way, and those who used violent and nasty methods.
Messer Giambattista della Porta appears to have used his science and magical art to invent “Some Sports against Women”; which will show what the Borgian Era regarded as permissible practical jokes. He says that, if you wish to discover paint on a face, you must chew saffron before breathing on her, and incontinently she yellows: or you may burn brimstone near her, which will blacken mercury sublimate and cerusa (white lead): or you may chew cummin or garlic and breathe on her, and her cerusa or quicksilver will decay. But if that you yearn to dye a woman green, you must decoct a chameleon in her bath.
His tenth book deals with interminable and elaborate processes of distillation and sublimation; proving that what was said on a previous page concerning Letters and Art, (viz., that the habit of the time was to think all of the workmanship, and nothing of the material used,) was perfectly true of Fifteenth Century pharmacy also. These mages sat and boiled their alembics and crucibles; and distilled, and distilled, and sublimed, and sublimed, till the nature of their stuff was lost, or utterly changed, instead of being refined and concentrated as they vainly hoped. They were just like boys, eager, sensible, ardent, inexperienced. They made the inevitable blunders of adventurers. They committed the extravagances of human nature in unwonted circumstances; and the wisdom of the Twentieth Century is the fruit of the fooling of the Fifteenth.
Messer Giambattista della Porta devotes his eleventh book to Perfumes; his twelfth to the making of Greek Fire (from camphor, pitch, spirits and brimstone) of gunpowder, and of rockets shells and mines; his thirteenth to the tempering of steel.
His fourteenth book contains monstrous and characteristic recipes connected with meats and drinks. If you want to make your guests drunken, mix with their wine the filth of a dog’s ear. If you prefer to make them mad-drunk, give them a camel’s froth in water. If you want to avoid being overcome of wine, eat leeks and saffron, wear garlands of roses, violets and ivy-berries, and carry an amethyst on your person. To keep your boy sober, before he has tasted wine give him the boiled eggs of an owl, to temper his natural heat. If you want delicately to drive unwelcome guests from your table, you may disgust them with the viands in five ways: first, a needle which has sewed dead men’s shrouds when stuck under the table will cause all to loathe to eat: secondly, meat secretly peppered with powdered root of wake-robin (Arum maculatum) will fetch the skin off their mouths: thirdly, food sprinkled before serving with powdered leaves of cuckoo-pine (—gen. Arum) will produce copious salivation: fourthly, knives and napkins rubbed with wildgourd juice (Cucunis colocynthus, κολοκύνθις ἀγρία) will give to all they touch a horrible smack: lastly, harp-strings, cut small and strewed on hot meat, will writhe like worms; and so you may rid your table of unwelcome guests.
If you would bone a pigeon, draw, and soak in vinegar for four and twenty hours; then pull out the bones, wash well, fill with herbs and spices and roast or boil it. To make tender a tough capon, boil it before roasting. But, if you desire to give your friends much joy, entertain them to a goose cooked alive. In the courtyard, pluck your goose except her head and neck, and cover her with lard and suet. Build a ring of faggots round her; not too narrow, lest she evade the roasting, nor too wide lest the smoke choke her, or the fire burn her. Inside the ring of faggots, on the ground occupied by your plucked and larded goose, place several pots of water mixed with salt and bearwort. Light the faggots slowly. When the goose begins to roast she will walk about; but she cannot escape; and you have her wings. When she grows weary and very hot, she quenches her thirst with the medicated water, and cools her heart and her inward parts. You continually must moisten her head and her heart with a sponge at the end of a cane. At last, you will see her run incontinently up and down; and presently stumble. Then she is empty, and there is no more moisture in her heart. Wherefore you may take her away, and set her on the table to your guests: she will cry when you pull off her pieces; and you almost may eat her before she has died.
The fifteenth and last book of Natural Magic treats of various modes of conducting secret correspondence by invisible inks, writing on eggs or naked backs of drugged couriers, counterfeit seals and writing, messages by pigeon or by arrows.
Those are the things of which a sober learned and most eminent physician of the Fifteenth Century seriously has written, and called Natural Magic. He shews the innocent ingenuous mind of a child rampant among new toys.
Having shewn something of this mage’s knowledge, it may be said, now, that, scattered about his Book of Natural Magic, carelessly and incidentally, there are allusions to certain venoms. He says:
I. that ἐζάμβλωσις may be procured by exhibiting the wine that Pliny calls Phthorium (Φθόριος) (Plin. 4, 16, 19, § 110), made from the grapes of a vine on which hellebore, wildgourd, and scamony have been grafted: II. that Mandrakes (Μανδραγόρας), Mandragora (Atropa Officinalis) growing by a vine, will make its grapes hypnotic: III. that one drachm of belladonna (—gen. Atropa) or stramonium (thorn-apple, Datura stramonium) in water, (which they will infect without taste or smell,) “will make men mad without any hurt, so that it is a most pleasant spectacle to behold such mad whimsies and visions. It is very pleasant to behold. Pray make trial,” he lightly says. But he adds that one ounce of these drugs will make a man sleep four days. IV. that one drachm of Nightshade rind (Solanum nigrum) in wine will give sleep; a little more, madness; a large dose, death: V. that Hemlock (Conium maculatum) in wine will cause death: VI. that the drachm dose of belladonna, bruised in wine, is good for driving away unwelcome guests.
It will be noticed that three of these six prescriptions contemplate death.
Messer Giambattista della Porta emphatically states that no single venom will kill all living creatures; “for what is venomous to one may serve for the preservation of another, which comes not by reason of the quality but of the distinct nature.” He gives a lengthy list of substances with the animals to which they are fatal, e.g., wolfebane kills wolves; henbane, hens; daffydillies, mice; black hellebore, oxen; white hellebore, pigeons; ivy, bats; comfrey, eagles; pondweed, urchins; mustard-seed, larks; vine-juice, cranes; willow, tom-tits; pomegranate-churnels, falcons, vultures, sea-gulls, blackbirds; and nux vomica, dogs. In regard to the last, it should be understood that the Fifteenth Century called foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) nux vomica; and had not succeeded in extracting the vegetable alkaloid Strychnine, in its modern isolated form, from the Javanese Στρύχνος nux vomica, of which it is the active principle.
To complete the exposition of this typical Fifteenth Century man of science, his chief Antidote to Venom is appended here.
“Take three pounds of old oil and two handfuls of St. John’s Wort, (Balm of the Warrior’s Wound, hypericum.) Macerate for two months in the sun. Strain off the old flowers, and add two ounces of fresh. Boil in Balneo Mariae (a bain-marie) for six hours. Put in a close-stopped bottle and keep in the sun for fifteen days. During July, add three ounces of St. John’s Wort seed which gently has been stamped and steeped in two glasses of white wine for three days. Add also two drachms each of gentian, tormentil, dittany, zedoary, and carline, (all of which must have been gathered in August,) sandal-wood and long-aristolochie. Gently boil for six hours in Balneo Mariae. Strain in a press. Add to the expression one ounce each of saffron, myrrh, aloes, spikenard, and rhubarb, all bruised. Boil for a day in Balneo Mariae. Add two ounces each of treacle and mithridate. Boil for six hours in Balneo Mariae. And set it in the sun for forty days.
“In plague, or suspicion of venom, anoint the stomach, wrists, and heart; and drink three drops in wine. It will work wonders,” says Messer Giambattista della Porta.
The pharmacy of the Renascence, to quote the confession of the charlatan Cagliostro, consisted in herbs and words, “in verbis et in herbis.”
The practice of medicine during the Borgian Era appears to have been entirely empirical. Physicians experimented on the vile body of their patient, trusting to luck, or chance, or faith, to work a cure. In contracts it was expressly stated that physicians must have the reputation of being fortunate (felix). Chirugeons were totally unaware of the circulation of the blood. So much stress here is laid upon the art and craft and mystery of medicine and its exponents, because from these, and from these alone, the knowledge and use of venoms could be obtained; and, if the blind can lead the blind without both falling into the same ditch, then there might be some foundation in fact for the legend of the Borgia Venom. But while physicians and chirugeons and apothecaries solemnly bought three little boys for a ducat each, drew off their blood and sublimed it into a potion to save the life of a senile pontiff; or did such monkey-tricks as Messer Juan de Vigo did to the Lord Julius P.P. II a few years later, all with quite convincing evidence of gravity and good faith, one must conclude that these mages acted according to the very best of their knowledge and belief; but that, in quantity as well as quality, their belief was vastly superior to their knowledge. Nardaeus says73
“The famous chirugeon Juan de Vigo, perceiving that an ulcer of the Lord Julius P.P. II became every day more stubborn, and that the Pope persisted in refusing all manner of remedies, hit upon a new method of cure: for he boiled together, in a brass kettle, for three hours, old rags cut in pieces, crumbs of fine bread, plantain, and a fomentation of arsenic sublimed in rosewater; after which, drying them, and applying them by way of powder to the wound (to which he had sworn that he would apply no more plaisters,) he cured the Pope in a very short time, to the admiration of all concerned.”
Infantile as was the condition of medical science in regard to life, it was not one jot more robust in its observations of death. The cases of the suspicious demises of two cardinals, not during the reign of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, but a few years later, will illustrate this.
In 1508, during the reign of the eternal enemy of Borgia the Lord Julius P.P. II, a nephew of His Holiness died, the Lord Galeotto Franciotto della Rovere, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Pietro ad Vincula. And, says Mgr. Paris de Grassis (Burchard’s inimical successor as Caerimonarius,74 “I saw on his face and on his body such spots as seemed to be the effect of a dose of venom; and all the others formed the same opinion.”
After autopsy, the chirugeons found no venom, but “certain bloody spots: wherefore they judged him to have died of a superfluity of blood; and, if he had been phlebotomized, he would have had no harm.”
The second case is that of the Lord Christopher Bainbridge, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Prassede, and Orator of King Henry VII Tudor at the Court of the Lord Leo P.P. X. He died in Rome, in 1514; and, says Mgr. Paris de Grassis the Caerimonarius, “when his death was ascribed to venom” (—this surely ought to prove that the suspicion was habitual, and no more appropriate to the Borgia than to any other family of this period,—) “by command of the Pope he was eviscerated, and it was found that his heart was diseased on the right side.”
Now this Cardinal Bainbridge, whose death obviously was due to organic disease, has come down to posterity as a victim of venom; while Cardinal Dellarovere, whose salma presented far more suspicious, in fact distinctly suspicious, symptoms, is reputed to have died a natural death!
Of all the wonderful and subtile recipes for venoms which are believed to have been possessed by European potentates about this time, only one now is accessible: but it is dated 1540, exactly thirty-seven years after the Lord Alexander P.P. VI died of his double-tertian fever. It is a Venetian recipe, and comes from the Secret Archives of the Council of Ten.75 Arsenic, antimony, orpiment, and aconite, are to be subjected to a long long process of preparation, similar to those wondrous stews in which Messer Giambattista della Porta, in company with every other respectable mage, had his continual joy; and, when all is done, the ignorant inventor of this horrible venom says that he cannot guarantee its success. Why? The dose of any single one of those four venomous ingredients alone would have been fatal. Why should their combination bring uncertainty? For the simple reason that the boiling and the sun-baking, the sublimation and the distillation, which so prolongedly was practised, set up chemical change, reaction, decomposition, destroyed the virtue or the nature, and effectually altered or annulled the venomous properties originally possessed by the subject of so much empiricism. As simples, they certainly would have been veneficous. As compounds, they might have caused grave inconvenience. But, heterogeneously compounded with alien matter, boiled to disintegration for weeks and months together, their effect surely could not be predicted. They might have been dangerous; or they might not: there is no knowing.
There is no defined charge against the House of Borgia of having compassed their enemies’ deaths by means of venomous rings. The vulgar conception of a venomous ring is not unconnected with a needle-point, (or point,) projecting from the bezel, along which a minute drop of deadly venom can be made to flow; and which pierces the hand that grasps it, inducing syncope and death. Or, another kind conceals a small box in the bezel, containing a tiny capsule of glass wherein venom innocuously lurks, until the glass is broken on the lips.
At the Victoria and Albert Museum of South Kensington, and at the University Galleries of Oxford, there are very splendid collections of rings. Neither collection contains a ring having the legendary needle-point, (or point:) but each collection has a ring which may have been a proximate occasion of the vulgar belief.
Nº 916 at South Kensington is a massive ring of brass, 1⁷⁄₁₆ inches in diameter; and has an octagonal bezel externally armed with a quincunx of spikes. It belongs to the Eighteenth Century, and is of the kind worn by Bavarian peasant-lads on the right middle finger at the present day.
Nº 385 at Oxford is an Italian ring of the Fourteenth Century, of gold niello, very beautiful. The bezel projects, and ends in the revolving rowel of a Fiery spur.
Both of these rings are weapons, intended hideously to scratch and tear an adversary’s face. There is no hollow in them that might harbour venom; and they are in no sense venomous rings according to the popular specification: but they are rings,—means of violence of another species—; and, (men being what they are,) these rings may have formed the germ of the tradition.
However, at Oxford and South Kensington, there were rings labelled Poison Rings, at the close of the Nineteenth Century.
Nº 479 in the Fortnum Collection at Oxford, is an Italian ring of the Sixteenth Century, of gold, and having a tiny χερούβ carved in cameo projecting from the high gold bezel. This bezel is hollow, pierced by two pinholes. Its capacity is under an eighth of a cubic inch. The hollow bezel may have been used to contain perfume, introduced through the pinholes: but it is more reasonable to conjecture that the hollow is due to a desire to economise the precious metal.
Nº 533 in the same collection, is a German ring of the Seventeenth Century, of gold, and having a large rough pearl set in, not on, its bezel. Minute examination with microscope and probe proves that there is absolutely no room in this ring for any venom whatever; and that neither this, nor the foregoing, deserves the designation “Poison Ring,” which, however, discreetly is queried on the actual official labels. Apparently, the said labels purely are a concession to the unreasoning vulgar, who expect as a right to find at least a specimen of venomous rings in every respectable museum.
At South Kensington there is a massive ring of iron, plated and damascened with gold. It is Italian, of the Seventeenth Century, ¹¹⁄₁₂ of an inch in diameter. Its octagonal bezel is a tiny box having a hinged lid. This might have held a relic. There is no ground for supposing that it ever concealed venom.
Of these three so-called Poison Rings, the South Kensington specimen, and Nº 533 at Oxford, belong to a period at least a hundred years after the demise of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI and Duke Cesare (detto Borgia). Only Nº 479 in the Fortnum Collection, by any exercise of imagination, can be planted in the Borgian Era. It is labelled “Sixteenth Century”; and the Lord Alexander P.P. VI reigned in Rome, as God’s Vicegerent, during the first two years, seven months, seventeen days, of that century. There is no earthly cause to connect His Holiness with that ring: but, for the purpose of the argument, let it be granted that Nº 479 with its cameo χερούβ belonged to the Borgia Pontiff, that the hollow bezel was used as a receptacle for venom, and not for perfume. What then?
If the venom were a powder, the Pope’s Holiness would have to poke it in with a pin, and close the two tiny holes with wax. Then, when the time came for envenoming the usual cardinal, He assiduously would pick out the wax, and, by violent jerks and shaking, induce the venom to present itself for application. If the venom were a liquid, (M. Dumas’ bear-juice for example,) the same process of waxing up and pin-picking would be necessary.
But there was no venom known to the Borgia, or to any other man or woman of that era, which would kill, with as small a dose as would go in that ring. The venoms of the Fifteenth Century were administered (when they were administered) by the drachm, or by the ounce—not by the grain. The recipes have been displayed here. To harbour a fatal dose of the known venoms, such as Messer Giambattista della Porta describes, a monstrous and vast ring would be needed, more gigantic than those bronze-gilt anuli used as credentials by the pontifical couriers of the Lord Pius P.P. II (1458–1464), Nos 665 and 666 in the South Kensington Collection, two and three-eighths, and two inches, respectively, in diameter. The processes of brewing and stewing, so dear to the mages, without any doubt were a direct disposition of Providence for the security of human life; for they effectually withdrew the sting from venomous substances, and made it perfectly impossible for would-be murderers (and they were more than many) to kill, except accidentally, or with enormous doses and the disadvantages coincident thereto.
No doubt the Twentieth Century still has a little to learn. No doubt that wisdom would wait upon research among the mountains of documents stored in the archives of the Italian patriciate and baronage, Colonna, (not Orsini, whose papers were destroyed by fire in 1702), Savelli, Poplicola di Santacroce, Sforza-Cesarini, Carafa, Caïetani, Piccolhuomini, Borgia of Milan and Velletri, etc. No doubt in the Vatican Secret Archives (the Lord Alexander P.P. VI left one hundred and thirteen volumes in large folio of His acts,) infinite fields of information are white for harvest. There is nothing to prevent the reaping, but the lack of reapers. No doors are shut. No secrets are reserved. “The Popes have need of nothing except the truth.”
Meanwhile, this only can be said.
The empirical methods of the Borgian Era preclude the possibility of anything approaching artistic venenation.
Not one of the definite accusations against the Borgia have been proved. On the contrary they are shewn to lack valid foundation.
There is no authentic evidence regarding the Venom that the Borgia are said to have employed.
In fact, there was no Venom of the Borgia.
Pontifex Maximus Alexander VI et Princeps
In reviewing the Pontificate of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI notice must be taken of the fashion which represents Him as having been in continual fear of deposition on account of the simony by which He is alleged to have bought the papal power. It already has been shewn that no law existed, which made simony an annulment of election to ecclesiastical benefices, until the reign of the Lord Julius P.P. II. It remains to be considered whether the distribution of offices, with which the Lord Alexander P.P. VI signalized his election, in any case would give colour to the charge of simony.
The Conclave for the election of a Pope begins with the Mass of the Holy Spirit chaunted in the Chapel of St. Gregory. Afterwards, the cardinals go in procession, singing Veni Creator Spiritus, to take possession of the cells which they will have to occupy. These cells are erected in a hall of the Vatican, communicating with the Xystine Chapel. They are mere frameworks of wood hung with fringed curtains of baize, green in the cases of cardinals who are creatures of previous pontiffs; violet in the cases of cardinals who are creatures of the pontiffs just deceased. On the front of each cell is a curtained doorway over which the armorials of the occupant are shewn, surmounted by a little swinging window. Each cardinal has a bed, a table, and a chair. His attendants support life in discomfort as best they may. Three hours after avemmaria, all doors and windows communicating with the outer world are walled up. Guards on the outside watch every avenue of access, under command of the Hereditary Marshal of the Church, now Prince Chigi, then Prince Savelli. To every cardinal are allowed two conclavists for his attendants, a chaplain and an esquire. A cardinal-prince, or one aged and infirm, may add a third. In addition to the cardinals and the conclavists, there are enclosed a sacristan with his subsacristans, a secretary with his undersecretaries, five masters of ceremonies, a confessor, two physicians, a chirugeon, two barbers, an apothecary, with their respective boys, a mason, a carpenter, and servants for menial work. Great care is taken that none of these lay-persons should be agents of the orators of the secular powers; and they are made to swear a stringent oath of secrecy. As a matter of fact, they are not allowed to know anything of the proceedings in the Xystine Chapel. Meals are served at stated hours, through a revolving cupboard (ruota) in the outer wall, supervised by cardinals-inspectors. Flagons are of bare glass, lumps of bread or meat are cut open, that no messages from the outer world may pass in by these means. Nor may any single thing pass out. Urgent private letters written in the Conclave are subject to cardinals-censors. Cardinals, who have need, may speak to visitors, but in presence of witnesses; and all communication must be open, and in a language that all can understand. These interviews take place at a window, the cardinal being on the inside, his visitor on the outside: but the conclavists and others are forbidden to approach the window on any pretext whatever.
In the Xystine Chapel, at the moment of the election, the cardinals alone are ocular and auricular witnesses of what takes place. Certainly all proceedings are recorded in the Acts of the Conclave. But the original acts of the Conclave that elected the Lord Alexander P.P. VI are not forthcoming: they very likely were lost in the Sack of Rome in 1527, when the Catholic Catalans and Lutheran Goths of the Elect-Emperor Don Carlos V gambled in the gutters for nuns and for the wives and daughters of Roman citizens. This then is the situation. All accounts of the Conclave of 1492, including the dispatches of Orators to their respective governments, are based on hearsay, or popular rumour. Historians have no other material; for there is none.
The cry of simony always is raised at every election of a Pope. It is only an exemplification of the law that Attraction and Repulsion are Primary Forces. That the Lord Alexander P.P. VI on His election did strip Himself of His new palace, and of His multitudinous benefices, cannot be denied. Why need it be denied? It always is done; for a cardinal who is elected Pope has no more need of these things: he leaves them with his scarlet and ermine cappamagna when He is endued with the plain white frock of Christ’s Vicar. The giving away of His cast-off goods and offices cannot be twisted into an act of simony, unless there is a distinct stipulation that they are given and taken as the price of a vote. And no such distinct stipulation is extant. It is difficult to see why cardinals should be considered likely to be guilty of such degeneration. As a class of men they stand high: they generally are possessed of illustrious birth; they generally are possessed of such enormous wealth as to place them beyond the range of pecuniary temptation; and invariably they are men of merit, the fine flower of their profession. As far as mundane honours go, they have tasted all the glory that the world can offer, except one glory. No layman may kneel on the same bench with a cardinal, unless he be a reigning sovereign. No layman may make a fourth in a carriage containing three cardinals, not even a reigning sovereign. Their rank places them far above peers or princes. They are not eligible for the Athenæum Club, but nothing that the world can offer will improve their position except the Papacy; yet they are suspected, as a class, of intrigues and cabals of the basest kind, mere financial operations; and rarely, very rarely, is there any ground for the suspicion, the prize for which they are said to struggle generally being beneath their notice, the petty advantage which they are thought to desire being unworthy even of their contempt; for cardinals are tired men, tired of splendour, tired of the earthly things; and they are not invariably vile.
When, therefore, the absurd people who wish to prove simoniacal the election of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, or the stupid craven Catholics who fatuously think to conciliate by joining rabidly in the hue and cry against a Pope, can show a definite declaration from one or more of the cardinals-assistant of the Conclave of 1492, couched in some such terms as these, “I acknowledge and confess that, seduced by the dignities and the money that he offered me, (or, intimidated by the menaces of Cardinal Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja,) I allowed myself to be corrupted; and, against my will and better knowledge, I sold my vote to this unworthy cardinal: or, I declare that I have resisted all his promises, threats, and flatteries, and firmly have refused to sell my vote to Cardinal Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja: then, and only then, can this silly or malicious calumny be said to have any foundation in fact.76
One thing is perfectly certain. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI, Who really was the last man in the world à S’ encanailler, never behaved as though He had gained the Triregno by illegitimate means. Not when all Europe yelped around His footstool did He blench or quail or shew a sign of fear. The heathen raged; and the people imagined a vain thing. The kings of the earth set themselves; and the rulers took counsel together. The Monarchs of Naples nagged; the Catholic King and Queen denounced; the Christian Kings minced, grimaced, and gibbered; Caesar Semper Augustus protested; Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere raved and nursed sedition; the barons of Rome revolted; the dukes and tyrants and republics of Italy took up arms; the dominions of the Pope’s Holiness were invaded; the Eternal City suffered violence; the sacrosanctity of the pontifical person was in imminent danger: but the invincible Lord Alexander P.P. VI magnificently retired into the Mola of Hadrian, the only spot in all Christendom where His rule remained; and held His Own, inflexibly, implacably, with an enormous dignity impossible in one who was a mere usurper, a venal simoniac. So much is sure. The demeanour of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI in direst straits, was the demeanour of a man who had no doubt regarding his own integrity.
The so-called scandals of His private life are shewn to have been based upon the malice or the idle gossip of His enemies. He sat in “the fierce light that beats upon a throne.” He was the father of a family. He was not the first or the last Pope Who has been the father of a family. His immediate predecessor, the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII, admitted the paternity of seven children. A successor, the Lord Paul P.P. III, also used Himself in a similar manner: nor are these all. If this be vicious, it was only vicious in the Lord Alexander P.P. VI because He was the Lord Alexander P.P. VI; for in other men the same thing was, and is, tolerated, accepted, applauded. A patrician or a plebeian may steal a horse: but a Pope may not look over the wall. Ille crucem sceleris pretium tulit, hic diadema.77 However, as a father, He exhibited an illustrious example of paternal virtue. He was kind, loving, affectionate to his children; solicitous and self sacrificing for their welfare and advancement. That He employed His spiritual power, to build up the temporalities of His family, was a temptation, to avoid which He would need to have been more than human. It was the custom of the time. It was an imperious necessity of the situation.
The murders and venenations of which He has been accused, in company with Duke Cesare, fail of proof; and indeed His guiltlessness as instigator, principal, or accomplice, appears in every case to be beyond question.
The murder of Don Juan Francisco de Lançol y Borja, Duke of Gandia, remains a mystery: but what evidence there is distinctly points to a vendetta of Orsini directed against the Pope through His Captain-General.
The murder of the Prince of Bisceglia is referable rather to a vendetta of Sanseverini and Caïetani, than to the Pope or Duke Cesare (detto Borgia).
The deaths of Don Astorgio and Don Gianevangelista Manfredi are susceptible of the Venetian Orator’s explanation, puto mal san; there positively is nothing to connect the Pope or the Duke with them.
The death of the Sultán Djim was due to natural causes, while he was in the hands of the Christian King; and the Pope’s Holiness was a pecuniary loser (to the extent of about £80,000 a year) by his death.
The death of Cardinal Orsini was due to natural causes, according to the sworn testimony of physicians provided by the House of Orsini.
Fra Girolamo Savonarola Ο.P. was executed on a capital charge by due process of law; and the Pope was an unwilling agent for the administration of that law.
(The crime of Fra Girolamo really was that of intriguing with a foreign power with which his country was at war. General Booth committing treachery with Mr. Kruger, or Mr. Ira D. Sankey with the Son of Heaven Kwang Su, would be Twentieth Century parallels of Savonarola and Charles VIII.)
Cardinal Giovanni Borgia (detto Giuniore) died a natural death.
Messer Ramiro d’ Orco, Don Vitellozzo Vitelli, and Don Oliverotto da Fermo had a legal trial by court-martial, and paid the legal penalty of crime.
Don Paolo and Duke Francesco Orsini of Gravina suffered merited death, due to the exigencies of civil war in which they and their House were the aggressors.
There remain two other violent deaths to be accounted for, which were not of sufficient importance to treat of in the history of this pontificate, the case of Calderon Perotto, and that of Messer Francesco Trocces.
It is said by Don Paolo Capello, the Orator of Venice, in his Diarium, (or rather in that edition of the said Diarium which was prepared forty years later by Don Marino Sanuto,) that Calderon Perotto was a Spanish lad of eighteen years, one of the Pontifical pages; and that he was stabbed by Duke Cesare (detto Borgia) at the Pope’s feet. The fact is related without comment or explanation. It would not be safe to attach much importance to the statement, because Don Paolo Capello’s original document is not forthcoming and Don Marino Sanuto’s version of what he wrote is the only version accessible. But the alleged murder of the page Perotto is not, like other calumnies, a posthumous invention; for it is mentioned in the atrocious Letter to Silvio Savelli described on an earlier page. The Pope is not, and was not blamed. The murder, if it were a murder at all, is attributed to Duke Cesare (detto Borgia); and it was not an unusual thing for a lord to slay a servant in the Borgian Era. That was common enough; but to do it in the presence of the Holiness of the Pope certainly was sacrilege; and this last circumstance makes it probable that the whole story is a pure invention; for the guilt of sacrilege lightly was not incurred even by the most bloody and abandoned villains: and Duke Cesare was not of that species.
The other death, that of Messer Francesco Trocces is more probable, and mentioned in several dispatches of Orators. He was a papal chamberlain (confidential flunkey of the cloak and sword,—minor situation dear to petits maîtres of the English and Keltic bourgeoisie now;) and was employed as governmental courier. The Republic of Venice was playing fast and loose with the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, disliking to see Duke Cesare’s amazing success in the Romagna; and its Orator, Don Antonio Giustiniani carried on relations of a doubtful kind with Messer Francesco Trocces, in the usual manner of ambassadors who find that they can buy state-secrets from a “crapule.” Suddenly, Messer Francesco fled from Rome to Civita Vecchia. He had been complaining to the Venetians about Duke Cesare; and all his treachery had come to light. The Duke’s steel claws were far-reaching. The traitor was captured there and brought to Rome, strangled, and his body hanged on Tor Savelli as an example to others of his kind. Legally speaking he was executed for the crime of high treason; and the formal exposure of his corpse gives the lie to the idea of clandestine assassination. The practice of secret trials and summary executions is odious to the Twentieth Century: but, in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth, not only all civilized governments, but even barons who had power of life and death over their retainers, used these means as a matter of course; and that alone should be sufficient to exonerate the Borgia from blame.
It has been said of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI that He habitually envenomed his cardinals, that He might have their goods. The following story is given, not in this connection, by Mr. F. Marion Crawford, and is here inserted on account of its frequent significance. At the corner of the Via Lata in the Corso of Rome, is the Palazzo Doria Pamphili, a typical Roman palace of the Borgian Era, two-thirds the size of the Vatican Basilica, and able to accommodate a thousand inhabitants. It was built by Cardinal Santorio (?), who bought the site from the Chapter of Santa Maria Maggiore, and expended thousands of gold ducats in the erection of a House Beautiful. All through the reigns of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI and of the Lord Pius P.P. III, he remained in unmolested possession: but during the pontificate of the Lord Julius P.P. II (Giuliano della Rovere) the Pope’s Holiness said to him that his palace was “more suitable for a secular duke than for a prince of the Church”; and forced him to make Him a free gift of it for His Own nephew Don Francesco della Rovere, whom He had created Duke of Urbino. The unfortunate Cardinal Santorio died soon after of a broken heart. It was not Borgia who caused his death, in order to have his palace: but Borgia’s eternal enemy.
As a secular sovereign, no contemporary of His even deserves to be named in comparison with the Lord Alexander P.P. VI. His reign broke the back of the turbulent ambitious selfish baronage which had ravaged the papal states for centuries. He was an independent Pope; willing to enter into alliances, it is true, so long as they served His purpose: but just as willing to throw over His allies and stand alone upon occasion. If His interests leaned more in one direction than another, it may be taken that He was a Sforza + Cesarini Pope, rather than a creature of Colonna or Orsini as the custom was. His political policy entirely was directed to the substitution of peace and order with security of life and property, instead of the anarchy and desolation which He saw on His accession. He fully lived up to His official title of Ruler of the World; and the sovereigns of Europe at all times found Him sternly rigorously just, amenable neither to fear nor flattery. He was an admirable Father of Princes and of Kings. Notwithstanding all that weakly has been said to the contrary, the Holy Roman Church and Christendom owe a vast debt of gratitude to Him. He found feebleness and war and tumult at His coming: at His going He left behind Him differences removed, rebellions quelled, and a tradition of consolidated strength. He was the Fosterer of Justice and of Peace. He was a great and wise Princeps.
As Pontifex Maximus, Earthly Vicar of Jesus Christ our Saviour, He merits reverent admiration. His habits and tastes were of the simplest kind, in an age of singular luxury. He was temperate in His diet; and the Orators of the Powers commented with disgust upon the fact that He never had more than one dish upon His table. He slept but little. His amusements occupied a mere fraction of His time: but, during recreation, He unbent His awful dignity, and enjoyed Himself with the frank abandon of a school boy. He was a patron of painters: but men of letters incontinently drove their pens against Him; for the Lord Alexander P.P. VI was confronted by the problem of dealing with a new enemy to Christ’s flock and to civilization—He had to regulate the printing-press in the interest of morals; and, as a duty of His office, He ordained the censorship of printed books, He inaugurated the “Imprimatur,” He “muzzled the printer’s devil.”
Yet He was a gentle and kindly-affectioned Shepherd. In 1492, the Jews were expelled from Spain. He entertained them in security in Rome. In 1494, He was horrified by news of the diabolical atrocities of the Grand Inquisitor of Spain; and, though He Himself was a Spaniard, He appointed four assessors with equal power, to restrain the excesses of Torquemada. The Spanish Inquisition never had the countenance of Rome, but Her bitterest opposition. The wanton ingenious cruelty of that infamous Tribunal was due to the fiendish strain of African black blood which tinges and defiles the bluest blood of Spain; and was committed in explicit defiance of the commands of God’s Vicegerent. It is true that He gave America to Spain, and Africa to Portugal.78 The Bulls of Donation shew that He considered it to be the Pope’s duty to teach the Gospel to all nations, and to compel the observance of natural laws. He believed that, before the heathen could hear the Gospel, or observe those laws, it was necessary to make them subjects of a Christian Power. He knew that conquest makes more converts in one day, than preaching in three hundred years. He took as abruptly practical and business-like a view of things as though He had been fortunate enough to have been born an Englishman. And He acted upon the extremely scriptural principle that civil rights and civil authorities lawfully cannot obstruct the propagation of the Faith. None knew better than He that the Treasure was in an earthen vessel79: but, as the chief bishop of the Church far above all principality and power and might and dominion,80 He spoke, exhorted, and rebuked, with an authority. Let no man despise Him.81 There was no other representative of Christianity; there was no other, in all the world, who even claimed to be the representative of Christianity, at that time. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI, magnificent and invincible, was the only one. Let no man despise Him.
As Pastor, He was merciful; as Judge, severe and just. His laws against witchcraft and Black Magic were of the most stringent kind. He used the means which every other sovereign of Europe also used. “East of Suez, some hold, the direct control of Providence ceases; Man being there handed over to the power of the Gods and Devils of Asia—” the most observant of modern English writers says. Men who have lived in the Far East, where Christian influence is very feeble, will recognize the singular correctness of Mr. Rudyard Kipling’s theory. Men, also, who at first hand have studied modern recrudescences of devil-worship, modern flirtations with kakodaimoniacal agencies, the Luciferianism of modern France, will not mutter with patronizing superiority of superstitions and old wives’ fables; but perfectly well will know that hideous abnormity with which the Pope’s Holiness had to deal. Only the wilfully ignorant deny the actuality of diabolic manifestations, called witchcraft and Black Magic in the vulgar tongue. The ostrich who buries her head in sand is like to these. By the side of high civilization there always runs the impulse to savagery, the weird and radical decadence which wanders on dark paths. Hellas and Rome pried into the mysteries of Isis; Christendom entertains Turlupins, Rosicrucians, Indian gumnosophists, and Mahatmas; the Borgian Era played with the Roaring Lion; the Victorian Era with Sathanas and his sorrows. “Perhaps”, “after all”, “audi alteram partem”,—hesitation, compromise, want of defined principle, lack of courageous singleness of mind,—amounting to Emasculation—is the mental note of the Twentieth Century. The Fifteenth had not a tithe of the knowledge now possessed: but it was awfully convinced, strong, and decisive, within its limitations. Then, there was no place for the palterer—except against the wall.
Other malefactors felt the flail which, like Osiris, He wielded equally with the crook. Notaries of the Pontifical Briefs debauched by the undisciplined rule of previous Popes, had become corrupt. In the absence of restraint they habitually forged briefs nominating to benefices, not only in Italy, but in all Christian countries. The ambition of German clergy created the demand. The flagitious notaries managed the supply. They sold their forged briefs privately to whoso would pay the price, and they pocketed the proceeds of this nefarious traffic. In 1497, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI found them out. Some promptly were broiled on Campo di Fiori, the nineteenth of October; one, the Lord Archbishop of Cosenza, and three secretaries, deprived of their benefices and degraded from their clerical estate, solemnly were immured alive in the Mola of Hadrian. These miserable criminals lived some years in their solitary cells, as the custom was, literally feeding on the bread of tears and the water of affliction until they died. (Burchard, Diarium.) One has heard fables of nuns immured. Here is a fairly genuine case of an immured archbishop. Immuration is the same punishment which the Twentieth Century metes out in countries where capital punishment has been abolished:—solitary confinement;—nothing more. The archbishopric of Cosenza was conferred on Cardinal Francisco de Borja, bastard of the Lord Calixtus P. P. III.
The assiduous attention to the duties of His office which the Lord Alexander P.P. VI exhibited is perfectly astounding; and pregnant with indubitable signification.
He reformed the monasteries of Austria, and the secular clergy of Portugal. He confirmed the Rule of the Religion of Friars Minim, founded by San Francesco da Paola. He approved the Rule of the Third Order of Friars Minor, founded by San Francesco d’Assisi. He permitted Madame Jean de Valois to found her Religion. In 1499, He confirmed the Rule of the Jesnats of San Girolamo, a congregation of laymen leading a religious communal life under the Rule of St. Aurelius Augustine, nursing the sick, and distilling aquavitæ, (as Carthusians distil Chartreuse, yellow and green, now.) He founded and confirmed in Rome the Order of Military Knights of St. George, for the defence of Christendom against the Muslim Infidel. He granted privileges to the College at Windsor: (Chapter of St. George, or King Henry VI Plantagenet’s Foundation at Eton?) He approved the Order of Praying Knights of St. Michael in France. He reformed the Order of Military Knights of Christ in Portugal. He canonized no saints. His personal piety was simple, diligent, and real. He greatly revered the Deipara, the Blessed Virgin Mary. In her honour, He ordained the bell which rings at sunset, sunrise, and noon, for the Angelus Domini in memory of The Incarnation. On His death-bed, He said, “We always have had, and have, a singular affection for the Most Holy Virgin.”
In the Secret Archives of the Vatican, (merely a technical term, for they are open to all the world,) His original acts are preserved; the veritable Briefs and Bulls which He laboured to utter during His reign. They are bound in one hundred and thirteen large-folio volumes, each tome containing about ten thousand separate documents.82 To understand what kind of thing is a Papal Bull or Brief, the Epistles of St. Peter, which are easily accessible, may be mentioned as the best examples extant;—earnest disquisitions, simple or scholarly, dealing authoritatively with subjects the most vital. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI is responsible for more than a million of these; and He only reigned eleven years.
The days and nights appreciably were not longer then than now. Where, then, did the Lord Alexander P.P. VI find the time to accomplish the multifarious turpitudes with which He has been charged?
He was the father of bastards. He was not the first or last,—plebeian, patrician, potentate, or pontiff.
He was inflexible to foes. Was ever peace assured except by a stern martinet?
The Lord Alexander P.P. VI was a very great Prince, a very faithful Pastor, a very human Man.
By members of that Church, at least, which He so ably ruled, He should be regarded as above and beyond criticism (so-called), amenable to no judge, ecclesiastical, or secular.83 For the rest—the dwellers in glass houses....
Sparks That Die
“A fire, that is kindled, begins with smoke and hissing, while it lays hold on the faggots; bursts into a roaring blaze, with raging tongues of flame, devouring all in reach, spangled with sparks that die.”
On the death of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, Duke Cesare de Valentinois della Romagna was the most potent personage in Italy. Several of his veteran legions under Don Michelotto held the Eternal City. Usually, during the Novendiati after a Pope’s demise, armed bands of Colonna and Orsini pervaded the streets, to intimidate the Conclave with their war-cries Column—Column—, Bear—Bear—. In August and September 1503, the baronial partizans were dumb; and all Rome shouted Duca—Duca—Duca—for Duke Cesare. He might have done anything that he pleased.
Now, if Duke Cesare were the ambitious ruthless impious despot and villain which a fashion has painted him, he must also have been a fool; in that he did not force the Sacred College to raise another Borgia to Peter’s Throne. There were three Borgia cardinals ready to his hand, all quiet and malleable and inoffensive, and two of them aged men; viz.,
(α) the Lord Luis Juan de Mila y Borja, Cardinal-Prior-Presbyter of the Title of Santi Quattro Coronati and Bishop of Lerida; first cousin and contemporary of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI: (β) the Lord Francisco de Borja, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Nereo e Sant’ Achilleo, Archbishop of Cosenza; bastard of the Lord Calixtus P.P. III: (γ) the Lord Pedro Luis de Borja y Lançol, Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria in Via Lata; son of the late Pope’s sister Doña Juana de Borja by her marriage with her cousin Don Guillelmo de Lançol.
The last was a young man, a contemporary of Duke Cesare himself, and appears to have been of a modest and retiring disposition. Whether his youth would have taken fire at being crowned with the Triregno, is an open question. He was not elected, and is numbered with the sparks that die. The Cardinal de Mila had resided nearly half a century at his bishopric in Spain; and was completely out of touch with his Italian relatives, as well as with the Sacred College.
But Cardinal Francisco de Borja seems to have been an ideal nominee for the purpose of Duke Cesare. He owed his rank to the Lord Alexander P.P. VI. He was of the age of sixty-two years, a gentle old gentleman of placid nature, of sweet and lovable habits, easily plastic. If he had been elected Pope by the influence of Duke Cesare, the consolidation of the Borgia Dynasty would have been an accomplished fact. Theoretically, it matters not a jot who may be the Pope, Caius or Balbus, Peter or Paul. If there be any basis for the claims of the Holy Roman Church, Her mission goes on till the world’s end, as well and as inevitably when Borgia, as when Pecci, reigns; as well and as inevitably under Boys of the age of twelve and eighteen years, like the Lord Benedict P.P. IX and the Lord John P.P. XII, as under Saints, like the Lord St. Sylvester P.P. and the Lord St. Fabian P.P.; as well and as inevitably under a Jew, like the Lord St. Peter P.P. as under an Englishman like the Lord Hadrian P.P. IV. The personality of God’s Vicegerent is of no consequence whatever to the purity of the Faith, or to the triumph of the Holy Roman Church. These things being so, it is hard to understand why Duke Cesare did not menace with his unconquerable army the Sacred College, or assassinate samples of the cardinals who should decline to vote at his direction; until, by ultimate intimidation, he should have secured the election of his candidate. If he had been the godless wretch that his enemies designated, he would have achieved some such colpo-di-stato as this.
But, in the rôle of an unconscionable villain, Duke Cesare was a failure—an accented failure. Contrariwise, he comported himself as exemplarily as any good and pious Catholic. Most likely his fever, or the murderous remedies of his physicians, was responsible for this. There is no doubt but that the scheme for a Borgia Dynasty had been adumbrated; and that this was the psychological moment for giving it concrete expression: but the death of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, and Duke Cesare’s own illness came with sobering effect to him; and his course of action may be translated thus—that he resolved not to usurp the prerogative of the Supreme Disposer of events. For a villain, the resolve was weak: but it was what was to be expected of a splendid man of sense.
Duke Cesare knew that he held his riches, his supremacy, his titles of Duke of Romagna, Gonfalonier of the Holy Roman Church, and Castellan of Santangelo, solely at the pleasure of the Pope; yet he made no effort to secure the election of a Pope who would confirm his possession of them. There is still in existence a ring of his, (they call it a “Poison Ring”—but of that much has been said—) which bears the splendid motto
Fays ceque doys avien que pourra
Do thy duty, come what may.
That principle informed his action now. Duke Cesare did his duty.
He renewed his feudal oath of allegiance in the presence of the Sacred College. He formally recognized the supremacy, during the interregnum, of the Cardinal-Dean and the Cardinal-Chamberlain. He divested himself of the semblance and reality of power, by relinquishing the Mola of Hadrian (which impregnable fortress he held as Castellan of Santangelo, and whence he could have overawed both the Vatican and Rome). Further, finding that the mere presence of his army in the City was considered disrespectful to the Conclave, he retired it to his province of the Romagna; and he himself withdrew to France to his duchy of Valentinois.
So, the Conclave of 1503 met in absolute freedom; and elected, as Successor of St. Peter, Ruler of the World, Father of Princes and of Kings, and Earthly Vicar of Jesus Christ our Saviour, the Lord Francesco de’ Piccolhuomini, Cardinal-Archdeacon of Sant’ Eustachio, Archbishop of Siena, who deigned to be called the Lord Pius P. P. III, in memory of His august uncle, the Lord Pius P. P. II84 Who had reigned from 1458 to 1464.
Then momentous events came thick and fast. The new Pope, on His coronation in St. Peter’s, graciously permitted Duke Cesare to return to Rome. Such a mighty and splendid vassal as he was naturally inspired fear and distrust among the clergy. Such a trenchant weapon as he possessed in his unconquerable veteran army was described as a danger to the papacy. It is always very hard to make the clergy understand that a laic can be as sentimental and conscientious and self sacrificing as a clerk. The word was put about that, seeing the Romagna to have been reduced to order, the necessity for Duke Cesare’s army had ceased to be. Naturally, the clergy could not be expected to understand the necessity for an “army of occupation.” The first rumour speedily grew into the statement that Duke Cesare’s army was to be disbanded.
Colonna and Orsini heard, in their ugly exile, in their battered fortresses. Like the chained wolves on the Capitol who know when rust makes thin their fetters, they lifted up their horrid heads and waited till the ultimate link should part. If Duke Cesare’s army were disbanded, thousands of condottieri would be at large, brigands ready to take service under a new chief, under any banner. Why not under the banners of the Column and the Bear? Colonna and Orsini in alliance, reinforced by those same unconquerable mercenaries might recover their old position, and once more become the strong right and left hands of a feeble Pope of their own; and then the days of the hated Borgia would be numbered. Colonna and Orsini, like their antipodes righteousness and peace, forgot their ancient feud and each kissed other. Duke Cesare indeed was in evil case.
And then, suddenly, after a pontificate of six and twenty days, the Lord Pius P.P. III died.
This moment was the opportunity of the psychic epileptic, the Lord Cardinal-Bishop Giuliano della Rovere, eternal enemy of the House of Borgia. He had emerged from the exile, which his innumerable treasons and malfeasances had merited, in time for the election of the Lord Pius P.P. III during Whose short reign he had employed himself to his own advantage. He had no friends. He gained the loathing of all with whom he had to do. The Sacred College to a man was inimical to him. He was not wealthy. He was thoroughly plebeian, he had no learning, no diplomatic skill, no charm. And there, on the other hand, was the splendid Duke Cesare, feared; yes: but admired also; and his unconquerable army was within call. A second time the election appeared likely to depend on him.
Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere was a desperate man. The only advantage that he possessed was, that at this time when all the other cardinals were in a state of nervous perturbation at the unusual occurrence of the deaths of two Popes in three months, he alone preserved his equanimity. He alone knew what he wanted. His colleagues in the Conclave were mentally collapsed: they shewed signs of a liability to come under the influence of, to take advice, to take even direction from any one who would tell them what they wanted; and chiefly from him who was the one strong man of Italy, the man with the veteran army, Duke Cesare de Valentinois della Romagna (detto Borgia). The strongest laic is no match for an unscrupulous clerk when it comes to wits. Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere saw that he could gain the Sacred College, by gaining Duke Cesare. He concentrated all his crude rough desperate will on the one point.
The historian Varillas, who writes as a violent upholder of the Papacy, relates an extraordinary story; which, if true, is a veritable solution of mysteries; which, in short, is so strange, that it very likely is not fiction, historical or otherwise, but the blind and naked Truth emerging from her well unabashed, luciferous, and, naturally, unwelcome.
He says that Duke Cesare proposed to the Second Conclave of 1503 to elect a cardinal whom he should name: that Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, becoming aware of this, endeavoured to attract Duke Cesare’s influence to himself: that to this end the said Cardinal privately announced to the said Duke that he was his father after the manner of men, further alleging this to have been the cause of his (the said cardinal’s) enmity against the Lord Alexander P.P. VI deceased: that the said Cardinal asked the said Duke to assist him, his father, to gain the papal throne, promising, in return for such assistance, after his coronation with the Triregno, publicly to acknowledge the said Duke as his son, to confirm him in possession of his duchies and his conquests, and to retain him in all the offices which he then held: that the said Duke believed the said Cardinal, and by withdrawing from opposition, and by exerting full influence in a filial manner, he had compassed the election of the said Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere: that after his election the said Cardinal had belied all his promises, deprived the said Duke, of Umbria, and the Romagna, and all the fiefs which he had won, and of all the situations which he enjoyed, and finally had harassed, despoiled, and exiguously persecuted, all who bore the name of, or were connected with, The Borgia.
This is an extremely probable tale. Certainly a part of it is true, and perhaps the whole.
The identity of the father of Duke Cesare (detto Borgia) is involved in mystery.
The Brief of the Lord Xystus P.P. IV85 dated the first of October 1480, which dispenses Messer Cesare from the necessity of proving his legitimacy, calls him “son of a cardinal bishop and a married woman,” de episcopo cardinali genitus et coniugata.
The Brief of the Same, dated the sixteenth of August 1482, which makes Cardinal Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja administrator of Messer Cesare’s estate, calls the boy “son of a cardinal bishop and a married woman,” de episcopo cardinali genitus et coniugata.
The name of this “cardinal bishop” is not given in either Brief.
Most of the scribblers, diarists, chroniclers, orators, speak of Don Cesare, Cardinal Cesare, and Duke Cesare, as the son of Cardinal Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja (the Lord Alexander P.P. VI). Some, like Peter Martyr and Fioramondo Brugnolo call him “nephew of a brother of our Lord the Pope.” In his autograph letter to the Pope, dated the sixteenth of January 1500, he himself speaks of Cardinal Giovanni Borgia (detto Giuniore), (who was the son of Don Pedro Luis de Lançol y Borja, own brother of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI) as “my brother.”
In no official document is he named as the son of Cardinal Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja (the Lord Alexander P.P. VI): but the Venetian Senate, in conferring on him the patriciate of that Republic in 1500, styled him “nephew of Pope Alexander.”
The Lord Alexander P.P. VI never called him “son”: but, in an autograph Brief of recommendation addressed to the Christian King Louis XII, He introduced Duke Cesare as His “heart.”
Duke Cesare’s subscription of a letter, which he wrote to the Pope on the twenty-eighth of January 1503, at the time of the Orsini revolt, is very curious. He signed himself “The most humble servant and most faithful handiwork of Your Holiness.” Vestrae Sanctitatis humillimus servus et devotissima factura. As cardinal he might, and did, call himself the Pope’s “creature,” creatura: that is the form. A son, however, is not “handiwork” in any sense of the word: but a duke, who is made by his sovereign’s signature of his patent, precisely is.
The authorities, who call Duke Cesare “nephew,” may be dismissed. Popes, like other human beings, generally have nephews stricte dicte vel late.
His own appellation of Cardinal Giovanni Giuniore is susceptible of the meaning “comrade.”
And “factura” will bear reference to his duchy, gonfalonierate, castellanship, etc.
Who then was the father of Duke Cesare?
Madonna Giovanna de’ Catanei (wife of Don Giorgio della Croce, and, after his death, of Don Carlo Canale,) was certainly his mother. Two official inscriptions bear witness to this. The first, which was published by Signor Gnoli in the Nuova Antologia of the first of February 1881, refers to a house on Campo di Fiori which she left as an endowment for anniversary masses for the repose of the souls of herself and her two husbands named. The deed is the work of Messer Andrea Caroso, Notary Public, and is dated the fifteenth of January 1517. In it she is called “Vanoza Catanea madre del Duca Borge.” The second is her epitaph on her tomb in Santa Maria del Popolo (Forcella. Iscrizioni delle chiese di Roma I. 335) shewing her natural pride at finding herself the mother of two dukes, a prince duke, and a sovereign duchess.
“Faustiae Cathanae, Caesare Valentiae, Joannae Candiae,
Jufredo Scylatii, et Lucretia Ferrariae ducib. filiis nobili
Probitate insigni religioni eximia pari et aetate et
Prudentiae optime de xenodochio Lateranen. Meritae
Hieronimus Picus fidei commis. procur. ex test(amento) pos(uit).
Vix(it) ann. LXXVI m. IV d. XIII. Objit anno M.D.XVIII. XXVI Nov.”
In the absence of anything more authoritative than the foregoing, the story of Varillas remains the most probable solution of the mystery. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI never named, never treated, Duke Cesare as His son; never shewed for him the paternal love and affection which He shewed for his bastards, Don Pedro Luis, Madonna Girolama, Duke Juan Francisco, Duchess Lucrezia, Prince Gioffredo, Madonna Laura, Duke Giovanni. Yet Duke Cesare was splendid and superb; his abilities were immense, and pre-eminently useful to the Pope. And the Pope used him on all occasions as His most serviceable subject, rewarding him with lavish generosity for the service which he rendered. Between the Duke and his Sovereign Patron, there was a certain privileged and familiar confidence: but never intimate relationship, or filial or paternal love.
The status of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere; his furious, blind, instinctive, and eternal hatred of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI and of every one connected with Him, is susceptible of an extremely human explanation. It bears the strongest possible resemblance to that very singular and very distinguishable passion of revengeful jealous rage which consumes the vulgar man in regard to a superior (in rank, breeding, or physique,) who shall have supplanted him in the favours of a lady.
Cardinal Rodrigo and Cardinal Giuliano both were cardinals and bishops at the time of the birth of Duke Cesare. Cardinal Rodrigo had wealth, illustrious ancestry, incomparable charm of manner, a sumptuous aspect. He was magnificent and invincible. Cardinal Giuliano as a boy had peddled onions in a boat between Arbisola and Genoa, he had no money except the revenues of a few benefices, he was of a saturnine habit of mind, repulsive to his fellow creatures. His portraits, as cardinal on his medal by Sperandio, as Pope by Il Caradosso (Ambrogio Foppa), shew him as a hatefully ugly man with satyr-brows, sunken and bleared eyes, fierce but haggard mien, and the animal appetites hugely predominant in the lips, the back of the head, and the curious little muscles which obliquely tend downward right and left in the region of the root of the nose. In the age of the Discovery of Man, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere’s physique did not qualify him to gain, or retain, the fidelity of any woman whom, inevitably, he would hunger to possess.
Nothing is known against the character of Madonna Giovanna de’ Catanei except that she was the mistress, first of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, second of Cardinal Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja. A woman who indulges in systematic adultery and sacrilege is liable to be as false to her lovers, as she is to her husband and her God, at least until she has repented of her crimes and sins, giving proof of her repentance by surceasing from those same to lead a godly righteous and sober life, as Madonna Giovanna did during the whole reign of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, and especially in, and after, 1508, when she was converted, together with Madonna Fiametta, a leman of Duke Cesare’s, by hearing Frat’ Egidio da Viterbo preach the Lent in Rome. But history and rumour agree in this, that with the exception of these two separate intrigues lasting from 1473 to 1481 Madonna Giovanna de’ Catanei was “alioquin proba mulier” as even the rascally Paulo Giovio says, (Vita Gonsalvi 212)—otherwise, an honest woman.
It is humanly probable that Duke Cesare was the son of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere by Madonna Giovanna de’ Catanei. He was born in 1474, “son of a cardinal bishop and a married woman.” The following year, 1475, the lady bore to Cardinal Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja, Don Juan Francisco; in 1478, Madonna Lucrezia; in 1481, Don Gioffredo. It is as humanly natural that, after the birth of Duke Cesare, Cardinal Rodrigo should win the mother from Cardinal Giuliano; as that in 1492 he should win the Triregno from him in full conclave. The two prelates were antipathetic from heel to crown. There was bound to be rivalry between them. The loss of the papal throne in 1492 would have embittered Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere: but, by itself, hardly could have imparted that virulent vicious smack to his revenge that made him agonize, during twenty years, to dispossess and grind to powder the House of Borgia. The introduction of the feminine element provides a key to the enigma of that pettiness.
The narration of Varillas, therefore, deserves consideration as a contribution to the solving of the mysteries of the unquenchable hatred of Dellarovere for Borgia, and of Duke Cesare’s relations with the Lord Alexander P.P. VI.
Whatever the truth may be, it is circumstantially evident that to Duke Cesare de Valentinois della Romagna, his advocacy or neutrality, his influence exercised or his abstention from opposition, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere owed his election in the Conclave of November 1503. He chose to be called the Lord Julius P.P. II.; and He instantly set about the ruin of the House of Borgia.
The three Borgia cardinals naturally did not vote for Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere. Cardinal Luis Juan de Mila y Borja did not deign to attend the Conclave: but remained at his bishopric of Lerida in Spain. Cardinal Pedro Luis de Lançol y Borja, immediately after the election, passed into voluntary exile in the Regno without speaking to the Pope. Cardinal Francisco de Borja followed the custom of his House in regard to the voting: but he remained in Rome; and no doubt hoped with his charming innocent good nature that the Lord Julius P.P. would be satisfied, would be appeased, now that the world had nothing more to give Him. The Cardinal was bitterly disappointed.
From Madonna Lucrezia’s little boy, Duke Roderico, His Holiness seized the duchy of Sermoneta; and restored it to the Caïetani from whom it originally had been taken, and who hold it still, A.D. 1901. (The present Duke of Sermoneta also has the superb sword of state which Maestro Ercole, the master-sword-smith of his age, had made to carry before Duke Cesare (detto Borgia) when he officiated as Cardinal Ablegate at the coronation of King Don Federigo of Naples in 1497. It is a miracle of damascening and design, a lesson to Twentieth Century makers of decorative swords who heap glories on hilt and scabbard, and leave the blade to be hidden. Of this sword of Duke Cesare’s the blade is the soul. The sheath of plain embossed leather is in the Victoria and Albert Museum.)
Then, the Lord Julius P.P. II demanded of Duke Cesare the renunciation of his duchy of the Romagna. That province was a fief of the Holy See; and it was competent for the Holiness of the Pope to deal with it at His pleasure: but, seeing that to Duke Cesare’s splendid services, the Papacy practically owed the peace, the possession, the heftiness of the Romagna, heretofore a hell of turbulent bandits, brigands and assassins who defied their Over-lord to collect His revenues,—the demand of the Lord Julius P.P. II at least was discouraging.
Duke Cesare, while willing to take the oath of allegiance of a feudal vassal to the Prince, refused to relinquish the fortresses of the Romagna which by conquest he had won, and garrisoned with his veteran army, now disbanded by the Judas wiles of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, and re-enlisted under alien banners.
Whether the Lord Julius P.P. II had made, or had not made, promises before His election, He was now de iure and de facto Ruler of the World, and absolutely despotic. He arrested Duke Cesare in Rome; and imprisoned him as a rebel in the Borgia Tower. The utter and vacuous helplessness of the Duke is in striking contrast to the masterful energy of all his previous life. Some enormous mental shock might produce such degeneration; the hideous treachery of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere as related by Varillas, for example. Duke Cesare behaved, in his misfortune, like a son staggered, struck breathless and speechless by a revelation of a father’s iniquity. A Bull of Deprivation despoiled him of all fiefs and dignities held from the Holy See, and confiscated all his personal property. He literally was stripped naked. In 1504, he escaped from Rome to Ostia in disguise, and thence to Naples. Here he might have found a pied à terre; and, with the splendour of his past achievements, have won an opportunity of recovering his lost estates by war: but the Lord Julius P.P. II, conscious of the danger to His peace that such an aggrieved and notable personality would be, had intrigued with the Catholic King; and, on Duke Cesare’s arrival in the Regno, he was re-arrested, and shipped to a new prison in the castle of Medina del Campo in Spain.
The marriage of Madonna Lucrezia Borgia with Don Alfonso d’Este was a most happy one. The sweet young bride had made herself beloved by all Ferrara, from her husband’s father Duke Ercole to the meanest of his subjects, by her beauty, her goodness, and her wonderfully able versatility, three indispensable qualities in the wife of the heir to the throne. Attired in “a mulberry satin gown embroidered with gold fish-bones each two fingers broad,” with the lace-flounce worth thirty thousand ducats (say £60,000) which, according to Giovanni Lucido, was in her wedding-chest, she would amuse herself in the ducal palace by witnessing performances of the Casina or the Miles Gloriosus, comedies of Plautus. Sometimes, (as Sanuto, the Venetian Orator at Ferrara, informed his government,) she would remain all day in her apartments, writing letters, and having her head washed: or she would sit for hours and listen to the violin-music of her adept young husband. On the Maundy Thursday of the first year of her marriage, she publicly washed the feet of one hundred and sixty poor men. Her observance of religious duties was as notable as the spirit of genuine piety which pervades her many letters still extant.
On hearing of Duke Cesare’s disgrazia, Madonna Lucrezia earnestly wrote to the Marquess of Mantua, and to her friend, sister-in-law, and confidante, the Marchioness Isabella, begging them to use the influence of their House of Gonzaga with the Lord Julius P.P. II to procure his freedom. The times were out of joint for Este personally to interfere; for Madonna Lucrezia was stricken down with the effects of an ἄμβλωσις, and the old Duke Ercole was breathing his last sigh.
On the nineteenth of January 1505, the Lord Julius P.P. II issued His notorious Bull against Simony; striking a new blow at the House of Borgia, by the aspersion cast upon the memory of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI.
Duke Alfonso d’Este and his Duchess Lucrezia ascended the throne of their duchy in due course; and negotiations with the Holiness of the Pope, for the enfranchisement of Duke Cesare, might have been, and would have been instituted: but, early in the spring of the year Ferrara was threatened by famine, and the hands of the young sovereigns were entirely occupied. Had Duke Cesare been own brother to the Duchess Lucrezia, perhaps more urgent steps would have been taken: but she never seems to have regarded him otherwise than as a half-brother, who was her Father’s most useful servant, and her mother’s shame. Duke Alfonso proceeded to Venice to buy food stuffs in view of the famine, for the patriarchal rule obtained in Ferrara; and left the Duchess Lucrezia as Regent of his state. Her lovely womanly character may be seen in an edict which she issued for the protection of Jews, who were attacked and pillaged by Christians rioting for food; and in the sweet indignant letter, abounding in mis-spelt words (as do all good and distinguished women’s letters,) and enjoining the Podesta (mayor) to be energetic about securing to the Jews protection of their lives and property equally with the Christians.
When Duke Alfonso returned, after some months’ absence during which the Duchess sent him periodical and frequent accounts of her regency, addressed “To the Most Illustrious and Most Excellent Lord, My Most Honourable Lord and Consort, These, with speed—speed—speed—” the summer brought plague on the heels of famine. The visitation was most severe. The unselfish exertions of the Duke and Duchess were noble and untiring. The health of the Duchess Lucrezia suffered; and before the year was over she gave birth to a dead child.
In 1506, Duke Cesare de Valentinois escaped from his Spanish prison, and made his way into the neighbouring realm of Navarre, where the King Jean d’Albret was brother to his wife Madame Charlotte d’Albret, Duchess of Valentinois. The events of the last three years had not broken his splendid spirit. All his triumphs, all the results of his strenuous energy and talent had been nullified for him. At the age of thirty-three years he was despoiled of his life’s work, and was a ruined man. The Romagna for ever was gone from him. His French duchy seems to have been of small account. Still, he was not crushed, he had the courage to begin again to carve out a career in a new country; and to this end he took service in the army of his brother-in law King Jean of Navarre.
The Lord Julius P.P. II having decreed Himself and His Successors to be the heir-at-law, next-of-kin, residuary and sole legatee, of all cardinals, and of all clergy who die within the walls of Rome, an era of sumptuous premortal cenotaphs and sepulchres set in among the Illustrissimi Colendissimi ed Osservantissimi Porporati, as well as among the lesser ecclesiastical dignitaries; to the end that as little as possible of their riches, after their demise, should go to the pontifical exchequer.
There is a codicil to the will of the Genoese mariner, Messer Cristoforo Colombi of this date, the fourth of May 1506, by which the Inventor of America bequeathed to his native Republic of Genoa “the prayer-book which Pope Alexander gave him; and which, in prison, in conflict, and in every kind of adversity, had been to him the greatest of comforts.” How simply bright a light does this incident throw upon the relations of a great and good man with the Lord Alexander P.P. VI!
The Lord Julius P.P. II was capable of doing without Duke Cesare in the Romagna. The Pope’s Holiness Himself was a man of war, Who found it consistent to wear cuirass and casque on battlefields equally with pluviale and triregno in the Vatican Basilica. Men called Him Il Pontifice Terribile. “Give Us in Our hands no stupid book, but a bare blade,” He impatiently roared to the painter of His portrait, now in the National Gallery. But Messer Rafaele Sanzio, despite all his conventional macaronics, was for once in his life artist enough to omit both book and blade, and to concentrate on the painting of the character of those fierce vulgar insatiable empty hands gripping the arms of the chair. And the Romagna found the whips of Duke Cesare to be preferred before the scorpions of the Lord Julius P.P. II. Perugia was the seat of the Baglioni. Twenty years before, in 1487, there had been an outbreak of the feud of Baglioni and Oddi, months of continual rioting, the gutters running blood, the city like a slaughterhouse; until Oddi was driven away, and Baglioni turned the place into a fortress and the churches into barracks. In 1491, in another outbreak, Baglioni hanged a hundred and thirty conspirators from the windows of the Palazzo Communale in a single day; and, (with the quick reversion from carnage to piety which is a characteristic of the age,) incontinently erected five and thirty altars in the public square, and caused continuous masses to be said and processions to be performed, to purify the city and to procure repose for the souls of the slain. Duke Cesare made a marked impression on these brigands, who learned to give him little trouble: but, when he was dispossessed and his long sword sealed in its scabbard, Baglioni took the bit between their teeth and reared, refused tribute to their sovereign Over-lord, and broke out in rebellion in the customary manner. The Lord Julius P.P. II promptly raised an army which He led in person; and reduced Perugia. Without precautions for His safety, trusting to the moral effect of His presence for the inviolability of His sacrosanct person, He adventured Himself in the heart of the rebel city, and beat Don Giampaolo Baglioni to his knees. In a man of sensibility this hardihood would indicate a very dare-devil: in the case of the Supreme Pontiff a distinction must be made between courage and mere plebeian callousness. Messer Niccolo Machiavelli sneered at this miserable Don Giampaolo Baglioni, because he lacked the boldness to strangle his unwelcome visitor, the Lord Julius P.P. II, and so crown his life of crime with a signal act of “Magnanimità”! Certainly a man would need some boldness to strangle the Pope, the Ruler of the World, the Father of Princes and of Kings, the Earthly Vicar of Jesus Christ our Saviour! Certainly, a man who would strangle in cold blood the Sovereign Pontiff coming to him as his guest, unarmed, under a flag of truce, would win fame, or infamy, for endless ages. But that such a deed should deserve the epithet “magnanimous,” should be considered to be indicative of greatness of soul, is a matter of opinion. Evidently the Twentieth Century considerably has curtailed and straitened the signification and the application which the word Magnanimity bore in the Fifteenth. Now, we call a man magnanimous who, at huge self-sacrifice, does noble deeds. Then, Messer Niccolo Machiavelli thought that startling actions, good, or bad, proclaimed the greatness of their agent’s soul!
The Lord Julius P.P. II was not without His flatterers. No man is, if he can pay. Literary petits maîtres like Messer Baltassare Castiglioni found it profitable to address the Terrible Pontiff in terms like these:
| “O Pater, O Pastor populorum, O Maxime mundi | “O Father, O Shepherd of the people, O Supreme |
| Arbiter, humanum qui genus omne regis; | Master of the world, Who rulest all the human race; |
| Iustitiae pacisque Dator placidaeque quietis, | Giver of Justice, Peace, and tranquil Ease, |
| Credita Cui soli est vita salusque hominum; | Thou to Whom alone is committed the life and salvation of men; |
| Quem Deus Ipse Erebi fecit caelique potentem, | Whom God Himself has made Lord of heaven and hell, |
| Ut nutu pateant utraque regno Tuo;— | That either realm might open at Thy nod— |
“When the spiritual authority of the Popes came thus to be expressed in Latin verse, it was impossible not to treat them as deities. The temptation to apply to them the language of Roman religion was too great; the double opportunity of flattering their vanity as pontiffs, and their ears as scholars, was too attractive to be missed.”86
The Terrible Pontiff, however, was no scholar, but an unadulterated plebeian. It is true that He, as Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia, bought that vastly over-rated piece known as the Apollo of the Belvedere, when first it was discovered at Porto d’Anzio (Antium). It is true that He bought, in 1506, for six hundred gold crowns (?) the Laocoon, (which Messer Michelangelo Buonarroti saw unearthed in the Baths of Titus,) to the supreme disgust of his “art-adviser” who declared that the two sons of the Thymbraian priest were not boys, but little men. It is true that He bought the Ariadne (which He called Cleopatra), the Torso of Herakles, and the Commodus, unearthed on Campo di Fiori, and now in the Vatican. He did these things because they were modish things to do in 1506. One gained more κῦδος in the pose of a Sixteenth Century Maecenas, than as Successor of the Galilean Fisherman. The plebeian pontiff of the Sixteenth Century was ashamed of His plebeian predecessor of the First. The times were changed, he argued, as the faithful vainly argue to excuse prelatical vagaries now. He preferred competition with “men of the world” to the cure of souls. He was quite unable to appreciate intellect. He was congenitally incapable of appreciating the delicacy, or the validity, of Letters. The plebeian chiefly is touched by way of the sense of sight; and the Lord Julius P.P. II understood naked statues, things which He could see: wherefore He bought Apollo and Laocoon and the rest. There is not the slightest credit due to Him for discrimination in His purchases, or for a deliberate choice of what was beautiful. Men happened to dig up those marbles in Roman territory just then. Any one could see them to be beyond the ordinary. Any one could see them to be antiques. It was the fashion to buy antiques; and the Terrible Pontiff bought—bought as retired grocers buy, who buy their libraries by the cwt. Also, He had Messer Michelangelo Buonarroti at His ankle, with whose advice it would have been difficult for a sardonic goat to commit an artistic blunder. They were a pair, those two, the artist and the pontiff, uomini terribili, terrible men, both. Messer Michelangelo had been educated at the expense of Lorenzo de’ Medici in the Palazzo Medici of Florence and the Villa Medici of Fiesole. There, at the suggestion of Canon Angelo Ambrogini (detto Poliziano), he had sculptured his Battle of Herakles with the Centaurs, while listening to Fra Girolamo Savonarola and Messer Giovanni Pico della Mirandola surnamed the Phoenix of Genius (Fenice degli iugegni.) Could any man but Poliziano have suggested a more admirable subject for Michelangelo than this of weird muscular gigantic energy? In 1500, in the reign of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, he had carved his lily-pure Pietà of the Vatican Basilica, the most divinely pure presentment of God’s Maiden Mother, of the Μητροπάρθενος, save those of Alessandro Filipepi (detto Botticelli) since Byzantine art had faded. Now, he was in Rome, “art-adviser” to the Terrible Pontiff, eating his own heart in inactivity, burning and yearning to work with his own hands, with all the passionate excruciating torture suffered by every artist who may not put his talent “out to the exchangers.” It was the lust of creation in Michelangelo that made him terrible to his fellow men. His incivilities to his colleagues are proverbial. “Goffo nell’ arte” he flung with contemptuous scorn to Messer Pietro di Cristoforo Vanucci of città della Pieve (detto Perugino) who had a picture-shop at Florence, and bought estates with the proceeds of his smooth and stony saints and seraphs, stencilled by his pupils on the canvases, and touched by himself in his workshop or picture-factory at Perugia, at the very time when Oddi and Baglioni each were tearing the other’s throats to tatters outside his door. Then in 1508 the Lord Julius P.P. II ordered Messer Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Xystine Chapel. The gods on high Olympos never allow a man to do the thing that he wants to do: they are jealous lest a man should create a god. Messer Michelangelo wanted to practise sculpture; wherefore he was told to paint a ceiling. “I’m not a painter!” (Nè io pittore!) he roared to the Terrible Pontiff, who fulminated and thundered in reply. They both were terrible men; and they unrestrainedly spoke with perfect frankness as between man and man, using no set form whatever.
The Terrible Pontiff, like all clerical patrons, was an infernal nuisance to the Terrible Painter, who well-nigh killed himself by years of ceaseless toil, lying on his back upon a scaffold in the filthy air that hangs about a ceiling. He would have no assistant save a boy or two. He lived, and ate, and slept on the scene of his labour. Many times the Terrible Pontiff came to see what was being done; and every time the Terrible Painter instructed Him in the art and mystery of anathema, and drove Him away. At last the Lord Julius P.P. II threatened to have Messer Michelangelo flung down, and the scaffold pulled about his ears: but this was when the work was done. The Terrible Painter had the scaffold removed, and invited his patron to view the sumptuous ceiling. The Terrible Pontiff came; and saw; and suggested that the scaffold should be reerected so that the work might be touched up with—ultramarine and gold-leaf!
In Ferrara, the year 1506 was marked by one of those tragical expositions of naked human passion which afflict humanity in every age. Madonna Angela de Borja y Lançol, a cousin of the Duchess Lucrezia—being the daughter of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI’s sister, Doña Juana, by her marriage with Don Guillelmo de Lançol, and sister to Cardinal Juan de Borja y Lançol (detto Giovanni Seniore), Archbishop of Monreale, and Cardinal Pedro Luis de Borja y Lançol,—was a maid-of-honour attached to the suite of the Duchess of Ferrara. She was very beautiful, and is called in the chronicle “a most elegant damsel”—damigella elegantissima. Two younger brothers of Duke Alfonso, the athletic Cardinal Ippolito d’Este, and Don Giulio d’Este (bastard of the old Duke Ercole) fell in love with her. Madonna Angela favoured the Bastard Giulio whose lovely eyes she unreservedly admired—consequently, as the manner was, his rival the Cardinal hired four professionals to put out those eyes. Naif unpaltering straightforwardness of the Sixteenth Century! The operation failed of execution, for the Bastard Giulio, being forewarned, escaped with his eyes unharmed. But such conduct does not make for the peace of a state, brawling royalties affording disedification to the mob. The laws of Ferrara, paternal in character, ordained a scale of penances graduated to the rank of culprits: for example, a working man, who obscenely swore, would pay a fine; a swearing burgess paid a double fine and a swearing noble was mulcted of a triple fine. Therefore Duke Alfonso put the ban on his brother, the Lord Cardinal Ippolito, who retired to Rome to nurse his discontent and plan his next move against the Bastard Giulio. Madonna Angela, who was no more to be blamed than any other girl whose charms have inflamed a lusty pair of rivals to desperation, married the third, Don Alessandro Pio Estense di Savoja, Count of Sassuolo. The bandit87 Cardinal Ippolito had not long to wait in exile. If he had been the Master of Fate, he could not have devised a neater or completer vengeance than that which came to him. It is one thing to attempt to blind a bastard brother who is a royal prince. It is another thing to compass the death of a brother who is a reigning sovereign. The robust young Cardinal was equal to the first: but above the second.
Duke Alfonso’s brothers, Don Ferdinando d’Este and the Bastard Giulio, engaged in a conspiracy to assassinate him. News of the plot reached Cardinal Ippolito in Rome. He promptly warned Duke Alfonso of his danger. Finding themselves discovered, the conspirators fled. Don Ferdinando was caught: but the Bastard Giulio, good at escapes, took refuge in sanctuary with his brother-in-law the Marquess of Mantua, who replied to Duke Alfonso’s demand for extradition that, if evidence of guilt were shewn, the criminal should be delivered up to justice. Evidence was shewn, in the shape of the full confession of Don Ferdinando; and the Bastard Giulio passed into his sovereign brother’s hands. Brought to the common block in the square of Ferrara, the two detected traitors were allowed to suffer all the pangs of the approach of death: but, at the last moment, Duke Alfonso in his mercy granted a reprieve, commuting their penance to life-imprisonment.
Early in 1507, died Duke Cesare de Valentinois (detto Borgia), by a mean inglorious death for one who had been in life so mighty a man. While commanding a small squadron on behalf of the King of Navarre, he was killed in a petty skirmish by the castle of Viana. His corpse was quietly interred in the cathedral of Pampeluna, which, by a curious coincidence, had been the first piece of ecclesiastical preferment conferred on him by the Lord Alexander P.P. VI. So ended a phenomenal personality in which superb and tawny beauty of physique, prodigious force of character, fierce all-conquering energy, swift unerring almost-feline agility of action, and transcendent splendour of achievement, were blasted and nullified and marred, humanly speaking, by one single delicacy of respectful conscientious self-sacrifice and supreme confidence in clerical honour. His beautiful elegy by Ercole Strozzi,
“Ille diu, qui dum caelestibus auris
Visitur, implet onus laudis, caelumque meretur”
is too well-known to be quoted at length. He left three children,
(α) Madame Eloise de Valentinois; who married, first, the Sieur Louis de la Tremouille, second, the Sieur Philippe de Bourbon, Comte de Busset, whose direct descendants flourish in France at the present day: (β) Don Girolamo de Valentinois; who, by marriage with Madonna Isabella Carpi patrician of Ferrara, had issue Madonna Lucrezia de Valentinois married, in 1562, to Don Bartolomeo Oroboni patrician of Ferrara, who died in 1565. (γ) a bastard Madonna Camilla Lucrezia; (evidently the offspring of an intrigue carried on when Duke Cesare was in Ferrara in 1500–1 arranging the marriage of Madonna Lucrezia Borgia to the heir of Duke Ercole d’Este;) born of Duke Cesare and a married woman in Ferrara; according to the deed of legitimation,88 dated 1509, where Madonna Camilla Lucrezia is said to be “of the age of more than seven years”: she became Abbess of San Bernardino in Ferrara, in 1545; and died in 1573.
The Duchess Lucrezia Borgia d’Este was deeply grieved by the death of Duke Cesare her half-brother. There is a very touching letter written by her friend and sister-in-law, the Marchioness Isabella Gonzaga of Mantua, to Duke Alfonso who at that time was in Rome. It is dated the eighteenth of April 1507; and describes how that the Duchess of Ferrara, on receiving the sad news, immediately went to the church of the monastery of Corpus Domini and remained during two days and nights, praying for the repose of the soul of Duke Cesare de Valentinois. A simple act; and precisely what any good Christian woman would do in similar circumstances.
A year later, on the fourth of April 1508, at the Castle of Ferrara to the immense joy of all, formosus puer est formoso natus Aprili, says Benedetto Lampridii in his Carmina Inedita, the Duchess Lucrezia bore to Duke Alfonso a son and heir, who was baptized by the name Ercole.
During this year, a league of the Powers was formed under the Elect-Emperor Maximilian directed against Venice; and Duke Alfonso, whose dominions marched with those of that Republic, threw in his lot with its foes. While he was engaging the Venetians on the Romagna frontier, the Duchess Lucrezia ruled as Regent in Ferrara. She administered government of the state with the same sweet womanly thoroughness as she shewed in the administration of the government of her domestic affairs. History is rich in records relating to this lovely lady. She superintended the household matters of her palaces with a minute attention to detail which, to the modern middle-classes, would appear amazing in a Sovereign Duchess. To set a fashion of rare liberal-mindedness she appointed the Jewess Mazzolino to the care of her extensive wardrobe, and Messer Ludovico as her physician. Her régime was of the simple patriarchal type of the old Duke Ercole, who, on the occasion of an outbreak of plague in 1500, issued an Edict which said that “Duke Ercole d’Este, for good reasons to him known, and because it always is well to be on good terms with God,” ordained religious processions every day throughout Ferrara. A second quaint Edict of the same fatherly potentate, (which incidentally speaks for the meticulously cleanly personal habits of the Borgian Era, so strenuously maintained on a previous page of this book,) proclaims that “inasmuch as bakers are known to knead their dough with feet that, frequently, are unclean, such practices must not continue except on penalty of fine or imprisonment: but the dough must be worked with clean hands and nails.”
Evildoers, all the same, had a shocking time. Maria Equicola gives exact particulars of a certain Madonna Laura (name suppressed) who, being caught in adultery, was immured alive; that is to say, she was publicly confined in a cell a few feet square, with a little window, outside the episcopal palace, near the entrance on the right of the high altar of the cathedral of Ferrara. Perjurers went about after their conviction with their tongues securely nailed to little logs of wood. The accounts for the nails and logs exist. Duchess Lucrezia’s sumptuary laws were unsuccessful. The sex of the legislator prevented her from manufacturing laws to regulate fashion, which could be put into practical effect. That was perfectly natural; nor does the failure in any way reflect upon the excellence of the intentions of her ducal highness. She ordained that no woman should wear a gown whose value was higher than the sum of fifteen ducats (say £30), nor jewellery worth more than fifty ducats (say £100). She furnished a specification of the gems which might be worn, and of the fabrics of which gowns might be made. Also, she precisely specified the quantity of material that might be used, and the cut and fashion that was to be adopted. Further, in order to secure the observation of these laws, she ordained a box, having a slit in its lid like a modern letter-box, to be placed in the cathedral by the holy water-stoup; so that fathers, husbands, or lovers, who found themselves outraged by the length or the rotundity of the skirts, or the bulk of the sleeves, or the violence of the style of their women-folk,—and the cost of the same,—secretly might drop in denunciations while in the act of taking holy water; the said denunciations afterwards to be attended-to in a legal manner by the justiciary. Delightfully solemn and futile effort of a charming woman. Well, it failed; not on account of the female peacocks of Ferrara, but by reason of the very skewbald harlequins whose propriety and purses it had aimed to benefit. How many denunciations secretly were dropped into Duchess Lucrezia’s precious box, how many scandalized fathers, husbands, and lovers, sneaked about their daughters, wives, and lemans, is not known. Only one thing is known,—there was not a justiciar in all the duchy of Ferrara, married or unmarried, who dared even to allude to, much less to act upon, the said denunciations, and enforce the law.
On the twenty-fifth of August 1509, the Duchess Lucrezia gave birth to a second son, Don Ippolito d’Este, named after his uncle the heraklean Cardinal; and who, in after years, became Archbishop and Cardinal of Milan.
All through 1508 and 1509 the war went on. In December of the latter year, a powerful Venetian fleet advanced to the mouth of the Po, devastating the country on both banks, and invading the duchy of Ferrara with frightful atrocities. Duke Alfonso, hurrying to meet the foe, won a glorious victory at Policella: but the war dragged on till 1512, keeping him in camp, away from his capital, which almost exclusively was governed by the Duchess Lucrezia (she bore Don Alessandro d’Este in 1511), assisted by Cardinal Ippolito d’Este, now no longer a bandit, but completely in the confidence and favour of his sovereign brother.
On the fifth of February 1510 died the noble and strenuous knight Don Pietro Gregorio Borgia of the Junior Branch. He had been high in honour with Duke Cesare de Valentinois della Romagna since he saved him from the clutches of the Christian King Charles VIII in 1495; and had served him as mounted scale-armoured arbalister, lieutenant, and standard-bearer. On the fall of the Duke, he returned to his allegiance to the Regno now ruled by the Catholic King Don Hernando. He was Viceroy of the province of the Abruzzi when he died, and was buried in the Church of San Clemente at Velletri, his native city.89 His fine epitaph90 runs:
“Hic requiescit Nob. et Strenuus Eques Dom. Petrus Borgia, Cataphractor. Locum-tenens, ac Signifer Cesaris Borgiae Ispani Valentini Ducis, Qui objit An. Dni. MDX. D. qv. Men. Feb.”
The year 1511 is remarkable for a wildly frenetic insurrection on the part of the gentle old Cardinal Francisco de Borja, which cost that Most Worshipful Lord his rank and his life. There is a limit to human endurance. In some men it is wide; in others narrow: but human nature subjected to unnatural suppression and restraint, sooner or later desperately will struggle to burst its bonds. This principle has never been understood by the clergy. It is one of the disabilities under which they labour in dealing with men. History teems with examples of amiable, would-be obedient, and respectable characters, tried beyond their strength by inconsiderate ignorant oppressive injustice on the part of churchmen, and transformed into savagely bitter and appallingly destructive suicides. There is no better example than Cardinal Francisco de Borja.
He was of the age of seventy years. Though his illustrious House had been predominant in Christendom during more than fifty of those years, he had never sought to benefit by the fact that his father was the Lord Calixtus P.P. III, nor to intrude himself among the mighty who were his blood-relations. Not till he was on the verge of his sixtieth year did he become a personage; and then his august cousin, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, in admiration of his enchanting disposition, dignified him with the scarlet hat and the rank of Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Lucia in Silice, (Atti Consistoriali). Later, he proceeded to the Title of Santa Cecilia, (Ciacconi and Moroni); thence again to the Title of San Nereo e Sant’ Achilleo (Atti Consistoriali); and last to the Title of San Clemente. He also was Treasurer of the Holy See, Bishop of Teano, and Archbishop of Cosenza.
Seeing the exacerbating measures which the Terrible Pontiff, the Lord Julius P.P. II was using against the House of Borgia, and especially the spoliation of the two little boys Duke Roderico and Duke Giovanni, this very sympathetic old cardinal had the indiscretion to put his frank opinion of the Pope’s Holiness into certain letters which he wrote to the Orator of Ferrara at the Court of Rome. This opinion could not fail to be unfavourable and the reverse of complimentary. No doubt the Orator was in direct communication with his sovereign, Duke Alfonso d’Este, whom he would keep advised of the trend of sentiments and of events in Rome. These letters came, by means which it would be improper to describe, into the anointed hands of God’s Vicegerent. His Holiness read them; and vehemently enraged himself against the Duke Alfonso d’Este of Ferrara, and upon Cardinal Francisco de Borja, whom he incontinently flung into prison with every species of indignity. The Sacred College, tremorous for its own security if such treatment of a Purpled One should pass without remonstrance, exerted its influence on the Holiness of the Pope, and procured the ungracious liberation of Cardinal Francisco de Borja.
But the ill was done. The milk of human kindness effectually had been soured; the placid amiable old gentleman had been changed into a violent malcontent breathing threatenings and slaughter, and whose fiery Spanish blood at last was boiling over. Two other cardinals joined in his savage revolt, the Lord Bernardino Lopez de Caravajal Cardinal-Bishop of Sabina, and the Lord Guillaume de Briçonnet Cardinal-Bishop of Praeneste (Palestrina). These three decamped from Rome to Pisa, where, a fourth, the Lord Réné de Prie Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Sabina, having joined them, they constituted themselves as a General Council; and dared to cite the Lord Julius P.P. II to shew cause before them why He should not be declared a Pseudopontiff, and deposed from Peter’s Throne, by reason of the irregularity of His election due to Simony and other crimes:—an excellent example of the sauce for the goose being served to the gander.
Melpomene is own sister to Thalia; and never has a ghastlier tragedy been more comically played. This self-styled Council of Pisa laboured under the disadvantage of being radically schismatic. Only the Roman Pontiff can summon, or confirm the decrees of, a General Council. The acts of the Schismatic Council of Pisa, therefore, were hopelessly and irretrievably invalid. The very impossibility of the whole affair is proof conclusive that these four well-intentioned, well-living pathetic old men had been tried beyond their strength, beyond all patience, goaded by insult and by gross injustice into frenzy. Their conduct was simply frenetic.
The Lord Julius P.P. II replied to Cardinal Francisco de Borja with short incisive action. By His supreme authority He issued a Bull of Deposition from the cardinalate; and denounced him to all Christendom as an heresiarch and schismatic with whom none might have to do. A Bull (Bulla Monitorii Apostolici) was issued on the twenty-eighth of July 1511 “cõtra tres reverendissimos cardinales... ut redeãt ad obediẽtâ S.d.n. ne Schisma in eccl. in sancta dei oriẽt.” This was followed by a second “Bulla intimatiõis Generalis Concilii apud Lateranum per S.d.n. Juliũ Papâ II edita,” directed, with the scrupulous politeness of a cleric about to crush, against “dilectũ filiũ nostrũ Franciscũ Tituli Sancti Clementis p̃byterum Cardinalem”; who “in seipsis armis assumptis et pro sacerdotalibus vestis Thorace91 indutis et gladiis armati Papā se cõtulerãt.” Printed contemporary copies of these two Bulls are in the British Museum; and, bound with them, but, strange to say, uncatalogued (A.D. 1900)—(strange, because of the unique perfection of everything at the British Museum)—is the momentous Brief announcing the issue of the Bull of Deposition. Its title is “Breve Julii Secũdi Pont. Max. ad reges, duces, et principes christianos, etc. “Julius Papa II” addresses Himself to
| “Our well-beloved son in Christ | Maximilian, Elect-Emperor, Always August; |
| „ „ „ | Louis (XII), of the French, the Most Christian King; |
| „ „ „ | Hernando, of Aragon and the Two Sicilies, the Catholic King; |
| „ „ „ | Emanuele, of Portugal, the Illustrious King; |
| „ „ „ | Henry (VII), of England, the Illustrious King;92 |
| „ „ „ | James (V), of the Scots, the Illustrious King; |
| „ „ „ | Wladislaf, of Hungary and Bohemia, the Illustrious King; |
| „ „ „ | Jean and Katharine, King and Queen of Navarre; |
| „ „ „ | Sigismund, King of Poland; |
| „ „ „ | John, King of Denmark; |
| „ „ „ | Carlo, Duke of Savoja; |
| „ „ „ | Lionardo Lauredano, Doge of Venice;” |
and proclaims that “this day, in Public Consistory, We have deprived” of all things ecclesiastical, and of the cardinalitial hat, (galero cardinalatus), Bernardino Cardinal-Bishop of Sabina, Guillaume Cardinal-Bishop of Praeneste (Palestrina), Francisco Cardinal-Presbyter of the title of San Nereo e Sant’ Achilleo (a clerical error for his Title, as given above in the Bull, was San Clemente), and Réné de Prie Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Sabina, that they no longer may be considered Cardinals, nor called Cardinals, by word or by writing. The Brief is Dated at Rome at St. Peters, and given Under the Fisherman’s Ring, the twenty-fourth of October 1511 and the eighth year of Our Pontificate. This summary is appended here as an example of form.
Death had hurled his dart before the Terrible Pontiff. Cardinal Francisco de Borja died of an apoplexy at Pisa, before the sentence of his disgrace and deposition reached him there.
The student of history, who seeks a field wherein few yet have walked, will be well advised to investigate the life of this gentle and quiet cardinal, who departed in the tragic blaze of madness and revolt.
In 1512 death relieved the Lord Julius P.P. II of two more of the Borgia whom He loathed: for there died in his Neapolitan exile the Most Worshipful Lord Pedro Luis de Lançol y Borja, Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria in Via Lata, Arch-presbyter of the Liberian Basilica (Santa Maria Maggiore), Abbot of San Simpliciano at Milan, and Archbishop of Valencia in Spain. Having heard a rumour of the death of the Supreme Pontiff, he was on the verge of returning to Rome for the Conclave; but he was killed by falling from his mule at Naples, where he is buried in the church of San Piercelestino without any memorial.
This year also died Don Roderico de Aragona e Borgia, at the age of thirteen years, the son of Madonna Lucrezia by her first legitimate marriage with Don Alonso de Aragona Prince of Bisceglia. He had been despoiled of his duchy of Sermoneta in favour of Caïetani by the Lord Julius P.P. II; and his existence as a step-son was embarrassing in Ferrara, except to his mother, who most sincerely mourned him.
The Duchess Lucrezia was to suffer much this year. The Lord Julius P.P. II put the ban of Greater Excommunication upon her beloved husband Duke Alfonso. As the consort of a Borgia—a Borgia universally adored, a sovereign Borgia, a Borgia of unblemished character,—the Duke of Ferrara naturally was intensely antipathetic to the Holiness of the Pope. If that were not enough, the facts remained that Duke Alfonso was the friend of France, (as the Supreme Pontiff’s predecessor also had been); and, he was cognizant of Cardinal Francisco’s disesteem for the Lord Julius P.P. II. Naturally the Pope’s Holiness found the Duke’s Excellency most annoying. The awful import of Excommunication barely can be realized at the present time. People idly wonder why the excommunicated take their case so seriously—why they do not turn to find amusement, or satisfaction, in another channel,—why they persist in lying prone in the mire where the fulmination struck them. And, indeed, in modern times the formal sentence rarely is promulgated, and only against personages of distinction, like the German Dr. Döllinger or the Sabaudo King Vittoremanuele II di Savoja, whose very circumstances provided them with the means to allay the temporal irritation of the blow. There are excommunications “gerendae sententiae” and “latae sententiae.” In the former, excommunication is threatened for some act: but the offender must have sentence passed upon him. In the latter, the offender is excommunicate the moment he performs the act forbidden, (“ipso facto”). This however operates only “in foro interno,” and in the Eyes of God. To make it effectual “in foro externo” it is necessary that the guilt be proved and be declared to be so by some “competent judge.” Excommunication latae sententiae appears not to have been uncommon in the Victorian Era. A Leading Case occurred in December 1882, when it was enforced against a Scots clergyman on the strength of the following letter:—
“Rome, 6 December 1882.
“My dear Lord Archbishop (of Saint Andrews and Edinburgh),—I have just received a message from the Cardinal-Prefect (of Propaganda, Cardãl Simeoni,) to tell your Grace ‘che il noto sacerdote il quale voleva citare i Vescovi incorrerebbe senza dubbio la censura al primo atto efficace che ponesse, ossia all’ atto della citazione, come cogens Ecclesiasticum ad tribunal laicum. Se fosse ancora in tempo sarebbe bene che l’Arcivescovo ne avvertisse il Sacerdote per distoglierlo da tale atto.’
“Yours very respectfully,
“F. A. Campbell,
“(then Rector of the Scots College of Rome.)”
The censure was Excommunicatio latae sententiae speciali modo reservatae Romano Pontifici. Bulla Apostolicae Sedis. VII.93 Seldom does a case of Excommunication terminate in a perridiculous collapse, as this one did, when the Cardinal-Prefect denied having sent the quoted message. Seldom, on the whole, is Excommunication latae sententiae made effectual by proof of guilt and declaration of proof of guilt by a competent judge. The effect can be produced in another and far more exitial way. Simple secret instructions, or even hints, can be given by bishops to clergy, or adverse opinions can be expressed by one clerk to another, suggesting that it would be well (that it would tend ad majorem Dei gloriam, some say,) to obstruct the worldly welfare of such and such an one, to refuse him his rites and sacraments, or at least to offer the last upon such conditions as the “proper pride” in human nature will disdain to accept. This mode is purely devilish. It is capable of abuse by unworthy clerks for personal ends. It admits of no defence, of no appeal, of no redress, by the very reason of its intangibility. It constricts a man in phantom folds. It blanches him with venomous breath. The world, ever ready to pity some obscene dog who manifests his pain, here sees nothing save one bruised and broken; desperately digladiant, struggling with some invisible (and therefore incredible) foe. The civilized world goes in terror of the invisible; goes by “on the other side.” Excommunication of any kind is a fearsome thing for him to whom the Faith once delivered to the saints is the only prize worth having. To the man who, in defect of spiritual advice, is convinced of his own integrity, to whom the sacraments are as “odorifera panacea,”94 to whom the sacraments are the only means which keep him from Despair, their deprivation, by the revenge of a personal enemy, of an offended vanity abasing spiritual powers to satiate secular ambition, signifies that, for the excommunicate, the light goes out of life, love is eradicated from the heart, confidence in man is killed, hope is banished from death. Sympathy he may have from aliens, if he can humiliate himself to expose his grievous wounds: but he may have it only at a price which in honour he cannot pay—the price of insincerity to his convictions—the price of apostasy. The dire Ban of excommunication, formal or informal, drives a man wild; turns his hand against every man, and every man’s hand against him; he is savage; he is a Bandit, actually and literally. Sometimes he becomes criminal. Ostracism practised is a school for scoundrels. Far more merciful—divinely merciful, not humanly—it would be to slay outright the body; than to doom a soul to live a solivagous life of torture—the torture of Hopelessness. That is why Excommunication is so horrible in this present age of works. That is why it was so trenchant a weapon in the ages of faith. It was, and is, perfectly impossible to be resisted by one who is, and was, sincerely faithful. Often enough, an excommunicate sovereign would try resistance; for sovereigns are stronger than ordinary plebeians in the matter of resources. Then, when an interval for consideration had elapsed, the second blow of the Flail would fall—Interdict: his demesne would be made to suffer loss of the means of grace, the sacraments, which were denied to him. His subjects generally rose, resentful and revolting. There was no reason why they should be afflicted, when submission of their sovereign to God’s Vicegerent would suffice for their enfranchisement. But sometimes Interdict also failed. The third blow came. Subjects were absolved from their oath of allegiance to the excommunicate; his throne was declared vacant; kings and princes of Christendom were invited to invade his realm, to take his crown and sceptre, to expel him a homeless friendless connudate outcast in a world that shunned him like a pestilence, like the horrid leprous scab of creeping things which his blasted human body inevitably would become. Then, suppliant, submissive, he crawled to his Canossa; as the late Duke of Lauenberg crawled to the Lord Leo P.P. XIII the other day; as Caesar Fridericus Ahenobarbus Semper Augustus abjectly crawled to, and waited at, the gates of the huge Englishman, Nicholas Breakespeare, the Lord Hadrian P.P. IV, who ruled the world eight hundred years ago, “Not for thee, but for Peter,” that indignant Emperor muttered, perforce doing groom’s service for Peter’s Successor, holding the stirrup of the pontifical palfrey. “For Us, and for Peter,” the superb English Pope retorted, as He bent Caesar to His unconquerable will. Arrogant? Arrogant——of any miserable mortal man who did not believe himself to be, who had not been officially crowned and saluted, and to whom every emperor and king and prince of Christendom, every Christian sovereign and subject of Europe, had not sworn allegiance as, “Ruler of the World, Father of Princes and of Kings, Earthly Vicar of Jesus Christ our Saviour.”
When the action of the human mind is inspired by the principle endeavoured here to be set down, the inexpugnable face of Excommunication, (magnified by the assent to its validity of the excommunicated one,) perhaps, may be realized. Duke Alfonso d’Este could not hope to stand where Caesar Semper Augustus fell. Naturally, he went in desperate and horrid fear. He knew that he had not deserved to be gibbeted as a Bandit before the world: but he knew also that, before the Holiness of the Pope, he, a sovereign-regnant, was crushable as a worm. He lost no time in omitting to seek release from the hideous ban.
Early in 1513, he chose the poet Messer Ludovico Ariosto, with his beautiful Greek profile and noble intellect, secretary and laureate of Cardinal Ippolito; and named him as his Orator to open negotiations with the Pope.
The Lord Julius P.P. II was perfectly implacable. He had not pardoned the indiscreet criticisms of Cardinal Francisco de Borja, who had passed beyond His power. It was the complete ruin of Borgia that alone would slake His passionate thirst for vengeance;—and a Borgia was Duchess of Ferrara. He did not intend kindness to the consort of that Duchess: and He resolved to begin, in a clerical manner, with intimidation. Accordingly, He admitted Messer Ludovico Ariosto to an audience; and immediately ordered him to quit the Vatican by the door before he should be thrown from the window. After this reception of a proffered olive-branch, the Pope’s Holiness coolly awaited Duke Alfonso’s next move.
Don Fabrizio Colonna flourished in the favour of the Lord Julius P.P. II; and he, also, was under many vital obligations to the Duke of Ferrara. He, in his turn, tried the role of peacemaker between pontiff and sovereign; and so far succeeded, that the Holy Father farcically permitted the Duke to come to Rome, assured of a favourable reception, to plead his cause and to arrange the terms of his submission.
He came. He saw the Ruler of the World. He was conquered. The Terrible Pontiff named the sole conditions on which He would consent to remit the ban of excommunication. Nothing could be more enormously radical and sweeping. They were, abdication of his sovereignty over the city and whole duchy of Ferrara, with absolute renunciation for himself and his heirs for ever of all rights therein, in favour of the Holy See; also, his retirement to voluntary life-long exile at the little city of Asti in the province of Lombardy. Death and obliteration of the Borgia, not by vulgar assassination but by constitutional withdrawal of the means to live, was the aim of the Terrible Pontiff; wherefore He would strip naked Duke Alfonso, as aforetime He had stripped naked Duke Cesare.
Duke Alfonso d’Este refused to purchase release from excommunication on these disgraceful terms. The Lord Julius P.P. II let him have hints which gave to understand that the said terms might be mitigated. By various subterfuges he was detained in Rome.
The army of the Terrible Pontiff stealthily was advancing on Ferrara.
There was only a woman there.
Duke Alfonso chanced to hear of the pontifical stratagem. On the instant, he made his plans for quitting Rome. But he found that he was in a prison. The Terrible Pontiff held him; and would not let him go. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI may not have been a Saint: but He never dirtied His honour like this.
This treachery of the Holiness of the Pope disgusted the Ghibellinism of Don Fabrizio Colonna. This was not what he had contemplated, when he persuaded Duke Alfonso to adventure his right hand in the jaws of the Wolf of Rome. Considering himself to be responsible, his own honour at stake, he played a counter-stratagem upon the Lord Julius P.P. II. By his aid, the Duke broke prison; and, under his protection, in his fortress of Marino fifteen miles from Rome, a safe asylum was provided. Duke Alfonso desired to hasten to defend his duchy now menaced by the Pope: and all Colonna acclaimed his resolution. Don Prospero Colonna undertook to bring him there where he would be. Travelling by night through hostile territory, environed by ever-present dangers, at length, disguised as Don Prospero’s cook, the royal and ducal Bandit reached Ferrara.
In the city there was joy. In the duchy there was confidence restored. In the heart of the Duchess Lucrezia there was gratitude for the safety of her much-loved lord. Ferrara was fresh from four years successful war: an excessively dangerous enemy to assault, now that her leader led her. The pontifical army executed a second strategic movement at the double—to the rear.
And, before the year 1513 was three months old, the Terrible Pontiff, the Lord Julius P.P. II, (Who, according to Monsignor Paris de Grassis, successor to Burchard as Papal Caerimonarius, suffered from the French Disease,) died at Rome, raving in His last delirium “Frenchmen, begone from Italy! Begone from Italy, Alfonso d’Este!”
Dreadful end of a furious revengeful disappointed plebeian who was Ruler of the World! The monstrous Moses of Michelangelo, in San Pietro ad Vincula, marks His ambitious unfinished tomb.
The Most Illustrious Lord Giovanni de’ Medici, Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria in Domnica, was the son of Lorenzo de’ Medici of Florence, born the eleventh of December 1475. His mother was Madonna Clarice Orsini, one of the sweetest and best of good mothers. Her husband said that his own mother chose her for him,
“Tolsi donna... ovvero mi fu data.
When Don Giovanni was of the age of seven years (the age of reason, technically,) the Christian King named him Abbot of Fonte Dolce, on the nineteenth of May 1483, in which preferment the Lord Sixtus P.P IV. confirmed him twelve days later by Brief dated the thirty-first of May 1843. On the first of June he received the ecclesiastical tonsure, when episcopal hands wielded scissors to cut the child-clerk’s hair in five places—on the front, the back, the right, the left, and the crown, of the head—while bishop and boy recited the psalm verse:
| “The Lord is the portion— | “Dominus pars— |
| “Of mine inheritance— | “Haereditatis meae— |
| “And of my cup— | “Et calicis mei— |
| “Thou art He Who shall restore— | “Tu es Qui restitues— |
| “Mine inheritance to me— | “Haereditatem meam mihi— |
and finally the bishop endued him with the fair white linen surplice, (super pellicem) the official vesture of his clerical estate. The symbolism of this mystery seems to be that the clerk enlists himself in the regular army of the Church Militant, sacrificing an actual piece of his person as a pledge of his fidelity, and receiving as handsel, so to speak, his uniform. From this date the child was called in his family Messer Giovanni, (Mr. John). On the first of March 1484, he was named Abbot of Passignano. He grew up a good and manly boy, fond of nice things, grave, quietly merry, and a perfect gentleman. On the third of March 1489, his father’s friend the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII created him Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria in Domnica; but, as he was only of the age of thirteen years, the creation was reserved in petto, while he continued his studies under Canon Angelo Ambrogini (detto Poliziano); who, in 1492 wrote to the Pope about his pupil,
“This youth is so formed by nature and education that, being inferior to none in genius, he yields not to his equals in industry, nor to his teachers in learning, nor to old men in gravity of demeanour. He naturally is honest and ingenuous, and he has been so strictly bred that never from his mouth there comes a lewd, or even a light, expression. Though he be so young, his judgement is so secure that even the old respect him as a father. He sucked piety and religion with his mother’s milk, preparing himself for his sacred office even from his cradle. (Ep. v. Lib. VIII)”
In the Publick Consistory of the twenty-second of March 1492, he was admitted to the Sacred College, receiving the scarlet hat and the cardinalitial sapphire ring, (whose value was six hundred zecchini d’oro—say, £1200); and he was of the age of sixteen years, three months, eleven days.
During his cardinalate his most delightful trait was the loving kindness which he shewed to his young cousin Giulio, (Botticelli’s most precious model), the bastard of Don Giuliano de’ Medici, by Madonna Antonia Gorini of Florence, and who ended his life as the Lord Clement P.P. VII. Cardinal Giovanni got him ennobled as a Knight of St. John of Jerusalem of Malta, and Prior of Capua; and gave him an honourable position in his household as confidential counsellor: and, indeed, it was to Don Giulio, attending him as esquire in the Conclave of March 1513, that Cardinal Giovanni generously said, when the result of the squittino (scrutiny) was made known, “Come Giulio, let us enjoy the Papacy, since God hath given it to Us:” and he immediately raised His cousin to the purple, giving him His Own vacated rank of Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria in Domnica.95
Cardinal Giovanni, like all the Medici, was congenitally myopic. In all presentments of him, there is the slight forward bend or set of the neck which marks the short-sighted man. Messer Paolo Giovio says that he surveyed the world through a concave crystal, and that this affected his skill as a sportsman. Messer Rafaele Sanzio’s portrait of him and his cousin shows him with this concave crystal spy-glass in his hand. No doubt his physical incompleteness wonderfully aided in developing his enchanting taste and temperament; for it is well-known that the best artist is the man who does not see all.96
The crowd, waiting outside the Conclave of 1513 for the annunciation of the new Pope, were confronted by a doorway builded of the fragments of other buildings. Some of the stones bore portions of mutilated inscriptions; and the crowd amused itself by piecing these together. But there was one large stone above the lintel, whose inscription baffled explanation. It bore the letters
M. C. C. C. C. X. L.
and presumably had come from some edifice dated 1440. Presently, the door was flung open; and the scarlet Cardinal-Archdeacon proclaimed, “I announce to you great joy. We have for a Pope the Lord Giovanni de’ Medici, Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria in Domnica, who wills to be called Leo the Tenth.” And in the doorway stood the white figure of the new Successor of St. Peter, of the age of thirty eight years, His head straining a little forward, peering through His half-closed bright eyes, lifting His hand in Apostolic Benediction. Instantly a wag in the kneeling crowd explained the cryptic inscription Multi Caeci Cardinales Creaverunt Caecum X (decimum) Leonem; “Many short-sighted cardinals created a short-sighted one Leo the Tenth.” That is a specimen of wit in the year 1513, bright, quick, direct, pungent, and finished.
The election of the Lord Leo P.P. X was an immense relief to the Duke and Duchess of Ferrara. It meant deliverance from unscrupulous persecution for the Pope’s Holiness now was patrician, and at least a gentleman, though no enemy to the House of Borgia. So Ferrara and Borgia went in peace. The duchy had been at war for nearly six years, almost without cessation; her resources were quite exhausted; her exchequer was empty. So keen was the distress, that, in order not to add to his people’s burden by pressing for his revenues, Duke Alfonso pawned his plate, and Duchess Lucrezia her jewels which were of enormous value. These were redeemed three years later: and it is to the inventory, made when they were pawned, that modern knowledge of their extraordinary rarity and worth is due.
On the thirteenth of September 1513 was born in Rome, of Don Tarquinio Poplicola di Santacroce and Madonna Ersilia his wife, the Noble Don Prospero Poplicola di Santacroce, afterwards Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Girolamo degli Schiavoni and Nuncio, who introduced Tobacco into Italy and gave it the name Erba Santacroce, Holycross Herb.
The life of the Duchess Lucrezia, during the next few years, was a life of calm after storm, post tot naufragias tuta. She won fresh fame by her goodness to young girls, whom she provided with dowries, to tempt them to keep continency by marrying well. Delightfully practical age, which went directly to the point attempting no maudlin half-measures, “so sweetly mawkish and so smoothly dull”! The ideal of the professional philanthropist, then, was to make virtue easy, and vice difficult. The ideal of the professional philanthropist, now, is to make virtue horribly vulgar and vice an imperious necessity. The Duchess Lucrezia had observed that the lack of money is the root of all evil; and, at that root she struck.
Charming descriptions are extant of the evenings which this egregious lady spent in conversation with poets and scholars, listening to music, and working on the lovely embroidery for which she was so celebrated. On the third of July 1515, she presented her lord with a daughter. The same year she was grieved by the death of her friend, the great printer, Messer Aldo Manuzio. That cool-headed, shrewd, and very learned Venetian, the hereditary enemy of Ferrara, has left laudations of the Duchess Lucrezia which are sincere and unsurpassable. It is not singular that the great and good among her intimate contemporaries should be those who praise her; and that her defamers should be professional squibbers, notoriously base and venal. The following year, the eleventh of July, 1516, she suffered the loss of her little son who was of the age of five years. Is the touching letter, by which she conveyed the news to her confidante and sister-in-law, the Marchioness Isabella Gonzaga of Mantua, the letter of a wicked woman or of a good? She says,
“——the Most Illustrious Don Alessandro, my youngest son, after a long and painful illness, in which remedies were of no avail, was seized by a cruel dysentery. Yesterday, at the fourth hour of the night, (say, midnight,) the poor little man (poverino) yielded his blessed soul into the hands of our Lord God, leaving me much afflicted and full of sorrow; as Your Excellency, being a woman and a tender mother yourself, may easily believe.97”
On the Festival of All Saints, she bore another son to Duke Alfonso, who was baptized by the name Francesco.
On the twenty-sixth of November 1517, there died in Rome Madonna Giovanna de’ Catanei, the mother of the Duchess Lucrezia; and was buried in Santa Maria del Popolo by the Flaminian Gate. Nine of her letters to her daughter, and rather crabbed letters too, are preserved in the Archives of Modena. They are subscribed, “La felice ed infelice madre;” which seems precisely to describe her condition. She was a happy mother; happy in the gorgeous loveliness of her children, happy in their good fortune, happy in being the mother of two dukes, a prince duke, and a sovereign duchess: but unhappy, in that human law made their father not her husband. Another letter of hers, dated from Rome the fifteenth of December 1515, and signed “Perpetua Oratrice Vanozza,” has been the means of causing some uncertainty as to her real name. The following is suggested as an explanation.
“Vanozza”, of course, is a familiar abbreviation of “Giovanozza”, which is equivalent to “Big Jenny”. Italians are deliciously disrespectfully inoffensive in their use of universal and personal nicknames; which are taken conferred without the least aggrievance. “Perpetua Oratrice98” is not a name at all: but a quasi-official style.
In England at the present day, one frequently is startled by the receipt of a letter, from some fervent member of that devout female sex (for which Holy Church, knowing needs, diurnally prays), bearing as signature the names of the writer, with the addition “E de M”. If one has not yet seen the lions, (as the Fifteenth Century said of a novice,) one looks for the university degree, knightly order, municipal or parochial rank, of which those letters are the sign. But, when one knows them to stand for “Enfant de Marie,” one remembers that a pious sodality, of French origin and called “The Children of Mary,” is an excessively and universally fashionable one among females; and doubts are at an end.
It is probable that there was some such pious association for females of the Borgian Era. Madonna Giovanna always was a respectable well-living character: but we know that she found salvation, was converted, became dévote, in 1508, when she sat under Frat’ Egidio da Viterbo preaching a course of Lent sermons in Rome.
It is suggested, then, that at once she began “to make her soul,” to prepare to meet her God, for she was well on in years; and that she became a member of some Confraternity of Perpetual Prayer, resembling those of the present day whose members divide among themselves the duty of praying the clock round, so that an unending stream of supplication shall flow toward the Throne of Grace. It is suggested, that, being a human woman, cherishing no objection to a little perfectly legitimate advertisement of virtue (like the ladies of the “E de M” description), Madonna Giovanna de’ Catanei formed the habit of signing her private letters “The Perpetual Suppliant, Big Jenny.”
Her epitaph has been given on p. 261.
There are two documents of this year 1517, which go to prove that, at this time, there existed no idea of concealing the parentage of Don Giovanni Borgia the sometime Duke of Nepi and Camerino. The boy appears to have made his home with his sister, the Duchess Lucrezia; for both documents are issued under her protection and authority. She was nineteen years older than her brother, who now was of the age of twenty-one years; and her notable good nature, as well as her royal estate, make it natural enough that she should be more mother than sister to her august Father’s youngest son.
The first brief (they both are quoted in Cittadella,) is dated “sub die Iº Nov. 1517”; and names the Bishop of Adria as Don Giovanni’s agent in some pecuniary transaction, he being less than twenty-five, and more than eighteen, years old. It begins, “Ferrariae in palatio habitationis Illmi... Illmus Dominus Joannes Borgia, frater Illmae Dominae Lucretiae Borgiae Ducissae Ferrariae, minor annis vigintiquinque, maior tamen decem octo,——.”
The second brief is addressed to Messer Filippo Strozzi; and claims, from the consuls of Pesaro, the baggage which the young noble had lost after his shipwreck in sight of that city! It is dated the second of December 1517; and begins, “Mandatum Illmae Dominae Ducissae Ferrariae in palatio Ducali... Illma Domina Lucretia Borgia Estensis... suo nomine, et nomine ac Tanquam coniuncta persona Illmi Domini Joannis Borgiae eius frater——.”
Little or nothing further has been discovered regarding the life of this youth. His history, with that of his brother Prince Gioffredo Borgia of Squillace, waits to reward research in the archives of Naples, Nepi, Camerino and Ferrara. Reluctantly, they must be left here among the Sparks That Die.
The following announcement closes the second epoch of the House of Borgia. It is dated the twenty-first day of June 1519; and was sent by flying posts to his nephew, the Marquess Federigo Gonzaga of Mantua: “It hath pleased the Lord God to take unto Himself the soul of the Illustrious Duchess, my much-beloved Consort. (Signed) Alfonsus Dux Feraria.”
The “Illustrious Duchess” Lucrezia Borgia was buried in her favourite church at the monastery of Corpus Domini, by side of her husband’s mother the Duchess Leonor de Aragona, deeply and sincerely mourned by her children, and her husband Duke Alfonso d’Este, and, indeed, by all Ferrara duchy crowding round her bier. She was only in the forty-second year of her age.
May she rest in the fragrant peace of her good deeds.
Notes
23And, incontinent, says Monsignor Hans Burchard the vulgar tittle-tattling Caerimonarius, (wilfully misquoting the Vulgate Psalm cxi. 9,) having assumed the papal power, dispersit et dedit pauperibus bona sua, He hath dispersed, He hath given to the poor, his goods. (Authorised Version, Psalm cxii. 9.) To Cardinal Orsini He gave the Vicechancellor’s palace of San Lorenzo in Damaso, the fortalices of Soria and Monticelli, the revenues of the cathedral of Cartagena in Spain, worth five thousand ducats (which He had been administering for Don Cesare (detto Borgia) in accordance with the Breves of the Lords Xystus P.P. IV and Innocent P.P. VIII), and the legation of the Mark of Ancona. To Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti He gave His new palace on Banchi Vecchi (v. p. 67), the town of Nepi, the revenues of the cathedral of Agria in Hungary, worth ten thousand ducats, and named him, at the age of thirty-seven years, Vicechancellor of the Holy Roman Church. To Cardinal Colonna He gave the Abbacy of Subjaco with all its fortresses and rights of patronage, confirming the same to his house for ever. To Cardinal Riarjo He gave the huge palace in Trastevere (now Corsini) vacated by Cardinal Sforza-Visconti, benefices in Spain producing four thousand ducats yearly revenue, and confirmed him in his office of Cardinal-Chamberlain. To Cardinal Savelli He gave the legations of Perugia and Civita Castellana, including twenty towns and a revenue of three thousand ducats; and to other cardinals the remainder of the preferments which He now vacated.