Lucretia Borgia According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day
by Ferdinand Gregorovius · English · Gutenberg #20804 · 694,087 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Lucretia Borgia According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day
Author: Ferdinand Gregorovius
Translator: John Leslie Garner
Release date: March 13, 2007 [eBook #20804]
Language: English
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LUCRETIA BORGIA
[Illustration: LUCRETIA BORGIA.
From a portrait attributed to Dosso Dossi, in the possession of
Mr. Henry Doetsch, London.]
FERDINAND GREGOROVIUS
LUCRETIA BORGIA
ACCORDING TO ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS
AND CORRESPONDENCE OF HER DAY
TRANSLATED FROM THE THIRD GERMAN EDITION
BY JOHN LESLIE GARNER
BENJAMIN BLOM New York/London
TO
DON MICHELANGELO GAETANI
DUKE OF SERMONETA
First published New York 1904
Reissued 1968 by
Benjamin Blom, Inc. 10452
Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 68-20226
Manufactured in the United States of America
TO DON MICHELANGELO GAETANI DUKE OF SERMONETA
MY HONORED DUKE: I am induced to dedicate this work to you by
the historical circumstances of which it treats and also by personal
considerations.
In it you will behold the founders of your ancient and illustrious
family. The Borgias were mortal enemies of the Gaetani, who narrowly
escaped the fate prepared for them by Alexander VI and his terrible son.
Beautiful Sermoneta and all the great fiefs in the Maremma fell into the
maw of the Borgias, and your ancestors either found death at their hands
or were driven into exile. Donna Lucretia became mistress of Sermoneta,
and eventually her son, Rodrigo of Aragon, inherited the estates of the
Gaetani.
Centuries have passed, and a beautiful and unfortunate woman may be
forgiven for this confiscation of the appanages of your house. Moreover,
it was not long before your family was reinstated in its rights by a
bull of Julius II, which is now preserved--a precious jewel--in your
family archives. To your house has descended the fame of its founders,
but to yourself is due the position which the Gaetani now again enjoy.
The survival of historical tradition in things and men exercises an
indescribable charm on every student of civilization. To recognize in
the ancient and still nourishing families of modern Rome the descendants
of the great personalities of other times, and to enjoy daily
intercourse with them, made a profound impression on me. The Colonna,
the Orsini, and the Gaetani are my friends, and all afforded me the
greatest assistance. These families long ago vanished from the stage of
Roman history, but the day came, illustrious Duke, when you were to make
a place again for your ancient race in the history of the Imperial City;
the day when--the temporal power of the popes having passed away, a
power which had endured a thousand years--you carried to King Victor
Emmanuel in Florence the declaration of allegiance of the Roman
populace. This episode, marking the beginning of a new era for the city,
will live, together with your name, in the annals of the Gaetani, and
will preserve it forever in the memory of the Romans.
GREGOROVIUS.
ROME, _March 9, 1874_.
CONTENTS
BOOK THE FIRST--LUCRETIA BORGIA IN ROME
CHAPTER I PAGE
LUCRETIA'S FATHER 3
CHAPTER II
LUCRETIA'S MOTHER 10
CHAPTER III
LUCRETIA'S FIRST HOME 15
CHAPTER IV
LUCRETIA'S EDUCATION 20
CHAPTER V
NEPOTISM--GIULIA FARNESE--LUCRETIA'S BETROTHALS 34
CHAPTER VI
HER FATHER BECOMES POPE--GIOVANNI SFORZA 44
CHAPTER VII
LUCRETIA'S FIRST MARRIAGE 53
CHAPTER VIII
FAMILY AFFAIRS 62
CHAPTER IX
LUCRETIA LEAVES ROME 71
CHAPTER X
HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION OF PESARO 76
CHAPTER XI
THE INVASION OF ITALY--THE PROFLIGATE WORLD 87
CHAPTER XII
THE DIVORCE AND SECOND MARRIAGE 102
CHAPTER XIII
A REGENT AND A MOTHER 113
CHAPTER XIV
SOCIAL LIFE OF THE BORGIAS 125
CHAPTER XV
MISFORTUNES OF CATARINA SFORZA 137
CHAPTER XVI
MURDER OF ALFONSO OF ARAGON 145
CHAPTER XVII
LUCRETIA AT NEPI 152
CHAPTER XVIII
CÆSAR AT PESARO 159
CHAPTER XIX
ANOTHER MARRIAGE PLANNED FOR LUCRETIA 167
CHAPTER XX
NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE HOUSE OF ESTE 182
CHAPTER XXI
THE EVE OF THE WEDDING 196
CHAPTER XXII
ARRIVAL AND RETURN OF THE BRIDAL ESCORT 207
BOOK THE SECOND--LUCRETIA IN FERRARA
CHAPTER I
LUCRETIA'S JOURNEY TO FERRARA 229
CHAPTER II
FORMAL ENTRY INTO FERRARA 239
CHAPTER III
FÊTES GIVEN IN LUCRETIA'S HONOR 250
CHAPTER IV
THE ESTE DYNASTY--DESCRIPTION OF FERRARA 266
CHAPTER V
DEATH OF ALEXANDER VI 279
CHAPTER VI
EVENTS FOLLOWING THE POPE'S DEATH 293
CHAPTER VII
COURT POETS--GIULIA BELLA AND JULIUS II--THE ESTE DYNASTY
ENDANGERED 303
CHAPTER VIII
ESCAPE AND DEATH OF CÆSAR 317
CHAPTER IX
MURDER OF ERCOLE STROZZI--DEATH OF GIOVANNI SFORZA AND
OF LUCRETIA'S ELDEST SON 326
CHAPTER X
EFFECTS OF THE WAR--THE ROMAN INFANTE 338
CHAPTER XI
LAST YEARS AND DEATH OF VANNOZZA 345
CHAPTER XII
DEATH OF LUCRETIA BORGIA--CONCLUSION 355
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Lucretia Borgia, from a portrait attributed to Dosso Dossi
_Frontispiece_
Trajan's Forum, Rome 16
Church of S. Maria del Popolo, Rome 20
Vittoria Colonna 30
The Farnese Palace, Rome 36
Alexander VI 44
Church of Ara Coeli, Rome 58
Tasso 82
Charles VIII 88
Savonarola 94
Macchiavelli 100
Cæsar Borgia 148
Guicciardini 176
Ercole d'Este, Duke of Ferrara 206
Castle of S. Angelo, Rome 210
Ariosto 248
Castle Vecchio, Ferrara 270
Benvenuto Garofalo 278
Facsimile of a letter from Alexander VI to Lucretia 281
Cardinal Bembo 290
Julius II 298
Facsimile of a letter from Lucretia to Marquis Gonzaga 301
Alfonso d'Este, Duke of Ferrara 304
Aldo Manuzio 328
Leo X 338
Lucretia Borgia, after a painting in the Musée de
Nîmes 360
INTRODUCTION
Lucretia Borgia is the most unfortunate woman in modern history. Is this
because she was guilty of the most hideous crimes, or is it simply
because she has been unjustly condemned by the world to bear its curse?
The question has never been answered. Mankind is ever ready to discover
the personification of human virtues and human vices in certain typical
characters found in history and fable.
The Borgias will never cease to fascinate the historian and the
psychologist. An intelligent friend of mine once asked me why it was
that everything about Alexander VI, Cæsar, and Lucretia Borgia, every
little fact regarding their lives, every newly discovered letter of any
of them, aroused our interest much more than did anything similar
concerning other and vastly more important historic characters. I know
of no better explanation than the following: the Borgias had for
background the Christian Church; they made their first appearance
issuing from it; they used it for their advancement; and the sharp
contrast of their conduct with the holy state makes them appear
altogether fiendish. The Borgias are a satire on a great form or phase
of religion, debasing and destroying it. They stand on high pedestals,
and from their presence radiates the light of the Christian ideal. In
this form we behold and recognize them. We view their acts through a
medium which is permeated with religious ideas. Without this, and
placed on a purely secular stage, the Borgias would have fallen into a
position much less conspicuous than that of many other men, and would
soon have ceased to be anything more than representatives of a large
species.
We possess the history of Alexander VI and Cæsar, but of Lucretia Borgia
we have little more than a legend, according to which she is a fury, the
poison in one hand, the poignard in the other; and yet this baneful
personality possessed all the charms and graces.
Victor Hugo painted her as a moral monster, in which form she still
treads the operatic stage, and this is the conception which mankind in
general have of her. The lover of real poetry regards this romanticist's
terrible drama of Lucretia Borgia as a grotesque manifestation of the
art, while the historian laughs at it; the poet, however, may excuse
himself on the ground of his ignorance, and of his belief in a myth
which had been current since the publication of Guicciardini's history.
Roscoe, doubting the truth of this legend, endeavored to disprove it,
and his apology for Lucretia was highly gratifying to the patriotic
Italians. To it is due the reaction which has recently set in against
this conception of her. The Lucretia legend may be analyzed most
satisfactorily and scientifically where documents and mementos of her
are most numerous; namely, in Rome, Ferrara, and Modena, where the
archives of the Este family are kept, and in Mantua, where those of the
Gonzaga are preserved. Occasional publications show that the interesting
question still lives and remains unanswered.
The history of the Borgias was taken up again by Domenico Cerri in his
work, _Borgia ossia Alessandro VI, Papa e suoi contemporanei_, Turin,
1858. The following year Bernardo Gatti, of Milan, published Lucretia's
letters to Bembo. In 1866 Marquis G. Campori, of Modena, printed an
essay entitled _Una vittima della storia Lucrezia Borgia_, in the _Nuova
Antologia_ of August 31st of that year. A year later Monsignor
Antonelli, of Ferrara, published _Lucrezia Borgia in Ferrara, Sposa a
Don Alfonso d'Este, Memorie storiche_, Ferrara, 1867. Giovanni
Zucchetti, of Mantua, immediately followed with a similar opuscule:
_Lucrezia Borgia Duchessa di Ferrara_, Milano, 1869. All these writers
endeavored, with the aid of history, to clear up the Lucretia legend,
and to rehabilitate the honor of the unfortunate woman.
Other writers, not Italians, among them certain French and English
authors, also took part in this effort. M. Armand Baschet, to whom we
are indebted for several valuable publications in the field of
diplomacy, announced in his work, _Aldo Manuzio, Lettres et Documents,
1494-1515_, Venice, 1867, that he had been engaged for years on a
biography of Madonna Lucretia Borgia, and had collected for the purpose
a large mass of original documents.
In the meantime, in 1869, there was published in London the first
exhaustive work on the subject: _Lucrezia Borgia, Duchess of Ferrara, a
Biography, illustrated by rare and unpublished documents_, by William
Gilbert. The absence of scientific method, unfortunately, detracts from
the value of this otherwise excellent production, which, as a sequel to
Roscoe's works, attracted no little attention.
The swarm of apologies for the Borgias called forth in France one of the
most wonderful books to which history has ever given birth. Ollivier, a
Dominican, published, in 1870, the first part of a work entitled _Le
Pape Alexandre VI et les Borgia_. This production is the fantastic
antithesis of Victor Hugo's drama. For, while the latter distorted
history for the purpose of producing a moral monster for stage effect,
the former did exactly the same thing, intending to create the very
opposite. Monks, however, now are no longer able to compel the world to
accept their fables as history, and Ollivier's absurd romance was
renounced even by the strongest organs of the Church; first by Matagne,
in the _Revue des questions historiques_, Paris, April, 1871, and
January, 1872, and subsequently by the _Civiltà Cattolica_, the organ of
the Jesuits, in an article dated March 15, 1873, whose author made no
effort to defend Alexander's character, simply because, in the light of
absolutely authentic historical documents, it was no longer possible to
save it.
This article was based upon the _Saggio di Albero Genealogico e di
Memorie su la familia Borgia specialmente in relazione a Ferrara_, by L.
N. Cittadella, director of the public library of that city, published in
Turin in 1872. The work, although not free from errors, is a
conscientious effort to clear up the family history of the Borgias.
At the close of 1872 I likewise entered into the discussion by
publishing a note on the history of the Borgias. This followed the
appearance of the volume of the _Geschichte der Stadt Rom im
Mittelalter_, which embraced the epoch of Alexander VI. My researches in
the archives of Italy had placed me in possession of a large amount of
original information concerning the Borgias, and as it was impossible
for me to avail myself of this mass of valuable details in that work, I
decided to use it for a monograph to be devoted either to Cæsar Borgia
or to his sister, as protagonist.
I decided on Madonna Lucretia for various reasons, among which was the
following: in the spring of 1872 I found in the archives of the notary
of the Capitol in Rome the protocol-book of Camillo Beneimbene, who for
years was the trusted legal adviser of Alexander VI. This great
manuscript proved to be an unexpected treasure; it furnished me with a
long series of authentic and hitherto unknown documents. It contained
all the marriage contracts of Donna Lucretia as well as numerous other
legal records relating to the most intimate affairs of the Borgias. In
November, 1872, I delivered a lecture on the subject before the class in
history at the Royal Bavarian Academy of Sciences in Munich, which was
published in the account of the proceedings. These records cast new
light on the history of the Borgias, whose genealogy had only just been
published by Cittadella.
There were other reasons which induced me to write a book on Donna
Lucretia. I had treated the political history of Alexander VI and Cæsar
at length, and had elucidated some of its obscure phases, but to
Lucretia Borgia I had devoted no special attention. Her personality
appeared to me to be something full of mystery, made up of
contradictions which remained to be deciphered, and I was fascinated by
it.
I began my task without any preconceived intention. I purposed to write,
not an apology, but a history of Lucretia, broadly sketched, the
materials for which, in so far as the most important period of her life,
her residence in Rome, was concerned, were already in my possession. I
desired to ascertain what manner of personality would be discovered by
treating Lucretia Borgia in a way entirely different from that in which
she had hitherto been examined, but at the same time scientifically, and
in accordance with the original records.
I completed my data; I visited the places where she had lived. I
repeatedly went to Modena and Mantua, whose archives are inexhaustible
sources of information regarding the Renaissance, and from them I
obtained most of my material. My friends there, as usual, were of great
help to me, especially Signor Zucchetti, of Mantua, late keeper of the
Gonzaga archives, and Signor Stefano Davari, the secretary.
The state archives of the Este family of Modena, however, yielded me the
greatest store of information. The custodian was Signor Cesare Foucard.
As might have been expected of Muratori's successor, this distinguished
gentleman displayed the greatest willingness to assist me in my task. In
every way he lightened my labors; he had one of his young assistants,
Signor Ognibene, arrange a great mass of letters and despatches which
promised to be of use to me, lent me the index, and supplied me with
copies. Therefore, if this work has any merit, no small part of it is
due to Signor Foucard's obligingness.
I also met with unfailing courtesy and assistance in other places--Nepi,
Pesaro, and Ferrara. To Signor Cesare Guasti, of the state archives of
Florence, I am indebted for careful copies of important letters of
Lorenzo Pucci, which he had made for me.
The material of which I finally found myself in possession is not
complete, but it is abundant and new.
The original records will serve as defense against those who endeavor to
discover a malicious motive in this work. No such interpretation is
worthy of further notice, because the book itself will make my intention
perfectly clear, which was simply that of the conscientious writer of
history. I have substituted history for romance.
In the work I have attached more importance to the period during which
Lucretia lived in Rome than to the time she spent in Ferrara, because
the latter has already been described, though not in detail, while the
former has remained purely legendary. As I had to base my work entirely
on original information, I endeavored to treat the subject in such a way
as to present a picture truly characteristic of the age, and animated by
concrete descriptions of its striking personalities.
BOOK THE FIRST
LUCRETIA BORGIA IN ROME
CHAPTER I
LUCRETIA'S FATHER
The Spanish house of Borja (or Borgia as the name is generally written)
was rich in extraordinary men. Nature endowed them generously; they were
distinguished by sensuous beauty, physical strength, intellect, and that
force of will which compels success, and which was the source of the
greatness of Cortez and Pizarro, and of the other Spanish adventurers.
Like the Aragonese, the Borgias also played the part of conquerors in
Italy, winning for themselves honors and power, and deeply affecting the
destiny of the whole peninsula, where they extended the influence of
Spain and established numerous branches of their family. From the old
kings of Aragon they claimed descent, but so little is known of their
origin that their history begins with the real founder of the house,
Alfonso Borgia, whose father's name is stated by some to have been Juan,
and by others Domenico; while the family name of his mother, Francesca,
is not even known.
Alfonso Borgia was born in the year 1378 at Xativa, near Valencia. He
served King Alfonso of Aragon as privy secretary, and was made Bishop of
Valencia. He came to Naples with this genial prince when he ascended its
throne, and in the year 1444 he was made a cardinal.
Spain, owing to her religious wars, was advancing toward national unity,
and was fast assuming a position of European importance. She now, by
taking a hand in the affairs of Italy, endeavored to grasp what she had
hitherto let slip by,--namely, the opportunity of becoming the head of
the Latin world and, above all, the center of gravity of European
politics and civilization. She soon forced herself into the Papacy and
into the Empire. From Spain the Borgias first came to the Holy See, and
from there later came Charles V to ascend the imperial throne. From
Spain came also Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the most powerful
politico-religious order history has ever known.
Alfonso Borgia, one of the most active opponents of the Council of Basle
and of the Reformation in Germany, was elected pope in 1455, assuming
the name Calixtus III. Innumerable were his kinsmen, many of whom he had
found settled in Rome when he, as cardinal, had taken up his residence
there. His nearest kin were members of the three connected Valencian
families of Borgia, Mila (or Mella), and Lanzol. One of the sisters of
Calixtus, Catarina Borgia, was married to Juan Mila, Baron of Mazalanes,
and was the mother of the youthful Juan Luis. Isabella, the wife of
Jofrè Lanzol, a wealthy nobleman of Xativa, was the mother of Pedro Luis
and Rodrigo, and of several daughters. The uncle adopted these two
nephews and gave them his family name,--thus the Lanzols became Borgias.
In 1456 Calixtus III bestowed the purple upon two members of the Mila
family: the Bishop Juan of Zamora, who died in 1467, in Rome, where his
tomb may still be seen in S. Maria di Monserrato, and on the youthful
Juan Luis. Rodrigo Borgia also received the purple in the same year.
Among other members of the house of Mila settled in Rome was Don Pedro,
whose daughter, Adriana Mila, we shall later find in most intimate
relations with the family of her uncle Rodrigo.
Of the sisters of this same Rodrigo, Beatrice was married to Don Ximenez
Perez de Arenos, Tecla to Don Vidal de Villanova, and Juana to Don Pedro
Guillen Lanzol.[1] All these remained in Spain. There is a letter
extant, written by Beatrice from Valencia to her brother shortly after
he became pope.
Rodrigo Borgia was twenty-six when the dignity of cardinal was conferred
upon him, and to this honor, a year later, was added the great office of
vice-chancellor of the Church of Rome. His brother, Don Pedro Luis, was
only one year older; and Calixtus bestowed upon this young Valencian the
highest honors which can fall to the lot of a prince's favorite. Later
we behold in him a papal nepot-prince in whom the Pope endeavored to
embody all mundane power and honor; he made him his condottiere, his
warder, his body-guard, and, finally, his worldly heir. Calixtus allowed
him to usurp every position of authority in the Church domain and, like
a destroying angel, to overrun and devastate the republics and the
tyrannies, for the purpose of founding a family dynasty, the Papacy
being of only momentary tenure, and not transmittable to an heir.
Calixtus made Pedro Luis generalissimo of the Church, prefect of the
city, Duke of Spoleto, and finally, vicar of Terracina and Benevento.
Thus in this first Spanish nepot was foreshadowed the career which Cæsar
Borgia later followed.
During the life of Calixtus the Spaniards were all-powerful in Rome. In
great numbers they poured into Italy from the kingdom of Valencia to
make their fortune at the papal court as monsignori and clerks, as
captains and castellans, and in any other way that suggested itself.
Calixtus III died on the sixth of August, 1458, and a few days later Don
Pedro Luis was driven from Rome by the oppressed nobility of the
country, the Colonna and the Orsini, who rose against the hated
foreigner. Soon afterwards, in December the same year, death suddenly
terminated the career of this young and brilliant upstart, then in
Civitavecchia. It is not known whether Don Pedro Luis Borgia was married
or whether he left any descendants.[2]
Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia lamented the loss of his beloved and, probably,
only brother, and inherited his property, while his own high position in
the Curia was not affected by the change in the papacy. As
vice-chancellor, he occupied a house in the Ponte quarter, which had
formerly been the Mint, and which he converted into one of the most
showy of the palaces of Rome. The building encloses two courts, where
may still be seen the original open colonnades of the lower story; it
was constructed as a stronghold, like the Palazzo di Venizia, which was
almost contemporaneous with it. The Borgia palace, however, does not
compare in architectural beauty or size with that built by Paul II. In
the course of the years it has undergone many changes, and for a long
time has belonged to the Sforza-Cesarini.
Nothing is known of Rodrigo's private life during the pontificate of the
four popes who followed Calixtus--Pius II, Paul II, Sixtus IV, and
Innocent VIII--for the records of that period are very incomplete.
Insatiable sensuality ruled this Borgia, a man of unusual beauty and
strength, until his last years. Never was he able to cast out this
demon. He angered Pius II by his excesses, and the first ray of light
thrown upon Rodrigo's private life is an admonitory letter written by
that pope, the eleventh of June, 1460, from the baths of Petriolo.
Borgia was then twenty-nine years old. He was in beautiful and
captivating Siena, where Piccolomini had passed his unholy youth. There
he had arranged a bacchanalian orgy of which the Pope's letter gives a
picture.
DEAR SON: We have learned that your Worthiness, forgetful
of the high office with which you are invested, was present from
the seventeenth to the twenty-second hour, four days ago, in the
gardens of John de Bichis, where there were several women of Siena,
women wholly given over to worldly vanities. Your companion was one
of your colleagues whom his years, if not the dignity of his
office, ought to have reminded of his duty. We have heard that the
dance was indulged in in all wantonness; none of the allurements of
love were lacking, and you conducted yourself in a wholly worldly
manner. Shame forbids mention of all that took place, for not only
the things themselves but their very names are unworthy of your
rank. In order that your lust might be all the more unrestrained,
the husbands, fathers, brothers, and kinsmen of the young women and
girls were not invited to be present. You and a few servants were
the leaders and inspirers of this orgy. It is said that nothing is
now talked of in Siena but your vanity, which is the subject of
universal ridicule. Certain it is that here at the baths, where
Churchmen and the laity are very numerous, your name is on every
one's tongue. Our displeasure is beyond words, for your conduct has
brought the holy state and office into disgrace; the people will
say that they make us rich and great, not that we may live a
blameless life, but that we may have means to gratify our passions.
This is the reason the princes and the powers despise us and the
laity mock us; this is why our own mode of living is thrown in our
face when we reprove others. Contempt is the lot of Christ's vicar
because he seems to tolerate these actions. You, dear son, have
charge of the bishopric of Valencia, the most important in Spain;
you are a chancellor of the Church, and what renders your conduct
all the more reprehensible is the fact that you have a seat among
the cardinals, with the Pope, as advisors of the Holy See. We leave
it to you whether it is becoming to your dignity to court young
women, and to send those whom you love fruits and wine, and during
the whole day to give no thought to anything but sensual pleasures.
People blame us on your account, and the memory of your blessed
uncle, Calixtus, likewise suffers, and many say he did wrong in
heaping honors upon you. If you try to excuse yourself on the
ground of your youth, I say to you: you are no longer so young as
not to see what duties your offices impose upon you. A cardinal
should be above reproach and an example of right living before the
eyes of all men, and then we should have just grounds for anger
when temporal princes bestow uncomplimentary epithets upon us; when
they dispute with us the possession of our property and force us to
submit ourselves to their will. Of a truth we inflict these wounds
upon ourselves, and we ourselves are the cause of these troubles,
since we by our conduct are daily diminishing the authority of the
Church. Our punishment for it in this world is dishonor, and in the
world to come well deserved torment. May, therefore, your good
sense place a restraint on these frivolities, and may you never
lose sight of your dignity; then people will not call you a vain
gallant among men. If this occurs again we shall be compelled to
show that it was contrary to our exhortation, and that it caused us
great pain; and our censure will not pass over you without causing
you to blush. We have always loved you and thought you worthy of
our protection as a man of an earnest and modest character.
Therefore, conduct yourself henceforth so that we may retain this
our opinion of you, and may behold in you only the example of a
well ordered life. Your years, which are not such as to preclude
improvement, permit us to admonish you paternally.
PETRIOLO, _June 11, 1460_.[3]
A few years later, when Paul II occupied the papal throne, the historian
Gasparino of Verona described Cardinal Borgia as follows: "He is
handsome; of a most glad countenance and joyous aspect, gifted with
honeyed and choice eloquence. The beautiful women on whom his eyes are
cast he lures to love him, and moves them in a wondrous way, more
powerfully than the magnet influences iron."
There are such organizations as Gasparino describes; they are men of the
physical and moral nature of Casanova and the Regent of Orleans.
Rodrigo's beauty was noted by many of his contemporaries even when he
was pope. In 1493 Hieronymus Portius described him as follows:
"Alexander is tall and neither light nor dark; his eyes are black and
his lips somewhat full. His health is robust, and he is able to bear any
pain or fatigue; he is wonderfully eloquent and a thorough man of the
world."[4]
The force of this happy organization lay, apparently, in the perfect
balance of all its powers. From it radiated the serene brightness of his
being, for nothing is more incorrect than the picture usually drawn of
this Borgia, showing him as a sinister monster. The celebrated Jason
Mainus, of Milan, calls attention to his "elegance of figure, his serene
brow, his kingly forehead, his countenance with its expression of
generosity and majesty, his genius, and the heroic beauty of his whole
presence."
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Zurita, Anales de Aragon, v. 36.
[2] Zurita (iv, 55) says he died _sin dexar ninguna sucesion_.
Notwithstanding this, Cittadella, in his _Saggio di Albero Genealogico e
di memorie su la Familia Borgia_ (Turin, 1872), ascribes two children to
this Pedro Luis, Silvia and Cardinal Giovanni Borgia, the younger.
[3] Raynaldus, 1460. No. 31.
[4] Statura procerus, colore medio, nigris oculis, ore paululum
pleniore. Hieron. Portius, Commentarius, a rare publication of 1493, in
the Casanatense in Rome.
CHAPTER II
LUCRETIA'S MOTHER
About 1466 or 1467 Cardinal Rodrigo's magnetism attracted a woman of
Rome, Vannozza Catanei. We know that she was born in July, 1442, but of
her family we are wholly ignorant. Writers of that day also call her
Rosa and Catarina, although she named herself, in well authenticated
documents, Vannozza Catanei. Paolo Giovio states that Vanotti was her
patronymic, and although there was a clan of that name in Rome, he is
wrong. Vannozza was probably the nickname for Giovanna--thus we find in
the early records of that age: Vannozza di Nardis, Vannozza di Zanobeis,
di Pontianis, and others.
There was a Catanei family in Rome, as there was in Ferrara, Genoa, and
elsewhere. The name was derived from the title, _capitaneus_. In a
notarial document of 1502 the name of Alexander's mistress is given in
its ancient form, Vanotia de Captaneis.
Litta, to whom Italy is indebted for the great work on her
illustrious families--a wonderful work in spite of its errors and
omissions--ventures the opinion that Vannozza was a member of the
Farnese family and a daughter of Ranuccio. There is, however, no ground
for this theory. In written instruments of that time she is explicitly
called Madonna Vannozza de casa Catanei.
None of Vannozza's contemporaries have stated what were the
characteristics which enabled her to hold the pleasure-loving cardinal
so surely and to secure her recognition as the mother of several of his
acknowledged children. We may imagine her to have been a strong and
voluptuous woman like those still seen about the streets of Rome. They
possess none of the grace of the ideal woman of the Umbrian school, but
they have something of the magnificence of the Imperial City--Juno and
Venus are united in them. They would resemble the ideals of Titian and
Paul Veronese but for their black hair and dark complexion,--blond and
red hair have always been rare among the Romans.
Vannozza doubtless was of great beauty and ardent passions; for if not,
how could she have inflamed a Rodrigo Borgia? Her intellect too,
although uncultivated, must have been vigorous; for if not, how could
she have maintained her relations with the cardinal?
The date given above was the beginning of this liaison, if we may
believe the Spanish historian Mariana, who says that Vannozza was the
mother of Don Pedro Luis, Rodrigo's eldest son. In a notarial instrument
of 1482 this son of the cardinal is called a youth (_adolescens_), which
signified a person fourteen or fifteen years of age. In what
circumstances Vannozza was living when Cardinal Borgia made her
acquaintance we do not know. It is not likely that she was one of the
innumerable courtesans who, thanks to the liberality of their retainers,
led most brilliant lives in Rome at that period; for had she been, the
novelists and epigrammatists of the day would have made her famous.
The chronicler Infessura, who must have been acquainted with Vannozza,
relates that Alexander VI, wishing to make his natural son Cæsar a
cardinal, caused it to appear, by false testimony, that he was the
legitimate son of a certain Domenico of Arignano, and he adds that he
had even married Vannozza to this man. The testimony of a contemporary
and a Roman should have weight; but no other writer, except Mariana--who
evidently bases his statement on Infessura--mentions this Domenico, and
we shall soon see that there could have been no legal, acknowledged
marriage of Vannozza and this unknown man. She was the cardinal's
mistress for a much longer time before he himself, for the purpose of
cloaking his relations with her and for lightening his burden, gave her
a husband. His relations with her continued for a long time after she
had a recognized consort.
The first acknowledged husband of Vannozza was Giorgio di Croce, a
Milanese, for whom Cardinal Rodrigo had obtained from Sixtus IV a
position as apostolic secretary. It is uncertain at just what time she
allied herself with this man, but she was living with him as his wife in
1480 in a house on the Piazzo Pizzo di Merlo, which is now called
Sforza-Cesarini, near which was Cardinal Borgia's palace.
Even as early as this, Vannozza was the mother of several children
acknowledged by the cardinal: Giovanni, Cæsar, and Lucretia. There is no
doubt whatever about these, although the descent of the eldest of the
children, Pedro Luis, from the same mother, is only highly probable.
Thus far the date of the birth of this Borgia bastard has not been
established, and authorities differ. In absolutely authentic records I
discovered the dates of birth of Cæsar and Lucretia, which clear up
forever many errors regarding the genealogy and even the history of the
house. Cæsar was born in the month of April, 1476--the day is not
given--and Lucretia on the eighteenth of April, 1480. Their father, when
he was pope, gave their ages in accordance with these dates. In October,
1501, he mentioned the subject to the ambassador of Ferrara, and the
latter, writing to the Duke Ercole, said, "The Pope gave me to
understand that the Duchess (Lucretia) was in her twenty-second year,
which she will complete next April, in which month also the most
illustrious Duke of Romagna (Cæsar) will be twenty-six."
If the correctness of the father's statement of the age of his own
children is questioned, it may be confirmed by other reports and
records. In despatches which a Ferrarese ambassador sent to the same
duke from Rome much earlier, namely, in February and March, 1483, the
age of Cæsar at that time is given as sixteen to seventeen years, which
agrees with the subsequent statement of his father.[5] The son of
Alexander VI was, therefore, a few years younger than has hitherto been
supposed, and this fact has an important bearing upon his short and
terrible life. Mariana, therefore, and other authors who follow him, err
in stating that Cæsar, Rodrigo's second son, was older than his brother
Giovanni. In reality, Giovanni must have been two years older than
Cæsar. Venetian letters from Rome, written in October, 1496, describe
him as a young man of twenty-two; he accordingly must have been born in
1474.[6]
Lucretia herself came into the world April 18, 1480. This exact date is
given in a Valencian document. Her father was then forty-nine and her
mother thirty-eight years of age. The Roman or Spanish astrologers cast
the horoscope of the child according to the constellation which was in
the ascendancy, and congratulated Cardinal Rodrigo on the brilliant
career foretold for his daughter by the stars.
Easter had just passed; magnificent festivities had been held in honor
of the Elector Ernst of Saxony, who, together with the Duke of Brunswick
and Wilhelm von Henneberg had arrived in Rome March 22d. These gentlemen
were accompanied by a retinue of two hundred knights, and a house in the
Parione quarter had been placed at their disposal. Pope Sixtus IV loaded
them with honors, and great astonishment was caused by a magnificent
hunt which Girolamo Riario, the all-powerful nepot, gave for them, at
Magliana on the Tiber. These princes departed from Rome on the
fourteenth of April.
The papacy was at that time changing to a political despotism, and
nepotism was assuming the character which later was to give Cæsar Borgia
all his ferocity. Sixtus IV, a mighty being and a character of a much
more powerful cast than even Alexander VI, was at war with Florence,
where he had countenanced the Pazzi conspiracy for the murder of the
Medici. He had made Girolamo Riario a great prince in Romagna, and later
Alexander VI planned a similar career for his son Cæsar.
Lucretia was indeed born at a terrible period in the world's history;
the papacy was stripped of all holiness, religion was altogether
material, and immorality was boundless. The bitterest family feuds raged
in the city, in the Ponte, Parione, and Regola quarters, where kinsmen
incited by murder daily met in deadly combat. In this very year, 1480,
there was a new uprising of the old factions of Guelph and Ghibbeline in
Rome; there the Savelli and Colonna were against the Pope, and here the
Orsini for him; while the Valle, Margana, and Santa Croce families,
inflamed by a desire for revenge for blood which had been shed, allied
themselves with one or the other faction.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] Gianandrea Boccaccio to the duke, Rome, February 25 and March 11,
1493. State archives of Modena.
[6] Sanuto, Diar. v. i, 258.
CHAPTER III
LUCRETIA'S FIRST HOME
Lucretia passed the first years of her childhood in her mother's house,
which was on the Piazza Pizzo di Merlo, only a few steps from the
cardinal's palace. The Ponte quarter, to which it belonged, was one of
the most populous of Rome, since it led to the Bridge of S. Angelo and
the Vatican. In it were to be found many merchants and the bankers from
Florence, Genoa, and Siena, while numerous papal office-holders, as well
as the most famous courtesans dwelt there. On the other hand, the number
of old, noble families in Ponte was not large, perhaps because the
Orsini faction did not permit them to thrive there. These powerful
barons had resided in this quarter for a long time in their vast palace
on Monte Giordano. Not far distant stood their old castle, the Torre di
Nona, which had originally been part of the city walls on the Tiber. At
this time it was a dungeon for prisoners of state and other
unfortunates.
It is not difficult to imagine what Vannozza's house was, for the Roman
dwelling of the Renaissance did not greatly differ from the ordinary
house of the present day, which generally is gloomy and dark. Massive
steps of cement led to the dwelling proper, which consisted of a
principal salon and adjoining rooms with bare flagstone floors, and
ceilings of beams and painted wooden paneling. The walls of the rooms
were whitewashed, and only in the wealthiest houses were they covered
with tapestries, and in these only on festal occasions. In the fifteenth
century the walls of few houses were adorned with pictures, and these
usually consisted of only a few family portraits. If Vannozza decorated
her salon with any likenesses, that of Cardinal Rodrigo certainly must
have been among the number. There was likewise a shrine with relics and
pictures of the saints and one of the Madonna, the lamp constantly
burning before it.
Heavy furniture,--great wide beds with canopies; high, brown wooden
chairs, elaborately carved, upon which cushions were placed; and massive
tables, with tops made of marble or bits of colored wood,--was ranged
around the walls. Among the great chests there was one which stood out
conspicuously in the salon, and which contained the dowry of linen. It
was in such a chest--the chest of his sister--that the unfortunate
Stefano Porcaro concealed himself when he endeavored to escape after his
unsuccessful attempt to excite an uprising on the fifth of January,
1453. His sister and another woman sat on the chest, better to protect
him, but the officers pulled him out.
Although we can only state what was then the fashion, if Vannozza had
any taste for antiquities her salon must have been adorned with them. At
that time they were being collected with the greatest eagerness. It was
the period of the first excavations; the soil of Rome was daily giving
up its treasures, and from Ostia, Tivoli, and Hadrian's Villa, from
Porto d'Anzio and Palestrina, quantities of antiquities were being
brought to the city. If Vannozza and her husband did not share this
passion with the other Romans, one would certainly not have looked in
vain in her house for the cherished productions of modern art--cups and
vases of marble and porphyry, and the gold ornaments of the jewelers.
The most essential thing in every well ordered Roman house was above all
else the _credenza_, a great chest containing gold and silver table
and drinking vessels and beautiful majolica; and care was taken always
to display these articles at banquets and on other ceremonious
occasions.
[Illustration: TRAJAN'S FORUM, ROME.]
It is not likely that Rodrigo's mistress possessed a library, for
private collections of books were at that time exceedingly rare in
bourgeois houses. A short time after this they were first made possible
in Rome by the invention of printing, which was there carried on by
Germans.
Vannozza's household doubtless was rich but not magnificent. She must
occasionally have entertained the cardinal, as well as the friends of
the family, and especially the confidants of the Borgias: the Spaniards,
Juan Lopez, Caranza, and Marades; and among the Romans, the Orsini,
Porcari, Cesarini, and Barberini. The cardinal himself was an
exceedingly abstemious man, but magnificent in everything which
concerned the pomp and ceremonial of his position. The chief requirement
of a cardinal of that day was to own a princely residence and to have a
numerous household.
Rodrigo Borgia was one of the wealthiest princes of the Church, and he
maintained the palace and pomp of a great noble. His contemporary Jacopo
of Volterra, gave the following description of him about 1486: "He is a
man of an intellect capable of everything and of great sense; he is a
ready speaker; he is of an astute nature, and has wonderful skill in
conducting affairs. He is enormously wealthy, and the favor accorded him
by numerous kings and princes lends him renown. He occupies a beautiful
and comfortable palace which he built between the Bridge of S. Angelo
and the Campo dei Fiore. His papal offices, his numerous abbeys in Italy
and Spain, and his three bishoprics of Valencia, Portus, and Carthage
yield him a vast income, and it is said that the office of
vice-chancellor alone brings him in eight thousand gold florins. His
plate, his pearls, his stuffs embroidered with silk and gold, and his
books in every department of learning are very numerous, and all are of
a magnificence worthy of a king or pope. I need not mention the
innumerable bed hangings, the trappings for his horses, and similar
things of gold, silver, and silk, nor his magnificent wardrobe, nor the
vast amount of gold coin in his possession. In fact it was believed that
he possessed more gold and riches of every sort than all the cardinals
together, with the exception of one, Estouteville."
Cardinal Rodrigo, therefore, was able to give his children the most
brilliant education, while he modestly maintained them as his nephews.
Not until he himself had attained greatness could he bring them forth
into the full light of day.
In 1482 he did not occupy his house in the Ponte quarter, perhaps
because he was having it enlarged. He spent more of his time in the
palace which Stefano Nardini had finished in 1475 in the Parione
quarter, which is now known as the Palazzo del Governo Vecchio. Rodrigo
was living here in January, 1482, as we learn from an instrument of the
notary Beneimbene,--the marriage contract of Gianandrea Cesarini and
Girolama Borgia, a natural daughter of the same Cardinal Rodrigo. This
marriage was performed in the presence of the bride's father, Cardinals
Stefano Nardini and Gianbattista Savelli, and the Roman nobles Virginius
Orsini, Giuliano Cesarini, and Antonio Porcaro.
The instrument of January, 1482, is the earliest authentic document we
possess regarding the family life of Cardinal Borgia. In it he
acknowledges himself to be the father of the "noble demoiselle
Hieronyma," and she is described as the sister of the "noble youth
Petrus Lodovicus de Borgia, and of the infant Johannes de Borgia." As
these two, plainly mentioned as the eldest sons, were natural children,
it would have been improper to name their mother. Cæsar also was passed
by, as he was a child of only six years.
Girolama was still a minor, being only thirteen years of age, and her
betrothed, Giovanni Andrea, had scarcely reached manhood. He was a son
of Gabriello Cesarini and Godina Colonna. By this marriage the noble
house of Cesarini was brought into close relations with the Borgia, and
later it derived great profit from the alliance. Their mutual friendship
dated from the time of Calixtus, for it was the prothonotary Giorgio
Cesarini who, on the death of that pope, had helped Rodrigo's brother
Don Pedro Luis when he was forced to flee from Rome. Both Girolama and
her youthful spouse died in 1483. Was she also a child of the mother of
Lucretia and Cæsar? We know not, but it is regarded as unlikely. Let us
anticipate by saying that there is only a single authentic record which
mentions Rodrigo's children and their mother together. This is the
inscription on Vannozza's tomb in S. Maria del Popolo in Rome, in which
she is named as the mother of Cæsar, Giovanni, Giuffrè, and Lucretia,
while no mention is made of their older brother, Don Pedro Luis, nor of
their sister Girolama.
Rodrigo, moreover, had a third daughter, named Isabella, who could not
have been a child of Vannozza. April 1, 1483, he married her to a Roman
nobleman, Piergiovanni Mattuzi of the Parione quarter.[7]
FOOTNOTES:
[7] Abstract of the marriage contract in the archives of the Capitol.
Cred. xiv, T. 72. From an instrument of the notary Agostino Martini.
CHAPTER IV
LUCRETIA'S EDUCATION
The cardinal's relations with Vannozza continued until about 1482, for
after the birth of Lucretia she presented him with another son, Giuffrè,
who was born in 1481 or 1482.
After that, Borgia's passion for this woman, who was now about forty,
died out, but he continued to honor her as the mother of his children
and as the confidant of many of his secrets.
Vannozza had borne her husband, a certain Giorgio di Croce, a son, who
was named Octavian--at least this child passed as his. With the
cardinal's help she increased her revenues; in old official records she
appears as the lessee of several taverns in Rome, and she also bought a
vineyard and a country house near S. Lucia in Selci in the Subura,
apparently from the Cesarini. Even to-day the picturesque building with
the arched passageway over the stairs which lead up from the Subura to
S. Pietro in Vincoli is pointed out to travelers as the palace of
Vannozza or of Lucretia Borgia. Giorgio di Croce had become rich, and he
built a chapel for himself and his family in S. Maria del Popolo. Both
he and his son Octavian died in the year 1486.[8]
His death caused a change in Vannozza's circumstances, the cardinal
hastening to marry the mother of his children a second time, so that she
might have a protector and a respectable household. The new husband was
Carlo Canale, of Mantua.
[Illustration: CHURCH OF S. MARIA DEL POPOLO, ROME.]
Before he came to Rome he had by his attainments acquired some
reputation among the humanists of Mantua. There is still extant a letter
to Canale, written by the young poet Angelo Poliziano regarding his
_Orfeo_; the manuscript of this, the first attempt in the field of the
drama which marked the renaissance of the Italian theater, was in the
hands of Canale, who, appreciating the work of the faint-hearted poet,
was endeavoring to encourage him.[9] At the suggestion of Cardinal
Francesco Gonzaga, a great patron of letters, Poliziano had written the
poem in the short space of two days. Carlo Canale was the cardinal's
chamberlain. The _Orfeo_ saw the light in 1472. When Gonzaga died, in
1483, Canale went to Rome, where he entered the service of Cardinal
Sclafetano, of Parma. As a confidant and dependent of the Gonzaga he
retained his connection with this princely house.[10] In his new
position he assisted Ludovico Gonzaga, a brother of Francesco when he
came to Rome in 1484 to receive the purple on his election as Bishop of
Mantua.
Borgia was acquainted with Canale while he was in the service of the
Gonzaga, and later he met him in the house of Sclafetano. He selected
him to be the husband of his widowed mistress, doubtless because
Canale's talents and connections would be useful to him.
Canale, on the other hand, could have acquiesced in the suggestion to
marry Vannozza only from avarice, and his willingness proves that he had
not grown rich in his former places at the courts of cardinals.
The new marriage contract was drawn up June 8, 1486, by the notary of
the Borgia house, Camillo Beneimbene, and was witnessed by Francesco
Maffei, apostolic secretary and canon of S. Peter's; Lorenzo Barberini
de Catellinis; a citizen, Giuliano Gallo, a considerable merchant of
Rome; Burcardo Barberini de Carnariis, and other gentlemen. As dowry
Vannozza brought her husband, among other things, one thousand gold
florins and an appointment as _sollicitator bullarum_. The contract
clearly referred to this as Vannozza's second marriage. Would it not
have been set down as the third, or in more general terms as new, if the
alleged first marriage with Domenico d'Arignano had really been
acknowledged?
In this instrument Vannozza's house on the Piazza de Branchis, in the
Regola quarter, where the marriage took place, is described as her
domicile. The piazza still bears this name, which is derived from the
extinct Branca family. After the death of her former husband she must,
therefore, have moved from the house on the Piazza Pizzo di Merlo and
taken up her abode in the one on the Piazza Branca. This house may have
belonged to her, for her second husband seems to have been a man without
means, who hoped to make his fortune by his marriage and with the
protection of the powerful cardinal.
From a letter of Ludovico Gonzaga, dated February 19, 1488, we learn
that this new marriage of Vannozza's was not childless. In this epistle,
the Bishop of Mantua asks his agent in Rome to act as godfather in his
stead, Carlo Canale having chosen him for this honor. The letter gives
no further particulars, but it can mean nothing else.[11]
We do not know at just what time Lucretia, in accordance with the
cardinal's provision, left her mother's house and passed under the
protection of a woman who exercised great influence upon him and upon
the entire Borgia family.
This woman was Adriana, of the house of Mila, a daughter of Don Pedro,
who was a nephew of Calixtus III, and first cousin of Rodrigo. What
position he held in Rome we do not know.
He married his daughter Adriana to Ludovico, a member of the noble house
of Orsini, and lord of Bassanello, near Civita Castellana. As the
offspring of this union, Orsino Orsini, married in 1489, it is evident
that his mother must have entered into wedlock at least sixteen years
before. Ludovico Orsini died in 1489 or earlier. As his wife, and later
as his widow, Adriana occupied one of the Orsini palaces in Rome,
probably the one on Monte Giordano, near the Bridge of S. Angelo, this
palace having subsequently been described as part of the estate which
her son Orsino inherited.
Cardinal Rodrigo maintained the closest relations with Adriana. She was
more than his kinswoman; she was the confidant of his sins, of his
intrigues and plans, and such she remained until the day of his death.
To her he entrusted the education of his daughter Lucretia during her
childhood, as we learn from a letter written by the Ferrarese ambassador
to Rome, Gianandrea Boccaccio, Bishop of Modena, to the Duke Ercole in
1493, in which he remarks of Madonna Adriana Ursina, "that she had
educated Lucretia in her own house."[12] This doubtless was the Orsini
palace on Monte Giordano, which was close to Cardinal Borgia's
residence.
According to the Italian custom, which has survived to the present day,
the education of the daughters was entrusted to women in convents, where
the young girls were required to pass a few years, afterwards to come
forth into the world to be married. If, however, Infessura's picture of
the convents of Rome is a faithful one, the cardinal was wise in
hesitating to entrust his daughter to these saints. Nevertheless there
certainly were convents which were free from immorality, such, for
example, as S. Silvestre in Capite, where many of the daughters of the
Colonna were educated, and S. Maria Nuova and S. Sisto on the Appian
Way. On one occasion during the papacy of Alexander, Lucretia chose the
last named convent as an asylum, perhaps because she had there received
her early spiritual education.
Religious instruction was always the basis of the education of the women
of Italy. It, however, consisted not in the cultivation of heart and
soul, but in a strict observance of the forms of religion. Sin made no
woman repulsive, and the condition of even the most degraded female did
not prevent her from performing all her church duties, and appearing to
be a well-trained Christian. There were no women skeptics or
freethinkers; they would have been impossible in the society of that
day. The godless tyrant Sigismondo Malatesta of Rimini built a
magnificent church, and in it a chapel in honor of his beloved Isotta,
who was a regular attendant at church. Vannozza built and embellished a
chapel in S. Maria del Popolo. She had a reputation for piety, even
during the life of Alexander VI. Her greatest maternal solicitude, like
that of Adriana, was to inculcate a Christian deportment in her
daughter, and this Lucretia possessed in such perfection that
subsequently a Ferrarese ambassador lauded her for her 'saintly
demeanor.'
It is wrong to regard this bearing simply as a mask; for that would
presuppose an independent consideration of religious questions or a
moral process which was altogether foreign to the women of that age, and
is still unknown among the women of Italy. There religion was, and still
is, a part of education; it consisted in a high respect for form and was
of small ethical worth.
The daughters of the well-to-do families did not receive instruction in
the humanities in the convents, but probably from the same teachers to
whom the education of the sons was entrusted. It is no exaggeration to
say that the women of the better classes during the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries were as well educated as are the women of to-day.
Their education was not broad; it was limited to a few branches; for
then they did not have the almost inexhaustible means of improvement
which, thanks to the evolution of the human mind during the last three
hundred years, we now enjoy. The education of the women of the
Renaissance was based upon classical antiquity, in comparison with which
everything which could then be termed modern was insignificant. They
might, therefore, have been described as scholarly. Feminine education
is now entirely different, as it is derived wholly from modern sources
of culture. It is precisely its many-sidedness to which is due the
superficiality of the education of contemporary woman when compared with
that of her sister of the Renaissance.
The education of women at the present time, generally,--even in Germany,
which is famous for its schools,--is without solid foundation, and
altogether superficial and of no real worth. It consists usually in
acquiring a smattering of two modern tongues and learning to play the
piano, to which a wholly unreasonable amount of time is devoted.
During the Renaissance the piano was unknown, but every educated woman
performed upon the lute, which had the advantage that, in the hands of
the lady playing it, it presented an agreeable picture to the eyes,
while the piano is only a machine which compels the man or the woman who
is playing it to go through motions which are always unpleasant and
often ridiculous. During the Renaissance the novel showed only its first
beginnings; and even to-day Italy is the country which produces and
reads the fewest romances. There were stories from the time of
Boccaccio, but very few. Vast numbers of poems were written, but half of
them in Latin. Printing and the book trade were in their infancy. The
theater likewise was in its childhood, and, as a rule, dramatic
performances were given only once a year, during the carnival, and then
only on private stages. What we now call universal literature or culture
consisted at that time in the passionate study of the classics. Latin
and Greek held the place then which the study of foreign languages now
occupies in the education of women. The Italians of the Renaissance did
not think that an acquaintance with the classics, that scientific
knowledge destroyed the charm of womanliness, nor that the education of
women should be less advanced than that of men. This opinion, like so
many others prevalent in society is of Teutonic origin. The loving
dominion of the mother in the family circle has always seemed to the
Germanic races to be the realization of the ideal of womanliness. For a
long time German women avoided publicity owing to modesty or a feeling
of decorum. Their talents remained hidden except in cases where peculiar
circumstances--sometimes connected with affairs of court or of
state--compelled them to come forth. Until recently the history of
German civilization has shown a much smaller number of famous female
characters than Italy, the land of strong personalities, produced during
the Renaissance. The influence which gifted women in the Italian salons
of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and later in those of France,
exercised upon the intellectual development of society was completely
unknown in England and Germany.
Later, however, there was a change in the relative degree of feminine
culture in Teutonic and Latin countries. In the former it rose, while in
Italy it declined. The Italian woman who, during the Renaissance,
occupied a place by man's side, contended with him for intellectual
prizes, and took part in every spiritual movement, fell into the
background. During the last two hundred years she has taken little or no
part in the higher life of the nation, for long ago she became a mere
tool in the hands of the priests. The Reformation gave the German woman
greater personal freedom. Especially since the beginning of the
eighteenth century have Germany and England produced numbers of highly
cultivated and even learned women. The superficiality of the education
of woman in general in Germany is not the fault of the Church, but of
the fashion, of society, and also of lack of means in our families.
A learned woman, whom men are more apt to fear than respect, is called,
when she writes books, a blue-stocking. During the Renaissance she was
called a _virago_, a title which was perfectly complimentary. Jacopo da
Bergamo constantly uses it as a term of respect in his work, _Concerning
Celebrated Women_, which he wrote in 1496.[13] Rarely do we find this
word used by Italians in the sense in which we now employ it,--namely,
termigant or amazon. At that time a _virago_ was a woman who, by her
courage, understanding, and attainments, raised herself above the masses
of her sex. And she was still more admired if in addition to these
qualities she possessed beauty and grace. Profound classic learning
among the Italians was not opposed to feminine charm; on the contrary,
it enhanced it. Jacopo da Bergamo specially praises it in this or that
woman, saying that whenever she appeared in public as a poet or an
orator, it was above all else her modesty and reserve which charmed her
hearers. In this vein he eulogizes Cassandra Fedeli, while he lauds
Ginevra Sforza for her elegance of form, her wonderful grace in every
motion, her calm and queenly bearing, and her chaste beauty. He
discovers the same in the wife of Alfonso of Aragon, Ippolita Sforza,
who possessed the highest attainments, the most brilliant eloquence, a
rare beauty, and extreme feminine modesty. What was then called modesty
(_pudor_) was the natural grace of a gifted woman increased by education
and association. This modesty Lucretia Borgia possessed in a high
degree. In woman it corresponded with that which in man was the mark of
the perfect cavalier. It may cause the reader some astonishment to learn
that the contemporaries of the infamous Cæsar spoke of his 'moderation'
as one of his most characteristic traits. By this term, however, we must
understand the cultivation of the personality in which moderation in man
and modesty in woman were part and manifestations of a liberal
education.
It is true that in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries emancipated
women did not sit on the benches of the lecture halls of Bologna,
Ferrara, and Padua, as they now do in many universities, to pursue
professional studies; but the same humane sciences to which youths and
men devoted themselves were a requirement in the higher education of
women. Little girls in the Middle Ages were entrusted to the saints of
the convents to be made nuns; during the Renaissance parents consecrated
gifted children to the Muses. Jacopo da Bergamo, speaking of Trivulzia
of Milan, a contemporary of Lucretia, who excited great amazement as an
orator when she was only fourteen years of age, says, "When her parents
noticed the child's extraordinary gifts they dedicated her to the
Muses--this was in her seventh year--for her education."
The course of study followed by women at that time included the classic
languages and their literature, oratory, poetry, or the art of
versifying, and music. Dilettanteism in the graphic and plastic arts of
course followed, and the vast number of paintings and statues produced
during the Renaissance inspired every cultivated woman in Italy with a
desire to become a connoisseur.
Even philosophy and theology were cultivated by women. Debates on
questions in these fields of inquiry were the order of the day at the
courts and in the halls of the universities, and women endeavored to
acquire renown by taking part in them. At the end of the fifteenth
century the Venetian, Cassandra Fedeli, the wonder of her age, was as
well versed in philosophy and theology as a learned man. She once
engaged in a public disputation before the Doge Agostino Barbarigo, and
also several times in the audience hall of Padua, and always showed the
utmost modesty in spite of the applause of her hearers. The beautiful
wife of Alessandro Sforza of Pesaro, Costanza Varano, was a poet, an
orator, and a philosopher; she wrote a number of learned dissertations.
"The writings of Augustinus, Ambrosius, Jerome, and Gregory, of Seneca,
Cicero, and Lactantius were always in her hands." Her daughter, Battista
Sforza, the noble spouse of the cultivated Federico of Urbino, was
equally learned. So, too, it was related that the celebrated Isotta
Nugarola of Verona was thoroughly at home in the writings of the fathers
and of the philosophers. Isabella Gonzaga and Elisabetta of Urbino were
likewise acquainted with them, as were numerous other celebrated women,
such as Vittoria Colonna and Veronica Gambara.
These and other names show to what heights the education of woman during
the Renaissance attained, and even if the accomplishments of these women
were exceptional, the studies which they so earnestly pursued were part
of the curriculum of all the daughters of the best families. These
studies were followed only for the purpose of perfecting and beautifying
the personality. Conversation in the modern salon is so excessively dull
that it is necessary to fill in the emptiness with singing and piano
playing. Still the symposiums of Plato were not always the order of the
day in the drawing-rooms of the Renaissance, and it must be admitted
that their social disputations would cause us intolerable weariness;
however, tastes were different at that time. In a circle of
distinguished and gifted persons, to carry on a conversation gracefully
and intelligently, and to give it a classic cast by introducing
quotations from the ancients, or to engage in a discussion in dialogue
on a chosen theme, afforded the keenest enjoyment. It was the
conversation of the Renaissance which attained later to such æsthetic
perfection in France. Talleyrand called this form of human intercourse
man's greatest and most beautiful blessing. The classic dialogue was
revived, with only the difference that cultivated women also took part
in it. As samples of the refined social intercourse of that age, we have
Castiglione's _Cortegiano_ and Bembo's _Asolani_, which was dedicated to
Lucretia Borgia.
[Illustration: VITTORIA COLONNA.
From an engraving by P. Caronni.]
Alexander's daughter did not occupy a preeminent place among the Italian
women renowned for classical attainments, her own acquirements not being
such as to distinguish her from the majority; but, considering the
times, her education was thorough. She had received instruction in the
languages, in music, and in drawing, and later the people of Ferrara
were amazed at the skill and taste which she displayed in embroidering
in silk and gold. "She spoke Spanish, Greek, Italian, and French, and a
little Latin, very correctly, and she wrote and composed poems in all
these tongues," said the biographer Bayard in 1512. Lucretia must have
perfected her education later, during the quiet years of her life, under
the influence of Bembo and Strozzi, although she doubtless had laid its
foundation in Rome. She was both a Spaniard and an Italian, and a
perfect master of these two languages. Among her letters to Bembo there
are two written in Spanish; the remainder, of which we possess several
hundred, are composed in the Italian of that day, and are spontaneous
and graceful in style. The contents of none of them are of importance;
they display soul and feeling, but no depth of mind. Her handwriting is
not uniform; sometimes it has strong lines which remind us of the
striking, energetic writing of her father; at others it is sharp and
fine like that of Vittoria Colonna.
None of Lucretia's letters indicate that she fully understood Latin, and
her father once stated that she had not mastered that language. She
must, however, have been able to read it when written, for otherwise
Alexander could not have made her his representative in the Vatican,
with authority to open letters received. Nor were her Hellenic studies
very profound; still she was not wholly ignorant of Greek. In her
childhood, schools for the study of Hellenic literature still flourished
in Rome, where they had been established by Chrysoleras and Bessarion.
In the city were many Greeks, some of whom were fugitives from their
country, while others had come to Italy with Queen Carlotta of Cyprus.
Until her death, in 1487, this royal adventuress lived in a palace in
the Borgo of the Vatican, where she held court, and where she doubtless
gathered about her the cultivated people of Rome, just as the learned
Queen Christina of Sweden did later. It was in her house that Cardinal
Rodrigo made the acquaintance, besides that of other noble natives of
Cyprus, of Ludovico Podocatharo, a highly cultivated man, afterwards his
secretary. He it was, probably, who instructed Borgia's children in
Greek.
In the cardinal's palace there was also a humanist of German birth,
Lorenz Behaim, of Nurenburg, who managed his household for twenty years.
As he was a Latinist and a member of the Roman Academy of Pomponius
Laetus, he must have exercised some influence on the education of his
master's children. Generally there was no lack of professors of the
humane sciences in Rome, where they were in a nourishing condition, and
the Academy as well as the University attracted thither many talented
men. In the papal city there were numerous teachers who conducted
schools, and swarms of young scholars, ambitious academicians, sought
their fortune at the courts of the cardinals in the capacity of
companions or secretaries, or as preceptors to their illegitimate
children. Lucretia, also, received instruction in classic literature
from these masters. Among the poets who lived in Rome she found teachers
to instruct her in Italian versification and in writing sonnets, an art
which was everywhere cultivated by women as well as men. She doubtless
learned to compose verses, although the writers on the history of
Italian literature, Quadrio and Crescimbeni, do not place her among the
poets of the peninsula. Nowhere do Bembo, Aldus, or the Strozzi speak of
her as a poet, nor are there any verses by her in existence. It is not
certain that even the Spanish canzoni which are found in some of her
letters to Bembo were composed by her.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] See Adinolfi's notice quoted by the author in his Geschichte der
Stadt Rom im Mittelalter. 2d Aufl. vii, 312.
[9] The letter, with the inscription "A Messer Carlo Canale," is printed
in the edition of Milan, 1808. Angelo Poliziano, Le Stanze e l'Orfeo ed
altre poesie.
[10] In the archives of Mantua there is a letter from the Marchesa
Isabella to Carlo Canale, dated December 4, 1499.
[11] Lodovico Gonzaga to Bartolomeo Erba, Siamo contenti contrahi in
nome nro. compaternità cum M. Carolo Canale, et cussi per questa nostra
ti commettiamo et constituimo nostro Procuratore. Note by Affò in his
introduction to the Orfeo, p. 113.
[12] Ma Adriana Ursina, la quale è socera de la dicta madona Julia
(Farnese), che ha sempre governata essa sposa (Lucrezia) in casa propria
per esser in loco de nepote del Pontifice, la fu figliola de messer
Piedro de Mila, noto a V. Ema Sigria, cusino carnale del Papa. Despatch
from the above named to Ercole, Rome, June 13, 1493, in the state
archives of Modena. And again she is mentioned in a despatch of May 6,
1493, as madona Adriana Ursina soa governatrice figliola che fu del
quondam messer Pietro del Mila.
[13] Jacobus Burgomensis _de claris mulieribus_, Paris, 1521.
CHAPTER V
NEPOTISM--GIULIA FARNESE--LUCRETIA'S BETROTHALS
It is not difficult to imagine what emotions were aroused in Lucretia
when she first became aware of the real condition of her family. Her
mother's husband was not her father; she discovered that she and her
brothers were the children of a cardinal, and the awakening of her
conscience was accompanied by a realization of circumstances
which--frowned on by the Church--it was necessary to conceal from the
world. She herself had always hitherto been treated as a niece of the
cardinal, and she now beheld in her father one of the most prominent
princes of the Church of Rome, whom she heard mentioned as a future
pope.
The knowledge of the great advantages to be derived from these
circumstances certainly must have affected Lucretia's fancy much more
actively than the conception of their immorality. The world in which she
lived concerned itself but little with moral scruples, and rarely in the
history of mankind has there been a time in which the theory that it is
proper to obtain the greatest possible profit from existing conditions
has been so generally accepted. She soon learned how common were these
relations in Rome. She heard that most of the cardinals lived with their
mistresses, and provided in a princely way for their children. They told
her about those of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere and those of
Piccolomini; she saw with her own eyes the sons and daughters of
Estouteville, and heard of the baronies which their wealthy father had
acquired for them in the Alban mountains. She saw the children of Pope
Innocent raised to the highest honors; to her were pointed out his son
Franceschetto Cibò and his illustrious spouse Maddalena Medici. She knew
that the Vatican was the home of other children and grandchildren of the
Pope, and she frequently saw his daughter Madonna Teodorina, the consort
of the Genoese Uso di Mare, going and coming. She was eight years old
when his daughter Donna Peretta was married in the Vatican to the
Marchese Alfonso del Carretto with such magnificent pomp that it set all
Rome to talking.
Lucretia first became conscious of the position to which she and her
brothers might be called by their birth when she learned that her eldest
brother, Don Pedro Luis, was a Spanish duke. We do not know when the
young Borgia was raised to this dignity, but it was some time after
1482. The strong ties which existed between the cardinal and the Spanish
court doubtless enabled him to have his son created Duke of Gandia in
the kingdom of Valencia. As Mariana remarks, he bought this dukedom for
his son.
Don Pedro Luis, however, when still a young man, died in Spain, for a
document of the year 1491 speaks of him as deceased, and mentions a
legacy left by his will to his sister Lucretia. The duchy of Gandia
passed to Rodrigo's second son, Don Giovanni, who hastened to Valencia
to take possession of it.
Meanwhile the fancy of the licentious cardinal had turned to other
women. In May, 1489, when Lucretia was nine years old, appears for the
first time the most celebrated of his mistresses, Giulia Farnese, a
young woman of extraordinary beauty, to whose charms the cardinal and
future pope, who was growing old, yielded with all the ardor of a young
man.
It was the adulterous love of this Giulia which first brought the
Farnese house into the history of Rome, and subsequently into that of
the world; for Rodrigo Borgia laid the foundation of the greatness of
this family when he made Giulia's brother Alessandro a cardinal. In this
manner he prepared the way to the papacy for the future Paul III, the
founder of the house of Farnese of Parma, a distinguished family which
died out in 1758 in the person of Queen Elisabeth, who occupied the
throne of Spain.
The Farnese, up to the time of the Borgias, were of no importance in
Rome, where two of the most beautiful buildings of the Renaissance have
since helped to make their name immortal. They did not even live in
Rome, but in Roman Etruria, where they owned a few towns--Farneto, from
which, doubtless, their name was derived, Ischia, Capracola, and
Capodimonte. Some time later, though just when is not known, they were
temporarily in possession of Isola Farnese, an ancient castle in the
ruins of Veii, which from the fourteenth century had belonged to the
Orsini.
[Illustration: FARNESE PALACE, ROME.]
The origin of the Farnese family is uncertain, but the tradition,
according to which they were descended from the Lombards or the Franks,
appears to be true. It is supported by the fact that the name Ranuccio,
which is the Italian form of Rainer, is of frequent occurrence in the
family. The Farnese became prominent in Etruria as a small dynasty of
robber barons, without, however, being able to attain to the power of
their neighbors, the Orsini of Anguillara and Bracciano, and the famous
Counts of Vico, who were of German descent and who ruled over the
Tuscan prefecture for more than a hundred years, until that country
was swallowed up by Eugene IV. While these prefects were the most active
Ghibellines and the bitterest enemies of the popes, the Farnese, like
the Este, always stood by the Guelphs. From the eleventh century they
were consuls and podestas in Orvieto, and they appeared later in various
places as captains of the Church in the numerous little wars with the
cities and barons in Umbria and in the domain of S. Peter. Ranuccio,
Giulia's grandfather, was one of the ablest of the generals of Eugene
IV, and he had been a comrade of the great tyrant-conqueror Vitelleschi,
and through him his house had won great renown. His son, Pierluigi,
married Donna Giovanella of the Gaetani family of Sermoneta. His
children were Alessandro, Bartolomeo, Angiolo, Girolama, and Giulia.
Alessandro Farnese, born February 28, 1468, was a young man of intellect
and culture, but notorious for his unbridled passions. He had his own
mother committed to prison in 1487 under the gravest charges, whereupon
he himself was confined in the castle of S. Angelo by Innocent VIII. He
escaped from prison, and the matter was allowed to drop. He was a
prothonotary of the Church. His elder sister was married to Puccio
Pucci, one of the most illustrious statesmen of Florence, a member of a
large family which was on terms of close friendship with the Medici.
On the twentieth of May, 1489, the youthful Giulia Farnese, together
with the equally youthful Orsino Orsini, appeared in the "Star Chamber"
of the Borgia palace to sign their marriage contract. It is worthy of
note that this occurred in the house of Cardinal Rodrigo. His name
appears as the first of the witnesses to this document, as if he had
constituted himself the protector of the couple and had brought about
their marriage. This union, however, had been arranged when the
betrothed were minors, by their parents, Ludovico Orsini, lord of
Bassanello, and Pierluigi Farnese, both of whom had died before 1489. In
those days little children were often legally betrothed, and the
marriage was consummated later, as was the custom in ancient Rome, where
frequently boys and girls only thirteen years of age were affianced.
Giulia was barely fifteen, May 20, 1489, and she was still under the
guardianship of her brothers and her uncles of the house of Gaetani;
while the young Orsini was under the control of his mother, Adriana, who
was Adriana de Mila, the kinswoman of Cardinal Rodrigo, and Lucretia's
governess. This, therefore, sufficiently explains the part, personal and
official, which the cardinal took in the ceremony of Giulia's betrothal.
The witnesses to the marriage contract, which was drawn up by the notary
Beneimbene, were, in addition to the cardinal, Bishop Martini of
Segovia, the Spanish Canons Garcetto and Caranza, and a Roman nobleman
named Giovanni Astalli. The bride's brothers should have supported her,
but only the younger, Angiolo, was present, Alessandro remaining away.
His failure to attend such an important family function in the Borgia
palace is strange, although it may have been occasioned by some
accident. The bride's uncles, the prothonotary Giacomo, and his brother
Don Nicola Gaetani were present. Giulia's dowry consisted of three
thousand gold florins, a large amount for that time.
The civil marriage of the young couple took place the following day, May
21st, in this same palace of the Borgias. Many great nobles were
present, among whom were specially mentioned the kinsmen of the groom,
Cardinal Gianbattista Orsini and Raynaldo Orsini, Archbishop of
Florence. The young couple, as the season was charming, may have gone to
Castle Bassanello, or, if not, may have taken up their abode in the
Orsini palace on Monte Giordano.
Before her marriage Cardinal Rodrigo must have known, and often seen
Giulia Farnese in the palace of Madonna Adriana, the mother of the young
Orsini. There, likewise, Lucretia, who was several years younger, made
her acquaintance. Like Lucretia, Giulia had golden hair, and her beauty
won for her the name La Bella. It was in Adriana's house that this
tender, lovely child became ensnared in the coils of the libertine
Rodrigo. She succumbed to his seductions either shortly before or soon
after her marriage to the young Orsini. Perhaps she first aroused the
passion of the cardinal, a man at that time fifty-eight years old, when
she stood before him in his palace a bride in the full bloom of youth.
Be that as it may, it is certain that two years after her marriage
Giulia was the cardinal's acknowledged mistress. When Madonna Adriana
discovered the liason she winked at it, and was an accessory to the
shame of her daughter-in-law. By so doing she became the most powerful
and the most influential person in the house of Borgia.
Two of the three sons of the cardinal, Giovanni and Cæsar, had in the
meantime reached manhood. In 1490 neither of them was in Rome; the
former was in Spain, and the latter was studying at the University of
Perugia, which he later left for Pisa. As early as 1488 Cæsar must have
attended one of these institutions, probably the University of Perugia,
for in that year Paolo Pompilio dedicated to him his _Syllabica_, a work
on the art of versification. In it he lauded the budding genius of
Cæsar, who was the hope and ornament of the house of Borgia, his
progress in the sciences, and his maturity of intellect--astonishing in
one so young--and he predicted his future fame.[14]
His father had intended him for the Church, although Cæsar himself felt
for it nothing but aversion. From Innocent VIII he had secured his son's
appointment as prothonotary of the Church and even as Bishop of
Pamplona. He appears as a prothonotary in a document of February, 1491,
and at the same time the youngest of Rodrigo's sons, Giuffrè, a boy of
about nine years, was made Canon and Archdeacon of Valencia.
Cæsar went to Pisa, probably in 1491. Its university attracted a great
many of the sons of the prominent Italian families, chiefly on account
of the fame of its professor of jurisprudence, Philippo Decio of Milan.
At the university the young Borgia had two Spanish companions, who were
favorites of his father, Francesco Romolini of Ilerda and Juan Vera of
Arcilla in the kingdom of Valencia. The latter was master of his
household, as Cæsar himself states in a letter written in October, 1492,
in which he also calls Romolini his "most faithful comrade."[15]
Francesco Romolini was more than thirty years of age in 1491. He was a
diligent student of law, and became deeply learned in it. He is the same
Romolini who afterwards conducted the prosecution of Savonarola in
Florence. In 1503 Alexander made him a cardinal, to which dignity Vera
had been raised in 1500. His father's wealth enabled the youthful Cæsar
to live in Pisa in princely style, and his connections brought him into
friendly relations with the Medici.
The cardinal was still making special exertions to further the fortunes
of his children in Spain. Even for his daughter Lucretia he could see no
future more brilliant than a Spanish marriage; and he must indeed have
regarded it as a special act of condescension for the son of an old and
noble house to consent to become the husband of the illegitimate
daughter of a cardinal. The noble concerned was Don Cherubino Juan de
Centelles, lord of Val d'Ayora in the kingdom of Valencia, and brother
of the Count of Oliva.
The nuptial contract was drawn up in the Valencian dialect in Rome,
February 26 and June 16, 1491. The youthful groom was in Valencia, the
young bride in Rome, and her father had appointed the Roman nobleman
Antonio Porcaro her proxy. In the marriage contract it was specified
that Lucretia's portion should be three hundred thousand timbres or sous
in Valencian money, which she was to bring Don Cherubino as dowry, part
in coin and part in jewels and other valuables. It was specially stated
that of this sum eleven thousand timbres should consist of the amount
bequeathed by the will of the deceased Don Pedro Luis de Borgia, Duke of
Gandia, to his sister for her marriage portion, while eight thousand
were given her by her other brothers, Cæsar and Giuffrè, for the same
purpose, presumably also from the estate left by the brother. It was
provided that Donna Lucretia should be taken to Valencia at the
cardinal's expense within one year from the signing of the contract, and
that the church ceremony should be performed within six months after
her arrival in Spain.[16]
Thus Lucretia, when only a child eleven years of age, found her hand and
life happiness subjected to the will of another, and from that time she
was no longer the shaper of her own destiny. This was the usual fate of
the daughters of the great houses, and even of the lesser ones. Shortly
before her father became pope it seemed as if her life was to be spent
in Spain, and she would have found no place in the history of the papacy
and of Italy if she and Don Cherubino had been married. However, the
marriage was never performed. Obstacles of which we are ignorant, or
changes in the plans of her father, caused the betrothal of Lucretia to
Don Cherubino to be annulled. At the very moment this was being done for
her by proxy, her father was planning another alliance for his daughter.
The husband he had selected, Don Gasparo, was also a young Spaniard, son
of Don Juan Francesco of Procida, Count of Aversa. This family had
probably removed to Naples with the house of Aragon. Don Juan
Francesco's mother was Donna Leonora de Procida y Castelleta, Countess
of Aversa. Gasparo's father lived in Aversa, but in 1491 the son was in
Valencia, where, probably, he was being educated under the care of some
of his kinsmen, for he was still a boy of less than fifteen years. In an
instrument drawn by the notary Beneimbene, dated November 9, 1492, it is
explicitly stated that on the thirtieth of April of the preceding year,
1491, the marriage contract of Lucretia and Gasparo had been executed by
proxy with all due form, and that in it Cardinal Rodrigo had bound
himself to send his daughter to the city of Valencia at his expense,
where the church ceremony was to be performed. However, since the
marriage contract between Lucretia and the young Centelles had been
legally executed on the twenty-sixth of February of the same year, 1491,
and was recognized as late as the following June, there is room for
doubt regarding the correctness of the date; but both the instrument in
Beneimbene's protocol-book, and an abstract of the same in the archives
of the Hospital Sancta Sanctorum in Rome, give the last of April as the
date of the marriage contract of Lucretia and Don Gasparo. In these
proceedings her proxies were, not Antonio Porcaro, but Don Giuffrè
Borgia, Baron of Villa Longa, the Canon Jacopo Serra of Valencia, and
the vicar-general of the same place, Mateo Cucia. Hence follows the
curious fact that Lucretia was the betrothed at one and the same time of
two young Spaniards.
In spite of the rejection of her first affianced, the Centelles family
appears to have remained on good terms with the Borgias, for, later,
when Rodrigo became Pope, a certain Gulielmus de Centelles is to be
found among his most trusted chamberlains, while Raymondo of the same
house was prothonotary and treasurer of Perugia.
FOOTNOTES:
[14] Accedit studium illud tuum et perquam fertile bonarum litterarum in
quo hac in aetate seris.... Non deerit surgenti tuæ virtuti commodus
aliquando et idoneus praeco.--At tu Cæsar profecto non parum laudandus
es; qui in hac aetate tam facile senem agis. Perge nostri temporis
Borgiæ familiæ spes et decus. Introduction to the Syllabica. Rome, 1488.
Gennarelli's Edition of Burchard's Diary.
[15] Regarding Cæsar's studies at Pisa, see Angelo Fabroni, Hist. Acad.
Pisan. i, 160, 201.
[16] On June 16, 1491, some changes were made in this contract, which
Beneimbene has noted in the same protocol-book.
CHAPTER VI
HER FATHER BECOMES POPE--GIOVANNI SFORZA
On July 25, 1492, occurred the event to which the Borgias had long
eagerly looked forward, the death of Innocent VIII. Above all the other
candidates for the Papacy were four cardinals: Rafael Riario and
Giuliano della Rovere--both powerful nephews of Sixtus IV--Ascanio
Sforza, and Rodrigo Borgia.
Before the election was decided there were days of feverish expectation
for the cardinal's family. Of his children only Lucretia and Giuffrè
were in Rome at the time, and both were living with Madonna Adriana.
Vannozza was occupying her own house with her husband, Canale, who for
some time had held the office of secretary of the penitentiary court.
She was now fifty years old, and there was but one event to which she
looked forward, and upon it depended the gratification of her greatest
wish; namely, to see her children's father ascend the papal throne. What
prayers and vows she and Madonna Adriana, Lucretia, and Giulia Farnese
must have made to the saints for the fulfilment of that wish!
Early on the morning of August 11th breathless messengers brought these
women the news from the Vatican--Rodrigo Borgia had won the great prize.
To him, the highest bidder, the papacy had been sold. In the election,
Cardinal Ascanio Sforza had turned the scale, and for his reward he
received the city of Nepi; the office of vice-chancellor, and the
Borgia palace, which ever since has borne the name Sforza-Cesarini.
[Illustration: ALEXANDER VI.
From an engraving published in 1580.]
On the morning of this momentous day, when Alexander VI was carried from
the conclave hall to S. Peter's there to receive the first expressions
of homage, his joyful glance discovered many of his kinsmen in the dense
crowd, for thither they had hastened to celebrate his great triumph. It
was a long time since Rome had beheld a pope of such majesty, of such
beauty of person. His conduct was notorious throughout the city, and no
one knew him better in that hour than that woman, Vannozza Catanei, who
was kneeling in S. Peter's during the mass, her soul filled with the
memories of a sinful past.
Borgia's election did not cause all the Powers anxiety. In Milan,
Ludovico il Moro celebrated the event with public festivals; he now
hoped to become, through the influence of his brother Ascanio, a "half
pope." While the Medici expected much from Alexander, the Aragonese of
Naples looked for little. Bitterly did Venice express herself. Her
ambassador in Milan publicly declared in August that the papacy had been
sold by simony and a thousand deceptions, and that the signory of Venice
was convinced that France and Spain would refuse to obey the Pope when
they learned of these enormities.[17]
In the meantime, Alexander VI had received the professions of loyalty of
all the Italian States, together with their profuse expressions of
homage. The festival of his coronation was celebrated with unparalleled
pomp, August 26th. The Borgia arms, a grazing steer, was displayed so
generally in the decorations, and was the subject of so many epigrams,
that a satirist remarked that Rome was celebrating the discovery of the
Sacred Apis. Subsequently the Borgia bull was frequently the object of
the keenest satire; but at the beginning of Alexander's reign it was,
naïvely enough, the pictorial embodiment of the Pope's magnificence.
To-day such symbolism would excite only derision and mirth, but the
plastic taste of the Italian of that day was not offended by it.
When Alexander, on his triumphal journey to the Lateran, passed the
palace of his fanatical adherents, the Porcari, one of the boys of the
family declaimed with much pathos some stanzas which concluded with the
verses:
Vive diu bos, vive diu celebrande per annos,
Inter Pontificum gloria prima choros.[18]
The statements of Michele Ferno and of Hieronymus Porcius regarding the
coronation festivities and the professions of loyalty of the ambassadors
from the various Italian Powers must be read to see to what extremes
flattery was carried in those days. It is difficult for us to imagine
how imposing was the entrance of this brilliant pope upon the
spectacular stage of Rome at the time when the papacy was at the zenith
of its power--a height it had attained, not through love of the Church,
nor by devotion to religion, which had long been debased, but by
dazzling the luxury-loving people of the age and by modern politics; in
addition to this, the Church had preserved since the Middle Ages a
traditional and mystic character which held the respect of the faithful.
Ferno remarks that the history of the world offered nothing to compare
with the grandeur of the Pope's appearance and the charm of his
person,--and this author was not a bigoted papist, but a diligent
student of Pomponius Laetus. Like all the romanticists of the classic
revival, however, he was highly susceptible to theatrical effects. Words
failed him when he tried to describe the passage of Alexander to
S. Maria del Popolo: "These holiday swarms of richly clad people, the seven
hundred priests and cardinals with their retinues, these knights and
grandees of Rome in dazzling cavalcades, these troops of archers and
Turkish horsemen, the palace guards with long lances and glittering
shields, the twelve riderless white horses with golden bridles, which
were led along, and all the other pomp and parade!" Weeks would be
required for arranging a pageant like this at the present time; but the
Pope could improvise it in the twinkling of an eye, for the actors and
their costumes were always ready. He set it in motion for the sole
purpose of showing himself to the Romans, and in order that his majesty
might lend additional brilliancy to a popular holiday.
Ferno depicted the Pope himself as a demi-god coming forth to his
people. "Upon a snow-white horse he sat, serene of countenance and of
surpassing dignity; thus he showed himself to the people, and blessed
them; thus he was seen of all. His glance fell upon them and filled
every heart with joy. And so his appearance was of good augury for
everyone. How wonderful is his tranquil bearing! And how noble his
faultless face! His glance, how frank! How greatly does the honor which
we feel for him increase when we behold his beauty and vigor of body!"
Alexander the Great would have been described in just such terms by
Ferno. This was the idolatry which was always accorded the papacy, and
no one asked what was the inner and personal life of the glittering
idol.
On the occasion of his coronation Alexander appointed his son Cæsar, a
youth of sixteen, Bishop of Valencia. This he did without being sure of
the sanction of Ferdinand the Catholic, who, in fact, for a long time
did endeavor to withhold it; but he finally yielded, and the Borgias
consequently got the first bishopric in Spain into their hereditary
possession. Cæsar was not in Rome at the time his father received the
tiara. On the twenty-second of August, eleven days after Alexander's
election, Manfredi, ambassador from Ferrara to Florence, wrote the
Duchess Eleonora d'Este: "The Pope's son, the Bishop of Pamplona, who
has been attending the University of Pisa, left there by the Pope's
orders yesterday morning, and has gone to the castle of Spoleto."
The fifth of October Cæsar was still there, for on that date he wrote a
letter to Piero de' Medici from that place. This epistle to Lorenzo's
son, the brother of Cardinal Giovanni, shows that the greatest
confidence existed between him and Cæsar, who says in it that, on
account of his sudden departure from Pisa, he had been unable to
communicate orally with him, and that his preceptor, Juan Vera, would
have to represent him. He recommended his trusted familiar, Francesco
Romolini, to Piero for appointment as professor of canon law in Pisa.
The letter is signed, "Your brother, Cesar de Borja, Elector of
Valencia."[19]
By not allowing his son to come to Rome immediately, Alexander wished to
give public proof of what he had declared at the time of his election;
namely, that he would hold himself above all nepotism. Perhaps there was
a moment when the warning afforded by the examples of Calixtus, Sixtus,
and Innocent caused him to hesitate, and to resolve to moderate his love
for his offspring. However, the nomination of his son to a bishopric on
the day of his coronation shows that his resolution was not very
earnest. In October Cæsar appeared in the Vatican, where the Borgias now
occupied the place which the pitiable Cibòs had left.
On September 1st the Pope made the elder Giovanni Borgia, who was Bishop
of Monreale, a cardinal; he was the son of Alexander's sister Giovanna.
The Vatican was filled with Spaniards, kinsmen, or friends of the now
all-powerful house, who had eagerly hurried thither in quest of fortune
and honors. "Ten papacies would not be sufficient to satisfy this swarm
of relatives," wrote Gianandrea Boccaccio in November, 1492, to the Duke
of Ferrara. Of the close friends of Alexander, Juan Lopez was made his
chancellor; Pedro Caranza and Juan Marades his privy chamberlains;
Rodrigo Borgia, a nephew of the Pope, was made captain of the palace
guard, which hitherto had been commanded by a Doria.
Alexander immediately began to lay the plans for a more brilliant future
for his daughter. He would no longer listen to her marrying a Spanish
nobleman; nothing less than a prince should receive her hand. Ludovico
and Ascanio suggested their kinsman, Giovanni Sforza. The Pope accepted
him as son-in-law, for, although he was only Count of Cotognola and
vicar of Pesaro, he was an independent sovereign, and he belonged to the
illustrious house of Sforza. Alexander had entered early into such close
relations with the Sforza that Cardinal Ascanio became all-powerful in
Rome. Giovanni, an illegitimate son of Costanzo of Pesaro, and only by
the indulgence of Sixtus IV and Innocent VIII his hereditary heir, was a
man of twenty-six, well formed and carefully educated, like most of the
lesser Italian despots. He had married Maddalena, the beautiful sister
of Elisabetta Gonzaga, in 1489, on the very day upon which the latter
was joined in wedlock to Duke Guidobaldo of Urbino. He had, however,
been a widower since August 8, 1490, on which date his wife died in
childbirth.
Sforza hastened to accept the offered hand of the young Lucretia before
any of her other numerous suitors could win it. On leaving Pesaro he
first went to the castle of Nepi, which Alexander VI had given to
Cardinal Ascanio. There he remained a few days and then came quietly to
Rome, October 31, 1492. Here he took up his residence in the cardinal's
palace of S. Clement, erected by Domenico della Rovere in the Borgo. It
is still standing, and in good preservation, opposite the Palazzo
Giraud. The Ferrarese ambassador announced Sforza's arrival to his
master, remarking, "He will be a great man as long as this pope rules."
He explained the retirement in which Sforza lived by stating that the
man to whom Lucretia had been legally betrothed was also in Rome.[20]
The young Count Gasparo had come to Rome with his father to make good
his claim to Lucretia, through whom he hoped to obtain great favor. Here
he found another suitor of whom he had hitherto heard nothing, but whose
presence had become known, and he fell into a rage when the Pope
demanded from him a formal renunciation. Lucretia, at that time a child
of only twelve and a half years, thus became the innocent cause of a
contest between two suitors, and likewise the subject of public gossip
for the first time. November 5th the plenipotentiary of Ferrara wrote
his master, "There is much gossip about Pesaro's marriage; the first
bridegroom is still here, raising a great hue and cry, as a Catalan,
saying he will protest to all the princes and potentates of Christendom;
but will he, will he, he will have to submit." On the ninth of November
the same ambassador wrote, "Heaven prevent this marriage of Pesaro from
bringing calamities. It seems that the King (of Naples) is angry on
account of it, judging by what Giacomo, Pontano's nephew told the Pope
the day before yesterday. The matter is still undecided. Both the
suitors are given fair words; both are here. However, it is believed
that Pesaro will carry the day, especially as Cardinal Ascanio, who is
powerful in deeds as well as in words, is looking after his interests."
In the meantime, November 8th, the marriage contract between Don Gasparo
and Lucretia was formally dissolved. The groom and his father merely
expressed the hope that the new alliance would reach a favorable
consummation, and Gasparo bound himself not to marry within one year.
Giovanni Sforza, however, was not yet certain of his victory; December
9th the Mantuan agent Fioravante Brognolo, wrote the Marchese Gonzaga,
"The affairs of the illustrious nobleman, Giovanni of Pesaro, are still
undecided; it looks to me as if the Spanish nobleman to whom his
Highness's niece was promised would not give her up. He has a great
following in Spain, consequently the Pope is inclined to let things take
their own course for a time, and not force them to a conclusion."[21]
Even as late as February, 1493, there was talk of a marriage of Lucretia
with the Spanish Conde de Prada, and not until this project was
relinquished was she betrothed to Giovanni Sforza.[22]
In the meantime Sforza had returned to Pesaro, whence he sent his proxy,
Nicolo de Savano, to Rome to conclude the marriage contract. The Count
of Aversa surrendered his advantage and suffered his grief to be
assuaged by the payment to him of three thousand ducats. Thereupon,
February 2, 1493, the betrothal of Sforza and Lucretia was formally
ratified in the Vatican, in the presence of the Milanese ambassador and
the intimate friends and servants of Alexander, Juan Lopez, Juan
Casanova, Pedro Caranza, and Juan Marades. The Pope's daughter, who was
to be taken home by her husband within one year, received a dowry of
thirty-one thousand ducats.
When the news of this event reached Pesaro, the fortunate Sforza gave a
grand celebration in his palace. "They danced in the great hall, and the
couples, hand in hand, issued from the castle, led by Monsignor Scaltes,
the Pope's plenipotentiary, and the people in their joy joined in and
danced away the hours in the streets of the city."[23]
FOOTNOTES:
[17] Cum simonia et mille ribalderie et inhonestate si è venduto il
Pontificato che è cose ignominiosa et detestabile. Despatch of Giacomo
Trotti, Ambassador of Ferrara in Milan, to the Duke Ercole, August 28,
1492, in the archives of Modena.
[18] These stanzas were written by Hieronymus Porcius, who printed them
in Hieronym. Porcius Patritius Romanus Rotæ Primarius Auditor....
Commentarius; a rare publication of Eucharius Silber, Rome, September
18, 1493. The stanzas of Michele Ferno of Milan conclude:
Borgia stirps: bos: atque Ceres transcendit Olympo,
Cantabunt nomen sæcula cuncta suum;
which turned out to be a true prophecy. See Michæl Fernus Historia nova
Alexandri VI ab Innocentii obitu VIII; an equally rare publication of
the same Eucharius Silber, A. 1493.
[19] Ex arce Spoletina, die v. Oct. (Di propria mano). Vr. vti fr. Cesar
de Borja Elect. Valentin. Published by Reumont in Archiv. Stor. Ital.
Serie 3, T. xvii, 1873. 3 Dispensa.
[20] Era venuto il primo marito de la dicta nepote, qual fu rimesso a
Napoli, non visto da niuno.... Despatch of Gianandrea Boccaccio, Bishop
of Modena, Rome, November 2, 1492, and November 5 and 9. Archives of
Modena.
[21] Despatch of that date in the archives of Mantua. Lucretia was still
sometimes designated as the Pope's niece.
[22] Gianandrea Boccaccio to Duke Ercole, Rome, February 25, 1493.
[23] Ms. Memoirs of Pesaro, by Pietro Marzetti and Ludovico Zacconi, in
the Bibl. Oliveriana of Pesaro.
CHAPTER VII
LUCRETIA'S FIRST MARRIAGE
Alexander had a residence furnished for Lucretia close to the Vatican;
it was a house which Cardinal Battista Zeno had built in 1483, and was
known after his church as the Palace of S. Maria in Portico. It was on
the left side of the steps of S. Peter's, almost opposite the Palace of
the Inquisition. The building of Bernini's Colonnade has, however,
changed the appearance of the neighborhood so that it is no longer
recognizable.
The youthful Lucretia held court in her own palace, which was under the
management of her maid of honor and governess, Adriana Orsini. Alexander
had induced this kinswoman of his to leave the Orsini palace and to take
up her abode with Lucretia in the palace of S. Maria in Portico, where
we shall frequently see them and another woman who was only too close to
the Pope.
Vannozza remained in her own house in the Regola quarter. Her husband
had been made commandant or captain of the Torre di Nona, of which
Alexander shortly made him warden, a position of great trust, and Canale
gave himself up eagerly to his important and profitable duties. From
this time Vannozza and her children saw each other but little, although
they were not completely separated. They continued to communicate with
each other, but the mother profited only indirectly by the good fortune
and greatness of her offspring. Vannozza never allowed herself, nor did
Alexander permit her, to have any influence in the Vatican, and her name
seldom appears in the records of the time.
Donna Lucretia was now beginning to maintain the state of a great
princess. She received the numerous connections of her house, as well as
the friends and flatterers of the now all-powerful Borgia. Strange it is
that the very man who, after the stormy period of her life, was to take
her to a haven of rest should appear there about the time of her
betrothal to Sforza, and while the contract was being contested by Don
Gasparo.
Among the Italian princes who at that period either sent ambassadors or
came in person to Rome to render homage to the new Pope was the
hereditary prince of Ferrara. In all Italy there was no other court so
brilliant as that of Ercole d'Este and his spouse Eleonora of Aragon, a
daughter of King Ferdinand of Naples. She, however, died about this
time; namely, October 11, 1493. One of her children, Beatrice, had been
married in December, 1490, to Ludovico il Moro, the brilliant monster
who was Regent of Milan in place of his nephew Giangaleazzo; her other
daughter, Isabella, one of the most beautiful and magnificent women of
her day, was married in 1490, when she was only sixteen years of age, to
the Marchese Francesco Gonzaga of Mantua. Alfonso was heir to the title,
and on February 12, 1491, when he was only fifteen years old, he married
Anna Sforza, a sister of the same Giangaleazzo.
In November, 1492, his father sent him to Rome to recommend his state to
the favor of the Pope, who received the youthful scion of the house of
Sforza,--into which his own daughter was to marry,--with the highest
honors. Don Alfonso lived in the Vatican, and during his visit, which
lasted for several weeks, he not only had an opportunity, but it was his
duty to call on Donna Lucretia. He was filled with amazement when he
first beheld the beautiful child with her golden hair and intelligent
blue eyes, and nothing was farther from his mind than the idea that the
Sforza's betrothed would enter the castle of the Este family at Ferrara,
as his own wife, nine years later.
The letter of thanks which the prince's father wrote to the Pope shows
how great were the honors with which the son had been received. The duke
says:
MOST HOLY FATHER AND LORD, MY HONORED MASTER: I kiss your
Holiness's feet and commend myself to you in all humility. What
honor and praise was due your Holiness I have long known, and now
the letters of the Bishop of Modena, my ambassador, and also of
others, not alone those of my dearly beloved first born, Alfonso,
but of all the members of his suite, show how much I owe you. They
tell me how your Highness included us all, me and mine, within the
measure of your love, and overwhelmed all with presents, favors,
mercy, and benevolence on my son's arrival in Rome and during his
stay there. Therefore I acknowledge that I have for a long time
been indebted to your Holiness, and now am still more so on account
of this. My obligation is more than I can ever repay, and I promise
that my gratitude shall be eternal and measureless like the world.
As your most dutiful servant I shall always be ready to perform
anything which may be acceptable to your Holiness, to whom I
recommend myself and mine in all humility. Your Holiness's son and
servant,
ERCOLE,
Duke of Ferrara.
[FERRARA, _January 3, 1493_.]
The letter shows how great was the duke's anxiety to remain on good
terms with the Pope.
He was a vassal in Ferrara of the Roman Church, which was endeavoring
to transform itself into a monarchy. The princes, as well as the
republicans of Italy,--at least those whose possessions were close to
the sphere of action of the Holy See or were its vassals,--studied every
new pope with suspicion and fear, and also with curiosity to see in what
direction nepotism would develop under him. How easily Alexander VI
might have again taken up the plans of the house of Borgia where they
had been interrupted by the death of his uncle Calixtus, and have
followed in the footsteps of Sixtus IV!
Moreover, it was only ten years since the last named pope had, in
conjunction with Venice, waged war on Ferrara.
Ercole had maintained friendly relations with Alexander VI when he was
only a cardinal; Rodrigo Borgia had even been godfather to his son
Alfonso when he was baptized. For his other son, Ippolito, the duke,
through his ambassador in Rome, Gianandrea Boccaccio, endeavored to
secure a cardinal's cap. The ambassador applied to the most influential
of Alexander's confidants, Ascanio Sforza, the chamberlain Marades, and
Madonna Adriana. The Pope desired to make his son Cæsar a cardinal, and
Boccaccio hoped that the youthful Ippolito would be his companion in
good fortune. The ambassador gave Marades to understand that the two
young men, one of whom was Archbishop of Valencia, the other of Gran,
would make a good pair. "Their ages are about the same; I believe that
Valencia is not more than sixteen years old, while our Strigonia (Gran)
is near that age." Marades replied that this was not quite correct, as
Ippolito was not yet fourteen, and the Archbishop of Valencia was in his
eighteenth year.[24]
The youthful Cæsar was stirred by other desires than those for spiritual
honors. He assumed the hated garb of the priest only on his father's
command. Although he was an archbishop he had only the first tonsure.
His life was wholly worldly. It was even said that the King of Naples
wanted him to marry one of his natural daughters and that if he did so
he would relinquish the priesthood. The Ferrarese ambassador called upon
him March 17, 1493, in his house in Trastevere, by which was probably
meant the Borgo. The picture which Boccaccio on this occasion gave Duke
Ercole of this young man of seventeen years is an important and
significant portrait, and the first we have of him.
"I met Cæsar yesterday in the house in Trastevere; he was just on his
way to the chase, dressed in a costume altogether worldly; that is, in
silk,--and armed. He had only a little tonsure like a simple priest. I
conversed with him for a while as we rode along. I am on intimate terms
with him. He possesses marked genius and a charming personality; he
bears himself like a great prince; he is especially lively and merry,
and fond of society. Being very modest, he presents a much better and
more distinguished appearance than his brother, the Duke of Gandia,
although the latter is also highly endowed. The archbishop never had any
inclination for the priesthood. His benefices, however, bring him in
more than sixteen thousand ducats annually. If the projected marriage
takes place, his benefices will fall to another brother (Giuffrè), who
is about thirteen years old."[25]
It will be seen that the ambassador specially mentions Cæsar's buoyant
nature. This was one of Alexander's most characteristic traits, and both
Cæsar and Lucretia who was noted for it later, had inherited it from
him. So far as his prudence was concerned, it was proclaimed six years
later by a no less distinguished man than Giuliano della Rovere, who
afterwards became pope under the name of Julius II.
The Duke of Gandia was in Rome at this time, but it was his intention to
set out for Spain to see his spouse immediately after the celebration of
the marriage of Sforza and Lucretia. Lucretia's wedding was to take
place on S. George's day, but was postponed, as it was found impossible
for the bridegroom to arrive in time. Alexander took the greatest
pleasure in making the arrangements for setting up his daughter's
establishment. Her happiness--or, what to him was the same thing, her
greatness--meant much to him. He loved her passionately, superlatively,
as the Ferrarese ambassador wrote his master.[26] On the ambassador's
suggestion the Duke of Ferrara sent as a wedding gift a pair of large
silver hand basins with the accompanying vessels, all of the finest
workmanship. Two residences were proposed for the young pair; the palace
of S. Maria in Portico and the one near the castle of S. Angelo, which
had belonged to the Cardinal Domenicus Porta of Aleria, who died
February 4, 1493. The former, in which Lucretia was already living, was
chosen.
At last Sforza arrived. June 9th he made his entry by way of the
Porta del Popolo, and was received by the whole senate, his
brothers-in-law, and the ambassadors of the Powers. Lucretia, attended
by several maids of honor, had taken a position in a loggia of her
palace to see her bridegroom and his suite on their way to the Vatican.
As he rode by, Sforza greeted her right gallantly, and his bride
returned his salutation. He was most graciously received by his
father-in-law.
[Illustration: CHURCH OF ARA COELI, ROME.]
Sforza was a man of attractive appearance, as we may readily discover
from a medal which he had struck ten years later, which represents him
with long, flowing locks and a full beard. The mouth is sensitive, the
under lip slightly drawn; the nose is somewhat aquiline; the forehead
smooth and lofty. The proportions of his features are noble, but lacking
in character.
Three days after his arrival, that is, June 12th, the nuptials were
celebrated in the Vatican with ostentatious publicity. Alexander had
invited the nobility, the officials of Rome, and the foreign ambassadors
to be present. There was a banquet, followed by a licentious comedy,
which is described by Infessura.
To corroborate the short account given by this Roman, and at the same
time to render the picture more complete, we reproduce, word for word,
the description which the Ferrarese ambassador, Boccaccio, sent his
master in a communication dated June 13th:
Yesterday, the twelfth of the present month, the union was publicly
celebrated in the palace, with the greatest pomp and extravagance.
All the Roman matrons were invited, also the most influential
citizens, and many cardinals, twelve in number, stood near her, the
Pope occupying the throne in their midst. The palace and all the
apartments were filled with people, who were overcome with
amazement. The lord of Pesaro celebrated his betrothal to his wife,
and the Bishop of Concordia delivered a sermon. The only
ambassadors present, however, were the Venetian, the Milanese and
myself, and one from the King of France.
Cardinal Ascanio thought that I ought to present the gift during
the ceremony, so I had some one ask the Pope, to whom I remarked
that I did not think it proper, and that it seemed better to me to
wait a little while. All agreed with me, whereupon the Pope called
to me and said, "It seems to me to be best as you say";
consequently it was arranged that I should bring the present to the
palace late in the evening. His Holiness gave a small dinner in
honor of the bride and groom, and there were present the Cardinals
Ascanio, S. Anastasia, and Colonna; the bride and groom, and next
to him the Count of Pitigliano, captain of the Church; Giuliano
Orsini; Madonna Giulia Farnese, of whom there is so much talk (de
qua est tantus sermo); Madonna Teodorina and her daughter, the
Marchesa of Gerazo; a daughter of the above named captain, wife of
Angelo Farnese, Madonna Giulia's brother. Then came a younger
brother of Cardinal Colonna and Madonna Adriana Ursina. The last is
mother-in-law of the above mentioned Madonna Giulia. She had the
bride educated in her own home, where she was treated as a niece of
the Pope. Adriana is the daughter of the Pope's cousin, Pedro de
Mila, deceased, with whom your Excellency was acquainted.
When the table was cleared, which was between three and four
o'clock in the morning, the bride was presented with the gift sent
by the illustrious Duke of Milan; it consisted of five different
pieces of gold brocade and two rings, a diamond and a ruby, the
whole worth a thousand ducats. Thereupon I presented your
Highness's gift with suitable words of congratulation on the
marriage and good wishes for the future, together with the offer of
your services. The present greatly pleased the Pope. To the thanks
of the bride and groom he added his own expressions of unbounded
gratitude. Then Ascanio offered his present, which consisted of a
complete drinking service of silver washed with gold, worth about a
thousand ducats. Cardinal Monreale gave two rings, a sapphire and a
diamond--very beautiful--and worth three thousand ducats; the
prothonotary Cesarini gave a bowl and cup worth eight hundred
ducats; the Duke of Gandia a vessel worth seventy ducats; the
prothonotary Lunate a vase of a certain composition like jasper,
ornamented with silver, gilded, which was worth seventy to eighty
ducats. These were all the gifts presented at this time; the other
cardinals, ambassadors, etc., will bring their presents when the
marriage is celebrated, and I will do whatever is necessary. It
will, I think, be performed next Sunday, but this is not certain.
In conclusion, the women danced, and, as an interlude, a good
comedy was given, with songs and music. The Pope and all the others
were present. What shall I add? There would be no end to my letter.
Thus we passed the whole night, and whether it was good or bad your
Highness may decide.
FOOTNOTES:
[24] Boccaccio's despatches, Rome, February 25, March 11, 1493.
[25] Magni et excellentis ingenii et preclare indolis; præ se fert
speciem fillii magni Principis, et super omnia ilaris et jocundus, e
tutto festa: cum magna siquidem modestia est longe melioris et
prestantioris aspectus, quam sit dux Candie germanus suus. Anchora lue è
dotato di bone parte. Despatch of March 19, 1493.
[26] Mai fù visto il più carnale homo; l'hama questa madona Lucrezia in
superlativo gradu. Boccaccio's Despatch, Rome, April 4, 1493. The word
_carnale_ is to be taken only in the sense of nepotism, as it is plainly
so used elsewhere by the ambassador.
CHAPTER VIII
FAMILY AFFAIRS
Lucretia's marriage with Giovanni Sforza confirmed the political
alliance which Alexander VI had made with Ludovico il Moro. The Regent
of Milan wanted to invite Charles VIII of France into Italy to make war
upon King Ferdinand of Naples, so that he himself might ultimately gain
possession of the duchy, for he was consumed with ambition and
impatience to drive his sickly nephew, Giangaleazzo, from the throne.
The latter, however, was the consort of Isabella of Aragon, a daughter
of Alfonso of Calabria and the grandson of Ferdinand himself.
The alliance of Venice, Ludovico, the Pope, and some of the other
Italian nobles had become known in Rome as early as April 25th. This
league, clearly, was opposed to Naples; and its court, therefore, was
thrown into the greatest consternation.
Nevertheless, King Ferdinand congratulated the Lord of Pesaro upon his
marriage. He looked upon him as a kinsman, and Sforza had likewise been
accepted by the house of Aragon. June 15, 1493, the king wrote to him
from Capua as follows:
ILLUSTRIOUS COUSIN AND OUR DEAREST FRIEND: We have
received your letter of the twenty-second of last month, in which
you inform us of your marriage with the illustrious Donna Lucretia,
the niece of his Holiness our Master. We are much pleased, both
because we always have and still do feel the greatest love for
yourself and your house, and also because we believe that nothing
could be of greater advantage to you than this marriage. Therefore
we wish you the best of fortune, and we pray God, with you, that
this alliance may increase your own power and fame and that of your
State.[27]
Eight days earlier the same king had sent his ambassador to Spain a
letter, in which he asked the protection of Ferdinand and Isabella
against the machinations of the Pope, whose ways he described as
"loathsome"; in this he was referring, not to his political actions, but
to his personal conduct. Giulia Farnese, whom Infessura noticed among
the wedding guests and described as "the Pope's concubine," caused
endless gossip about herself and his Holiness. This young woman
surrendered herself to an old man of sixty-two whom she was also
compelled to honor as the head of the Church. There is no doubt whatever
about her years of adultery, but we can not understand the cause of her
passion; for however powerful the demoniac nature of Alexander VI may
have been, it must by this time have lost much of its magnetic strength.
Perhaps this young and empty-headed creature, after she had once
transgressed and the feeling of shame had passed, was fascinated by the
spectacle of the sacred master of the world, before whom all men
prostrated themselves, lying at her feet--the feet of a weak child.
There is also the suspicion that the cupidity of the Farnese was the
cause of the criminal relations, for Giulia's sins were rewarded by
nothing less than the bestowal of the cardinal's purple on her brother
Alessandro. The Pope had already designated him, among others, for the
honor, but the nomination was delayed by the opposition of the Sacred
College, over which Giuliano della Rovere presided. King Ferdinand also
encouraged this opposition, and on the very day on which Lucretia's
marriage to Pesaro was celebrated he placed his army at the disposal of
the cardinals who refused to sanction the appointment.
Her consort, Sforza, was now a great man in Rome, and intimate with all
the Borgias. June 16th he was seen by the side of the Duke of Gandia,
decked in costly robes glittering with precious stones, as if "they were
two kings," riding out to meet the Spanish ambassador. Gandia was
preparing for his journey to Spain. He had been betrothed to Doña Maria
Enriquez, a beautiful lady of Valencia, shortly before his father
ascended the papal throne; there is a brief of Alexander's dated October
6, 1492, in which he grants his son and his spouse the right to obtain
absolution from any confessor whatsoever. The high birth of Doña Maria
shows what brilliant connections the bastard Giovanni Borgia was able to
make as a grandee of Spain, for she was the daughter of Don Enrigo
Enriquez, High-Treasurer of Leon, and Doña Maria de Luna, who was
closely connected with the royal house of Aragon. Don Giovanni left
Rome, August 4, 1493, to board a Spanish galley in Civitavecchia.
According to the report of the Ferrarese agent, he took with him an
incredible number of trinkets, with whose manufacture the goldsmiths of
Rome had busied themselves for months.
Of Alexander's sons there now remained in Rome, Cæsar, who was to be
made a cardinal, and Giuffrè, who was destined to be a prince in Naples,
for the quarrel between the Pope and King Ferdinand had been settled
through the intermediation of Spain. She caused Alexander to break with
France, and to sever his connection with Ludovico il Moro. This
surprising change was immediately confirmed by the marriage of Don
Giuffrè, a boy of scarcely thirteen, and Donna Sancia, a natural
daughter of Duke Alfonso of Calabria. August 16, 1493, the marriage was
performed by proxy in the Vatican, and the wedding took place later in
Naples.
Cæsar himself became cardinal, September 20, 1493, the stain of his
birth having been removed by the Cardinals Pallavicini and Orsini, who
had been charged with legitimating him. February 25, 1493, Gianandrea
Boccaccio wrote to Ferrara regarding the legitimating of Cæsar,
ironically saying, "They wish to remove the blot of being a natural son,
and very rightly; because he is legitimate, having been born in the
house while the woman's husband was living. This much is certain: the
husband was sometimes in the city and at others traveling about in the
territory of the Church and in her interest." The ambassador, however,
never mentions the name of this man, which, however, Infessura says was
Domenico d'Arignano.
Ippolito d'Este and Alessandro Farnese were made cardinals the same day.
To his sister's adultery this young libertine owed his advancement in
the Church, a fact so notorious that the wits of the Roman populace
called him the "petticoat cardinal." The jubilant kinsmen of Giulia
Farnese saw in her only the instrument of their advancement. Girolama
Farnese, Giulia 's sister, wrote to her husband, Puccio, from Casignano,
October 21, 1493, "You will have received letters from Florence before
mine reaches you and have learned what benefices have fallen to Lorenzo,
and all that Giulia has secured for him, and you will be greatly
pleased."[28]
Even the Republic of Florence sought to profit by Alexander's relations
with Giulia; for Puccio, her brother-in-law, was sent to Rome as
plenipotentiary. The Florentines had despatched this famous jurist to
the papal city immediately after Alexander's accession to the throne, to
swear allegiance, and later he was her agent for a year in Faenza, where
he conducted the government for Astorre Manfredi, who was a minor. At
the beginning of the year 1494 he went as ambassador to Rome, where he
died in August.[29]
His brother, Lorenzo Pucci, subsequently attained to eminence in the
Church under Leo X, becoming a powerful cardinal.
The Farnese and their numerous kin were now in high favor with the Pope
and all the Borgias. In October, 1493, they invited Alexander and Cæsar
to a family reunion at the castle of Capodimonte, where Madonna
Giovanella, Giulia's mother, was to prepare a banquet. Whether or not
this really took place we are ignorant, although we do know that
Alexander was in Viterbo the last of October.
In 1492 Giulia gave birth to a daughter, who was named Laura. The child
officially passed as that of her husband, Orsini, although in reality
the Pope was its father. The Farnese and the Pucci knew the secret and
shamelessly endeavored to profit by it. Giulia cared so little for the
world's opinion that she occupied the palace of S. Maria in Portico, as
if she were a blood relation of Lucretia. Alexander himself had put her
there as a lady of honor to his daughter. Her husband, Orsini,
preferred, or was compelled, to live in his castle of Bassanello, or to
stay on one of the estates which the Pope had presented to him, the
husband of Madonna Giulia, "Christ's bride," as the satirists called
her, instead of remaining in Rome to be a troublesome witness of his
shame.
A remarkable letter of Lorenzo Pucci to his brother Giannozzo, written
the 23d and 24th of December, 1493, from Rome, discloses these and other
family secrets. He shows us the most private scenes in Lucretia's
palace. Lorenzo had been invited by Cardinal Farnese to go with him to
Rome to witness the Christmas festivities. He accompanied him from
Viterbo to Rignano, where the barons of the Savelli house, kinsmen of
the cardinal, formally received them, after which they continued their
journey on horseback to Rome. Lorenzo repeated to his brother the
confidential conversation which he had enjoyed with the cardinal on the
way. Even as early as this there was talk of finding a suitable husband
for Giulia's little daughter. The cardinal unfolded his idea to Lorenzo.
Piero de' Medici wished to give his own daughter to the youthful Astorre
Manfredi of Faenza, but Farnese desired to bring about an alliance
between Astorre and Giulia's daughter. He hoped to be able to convince
Piero that this union would be advantageous for both himself and the
Republic of Florence, and would strengthen his relations with the Holy
See. The affair would be handled so that it would appear that it was
entirely due to the wishes of the Pope and of Piero. In this the
cardinal counted on the consent of both Alexander and Giulia, and on the
influence of Madonna Adriana.
Lorenzo Pucci replied to the cardinal's confidence as follows:
"Monsignor, I certainly think that our Master (the Pope) will give a
daughter to this gentleman (Astorre), for I believe that this child is
the Pope's daughter, just as Lucretia is, and your Highness's
niece."[30] In his letter Lorenzo does not say whether the cardinal
made any reply to this audacious statement, which would have brought a
blush to the face of any honorable man. Probably it only caused
Alessandro Farnese a little smile of assent. The bold Pucci repeated his
opinion in the same letter, saying, "She is the child of the Pope, the
niece of the cardinal, and the putative daughter of Signor Orsini, to
whom our Master intends to give three or four more castles near
Bassanello. In addition, the cardinal says that in case his brother
Angelo remains without heir, this child will inherit his property, as
she is very dear to him, and he is already thinking of this; and by this
means the illustrious Piero will obtain the support of the cardinal, who
will be under everlasting obligations to him." Lorenzo did not overlook
himself in these schemes; he openly expressed the wish that his brother
Puccio would come to Rome--as ambassador of the Republic, which he
did--and that he might secure through the influence of Madonna Adriana
and Giulia a number of good places.
Lorenzo continued his letter December 24th, describing a scene in
Lucretia's palace, and his narrative shows her, and especially Giulia,
as plainly as if they stood before us.
GIANNOZZO MINE: Yesterday evening I wrote you as above.
To-day, which is Easter evening, I rode with Monsignor Farnese to
the papal palace to vespers, and before his Eminence entered the
chapel I called at the house S. Maria in Portico to see Madonna
Giulia. She had just finished washing her hair when I entered; she
was sitting by the fire with Madonna Lucretia, the daughter of our
Master, and Madonna Adriana, and they all received me with great
cordiality. Madonna Giulia asked me to sit by her side; she thanked
me for having taken Jeronima (Girolama) home, and said to me that I
must, by all means, bring her there again to please her. Madonna
Adriana asked, 'Is it true that she is not allowed to come here any
more than she was permitted to go to Capodimonte and Marta?' I
replied that I knew nothing about that, and it was enough for me if
I had made Madonna Giulia happy by taking her home, for in her
letters she had requested me to do so, and now they could do as
they pleased. I wanted to leave it to Madonna Giulia, who was alive
to all her opportunities, to meet her as she saw fit, as she wanted
her to see her magnificence just as much as Jeronima (Girolama)
herself wanted to see it. Thereupon Madonna Giulia thanked me
warmly and said I had made her very happy. I then reminded her how
greatly I was beholden to her Highness by what she had done for me,
and that I could not show my gratitude better than by taking
Madonna Jeronima (Girolama) home. She answered that such a trifle
deserved no thanks. She hopes to be of still greater help to me,
and says I shall find her so at the right time. Madonna Adriana
joined in saying I might be certain that it was through neither the
chancellor, Messer Antonio, nor his deputy, but owing to the favor
of Madonna Giulia herself, that I had obtained the benefices.
In order not to contradict, I replied that I knew that, and I again
thanked her Highness. Thereupon Madonna Giulia asked with much
interest after Messer Puccio and said, "We will see to it that some
day he will come here as ambassador; and although, when he was
here, we, in spite of all our endeavors, were unable to effect it,
we could now accomplish it without any difficulty." She assured me
also that the cardinal had mentioned to her the previous evening
the matter we had discussed on the road, and she urged me to write;
she thought if the affair were handled by yourself, the illustrious
Piero would be favorably disposed toward it. Thus far has the
matter progressed. Giulia also wanted me to see the child; she is
now well grown, and, it seems to me, resembles the Pope, _adeo ut
vere ex ejus semine orta dici possit_. Madonna Giulia has grown
somewhat stouter and is a most beautiful creature. She let down
her hair before me and had it dressed; it reached down to her feet;
never have I seen anything like it; she has the most beautiful
hair. She wore a head-dress of fine linen, and over it a sort of
net, light as air, with gold threads interwoven in it. In truth it
shone like the sun! I would have given a great deal if you could
have been present to have informed yourself concerning that which
you have often wanted to know. She wore a lined robe in the
Neapolitan fashion, as did also Madonna Lucretia, who, after a
little while, went out to remove it. She returned shortly in a gown
almost entirely of violet velvet. When vespers were over and the
cardinals were departing, I left them.
The close association with Giulia, to whose adulterous relations with
her father Lucretia was the daily witness, if not a school of vice for
her, at least must have kept her constantly in contact with it. Could a
young creature of only fourteen years remain pure in such an atmosphere?
Must not the immorality in the midst of which she was forced to live
have poisoned her senses, dulled her ideas of morality and virtue, and
finally have penetrated her own character?
FOOTNOTES:
[27] Cod. Aragon, ii, 2.67, ed Trinchera.
[28] Carte Strozziane, filz 343. In the archives of Florence.
[29] Lelia Ursina de Farnesio congratulated him on his appointment,
January 13, 1494. Ibidem.
[30] In the earlier edition of this work I found some difficulty in the
passage: "Chredo che questa puta sia figlia del Papa, como Madonna
Luchretia è nipote di S. R. Signoria." I am now convinced that the è is
an error of the writer or the copyist and should be simply the
conduction e. Lorenzo Pucci's brother Giannozzo was married to Lucrezia
Bini, a Florentine, who is mentioned later in this same letter.
CHAPTER IX
LUCRETIA LEAVES ROME
By the end of the year 1493 Alexander had amply provided for all his
children. Cæsar was a cardinal, Giovanni was a duke in Spain, and
Giuffrè was soon to become a Neapolitan prince. The last, the Pope's
youngest son, was united in marriage, May 7, 1494, in Naples, to Donna
Sancia the same day on which his father-in-law, Alfonso, ascending the
throne as the successor of King Ferdinand, was crowned by the papal
legate, Giovanni Borgia. Don Giuffrè remained in Naples and became
Prince of Squillace. Giovanni also received great fiefs in that kingdom,
where he called himself Duke of Suessa and Prince of Teano.
For some time longer Lucretia's spouse remained in Rome, where the Pope
had taken him into his pay in accordance with an agreement with Ludovico
il Moro under whom Sforza served. His position at Alexander's court,
however, soon became ambiguous. His uncles had married him to Lucretia
to make the Pope a confederate and accomplice in their schemes which
were directed toward the overthrow of the reigning family of Naples.
Alexander, however, clung closely to the Aragonese dynasty; he invested
King Alfonso with the title to the kingdom of Naples, and declared
himself opposed to the expedition of Charles VIII.
Sforza thereby was thrown into no slight perplexity, and early in April,
1494, he informed his uncle Ludovico of his dubious position in the
following letter:
Yesterday his Holiness said to me in the presence of Monsignor
(Cardinal Ascanio), "Well, Giovanni Sforza! What have you to say to
me?" I answered, "Holy Father, every one in Rome believes that your
Holiness has entered into an agreement with the King of Naples, who
is an enemy of the State of Milan. If this is so, I am in an
awkward position, as I am in the pay of your Holiness and also in
that of the State I have named. If things continue as they are, I
do not know how I can serve one party without falling out with the
other, and at the same time I do not wish to offend. I ask that
your Holiness may be pleased to define my position so that I may
not become an enemy of my own blood, and not act contrary to the
obligations into which I have entered by virtue of my agreement
with your Holiness and the illustrious State of Milan." He replied,
saying that I took too much interest in his affairs, and that I
should choose in whose pay I would remain according to my contract.
And then he commanded the above-named monsignor to write to your
Excellency what you will learn from his lordship's letter. My lord,
if I had foreseen in what a position I was to be placed I would
sooner have eaten the straw under my body than have entered into
such an agreement. I cast myself in your arms. I beg your
Excellency not to desert me, but to give me help, favor, and advice
how to resolve the difficulty in which I am placed, so that I may
remain a good servant of your Excellency. Preserve for me the
position and the little nest which, thanks to the mercy of Milan,
my ancestors left me, and I and my men of war will ever remain at
the service of your Excellency.
GIOVANNI SFORZA.
ROME, _April, 1494_.
The letter plainly discloses other and deeper concerns of the writer;
such, for example, as the future possession of his domain of Pesaro. The
Pope's plans to destroy all the little tyrannies and fiefs in the States
of the Church had already been clearly revealed.[31]
Shortly after this, April 23d, Cardinal della Rovere slipped away from
Ostia and into France to urge Charles VIII to invade Italy, not to
attack Naples, but to bring this simoniacal pope before a council and
depose him.
At the beginning of July Ascanio Sforza, now openly at strife with
Alexander, also left the city. He went to Genazzano and joined the
Colonna, who were in the pay of France. Charles VIII was already
preparing to invade Italy. The Pope and King Alfonso met at Vicovaro
near Tivoli, July 14th.
In the meantime important changes had taken place in Lucretia's palace.
Her husband had hurriedly left Rome, as he could do as a captain of the
Church, in which capacity he had to join the Neapolitan army, now being
formed in Romagna under the command of the Duke Ferrante of Calabria. By
his nuptial contract he was bound to take his bride with him to Pesaro.
She was accompanied by her mother, Vannozza, Giulia Farnese, and Madonna
Adriana. Alexander himself, through fear of the plague, which had
appeared, commanded them to depart. The Mantuan ambassador in Rome
reported this to the Marchese Gonzaga, May 6th, and also wrote him on
the fifteenth as follows: "The illustrious Lord Giovanni will certainly
set out Monday or Tuesday accompanied by all three ladies, who, by the
Pope's order, will remain in Pesaro until August, when they will
return."[32]
Sforza's departure must have taken place early in June, for on the
eleventh of that month a letter from Ascanio was sent to his brother in
Milan informing him that the lord of Pesaro with his wife and Madonna
Giulia, the Pope's mistress, together with the mother of the Duke of
Gandia, and Giuffrè, had set out from Rome for Pesaro, and that his
Holiness had begged Madonna Giulia to come back soon.[33]
Alexander had returned to Rome from Vicovaro, July 18th, and on the 24th
he wrote his daughter the following letter:
Alexander VI, Pope; by his own hand.
DONNA LUCRETIA, DEAREST DAUGHTER: For several days we have
had no letter from you. Your neglect to write us often and tell us
how you and Don Giovanni, our beloved son, are, causes us great
surprise. In future be more heedful and more diligent. Madonna
Adriana and Giulia have reached Capodimonte, where they found the
latter's brother dead. His death caused the cardinal and Giulia
such distress that both fell sick of the fever. We have sent Pietro
Caranza to look after them, and have provided physicians and
everything necessary. We pray to God and the glorious Madonna that
they will soon be restored. Of a truth Don Giovanni and yourself
have displayed very little thought for me in this departure of
Madonna Adriana and Giulia, since you allowed them to leave without
our permission; for you should have remembered--it was your
duty--that such a sudden departure without our knowledge would
cause us the greatest displeasure. And if you say that they did so
because Cardinal Farnese commanded it, you ought to have asked
yourself whether it would please the Pope. However, it is done; but
another time we will be more careful, and will look about to see
where our interest lies. We are, thanks to God and the glorious
Virgin, very well. We have had an interview with the illustrious
King Alfonso, who showed us no less love and obedience than he
would have shown had he been our own son. I cannot tell you with
what satisfaction and contentment we took leave of each other. You
may be certain that his Majesty stands ready to place his own
person and every thing he has in the world at our service.
We hope that all differences and quarrels in regard to the Colonna
will be completely laid aside in three or four days. At present I
have nothing more to say than to warn you to be careful of your
health and constantly to pray to the Madonna. Given in Rome in S.
Peter's, July 24, 1494.[34]
This letter is the first of the few extant written by Alexander to his
daughter. His reproof was due to the sudden departure of his
mistress--contrary to his original instructions--from Pesaro before
August. From there Giulia went to Capodimonte to look after her sick
brother Angiolo. According to a Venetian letter written by Marino
Sanuto, she had left Rome chiefly for the purpose of attending the
wedding of one of her kinsmen, and the writer describes her in this
place as "the Pope's favorite, a young woman of great beauty and
understanding, gracious and gentle."
Alexander's letter shows us that his mistress remained in communication
with him after her departure from Rome.
FOOTNOTES:
[31] This letter is printed in Atti e Memorie Modenesi, i. 433.
[32] Despatch of Giorgio Brognolo to the Marchese, Rome, May 6 and 15,
1494. Archives of Mantua.
[33] Despatch of Jacomo Trotti to Duke Ercole, Milan, June 11, 1494. May
1st the women were still in Rome, for on that date Madonna Adriana wrote
a letter from there to the Marchesa of Mantua recommending a friend to
her. The letter is in the Mantuan archives.
[34] The letter is published in Ugolino's Storia dei Conti e Duchi
d'Urbino, II. Document No. 13. I saw the original in the state archives
of Florence; only the address is in Alexander's hand, the rest is
written by the Chancellor Juan Lopez, who signs himself Jo. Datarius.
CHAPTER X
HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION OF PESARO
The storm which suddenly broke upon Alexander did not disturb Lucretia,
for on the eighth of June, 1494, she and her spouse entered Pesaro. In a
pouring rain, which interrupted the reception festivities, she took
possession of the palace of the Sforza, which was now to be her home.
The history of Pesaro up to that time is briefly as follows:
Ancient Pisaurum, which was founded by the Siculi, received its name
from the river which empties into the sea not far from the city, and
which is now known as the Foglia. In the year 570 of Rome the city
became a Roman colony. From the time of Augustus it belonged to the
fourth department of Italy, and from the time of Constantine to the
province of Flaminia. After the fall of the Roman Empire it suffered the
fate of all the Italian cities, especially in the great war of the Goths
with the Eastern emperor. Vitiges destroyed it; Belisarius restored it.
After the fall of the Gothic power, Pesaro was incorporated in the
Exarchate, and together with four other cities on the Adriatic--Ancona,
Fano, Sinigaglia, and Rimini--constituted the Pentapolis. When Ravenna
fell into the hands of the Lombard King Aistulf, Pesaro also became
Lombard; but later, by the deed of Pipin and Charles, it passed into the
possession of the Pope.
The subsequent history of the city is interwoven with that of the
Empire, the Church and the March of Ancona. For a long time imperial
counts resided there. Innocent III invested its title in Azzo d'Este,
the Lord of the March. During the struggles of the Hohenstaufen with the
papacy it first was in the possession of the emperor and later in that
of the Pope, who held it until the end of the thirteenth century, when
the Malatesta became podestas, and subsequently lords of the city. This
famous Guelph family from the castle of Verrucchio, which lies between
Rimini and S. Marino, fell heir to the fortress of Gradara, in the
territory of Pesaro, and by degrees extended its power in the direction
of Ancona. In 1285 Gianciotto Malatesta became lord of Pesaro, and on
his death, in 1304, his brother Pandolfo inherited his domain.
From that time the Malatesta, lords of nearby Rimini, controlled not
only Pesaro, but a large part of the March which they appropriated to
themselves when the papacy was removed to Avignon. They secured
themselves in the possession of Rimini, Pesaro, Fano, and Fossombrone by
an agreement made during the life of the famous Gil d'Albornoz,
confirming them in their position there as vicars of the Church. A
branch of this house resided in Pesaro until the time of Galeazzo
Malatesta. Threatened by his kinsman Sigismondo, the tyrant of Rimini,
and unable to hold Pesaro against his attack, he sold the city in 1445
for twenty thousand gold florins to Count Francesco Sforza, and the
latter gave it as a fief to his brother Alessandro, the husband of a
niece of Galeazzo. Sforza was the great condottiere who, after the
departure of the Visconti, ascended the throne of Milan as the first
duke of his house. While he was there establishing the ducal line of
Sforza, his brother Alessandro became the founder of the ruling house of
Pesaro.
This brave captain took possession of Pesaro in March, 1445; two years
later he received the papal investiture of the fief. He was married to
Costanza Varano, one of the most beautiful and intellectual women of the
Italian Renaissance.
To him she bore Costanzo and also a daughter, Battista, who later, as
the wife of Federico of Urbino, won universal admiration by her virtues
and talents. The neighboring courts of Pesaro and Urbino were connected
by marriage, and they vied with each other in fostering the arts and
sciences. Another illegitimate daughter of Alessandro's was Ginevra
Sforza--a woman no less admired in her day--celebrated, first as the
wife of Sante and then as that of Giovanni Bentivoglio, Lord of Bologna.
After the death of his wife, Alessandro Sforza married Sveva
Montefeltre, a daughter of Guidantonio of Urbino. After a happy reign he
died April 3, 1473, leaving his possessions to his son.
A year later Costanzo Sforza married Camilla Marzana d'Aragona, a
beautiful and spirituelle princess of the royal house of Naples. He
himself was brilliant and liberal. He died in 1483, when only
thirty-six, leaving no legitimate heirs, his sons Giovanni and Galeazzo
being natural children. His widow Camilla thenceforth conducted the
government of Pesaro for herself and her stepson Giovanni until
November, 1489, when she compelled him to assume entire control of it.
Such was the history of the Sforza family of Pesaro, into which Lucretia
now entered as the wife of this same Giovanni.
The domain of the Sforza at that time embraced the city of Pesaro and a
number of smaller possessions, called castles or villas; for example, S.
Angelo in Lizzola, Candelara, Montebaroccio, Tomba di Pesaro,
Montelabbate, Gradara, Monte S. Maria, Novilara, Fiorenzuola, Castel di
Mezzo, Ginestreto, Gabicce, Monteciccardo, and Monte Gaudio. In
addition, Fossombrone was taken by the Sforzas from the Malatesta.
The principality belonged, as we have seen, for a long time to the
Church, then to the Malatesta, and later to the Sforza, who, under the
title of vicars, held it as a hereditary fief, paying the Church
annually seven hundred and fifty gold ducats. The daughter of a Roman
pontiff must, therefore, have been the most acceptable consort the
tyrant of Pesaro could have secured under the existing circumstances,
especially as the popes were striving to destroy all the illegitimate
powers in the States of the Church. When Lucretia saw how small and
unimportant was her little kingdom, she must have felt that she did not
rank with the women of Urbino, Ferrara, and Mantua, or with those of
Milan and Bologna; but she, by the authority of the Pope, her own
father, had become an independent princess, and, although her territory
embraced only a few square miles, to Italy it was a costly bit of
ground.
Pesaro lies free and exposed in a wide valley. A chain of green hills
sweeps half around it like the seats in a theater, and the sea forms the
stage. At the ends of the semicircle are two mountains, Monte Accio and
Ardizio. The Foglia River flows through the valley. On its right bank
lies the hospitable little city with its towers and walls, and its
fortress on the white seashore. Northward, in the direction of Rimini,
the mountains approach nearer the water, while to the south the shore is
broader, and there, rising out of the mists of the sea, are the towers
of Fano. A little farther Cape Ancona is visible.
The sunny hills and their smiling valley under the blue canopy of
heaven, and near the shimmering sea, form a picture of entrancing
loveliness. It is the most peaceful spot on the Adriatic. It seems as if
the breezes from sea and land wafted a lyric harmony over the valley,
expanding the heart and filling the soul with visions of beauty and
happiness. Pesaro is the birthplace of Rosini, and also of Terenzio
Mamiani, the brilliant poet and statesman who devoted his great talents
to the regeneration of Italy.
The passions of the tyrants of this city were less ferocious than were
those of the other dynasties of that age, perhaps because their domain
was too small a stage for the dark deeds inspired by inordinate
ambition--although the human spirit does not always develop in harmony
with the influences of nature. One of the most hideous of evil doers was
Sigismondo Malatesta of mild and beautiful Rimini. The Sforzas of
Pesaro, however, seem generous and humane rulers in comparison with
their cousins of Milan. Their court was adorned by a number of noble
women whom Lucretia may have felt it her duty to imitate.
If, when Lucretia entered Pesaro, her soul--young as she was--was not
already dead to all agreeable sensations, she must have enjoyed for the
first time the blessed sense of freedom. To her, gloomy Rome, with the
dismal Vatican and its passions and crimes, must have seemed like a
prison from which she had escaped. It is true everything about her in
Pesaro was small when compared with the greatness of Rome, but here she
was removed from the direct influence of her father and brother, from
whom she was separated by the Apennines and a distance which, in that
age, was great.
The city of Pesaro, which now has more than twelve thousand, and with
its adjacent territory over twenty thousand inhabitants had then about
half as many. It had streets and squares with substantial specimens of
Gothic architecture, interspersed, however, even then, with numerous
palaces in the style of the Renaissance. A number of cloisters and
churches, whose ancient portals are still preserved, such as S.
Domenico, S. Francesco, S. Agostino, and S. Giovanni, rendered the city
imposing if not beautiful.
Pesaro's most important structures were the monuments of the ruling
dynasty, the stronghold on the seashore and the palace facing the public
square. The last was begun by Costanzo Sforza in 1474 and was completed
by his son Giovanni. Even to-day his name may be seen on the marble
tablet over the entrance. The castle with its four low, round towers or
bastions, all in ruin, and surrounded by a moat, stands at the end of
the city wall near the sea, and whatever strength it had was due to its
environment; in spite of its situation it appears so insignificant that
one wonders how, even in those days when the science of gunnery was in
its infancy, it could have had any value as a fortress.
The Sforza palace is still standing on the little public square of which
it occupies one whole side. It is an attractive, but not imposing
structure with two large courts. The Della Rovere, successors of the
Sforza in Pesaro, beautified it during the sixteenth century; they built
the noble façade which rests upon a series of six round arches. The
Sforza arms have disappeared from the palace, but in many places over
the portals and on the ceilings the inscription of Guidobaldus II,
duke, and the Della Rovere arms may be seen. Even in Lucretia's day the
magnificent banquet hall--the most beautiful room in the palace--was in
existence, and its size made it worthy of a great monarch. The lack of
decorations on the walls and of marble casings to the doors, like those
in the castle of Urbino, which fill the beholder with wonder, show how
limited were the means of the ruling dynasty of Pesaro. The rich ceiling
of the salon, made of gilded and painted woodwork, dates from the reign
of Duke Guidobaldo. All mementos of the time when Lucretia occupied the
palace have disappeared; it is animated by other memories--of the
subsequent court life of the Della Rovere family, when Bembo,
Castiglione, and Tasso frequently were guests there. Lucretia and the
suite that accompanied her could not have filled the wide rooms of the
palace; her mother, Madonna Adriana, and Giulia Farnese remained with
her only a short time. A young Spanish woman in her retinue, Doña
Lucretia Lopez, a niece of Juan Lopez, chancellor and afterward
cardinal, was married in Pesaro to Gianfrancesco Ardizio, the physician
and confidant of Giovanni Sforza.
In the palace there were few kinsmen of her husband besides his younger
brother Galeazzo, for the dynasty was not fruitful and was dying out.
Even Camilla d'Aragona, Giovanni's stepmother, was not there, for she
had left Pesaro for good in 1489, taking up her residence in a castle
near Parma.
In summer the beautiful landscape must have afforded the young princess
much delight. She doubtless visited the neighboring castle of Urbino,
where Guidobaldo di Montefetre and his spouse Elisabetta resided, and
which the accomplished Federico had made an asylum for the
cultivated. At that time Raphael, a boy of twelve, was living in Urbino,
a diligent pupil in his father's school.
[Illustration: TASSO.
From an engraving by Raffaelle Morghen.]
In summer Lucretia removed to one of the beautiful villas on a
neighboring hill. Her husband's favorite abode was Gradara, a lofty
castle overlooking the road to Rimini, whose red walls and towers are
still standing in good preservation. The most magnificent country place,
however, was the Villa Imperiale, which is a half hour's journey from
Pesaro, on Monte Accio, whence it looks down far over the land and sea.
It is a splendid summer palace worthy of a great lord and of people of
leisure, capable of enjoying the amenities of life. It was built by
Alessandro Sforza in the year 1464, its corner-stone having been laid by
the Emperor Frederic III when he was returning from his coronation as
Emperor of Rome; hence it received the name Villa Imperiale. It was
enlarged later by Eleonora Gonzaga, the wife of Francesco Maria della
Rovere, the heir of Urbino, and Giovanni Sforza's successor in the
dominion of Pesaro. Famous painters decorated it with allegoric and
historical pictures; Bembo and Bernardo Tasso sang of it in melodious
numbers, and there, in the presence of the Della Rovere court, Torquato
read his pastoral _Aminta_. This villa is now in a deplorable state of
decay. Pesaro offered but little in the way of entertainment for a young
woman accustomed to the society of Rome. The city had no nobility of
importance. The houses of Brizi, of Ondedei, of Giontini, Magistri,
Lana, and Ardizi, in their patriarchal existence, could offer Lucretia
no compensation for the inspiring intercourse with the grandees of Rome.
It is true the wave of culture which, thanks to the humanists, was
sweeping over Italy did reach Pesaro. The manufacture of majolica,
which, in its perfection, was not an unworthy successor of the pottery
of Greece and Etruria, flourished there and in the neighboring cities on
the Adriatic, and as far as Umbria. It had reached a considerable
development in the time of the Sforza. One of the oldest pieces of
majolica in the Correro Museum in Venice, Solomon worshiping the idol,
bears the date 1482. As early as the fourteenth century this art was
cultivated in Pesaro, and it was in a very nourishing condition during
the reign of Camilla d'Aragona. There are still some remains of the
productions of the old craftsmen of the city in the State-house of
Pesaro.
There, too, the intellectual movement manifested itself in other fields,
fostered by the Sforza or their wives, in emulation of Urbino and
Rimini, where Sigismondo Malatesta gathered about him poets and scholars
whom he pensioned during their lives, and for whom, when dead, he built
sarcophagi about the outer wall of the church. Camilla interested
herself especially in the cultivation of the sciences. In 1489 she
invited a noble Greek, Giorgio Diplovatazio, of Corfu, a kinsman of the
Laskaris and the Vatazes, who, fleeing from the Turks, had come to
Italy, and taken up his abode in Pesaro, where were living other Greek
exiles of the Angeli, Komnenen, and Paleologue families. Diplovatazio
had studied in Padua. Giovanni Sforza made him state's advocate of
Pesaro in 1492, and he enjoyed a brilliant reputation as a jurisprudent
until his death in 1541.[35]
Lucretia, consequently, found this illustrious man in Pesaro and might
have continued her studies under him and other natives of Greece if she
was so disposed. A library, which the Sforzas had collected, provided
her with the means for this end. Another scholar, however, no less
famous, Pandolfo Collenuccio, a poet, orator, and philologist, best
known by his history of Naples, had left Pesaro before Lucretia took up
her abode there. He had served the house of Sforza as secretary and in a
diplomatic capacity, and to his eloquence Lucretia's husband, Costanzo's
bastard, owed his investiture of the fief of Pesaro by Sixtus IV and
Innocent VIII. Collenuccio, however, fell under his displeasure and was
cast into prison in 1488 and subsequently banished, when he went to
Ferrara, where he devoted his services to the reigning family. He
accompanied Cardinal Ippolito to Rome, and here we find him in 1494 when
Lucretia was about to take up her residence in Pesaro. In Rome she may
have made the acquaintance of this scholar.[36]
Nor was the young poet Guido Posthumus Silvester in Pesaro during her
time, for he was then a student in Padua. Lucretia must have regretted
the absence from her court of this soulful and aspiring poet, and her
charming personality might have served him for an inspiration for verses
quite different from those which he later addressed to the Borgias.
Sforza's beautiful consort was received with open arms in Pesaro, where
she immediately made many friends. She was in the first charm of her
youthful bloom, and fate had not yet brought the trouble into her life
which subsequently made her the object either of horror or of pity. If
she enjoyed any real love in her married life with Sforza she would have
passed her days in Pesaro as happily as the queen of a pastoral comedy.
But this was denied her. The dark shadows of the Vatican reached even
to the Villa Imperiale on Monte Accio. Any day a despatch from her
father might summon her back to Rome. Her stay in Pesaro may also have
become too monotonous, too empty for her; perhaps, also, her husband's
position as condottiere in the papal army and in that of Venice
compelled him often to be away from his court.
Events which in the meantime had convulsed Italy took Lucretia back to
Rome, she having spent but a single year in Pesaro.
FOOTNOTES:
[35] Memorie di Tommaso Diplovatazio Patrizio Constantinopolitano e
Pesarese, da Annibale Olivieri. Pesaro, 1771.
[36] Regarding Collenuccio see the works of his compatriot Giulio
Perticari, Opp. Bologna, 1837. Vol. ii, 52 sqq.
CHAPTER XI
THE INVASION OF ITALY--THE PROFLIGATE WORLD
Early in September, 1494, Charles VIII marched into Piedmont, and the
affairs of all Italy suffered an immediate change. The Pope and his
allies Alfonso and Piero de' Medici found themselves almost defenseless
in a short time. As early as November 17th the King entered Florence.
Alexander was anxious to meet him with his own and the Neapolitan troops
at Viterbo, where Cardinal Farnese was legate; but the French overran
the Patrimonium without hindrance, and even the Pope's mistress, her
sister Girolama, and Madonna Adriana, who were Alexander's "heart and
eyes," fell into the hands of a body of French scouts.
The Mantuan agent, Brognolo, informed his master of this event in a
despatch dated November 29, 1494: "A calamity has happened which is also
a great insult to the Pope. Day before yesterday Madonna Hadriana and
Madonna Giulia and her sister set out from their castle of Capodimonte
to go to their brother the cardinal, in Viterbo, and, when about a mile
from that place, they met a troop of French cavalry by whom they were
taken prisoners, and led to Montefiascone, together with their suite of
twenty-five or thirty persons."
The French captain who made this precious capture was Monseigneur
d'Allegre, perhaps the same Ivo who subsequently entered the service of
Cæsar. "When he learned who the beautiful women were he placed their
ransom at three thousand ducats, and in a letter informed King Charles
whom he had captured, but the latter refused to see them. Madonna Giulia
wrote to Rome saying they were well treated, and asking that their
ransom be sent."[37]
The knowledge of this catastrophe caused Alexander the greatest dismay.
He immediately despatched a chamberlain to Marino, where Cardinal
Ascanio was to be found in the headquarters of the Colonna, and who, on
his urgent request, had returned November 2d, and had had an interview
with King Charles. He complained to the cardinal of the indignity which
had been put upon him, and asked his cooperation to secure the release
of the prisoners. He also wrote to Galeazzo of Sanseverino, who was
accompanying the king to Siena, and who, wishing to please the Pope,
urged Charles VIII to release the ladies. Accompanied by an escort of
four hundred of the French, they were led to the gates of Rome, where
they were received December 1st by Juan Marades, the Pope's
chamberlain.[38]
This romantic adventure caused a sensation throughout all Italy. The
people, instead of sympathizing with the Pope, ridiculed him
mercilessly. A letter from Trotti, the Ferrarese ambassador at the court
of Milan, to Duke Ercole, quotes the words which Ludovico il Moro,
the usurper of the throne of his nephew, whom he had poisoned, uttered
on this occasion concerning the Pope.
[Illustration: CHARLES VIII.
From an engraving by Pannier.]
"He (Ludovico) gravely reproved Monsignor Ascanio and Cardinal
Sanseverino for surrendering Madonna Giulia, Madonna Adriana, and
Hieronyma to his Holiness; for, since these ladies were the 'heart and
eyes' of the Pope, they would have been the best whip for compelling him
to do everything which was wanted of him, for he could not live without
them. The French, who captured them, received only three thousand ducats
as ransom, although the Pope would gladly have paid fifty thousand or
more simply to have them back again. The same duke received news from
Rome, and also from Angelo in Florence, that when the ladies entered,
his Holiness went to meet them arrayed in a black doublet bordered with
gold brocade, with a beautiful belt in the Spanish fashion, and with
sword and dagger. He wore Spanish boots and a velvet biretta, all very
gallant. The duke asked me, laughing, what I thought of it, and I told
him that, were I the Duke of Milan, like him, I would endeavor, with the
aid of the King of France and in every other way--and on the pretext of
establishing peace--to entrap his Holiness, and with fair words, such as
he himself was in the habit of using, to take him and the cardinals
prisoners, which would be very easy. He who has the servant, as we say
at home, has also the wagon and the oxen; and I reminded him of the
verse of Catullus: 'Tu quoque fac simile: ars deluditur arte.'"[39]
Ludovico, the worthy contemporary of the Borgias, once an intimate
friend of Alexander VI, hated the Pope when he turned his face away
from him and France, and he was especially embittered by the treacherous
capture of his brother Ascanio. December 28th the same ambassador wrote
to Ercole, "The Duke Ludovico told me that he was hourly expecting the
arrival of Messer Bartolomeo da Calco with a courier bringing the news
that the Pope was taken and beheaded."[40] I leave it to the reader to
decide whether Ludovico, simply owing to his hatred of the Pope, was
slandering him and indulging in extravagances concerning him when he had
this conversation with Trotti, and also when he publicly stated to his
senate that "the Pope had allowed three women to come to him; one of
them being a nun of Valencia, the other a Castilian, the third a very
beautiful girl from Venice, fifteen or sixteen years of age." "Here in
Milan," continued Trotti in his despatch, "the same scandalous things
are related of the Pope as are told in Ferrara of the Torta."[41]
Elsewhere we may read how Charles VIII, victorious without the trouble
of winning battles, penetrated as far as Rome and Naples. His march
through Italy is the most humiliating of all the invasions which the
peninsula suffered; but it shows that when states and peoples are ready
for destruction, the strength of a weak-headed boy is sufficient to
bring about their ruin. The Pope outwitted the French monarch, who,
instead of having him deposed by a council, fell on his knees before
him, acknowledged him to be Christ's vicar, and concluded a treaty with
him.
After this he set out for Naples, which shortly fell into his hands.
Italy rose, a league against Charles VIII was formed, and he was
compelled to return. Alexander fled before him, first in the direction
of Orvieto, and then toward Perugia. While there he summoned Giovanni
Sforza, who arrived with his wife, June 16, 1495, remained four days,
and then went back to Pesaro.[42] The King of France succeeded in
breaking his way through the League's army at the battle of the Taro,
and thus honorably escaped death or capture.
Having returned to Rome, Alexander established himself still more firmly
in the holy chair, about which he gathered his ambitious bastards, while
the Borgias pushed themselves forward all the more audaciously because
the confusion occasioned in the affairs of Italy by the invasion of
Charles VIII made it all the easier for them to carry out their
intentions.
Lucretia remained a little longer in Pesaro with her husband, whom
Venice had engaged in the interests of the League. Giovanni Sforza,
however, does not appear to have been present either at the battle of
the Taro or at the siege of Novara. When peace was declared in October,
1495, between France and the Duke of Milan, whereby the war came to an
end in Northern Italy, Sforza was able to take his wife back to Rome.
Marino Sanuto speaks of her as having been in that city at the end of
October, and Burchard gives us a picture of Lucretia at the Christmas
festivities.
While in the service of the League Sforza commanded three hundred foot
soldiers and one hundred heavy horse. With these troops he set out for
Naples in the spring of the following year, when the united forces lent
the young King Ferrante II great assistance in the conflicts with the
French troops under Montpensier. Even the Captain-general of Venice, the
Marchese of Mantua, was there, and he entered Rome, March 26, 1496.
Sforza with his mercenaries arrived in Rome, April 15th, only to leave
the city again April 28th. His wife remained behind. May 4th he reached
Fundi.[43]
Alexander's two sons, Don Giovanni and Don Giuffrè, were still away from
Rome. One, the Duke of Gandia, was also in the pay of Venice, and was
expected from Spain to take command of four hundred men which his
lieutenant, Alovisio Bacheto, had enlisted for him. The other, Don
Giuffrè, had, as we have seen, gone to Naples in 1494, where he had
married Donna Sancia and had been made Prince of Squillace. As a member
of the house of Aragon he shared the dangers of the declining dynasty in
the hope of inducing the Pope not to abandon it. He accompanied King
Ferrante on his flight, and also followed his standard when, after the
retreat of Charles VIII, he, with the help of Spain, Venice, and the
Pope, again secured possession of his kingdom, entering Naples in the
summer of 1495.
Not until the following year did Don Giuffrè and his wife come to Rome.
In royal state they entered the Eternal City, May 20, 1496. The
ambassadors, cardinals, officers of the city, and numerous nobles went
to meet them at the Lateran gate. Lucretia also was there with her
suite. The young couple were escorted to the Vatican. The Pope on his
throne, surrounded by eleven cardinals, received his son and
daughter-in-law. On his right hand he had Lucretia and on his left
Sancia, sitting on cushions. It was Whitsuntide, and the two princesses
and their suites boldly occupied the priests' benches in S. Peter's,
and, according to Burchard, the populace was greatly shocked.
Three months later, August 10, 1496, Alexander's eldest son, Don
Giovanni, Duke of Gandia, entered Rome, where he remained, his father
having determined to make him a great prince.[44] It is not related
whether he brought his wife, Donna Maria, with him.
For the first time Alexander had all his children about him, and in the
Borgo of the Vatican there were no less than three nepot-courts.
Giovanni resided in the Vatican, Lucretia in the palace of S. Maria in
Portico, Giuffrè in the house of the Cardinal of Aleria near the Bridge
of S. Angelo, and Cæsar in the same Borgo.
They all were pleasure-loving upstarts who were consumed with a desire
for honors and power; all were young and beautiful; except Lucretia, all
were vicious, graceful, seductive scoundrels, and, as such, among the
most charming and attractive figures in the society of old Rome. For
only the narrowest observer, blind to everything but their infamous
deeds, can paint the Borgias simply as savage and cruel brutes,
tiger-cubs by nature. They were privileged malefactors, like many other
princes and potentates of that age. They mercilessly availed themselves
of poison and poignard, removing every obstacle to their ambition, and
smiled when the object was attained.
If we could see the life which these unrestrained bastards led in the
Vatican, where their father, conscious now of his security and
greatness, was enthroned, we should indeed behold strange things. It was
a singular drama which was being enacted in the domain of S. Peter,
where two young and beautiful women held a dazzling court, which was
always animated by swarms of Spanish and Italian lords and ladies and
the elegant world of Rome. Nobles and monsignori crowded around to pay
homage to these women, one of whom, Lucretia, was just sixteen, and the
other, Sancia, a little more than seventeen years of age.
We may imagine what love intrigues took place in the palace of these
young women, and how jealousy and ambition there carried on their
intricate game, for no one will believe that these princesses, full of
the passion and exuberance of youth, led the life of nuns or saints in
the shadows of S. Peter's. Their palace resounded with music and the
dance, and the noise of revels and of masquerades. The populace saw
these women accompanied by splendid cavalcades riding through the
streets of Rome to the Vatican; they knew that the Pope was in daily
intercourse with them, visiting them in person and taking part in their
festivities, and also receiving them, now privately, and now with
ceremonious pomp, as befitted princesses of his house. Alexander
himself, much as he was addicted to the pleasures of the senses, cared
nothing for elaborate banquets. Concerning the Pope, the Ferrarese
ambassador wrote to his master in 1495 as follows:
He partakes of but a single dish, though this must be a rich one.
It is, consequently, a bore to dine with him. Ascanio and others,
especially Cardinal Monreale, who formerly were his Holiness's
table companions, and Valenza too, broke off this companionship
because his parsimony displeased them, and avoided it whenever and
however they could.[45]
The doings in the Vatican furnished ground for endless gossip, which had
long been current in Rome. It was related in Venice, in October,
1496, that the Duke of Gandia had brought a Spanish woman to his father,
with whom he lived, and an account was given of a crime which is almost
incredible, although it was related by the Venetian ambassador and other
persons.[46]
[Illustration: SAVONAROLA.
From a painting by Fra Bartolommeo]
It was not long before Donna Sancia caused herself to be freely gossiped
about. She was beautiful and thoughtless; she appreciated her position
as the daughter of a king. From the most vicious of courts she was
transplanted into the depravity of Rome as the wife of an immature boy.
It was said that her brothers-in-law Gandia and Cæsar quarreled over her
and possessed her in turn, and that young nobles and cardinals like
Ippolito d'Este could boast of having enjoyed her favors.
Savonarola may have had these nepot-courts in mind when, from the pulpit
of S. Marco in Florence, he declaimed in burning words against the Roman
Sodom.
Even if the voice of the great preacher, whose words were filling all
Italy, did not reach Lucretia's ears, from her own experience she must
have known how profligate was the world in which she lived. About her
she saw vice shamelessly displayed or cloaked in sacerdotal robes; she
was conscious of the ambition and avarice which hesitated at no crime;
she beheld a religion more pagan than paganism itself, and a church
service in which the sacred actors,--with whose conduct behind the
scenes she was perfectly familiar,--were the priests, the cardinals, her
brother Cæsar, and her own father. All this Lucretia beheld, but they
are wrong who believe that she or others like her saw and regarded it as
we do now, or as a few pure-minded persons of that age did; for
familiarity always dulls the average person's perception of the truth.
In that age the conceptions of religion, of decency, and of morality
were entirely different from those of to-day. When the rupture between
the Middle Ages and its ascetic Church and the Renaissance was complete,
human passions threw off every restraint. All that had hitherto been
regarded as sacred was now derided. The freethinkers of Italy created a
literature never equaled for bold cynicism. From the _Hermaphroditus_ of
Beccadeli to the works of Berni and Pietro Aretino, a foul stream of
novelle, epigrams, and comedies, from which the serious Dante would have
turned his eyes in disgust, overflowed the land.
Even in the less sensual novelle, the first of which was Piccolomini's
_Euryalus_, and the less obscene comedies, adultery and derision of
marriage are the leading motives. The harlots were the Muses of
belles-lettres during the Renaissance. They boldly took their place by
the side of the saints of the Church, and contended with them for fame's
laurels. There is a manuscript collection of poems of the time of
Alexander VI which contains a series of epigrams beginning with a number
in praise of the Holy Virgin and the Saints, and then, without word or
warning, are several glorifying the famous cyprians of the day;
following a stanza on S. Pauline is an epigram on Meretricis Nichine, a
well-known courtesan of Siena, with several more of the same sort. The
saints of heaven and the priestesses of Venus are placed side by side,
without comment, as equally admirable women.[47]
No self-respecting woman would now attend the performance of a comedy of
the Renaissance, whose characters frequently represented the popes, the
princes, and the noble women of the day; and their presentation, even
before audiences composed entirely of men, would now be prohibited by
the censor of the theater in every land.
The naturalness with which women of the South even now discuss subjects
which people in the North are careful to conceal excites astonishment;
but what was tolerated by the taste or morals of the Renaissance is
absolutely incredible. We must remember, however, that this obscene
literature was by no means so diffused as novels are at the present
time, and also that Southern familiarity with whatever is natural also
served to protect women. Much was external, and was so treated that it
had no effect whatever upon the imagination. In the midst of the vices
of the society of the cities there were noble women who kept themselves
pure.
To form an idea of the morals of the great, and especially of the courts
of that day, we must read the history of the Visconti, the Sforza, the
Malatesta of Rimini, the Baglione of Perugia, and the Borgias of Rome.
They were not more immoral than the members of the courts of Louis XIV
and XV and of August of Saxony, but their murders rendered them more
terrible. Human life was held to be of little value, but criminal
egotism often was qualified by greatness of mind (magnanimitas), so that
a bloody deed prompted by avarice and ambition was often condoned.
Egotism and the selfish use of conditions and men for the profit of the
individual were never so universal as in the country of Macchiavelli,
where unfortunately they still are frequently in evidence. Free from the
pedantic opinions of the Germans and the reverence for condition, rank,
and birth which they have inherited from the Middle Ages, the Italians,
on the other hand, always recognized the force of personality--no matter
whether it was that of a bastard or not--but they, nevertheless, were
just as likely to become the slaves of the successful. Macchiavelli
maintains that the Church and the priests were responsible for the moral
ruin of the peninsula--but were not the Church and these priests
themselves products of Italy? He should have said that characteristics
which were inherent in the Germanic races were foreign to the Italians.
Luther could never have appeared among them.
While our opinion of Alexander VI and Cæsar is governed by ethical
considerations, this was not the case with Guicciardini, and less still
with Macchiavelli. They examined not the moral but the political man,
not his motives but his acts. The terrible was not terrible when it was
the deed of a strong will, nor was crime disgraceful when it excited
astonishment as a work of art. The terrible way in which Ferdinand of
Naples handled the conspiracy of the nobles of his kingdom made him, in
the eyes of Italy, not horrible but great; and Macchiavelli speaks of
the trick with which Cæsar Borgia outwitted his treacherous condottieri
at Sinigaglia as a "masterstroke," while the Bishop Paolo Giovio called
it "the most beautiful piece of deception." In that world of egotism
where there was no tribunal of public opinion, man could preserve
himself only by overpowering power and by outwitting cunning with
craft. While the French regarded, and still regard, "ridiculous" as the
worst of epithets, the Italian dreaded none more than that of
"simpleton."
Macchiavelli, in a well-known passage in his _Discorsi_ (i. 27),
explains his theory with terrible frankness, and his words are the exact
keynote of the ethics of his age. He relates how Julius II ventured into
Perugia, although Giampolo Baglione had gathered a large number of
troops there, and how the latter, overawed by the Pope, surrendered the
city to him. His comment is verbatim as follows: "People of judgment who
were with the Pope wondered at his foolhardiness, and at Giampolo's
cowardice; they could not understand why the latter did not, to his
everlasting fame, crush his enemy with one blow and enrich himself with
the plunder, for the Pope was accompanied by all his cardinals with
their jewels. They could not believe that he refrained on account of any
goodness or any conscientious scruples, for the heart of a wicked man,
who committed incest with his sister, and destroyed his cousins and
nephews so he might rule, could not be accessible to any feelings of
respect. So they came to the conclusion that there are men who can
neither be honorably bad nor yet perfectly good, who do not know how to
go about committing a crime, great in itself or possessing a certain
splendor. This was the case with Giampolo; he who thought nothing of
incest and the murder of his kinsmen did not know how, or rather did not
dare, in spite of the propitious moment, to perform a deed which would
have caused every one to admire his courage, and would have won for him
an immortal name. For he would first have shown the priests how small
men are in reality who live and rule as they do, and he would have been
the first to accomplish a deed whose greatness would have dazzled every
one, and would have removed every danger which might have arisen from
it."
Is it any wonder that in view of such a prostitution of morals to the
conception of success, fame, and magnificence, as Macchiavelli here and
in _Il Principe_ advocates, men like the Borgias found the widest field
for their bold crimes? They well knew that the greatness of a crime
concealed the shame of it. The celebrated poet Strozzi in Ferrara placed
Cæsar Borgia, after his fall, among the heroes of Olympus; and the
famous Bembo, one of the first men of the age, endeavors to console
Lucretia Borgia on the death of the "miserable little" Alexander VI,
whom he at the same time calls her "great" father.
No upright man, conscious of his own worth, would now enter the service
of a prince stained by such crimes as were the Borgias, if it were
possible for such a one now to exist, which is wholly unlikely. But then
the best and most upright of men sought, without any scruples whatever,
the presence and favors of the Borgias. Pinturicchio and Perugino
painted for Alexander VI, and the most wonderful genius of the century,
Leonardo da Vinci, did not hesitate to enter the service of Cæsar Borgia
as his engineer, to erect fortresses for him in the same Romagna which
he had appropriated by such devilish means.
The men of the Renaissance were in a high degree energetic and creative;
they shaped the world with a revolutionary energy and a feverish
activity, in comparison with which the modern processes of civilization
almost vanish. Their instincts were rougher and more powerful, and their
nerves stronger than those of the present race. It will always appear
strange that the tenderest blossoms of art, the most ideal creations of
the painter, put forth in the midst of a society whose moral
perversity and inward brutality are to us moderns altogether loathsome.
If we could take a man such as our civilization now produces and
transfer him into the Renaissance, the daily brutality which made no
impression whatever on the men of that age would shatter his nervous
system and probably upset his reason.
[Illustration: NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI.
From an engraving by G. Marri.]
Lucretia Borgia lived in Rome surrounded by these passions, and she was
neither better nor worse than the women of her time. She was thoughtless
and was filled with the joy of living. We do not know that she ever went
through any moral struggles or whether she ever found herself in
conscious conflict with the actualities of her life and of her
environment. Her father maintained an elaborate household for her, and
she was in daily intercourse with her brothers' courts. She was their
companion and the ornament of their banquets; she was entrusted with the
secret of all the Vatican intrigues which had any connection with the
future of the Borgias, and all her vital interests were soon to be
concentrated there.
Never, even in the later years of her life, does she appear as a woman
of unusual genius; she had none of the characteristics of the _viragos_
Catarina Sforza and Ginevra Bentivoglio; nor did she possess the
deceitful soul of an Isotta da Rimini, or the spirituelle genius of
Isabella Gonzaga. If she had not been the daughter of Alexander VI and
the sister of Cæsar Borgia, she would have been unnoticed by the
historians of her age or, at most, would have been mentioned only as one
of the many charming women who constituted the society of Rome. In the
hands of her father and her brother, however, she became the tool and
also the victim of their political machinations, against which she had
not the strength to make any resistance.
FOOTNOTES:
[37] This information is given by Marino Sanuto, Venuta di Carlo VIII,
in Italia; original in the Paris library, also a copy in the Marciana.
He calls Giulia "favorita del Pontefice, di età giovane, et bellissima
savia accorda et mansueta."
[38] According to one of Brognolo's despatches (Mantuan archives) Giulia
and Adriana returned December 1st, on which date Pandolfo Collenuccio,
who was in Rome, wrote, "Una optima novella ce è per alcuno. Che Ma
Julia si è recuperata, et andò Messer Joan Marrades per Lei. Et è venuta
in Roma: e dicesi, che Domenica de nocte allogiò in Palazzo." Archives
of Modena.
[39] Despatch of Giacomo Trotti, Milan, December 21, 1494. Archives of
Modena.
[40] Che li pareva ogni hora vedere messer Bartolomeo da Calche venire a
Sua Eccia cum una staffetta, chel papa fosse preso, e li fosse
taliata la testa.
[41] Trotti to the Duke of Ferrara, Milan, December 24, 1494.
[42] This is the date given by Marino Sanuto in his Ms. History of the
Invasion of Charles VIII, fol. 470.
[43] These dates are from the Diary of Marino Sanuto, vol. i. fol. 55,
58, 85.
[44] Il di de S. Laurentio il Duca de Gandia figliuolo del Papa, intrò
in Roma accompagnato dal Card. de Valentia, et tutta la corte con
grandissima pompa. Despatch of Ludovico Carissimi to the Duke of
Ferrara, Rome, August 15, 1496. Archives of Modena.
[45] Boccaccio to Ercole, March 24, 1495.
[46] The report is given in Diar. Marino Sanuto, vol. i, 258, and is
reprinted in part in the Civiltà Cattolica, March 15, 1873, p. 727. The
entire passage is as follows: Da Roma per le lettere del orator nostro
se intese et etiam de private persone cossa assai abominevole in la
chiesa di Dio che al papa erra nato un fiolo di una dona romana maridata
ch'el padre l'havea rufianata e di questa il marito invitò il suocero
ala vigna el lo uccise tagliandoli el capo ponendo quello sopra uno
legno con letere che dicera questo e il capo de mio suocero che a
rufianato sua fiola al papa et che inteso questo il papa fece metter el
dito in exilio di Roma con Taglia. Questa nova vene per letere
particular etiam si godea con la sua spagnola menatali di spagna per suo
fiol duca di Gandia novamente li venuto.
[47] Epitaphia clarissimarum mulierum que virtute: arte: aut aliqua nota
claruerunt. Codex Hartmann Schedel in the State Library of Munich.
CHAPTER XII
THE DIVORCE AND SECOND MARRIAGE
After the surrender of the remnant of the French forces in the fall of
1496, Giovanni Sforza returned from Naples. There is no doubt that he
went to Rome for the purpose of taking Lucretia home with him to Pesaro,
where we find him about the close of the year, and where he spent the
winter. The chroniclers of Pesaro, however, state that he left the city
in disguise, January 15, 1497, and that Lucretia followed him a few days
later for the purpose of going to Rome.[48] Both were present at the
Easter festivities in the papal city.
Sforza was now a worn-out plaything which Alexander was preparing to
cast away, for his daughter's marriage to the tyrant of Pesaro promised
him nothing more, the house of Sforza having lost all its influence;
moreover, the times were propitious for establishing connections which
would be of greater advantage to the Borgias. The Pope was unwilling to
give his son-in-law a command in the war against the Orsini, which he
had begun immediately after the return of his son Don Giovanni from
Spain, for whom he wanted to confiscate the property of these mighty
lords. He secured the services of Duke Guidobaldo of Urbino, who
likewise had served in the allied armies of Naples, and whom the
Venetians released in order that he might assume supreme command of the
papal troops.
This noble man was the last of the house of Montefeltre, and the Borgias
already had their eyes on his possessions. His sister Giovanna was
married in 1478 to the municipal prefect, Giovanni della Rovere, a
brother of Cardinal Giuliano, and in 1490 she bore him a daughter,
Francesca Maria, a child who was looked upon as heir of Urbino.
Guidobaldo did not disdain to serve as a condottiere for pay and in the
hope of winning honors; he was also a vassal of the Church. Fear of the
Borgias led him to seek their friendship although he hated them.
In the war against the Orsini the young Duke of Gandia was next in
command under Guidobaldo, and Alexander made him the standard-bearer of
the Church and Rector of Viterbo, and of the entire Patrimonium after he
had removed Alessandro Farnese from that position. This appears to have
been due to a dislike he felt for Giulia's brother. September 17, 1496,
the Mantuan agent in Rome, John Carolus, wrote to the Marchioness
Gonzaga: "Cardinal Farnese is shut up in his residence in the
Patrimonium, and will lose it unless he is saved by the prompt return of
Giulia."
The same ambassador reported to his sovereign as follows: "Although
every effort is made to conceal the fact that these sons of the Pope are
consumed with envy of each other, the life of the Cardinal of S. Giorgio
(Rafael Riario) is in danger; should he die, Cæsar would be given the
office of chancellor and the palace of the dead Cardinal of Mantua,
which is the most beautiful in Rome, and also his most lucrative
benefices. Your Excellency may guess how this plot will terminate."[49]
The war against the Orsini ended with the ignominious defeat of the
papal forces at Soriano, January 23, 1497, whence Don Giovanni, wounded,
fled to Rome, and where Guidobaldo was taken prisoner. The victors
immediately forced a peace on most advantageous terms.
Not until the conclusion of the war did Lucretia's husband return to
Rome. We shall see him again there, for the last time, at the Easter
festivities of 1497, when, as Alexander's son-in-law, he assumed his
official place during the celebration in S. Peter's, and, standing near
Cæsar and Gandia, received the Easter palm from the Pope's hand. His
position in the Vatican had, however, become untenable; Alexander was
anxious to dissolve his marriage with Lucretia. Sforza was asked to give
her up of his own free will, and, when he refused, was threatened with
extreme measures.
Flight alone saved him from the dagger or poison of his brothers-in-law.
According to statements of the chroniclers of Pesaro, it was Lucretia
herself who helped her husband to flee and thus caused the suspicion
that she was also a participant in the conspiracy. It is related that,
one evening when Jacomino, Lord Giovanni's chamberlain, was in Madonna's
room, her brother Cæsar entered, and on her command the chamberlain
concealed himself behind a screen. Cæsar talked freely with his sister,
and among other things said that the order had been given to kill
Sforza. When he had departed, Lucretia said to Jacomino: "Did you hear
what was said? Go and tell him." This the chamberlain immediately did,
and Giovanni Sforza threw himself on a Turkish horse and rode in
twenty-four hours to Pesaro, where the beast dropped dead.[50]
According to letters of the Venetian envoy in Rome, Sforza fled in
March, in Holy Week. Under some pretext he went to the Church of S.
Onofrio, where he found the horse waiting for him.[51]
The request for the divorce was probably not made by Lucretia, but by
her father and brothers, who wished her to be free to enter into a
marriage which would advance their plans. We are ignorant of what was
now taking place in the Vatican, and we do not know that Lucretia made
any resistance; but if she did, it certainly was not of long duration,
for she does not appear to have loved her husband. Pesaro's escape did
not please the Borgias. They would have preferred to have silenced this
man forever; but now that he had gotten away and raised an objection, it
would be necessary to dissolve the marriage by process of law, which
would cause a great scandal.
Shortly after Sforza's flight a terrible tragedy occurred in the house
of Borgia--the mysterious murder of the Duke of Gandia. On the failure
of Alexander's scheme to confiscate the estates of the Orsini and bestow
them on his dearly beloved son, he thought to provide for him in another
manner. He made him Duke of Benevento, thereby hoping to prepare the way
for him to reach the throne of Naples. A few days later, June 14th,
Vannozza invited him and Cæsar, together with a few of their kinsmen, to
a supper in her vineyard near S. Pietro in Vinculo. Don Giovanni,
returning from this family feast, disappeared in the night, without
leaving a trace, and three days later the body of the murdered man was
found in the Tiber.
According to the general opinion of the day, which in all probability
was correct, Cæsar was the murderer of his brother. From the moment
Alexander VI knew this crime had been committed, and assumed
responsibility for its motives and consequences, and pardoned the
murderer, he became morally accessory after the fact, and fell himself
under the power of his terrible son. From that time on, every act of his
was intended to further Cæsar's fiendish ambition.
None of the records of the day say that Don Giovanni's consort was in
Rome when this tragedy occurred. We are therefore forced to assume that
she was not there when her husband was murdered. It is much more likely
that she had not left Spain, and that she was living with her two little
children in Gandia or Valencia, where she received the dreadful news in
a letter written by Alexander to his sister Doña Beatrice Boria y
Arenos. This is rendered probable by the court records of Valencia.
September 27, 1497, Doña Maria Enriquez appeared before the tribunal of
the governor of the kingdom of Valencia, Don Luis de Cabaineles, and
claimed the estate, including the duchy of Gandia and the Neapolitan
fiefs of Suessa, Teano, Carinola, and Montefoscolo, for Don Giovanni's
eldest son, a child of three years. The duke's death was proved by legal
documents, among which was this letter written by Alexander, and the
tribunal accordingly recognized Gandia's son as his legal heir.[52]
Doña Maria also claimed her husband's personal property in his house in
Rome, which was valued at thirty thousand ducats, and which on the death
of Don Giovanni, had been transferred by Alexander VI, to the
fratricide Cæsar to administer for his nephew, as appears fro
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