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Ca 2 e @ * 8 . @ an® e 2 ee Se » & The Riverside Press CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.PREFACE HIS is quite frankly a brief for the defence: an inquiry into the charges brought against the House of Borgia, an examination of the witnesses, contemporary ‘and subsequent, who bring them, and an endeavour to arrest the accumulation and growth of those charges, which have been steadily proceeding for four hundred years and are proceeding still in our own time. You will not seek here a Chronicle of Saints. Nor shall you find a History of Devils. It is an attempt to present as they really were certain very human, strenuous men, the creatures — as all men are — of the age and environment in which they lived. And theirs was a lustful, flamboyant age; an age red with blood and pale sith passion at white-heat; an age of steel and velvet, of vivid colour, dazzling light, and impenetrable Siatlow: an age af swift movement, pitiless violence, and high endeavour, of sharp an- titheses and amazing contrasts. To judge it from the standpoint of this calm, de- liberate, and correct century — as we conceive our own to be ate middle-age to judge from its own standpoint the reckless, hot, passionate, lust- ful humours of youth, of youth that errs grievously, whilst, however, achieving greatly. If it be wrong to judge a past epoch collectively by the standards of our own time, it is infinitely worse to single out individuals for judgment by those samevi PREFACE standards, after detaching them for the purpose from the environment in which they had their being. The ‘ndividuals thus examined through a microscope of modern focus appear monstrous and abnormal, and we straightway assume them to be monsters and ab- normalities, never pausing to consider that others of that same past age, if similarly viewed, must appear similarly abnormal. Hence it follows that some study of an age must ever prelude and accompany the study of its indi- viduals, if understanding 1s to wait upon our labours. To proceed otherwise is to judge an individual Hot- tentot or South Sea Islander by the code of manners that obtains in Belgravia or Mayfair. Mind being the seat of the soul, and literature being the expression of the mind, literature, it follows, 1s the soul of an age, the surviving and immortal part of it; and in the literature of the Cinquecento you shall behold for the looking the ardent, unmoral, naive soul of this Renaissance that was sprawling in its lusty, naked infancy and bellowing hungrily for the pap of knowledge, and for other things. You shall infer something of the passionate mettle of this in- fant: his tempestuous mirth, his fierce rages, his sim- plicity, his naiveté, his inquisitiveness, his cunning, his deceit, his cruelty, his love of sunshine and bright gewgaws. To realize him as he was, it suffices to remember that this was the age in which the ~ Decamerone” of Giovanni Boccaccio, the ‘“Facetiz”’ of Poggio, the Satires of Filelfo, and the ‘“Fermaphroditus” of Pa- normitano afforded reading-matter to both sexes. This was the age in which the learned and erudite LorenzoPREFACE vil Valla — of whom more anon — wrote his famous in- dictment of virginity, condemning it as against nature with arguments of a most insidious logic. This was the age in which Casa, Archbishop of Benevento, wrote a most singular work of erotic philosophy, which will do more than startle you, should you chance to turn its pages. This was the age of the Dis- covery of Man; the pagan age which stripped Christ of His divinity to bestow it upon Plato, so that Mar- silio Ficino actually burnt an altar-lamp before an image of the Greek by whose teachings — 1n common with so many scholars of his day — he sought to in- form himself. It was an age that appears to have become almost unable to discriminate between the merits of the Saints of the Church and the Harlots of the Town. For there is evidence of at least one instance in which ‘t extolled the carnal merits of the one in much the same terms as were employed to extol the spiritual merits of the other. Thus, when a famous Roman courtesan departed this life in the year 1511, at the early age of twenty-six, she was accorded a splendid funeral and an imposing tomb in the Chapel of Santa Gregoria with a tablet bearing the following inscrip- tion: IMPERIA CORTISANA ROMANA QUA DIGNA TANTO NOMINE, RAR#& INTER MORTALES FORM4ZE SPECIMEN DEDIT It was, in short, an age so universally immoral as scarcely to be termed immoral, since immorality may be defined as a departure from the morals that obtainvill PREFACE at a given time and in a given place. So that whilst from our own standpoint the Cinquecento, taken collectively, is an age of grossest licence and immo- rality, from the standpoint of the Cinquecento itself few of its individuals might with justice be branded immoral. For the rest, it was an epoch of reaction from the Age of Chivalry: an epoch of unbounded luxury, of the cult and worship of the beautiful externally; an epoch that set no store by any inward virtue, by truth or honour; an epoch that laid 1t down as a maxim that no inconvenient engagement should be kept if opportunity offered to evade it. The history of the Cinquecento is a history devel- oped in broken pledges, trusts dishonoured, and basest treacheries, as you shall come to conclude before you have read far in the story that is here to be set down. In a profligate age what can you look for but prof- ligates? Is it just, is 1t reasonable, or is it even honest to take a man or a family from such an environment, for judgment by the canons of a later epoch? Yet that is the method most frequently adopted in deal- ing with the vast subject of the Borgias. To avoid the dangers that must wait upon that error, the history of that House shall here be taken up with the elevation of Calixtus III to the Papal Throne; and the reign of the four Popes immediately preceding Roderigo Borgia — who reigned as Alexan- der VI — shall briefly be surveyed that a standard may be set by which to judge the man and the family that form the real subject of this work. The history of this amazing Pope Alexander is yet to be written. No attempt has been made to exhaustPREFACE 1X it here. Yet of necessity he bulks large in these pages; for the history of his dazzling, meteoric son is so closely interwoven with his own that it is impossible present the one without dealing at considerable length with the other. Never, perhaps, has anything more true been written of the Borgias and their history than the matter contained in the following lines of Rawdon Brown in his ‘‘Ragguagli sulla Vita e sulle Opere di Marino Sanuto”’: “It seems to me that history has made use of the House of Borgia as of a canvas upon which to depict the turpitudes of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.” Materials for the work were very ready to the hand; and although they do not signally differ from the materials out of which the histories of half a dozen Popes of the same epoch 1 might be compiled, they are far more abundant in the case of the Borgia Pope, for the excellent reason that the Borgia Pope stands out from the background of the Renaissance in far bolder relief than any of his compeers by virtue of his force of personality, his strength, al bility, and courage, which rendered him politically fosnnidl: able. In this was reason to spare for his being libelled and lampooned even beyond the usual extravagant wont. Slanders concerning him and his son Cesare were readily circulated, and they will generally be found to spring f-om those States which had most cause for jealousy and resentment of the Borgia might — Venice, F lorence, and Milan, amongst others. No rancour is so bitter as political rancour — save, perhaps, religious rancour, which we shall also trace; no warfare more unscrupulous or more prone to usex PREFACE the insidious weapons of slander than political war- fare. Of this such striking instances abound in our own time that there can scarce be the need to labour the point. And from the form taken by such slanders as are circulated in our own sedate and moderate epoch may be conceived what might be said by political opponents in a fierce age that knew no pu- dency and no restraint. All this in its proper place shall be more closely examined. A great deal of Borgi ia history was written, it is to be remembered, during the Papacy of Julius II (Giu- liano della Rovere), written by sycophants to earn the favour of that ele arted rival and implacable en- emy of Roderigo Borgia. Chief among these, and main source at which later writers have drunk, is the Florentine Guicciardini, justly branded a liar on this subject by Voltaire, who was no advocate of Popes, and condemned by René de Maricourt (in “Les Procés des Borgias’ ’) in the following terms: “He has not prov ed the crimes of the Pope. He has merely exhibited the fertility of a monstrously un- clean and salacious imagination, the dév ergondage of a mind stuffed with reminiscences of Tiberius, of Nero, and of Elagabalus.”’ For many of the charges brought against the House of Borgia some testimony exists; for many others — and these are the more lurid, eeneationall and appall- ing, covering as they do rape and pcden adultery, incest, and the sin of the Cities of the Plain — no single grain of real evidence is forthcoming. Indeed, at this time of day evidence is no longer demanded where the sins of the Borgias are concerned. Oft-3B PREFACE XI reiterated assertion has usurped the place of evidence. And meanwhile the calumny speeds from tongue to tongue, from pen to pen, gathering matter as it goes. The world absorbs the stories; 1t devours them preedily so they be sensational; and venal writers well sware of this have been pandering to that morbid appetite for some centuries now with this subject of the Borgias. A salted, piquant tale of vice, a ghastly story of moral turpitude and physical corruption, a hair-raising narrative of horrors and abominations — these are the stock-in-trade of the sensation-monger. With the authenticity of the wares he retails such a man has no concern. Occasionally it happens that we find some such sentence as the following summing up this deed or that one in the Borgia histories: ‘A deal of mystery -emains to be cleared up, but the Verdict of History assigns the guilt to Cesare Borgia.” Behold how easy it is to dispense with evidence. Let the tale be well-salted and well-spiced, and a fico for evidence! If in places it does not hang together as well as it should, if there be contradictions, lacune, or openings for doubt, fling the Verdict of History into the gap, and so strike any questioner into silence. So far have matters gone in this connection that who undertakes to set down to-day the history of Cesare Borgia, with intent to do just and honest work, must find it impossible to tell a plain and straight for- ward tale — to present him, not as a villain of melo- t as a monster, ludicrous, grotesque, im- an being, a cold, relentless en for his own ends, terrible drama, no possible, but as a hum egotist, it is true, using mXi PREFACE and even treacherous in his reprisals, swift as a pan- ther and as cruel where his anger is aroused, yet with . certain elements of greatness: a splendid soldier, an unrivalled administrator, a man preéminently just, if merciless in that same justice. To present Cesare Borgia thus in a plain straight- forward tale at this time of day would be to provoke the scorn and derision of those who have made his acquaintance in the pages of that eminent German scholar, Ferdinand Gregorovius, and of some other writers not quite so eminent yet eminent enough to deserve serious consideration. necessary to examine at close quarters the findings of these great ones, and to present certain criticisms of those same findings. The author is overwhelmingly conscious of the invidious quality of that task; but he is no less conscious of its inevitability if this tale is to be told at all. Hence has it been Whilst the actual sources of historical evidence shall be examined in the course of this narrative. it ) may be well to examine at this stage the sources of the popular conceptions of the Borgias, since there will be no occasion later to allude to them. Without entering here into a dissertation upon the historical romance, it may be said that in proper hands it has been and should continue to be one of the most valued and valuable expressions of the literary art. Torender and maintain it so, however, it is nec- essary that certain well-defined limits should be set upon the licence which its writers are to enjoy; it is necessary that the work should be honest work; that preparation for it should be made by a sound, pains-PREFACE X1il taking study of the period to be represented, to the end that a true impression may first be formed and then conveyed. Thus, considering how much more far-reaching is the novel than any other form of liter- ature, the good results that must wait upon such en- deavours are beyond question. The neglect of them, the distortionof character tosuit the romancer’s ends, the like distortion of historical facts, the gross ana- chronisms arising out of a lack of study, have done much to bring the historical romance into disrepute. Many writers frankly make no pretence — leastways none that can be discerned — of aiming at historical precision; others, however, invest their work with a spurious scholarliness, and in dealing with historical characters go the length of citing authorities to sup- port the point of view which they have taken, and which they lay before you as the fruit of strenuous lucubrations. These are the dangerous ones, and of this type is Victor Hugo’s famous tragedy “‘Lucrezia Borgia,” a work to which perhaps more than to any other (not excepting “Les Borgias” in “Crimes Célebres” of Alexandre Dumas) is due th popular conception that prevails to-day of Cesare Borgia’s sister. It is questionable whether anything has ever flowed from a distinguished pen in w hich so many licences have been taken with the history of individuals and of an epoch; in which there is so rich a crop of crude, transpontine absurdities and flagrant, impossible anachronisms. Victor Hugo was a writer of gifts, a fertile romancer and a poet, and it may be unjust to censure him for having taken the fullest advan- tages of the licences conceded to both. But it wouldXIV PREFACE be difficult to censure him too harshly for having — in his “‘Lucrezia Borgia” — adopted a posture of scholarliness, for having pretended and maintained that his work was honest work founded upon the study of historical evidences. With that piece of charlatanism he deceived the great mass of the un- lettered of France and of all Europe into believing that in his tragedy he presented the true Lucrezia Borgia. “Tf you do not believe me,” he declared, “read Tommaso Tommasi, read the ‘Diary’ of Burchard.” Read, then, that “Diary,” extending over a period of twenty-three years, from 1483 to 1506, of the Mas- ter of Ceremonies of the Vatican (which largely con- tributes the groundwork of the present history), and the one conclusion to which you will be forced is that Victor Hugo himself had never read it, else he would have hesitated to bid you refer to a work which does not support a single line that he has written. As for Tommaso Tommasi — oh, the danger of a little learning! Tommasi’s place among historians is on precisely the same plane as Victor Hugo’s own, or Alexandre Dumas’s. His ‘‘ Vita di Cesare Borgia”’ is on the same historical level as ‘‘Les Borgias,’’ much of which it supplied. Like “Crimes Célébres,”” Tommasi’s book is invested with a certain air of being a narrative of sober fact: but like “‘Crimes Célébres,” it is none the less a work of fiction. This Tommaso Tommasi, whose real name was Gregorio Leti — and it is under this that such works of his as survived were subsequently reprinted — was a most prolific author of the seventeenth century,PREFACE XV who, having turned Calvinist, vented in his writings a mordacious hatred of the Papacy and of the religion from which he had seceded. His romance entitled “The Life of Cesare Borgia” was published in 1670. It enjoyed a considerable vogue, was translated into French, and has been the chief source from which many writers of fiction and some writers of “fact”’ have drawn for subsequent work to carry forward the ceaseless defamation of the Borgias. History should be as inexorable as Divine Justice. Before we admit facts, not only should we call for evidence and analyse it when it is forthcoming, but the very sources of such evidence should be examined, that, as far as possible, we may ascertain what degree of credit they deserve. In the study of the history of the Borgias, we repeat, too much has been accepted without question, and matters have been taken for granted whose incredibility frequently touches and occasionally oversteps the confines of the impos- sible. One man knew Cesare Borgia better, perhaps, than did any other contemporary, of the many who have left more or less valuable records; for the mind of that man was the acutest of its age, one of the acutest Italy and the world have ever known. That man was Niccold Macchiavelli, Secretary of State to the Si- gnory of Florence. He owed no benefits to Cesare; he was the ambassador of a power that was ever hostile to the Borgias; so that it 1s not to be imagined that his judgment suffered from any bias in Cesare’s favour. Yet he accounted Cesare Borgia — as we shall see — the incarnation of the ideal conqueror andXv1 PREFACE ruler; he took Cesare Borgia as the model for his famous work “‘The Prince,”’ written as a strammar of statecraft for the instruction in the art of government of that weakling Giuliano de’ Medici. Macchiavelli pronounces upon Cesare Borgia the following verdict: If all the actions of the Duke are taken into considera- tion, it will be seen how great were the foundations he had laid to future power. U pon these I do not think it super- fluous to discourse, because | should not know what better precept to lay before a new prince than the example of his actions; and if success did not wait upon what dispositions he had made, that was through no fault of his own, but the result of an extraordinary and extreme mal gnity of for- tune. In its proper place shall be considered what else Macchiavelli had to say of Cesare Borgia and what to report of events that he witnessed connected with Cesare Borgia’s career. Meanwhile, the above summary of Macchiavelli’s judgment is put forward as the chief Inspiration of the present work, which |} you the Cesare Borgia wl The Prince.”’ Before doing so, however, tl House of Borgia to be traced the four books into which thi it is Alexander VI, rather tl the centre of the stage. 1as for scope to present to 10 served as the model for ere 1s the rise of the , and in the first two of s history will be divided 1an his son, who will hold The author expresses his indebtedness to the fol- lowing works which, amongst others, have been stud- ied for the purposes of the present history:PREFACE XV1l Alvisi, Odoardo, Cesare Borgia, Duca di Romagna. Imola, 1878. Auton, Jeand’, Chroniques de Louis XII (Soc. de ! Hist. de France). Paris, 1889. Baldi, Bernardino, Della Vita e Fatti di Guidobaldo. MaAlano, 1821. Barthélemy, Charles, Erreurs et Mensonges Historiques. Paris, 1873. Bernardi, Andrea, Cronache Forlivese, 1476-1517. Bologna, 1897 Bonnaffé, Edmond, Inventaire de la Duche ssede I ‘alentinois, Paris, 1878. Bonoli, Paolo, [storie della Citta di Forlt. Forli, 1661. Bourdeilles, Pierre, Vie des Hommes Tilustres. Leyde, 1666. Brown, Rawdon, Ragguagli sulla Vita e sulle Opere di Martino Sanuto. Venezia 1837. Buonaccorsi, Biagic x ario. Firenze, 1568. Burchard, Joannes, Di arium, sive RerumUrbanarum Commentarit. (Edited by L. Thuasne.) Paris, 1885. Burckhardt, Jacob, Der Cultur der Renaissance in Italien. Basel, 1860. Castiglione, Baldassare, // Cortigiano. Firenze, 1885 Chapelles, Grillon des, Esquisses Biographiques. Paris, 1862. Cerri, Domenico, Borgia. Torino, 1857. Clementini1, Geena Raccolto Istorico delle Fondatione di Rimino. Rimini, 1617. Corio, Bernardino, Storia di Milano. Milano, 1885. Corvo, Baron, Chronicles of the House of Borgia. London, 1901. Espinois, Henri de |’, Le Pape « Alexandre VI (in the Revue des Questions Historiques, Vol. XXIX). Paris, 1881. Giovio, Paolo, La Vita di Dicenove Uomini Illustri. Venetia, 1561. Giovio, Paolo, Delle Istorie del Suo Tempo. Venetia, 1608. Giustinianl, Antonios Dispacci, 1502-1505. (Edited by Pasquale Villari.) iene 1876. Granata, F., Storia Civile di Capua. 1752 : Gregorovius, Ferdinand, Geschichte der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter. Stuttgart, 1889. Gregorovius, Ferdinand, Lucrezia Borgia (Italian translation). Firenze, 1855. Guicciardini, Francesco, Jstoria d'Italia. Milan, 1803. Guingené, P. L., Histoire Littéraire d’ Italie. Milano, 1820.XVIll PREFACE Infessura, Stefano, Diarum Rerum Romanum. (Edited by O. Tommassini.) Roma, 1887. Leonetti, A., Papa Alessandro VI. Bologna, 1880. Leti, Gregorio (“Tommaso Tommasi”’), Vita di Cesare Borgia. Milano, 1861. Lucaire, Achille, 4/ain le Grand, Sire d’ Albret. Paris, 1877. Macchiavelli, Niccolé, Z/ Principe. Torino, 1853. Macchiavelli, Niccolé, Le Jstorie Fiorentine. Firenze, 1848. Macchiavelli, Niccolé, Opere Minori. Firenze, 1852. Matarazzo, Francesco, Cronaca della Citta di Perugia, 1492-1503. (Edited by F. Bonaini and F. Polidori.) In Archivio Storico Italiano, Firenze, 1852. Panvinio, Onofrio, Le Vite dei Pontefici. Venezia, 1730. Pascale, Aq., Racconto del Sacco di Capova. Napoli, 1632. Righi, B., Annali di Faenza. Faenza, 1841. Sanazzaro, Opere. Padua, 1723. Sanuto Marino, Diarii, Vols. I to V. (Edited by F. Stefani.) Venice, 1879. Tartt, W. M., Pandolfo Collenuccio; Memoirs connected with hts life. 1868. “Tommaso Tommasi” (Gregorio Leti), Vita di Cesare Borgia. 1789. Varchi, Benedetto, Storia Fiorentina. Florence, 1858. Vasari, Gustavo, Vita degli Artefici. Villari, Pasquale, La Storia di Girolamo Savonarola, etc. Florence, 1861. Villari, Pasquale, Niccold Machiavelli e i Suoi Tempi. Milano, 1895. Yriarte, Charles, La Vie de César Borgia. Paris, 1889. Yriarte, Charles, 4utour des Borgia. Paris, 1891. Zurita, Geronimo, Historia del Rey Don Hernando el Catolico (in Anales). Caragoga, 1610.CONTENTS BOOK I THE HOUSE OF THE BULL I. Tue Rise oF THE HOuSE OF BorGIA 3 II. Tue Rercns or Srxtus IV anp Innocent VIII 15 IlI. ALEXANDER VI IV. BorcorA ALLIANCES BOOK Il THE BULL PASCANT 1. Tue FRENCH INVASION I]. Tue Pope AND THE SUPERNATURAL Ill. Tue Roman Barons IV. Tue Murber OF THE DUKE OF GANDIA V. Tue RENUNCIATION OF THE PURPLE BOOK III THE BULL RAMPANT I. THE DucHEss oF VALENTINOIS Il. THe KNELL OF THE TYRANTS III. ImoLa AND ForLI . GONFALONIER OF THE CHURCH 36 56 79 108 117 140 157 170 181Vs Ale VII. VIII. IX. X. XI. XII. XIII. Deny. XY. XVI. XVII. XVIII. II. III. De CONTENTS Tur MurpDeER or ALFONSO OF ARAGON RIMINI AND PESARO THE SIEGE OF FAENZA AsToRRE MANFREDI CasTEL BoLOGNESE AND PIOMBINO THE Enp oF THE House OF ARAGON THE LETTER TO SILVIO SAVELLI LucREZIA’S THIRD MARRIAGE UrBINO AND CAMERINO THE REVOLT OF THE CONDOTTIERI MACCHIAVELLI S LEGATION RAMIRO DE LORQUA “Tup BEAUTIFUL STRATAGEM THE ZENITH BOOK IV THE BULL CADENT Tue DEATH oF ALEXANDER VI Pius III] Juutius II ATROPOS INDEX © ho a iw tO tO —THE LIFE OF CESARE BORGIA BOOK I THE HOUSE OF THE BULL Borgia stirps: BOS: atque Ceres transcendit Olympo, Cantabat nomen secula cuncta suum. MICHELE FERNOTHE LIFE OF CESARE BORGIA CHAPTER I THE RISE OF THE HOUSE OF BORGIA Ne the House of Borgia, which gave to the Church of Rome two Popes and at least one saint,! is to be traced back to the eleventh cen- tury, claiming as it does to have its source in the Kings of Aragon, we shall take up its history for our purposes with the birth at the city of Xativa, in the Kingdom of Valencia, on December 30, 1378, of Alonso de Borja, the son of Don Juan Domingo de Borja and his wife Dona Francisca. To this Don Alonso de Borja is due the rise of his family to its stupendous eminence. An able, upright, vigorous-minded man, he became a Professor and Doctor of Jurisprudence at the University of Lerida, and afterwards served Alfonso I of Aragon, King of Naples and the Iwo Sicilies, in the capacity of secretary. This office he filled with the distinction that was to be expected from one so peculiarly fitted for it by the character of the studies he had pursued. He was made Bishop of Valencia, created Cardinal in 1444, and finally — in 1455 — ascended the throne 1 Saint Francisco Borgia, S.J. — ereat-grandson of Pope Alexander VI, born at Gandia, in Spain, in 1510.4 THE HOUSE OF THE BULL of Saint Peter as Calixtus III, an old man, enfeebled in body, but with his extraordinary vigour of mind all unimpaired. Calixtus proved himself as much a nepotist as many another Pope before and since. This need not be dilated upon here; suffice it that in February of 1456 he gave the scarlet hat of Cardinal-Deacon of San Niccolé, in Carcere Tulliano, to his nephew Don Roderigo de Lanzol y Borja. Born in 1431 at Xativa, the son of Juana de Borja (sister of Calixtus) and her husband Don Jofré de Lanzol, Roderigo was in his twenty-fifth year at the time of his being raised to the purple, and in the fol- lowing year he was further created Vice-Chancellor of Holy Church with an annual stipend of eight thousand florins. Like his uncle he had studied jurisprudence — at the University of Bologna — and mentally and physically he was extraordinarily endowed. From the pen-portraits left of him by Gasparino of Verona, and Girolamo Porzio, we know him for a tall, handsome man with black eyes and full lips, elegant, courtly, joyous, and choicely eloquent, of such health and vigour and endurance that he was insensible to any fatigue. Giasone Maino of Milan refers to his elegant appearance, serene brow, royal glance, a countenance that at once expresses generosity and majesty, and the genial and heroic air with which his whole personality is invested.” To a similar descrip- tion of him Gasparino adds that ‘all women upon whom he so much as casts his eyes he moves to love him; attracting them as the lodestone attracts iron”: which is, it must be admitted, a most undesirable reputation in a churchman.THE RISE OF THE HOUSE OF BORGIA 5 Pasquale Villari, a modern historian who follows the well-worn track when writing of the Borgias in his ‘Machiavelli e suoi Tempi,” says of Roderigo that ‘he was a man of neither much energy nor determined will,’ and further that “the firmness and energy wanting to his character were, however, often re- placed by the constancy of his evil passions, by which he was almost blinded.” The historical worth of the stricture may be measured by its logical value. How the constancy of evil passions can replace firmness and energy as factors of worldly success is not readily discernible, particularly if their possessor is blinded by them. For the rest, to say that Roderigo Borgia was wanting in energy and in will is to say some- thing of which his whole career reveals the prejudiced absurdity, as will — to some extent at least — be seen in the course of this work. His honours as Cardinal-Deacon and Vice-Chancel- lor of the Holy See he owed to his uncle; but that he maintained and constantly improved his position — and he a foreigner, be it remembered — under the reigns of the four succeeding Popes — Pius I, Paul II, Sixtus IV, and Innocent VIII — until finally, six- and-twenty years after the death of Calixtus III, he, himself, ascended the papal throne, can be due only to the unconquerable energy and stupendous talents which have placed him where he stands in history — one of the greatest forces, for good or ill, that ever occupied Saint Peter’s Chair. Say of him that he was ambitious, worldly, greedy of power, and a prey to carnal lusts. All these he was. But do not let it be said that he was wanting either in energy or in will, for he was energy and will incarnate.THE HOUSE OF THE BULL Consider that when Calixtus III assumed the tiara Rome became the Spaniard’s happy hunting-ground, and that into the Eternal City streamed in their hun- dreds the Catalan adventurers — priests, clerks, cap- tains of fortune, and others — who came to seek ad- vancement at the hands of a Catalan Pope. This Span- ish invasion Rome resented. She grew restive under It. Roderigo’s elder brother, Don Pedro Luis de Lanzol y Borja, was made Gontalonicn of the Church, Cas- tellan of all pontifical fortresses and Governor BE the Patrimony of Saint Peter, with the title of Duke of Spoleto and, later, Prefect of Rome, to the displace- ment of an Orin from that office. Calixtus invested this nephew with all temporal power that it was in the Church’s privilege to bestow, to the end that he might use it asa basis to overset the petty tyrannies of Romagna, and to establish a feudal claim on the Kingdom of Naples. Here already we see more than a hint of that Borgia ambition which was to become a byword, and the first attempt of this family to found a dynasty for itself and a State that should endure bey ond the transient tenure of the Pontificate, an aim that was later to be carried into actual —if ephemeral — fulfilment by Cesare Borgia. The Italians watched this growth of Spanish power with jealous, angry eyes. The mighty House of Orsini, angered by the supplanting of one of its menue: in the Prefecture of Rome, kept its resent- ment warm, and waited. When in August of 1458 Calixtus III lay dying, the Orsini seized the chance: they incited the city to ready insurgence, and with fire and sword they drove the Spaniards out.THE RISE OF THE HOUSE OF BORGIA 7 Don Pedro Luis made haste to depart, contrived to avoid the Orsini, who had made him their special quarry, and getting a boat slipped down the Tiber to Civita Vecchia, where he died suddenly some six weeks later, thereby considerably increasing the wealth of Roderigo, his brother and his heir. How it comes to pass that Roderigo has never been accused of poisoning him is difficult to understand. It is a chance overlooked by historians of the Borgias. Roderigo’s cousin, Don Luis Juan, Cardinal-Pres- byter of Santi Quattro Coronati, another member of the family who owed his advancement to his uncle Calixtus, thought it also expedient to withdraw from a zone so dangerous to men of his nationality and name. Roderigo de Lanzol y Borja alone remained — leastways, the only prominent member of his House — boldly to face the enmity of the majority of the Sacred Coilege, which had looked with grim disfavour upon his uncle’s nepotism. Unintimidated, he en- tered the Conclave for the election of a successor to Calixtus, and there Fortune, who so often prefers to bestow her favours upon him who knows how to profit by them, gave him the opportunity not merely to establish himself as firmly as ever at theVatican, but further to advance his interests. It fell out that when the scrutiny was taken, two cardinals stood well in votes — the brilliant, cultured Enea Silvio Bartolomeo de’ Piccolomini, Cardinal of Siena, and the French Cardinal d’Estouteville — al- though neither had attained the minimum majority demanded. Of these two, the lead in number of votes lay with the Cardinal of Siena, and his election there- fore might be completed by accession — that is, by8 THE HOUSE OF THE BULL the voices of such cardinals as had not originally voted for him — until the minimum majority, which must exceed two-thirds, should be made up. The Cardinal Vice-Chancellor Roderigo de Lanzol y Borja led this accession, with the result that the Car- dinal of Siena became Pontiff — as Pius II — and was naturally enough disposed to advance the interests of the man who had been instrumental in helping him to that eminence. Thus, his position at the Vatican, in the very face of all hostility, became stronger and more prominent than ever. A letter written two years later from the Baths at Petriolo by Pius II to Roderigo when the latter was in Siena — whither he had been sent by His Holiness to superintend the building of the Cathedral and the Episcopal and Piccolomini palaces — is frequently cited by way of establishing the young prelate’s dis- solute ways. It is a letter at once stern and affection- ate, and it certainly leaves no doubt as to what man- ner of man was the Cardinal Vice-Chancellor in his private life, and to what manner of unecclesiastical pursuits he inclined. BELOVED Son, When four days ago, in the gardens of Giovanni de Bichis, were assembled several women of Siena addicted to worldly vanity, your worthiness, as we have learnt, little remembering the office which you fill, was entertained by them from the seventeenth to the twenty-second hour. For companion you had one of your colleagues, one whom his years if not the honour of the Holy See should have re- minded of his duty. From what we have heard, dancing was unrestrainedly indulged, and not one of love’s attractionsTHE RISE OF THE HOUSE OF BORGIA_ 9 was absent, whilst your behaviour was no different from that which might have been looked for in any worldly youth. Touching what happened there, modesty imposes silence. Not only the circumstance itself, but the very name of it is unworthy in one of your rank. The husbands, arents, brothers, and relations of these young women were excluded, in order that your amusements should be the more unbridled. You with a few servants undertook to di- rect and lead those dances. It is said that nothing is now talked of in Siena but your frivolity. Certain it is that here at the baths, where the concourse of ecclesiastics and laity is great, you are the topic of the day. Our displeasure is unutterable, since all this reflects dishonourably upon the sacerdotal estate and office. It will be said of us that we are enriched and promoted not to the end that we may lead blameless lives, but that we may procure the means to 1n- dulge our pleasures. Hence the contempt of us entertained by temporal princes and powers and the daily sarcasms of the laity. Hence also the reproof of our own mode of life when we attempt to reprove others. The very Vicar of Christ is involved in this contempt, since he appears to countenance such things. You, beloved son, have charge of the Bishopric of Valencia, the first of Spain; you are also Vice-Chancellor of the Church; and what renders your con- duct still more blameworthy is that you are among the car- dinals, with the Pope, one of the counsellors of the Holy See. We submit it to your own judgment whether it be- comes your dignity to court young women, to send fruit and wine to her you love, and to have no thought for any- thing but pleasure. We are censured on your account; the blessed memory of your uncle Calixtus is vituperated, since in the judgment of many he was wrong to have conferred so many honours upon you. If you seek excuses in your youth, you are no longer so young that you cannot understand what duties are imposed upon you by your dignity. A car- dinal should be irreproachable, a model of moral conduct toIO | THE HOUSE OF THE BULL all. And what just cause have we for resentment when tem- poral princes bestow upon us titles that are little honour- able, dispute with us our possessions, and attempt to bend us to their will? In truth it is we who inflict these wounds upon ourselves, and it is we who create for ourselves these troubles, undermining more and more each day by our deeds the authority of the Church. Our guerdon is shame in this world and condign punishment in the next. May your prudence therefore set a restraint upon these vanities and keep you mindful of your dignity, and prevent that you be known for a gallant among married and unmarried women. Should similar facts recur, we shall be compelled to signify that they have happened against our will and to our sor- row, and our censure must be attended by your shame. We have always loved you, and we have held you worthy of our favour as a man of upright and honest nature. Act, there- fore, in such a manner that we may maintain such an opin- ion of you, and nothing can better conduce to this than that you should lead a well-ordered life. Your age, which is still such as to promise improvement, admits that we should admonish you paternally. PETRIOLO, Zune 11, 1460. Such a letter is calculated to shock us in our modern notions of a churchman. To us this conduct on the part of a prelate is scandalous beyond words: that it was scandalous even then is obvious from the pontiff’s letter; but that it was scandalous in an infinitely lesser degree is no less obvious from the very fact that the Pontiff wrote that letter (and in such terms) instead of incontinently unfrocking the offender. In considering Roderigo’s conduct, you are to con- sider — as has been urged already — the age in which he lived. You are to remember that it was an age inTHE RISE OF THE HOUSE OF BORGIA 11 which the passions and the emotions wore no such masks as they wear to-day, but went naked and knew no shame of their nakedness; an age in which personal modesty was as little studied as hypocrisy, and in which men wore their vices as openly as their virtues. No amount of simple statement can convey an adequate notion of the corrupt state of the clergy at the time. To form any just appreciation of this, it 1s necessary to take a peep at some of the documents that have survived — such a document, for instance, as that Bull of this Pope Pius II which forbade priests from plying the trades of keeping taverns, gaming- houses, and brothels. Ponder also that under his successor, Sixtus IV, the tax levied upon the courtesans of Rome enriched the pontifical coffers to the extent of some twenty thousand ducats yearly. Ponder further that when the vicar of the libidinous Innocent VIII published in 1490 an edict against the universal concubinage practised by the clergy, forbidding its continuation under pain of excommunication, all that it earned him was the severe censure of the Holy Father, who dis- agreed with the measure and who straightway repealed and cancelled the edict.’ All this being considered, and man being admittedly a creature of his environment, can we still pretend to horror at this Roderigo and at the fact that being the man he was — prelate though he might be — hand- some, brilliant, courted, in the full vigour of youth, and a voluptuary by nature, he should have suc- cumbed to the temptations by which he was sur- rounded? 1 See Burchard’s Diarium, Thuasne Edition, vol. 11, p. 442 ¢f Seq.12 THE HOUSE OF THE BULL One factor only could have caused him to use more restraint — the good example of his peers. That example he most certainly had not. Virtue 1s a comparative estate, when all is said; and before we can find that Roderigo was vile, that he de- serves unqualified condemnation for his conduct, we must ascertain that he was more or less exceptional in his licence, that he was less scrupulous than his fel- lows. Dowe find that? To find the contrary we do not need to go beyond the matter which provoked that letter from the Pontiff. For we see that he was not even alone, as an ecclesiastic, in the adventure; that he had for associate on that amorous frolic one Giacopo Ammanati, Cardinal-Presbyter of San Crisogno, Roderigo’s senior and an ordained priest, which — without seeking to make undue capital out of the circumstance — we may mention that Roderigo was not. He was a Cardinal-Deacon, be it remem- bered.* We know that the very Pontiff who admon- ished these young prelates, though now admittedly a man of saintly ways, had been a very pretty fellow himself in his lusty young days in Siena; we know that Roderigo’s uncle — the Calixtus to whom Pius II refers in that letter as of “blessed memory” — had at least one acknowledged son.? We know that Piero and Girolamo Riario, though styled by Pope Sixtus IV his “nephews,” were generally recognized to be his children. And we know that the numerous bastards of Innocent VIII — Roderigo’s immediate precursor on the pontifical throne — were openly acknowledged 1 He was not ordained priest until 1471, after the election of Sixtus IV. 2 Don Francisco de Borja, born at Valencia in 1441. ® Macchiavelli, Jstorie Fiorentine.THE RISE OF THE HOUSE OF BORGIA 13 by their father. We know, in short, that it was the universal custom of the clergy to forget its vows of celibacy, and to circumvent them by dispensing with the outward form and sacrament of marriage; and we have it on the word of Pius II himself, that “if there are good reasons for enjoining the celibacy of the clergy, there are better and stronger for enjoining them to marry.” What more is there to say? If we must be scan- dalized, let us be scandalized by the times rather than by the man. Upon what reasonable grounds can we demand that he should be different from his fellows; and if we find him no different, what right or reason have we for picking him out and rendering him the object of unparalleled obloquy: If we are to deal justly with Roderigo Borgia, we must admit that, in so far as his concessions to his lusts are concerned, he was a typical churchman of his day; neither more nor less — as will presently grow abundantly clear. It may be objected by some that had such been the case the Pope would never have written him that letter at all. But consider a moment the close relations existing between them. Roderigo was the nephew of the late Pope; in a great measure Pius II owed his election, as we have seen, to Roderigo’s action in the Conclave. That his interest in him apart from that was paternal and affectionate Is shown in every line of that letter. And consider further that Roderigo’s companion is shown to be equally guilty in so far as the acts themselves are concerned, guilty in a greater degree when we remember his seniority and his actual priesthood. Yet to Cardinal Ammanati the Pope does14 THE HOUSE OF THE BULL not appear to have sent any such admonition. Is not that sufficient proof that his admonition of Roderigo was dictated purely by his personal affection for him? In this same year 1460 was born to Cardinal Roderigo a son — Don Pedro Luis de Borja — by a spinster (mulier soluta) unnamed. This son was publicly acknowledged and cared for by the Cardinal. Seven years later —in 1467 — he became the father of a daughter — Girolama de Borja — by a spinster, whose name again does not transpire. Like Pedro Luis she too was openly acknowledged by Cardinal Roderigo. It was widely believed that this child’s mother was Madonna Giovanna de’ Catanei, who soon became quite openly the Cardinal’s mistress, and was maintained by him in such state as might have become a maitresse en titre. But, as we shall see later, the fact of that maternity of Girolama is doubt- ful in the extreme. It was never established, and it is difficult to understand why not if it were the fact. Meanwhile Paul II — Pietro Barbo, Cardinal of Venice — had succeeded Pius II in 1464, and in 1471 the latter was in his turn succeeded by the formidable Sixtus [V — Cardinal Francesco Maria della Rovere —a Franciscan of the lowest origin, who by his energy and talents had become general of his order and had afterwards been raised to the dignity of the purple. It was Cardinal Roderigo de Tanz y Borja who, in his official capacity of Archdeacon of Holy Church, performed the ceremony of coronation and placed the triple crown on the head of Pope Sixtus. It is probable that this was his last official act as Archdeacon, for in that same year 1471, at the age of forty, he was, at last, ordained priest and consecrated Bishop of Albano.CHAPTER II THE REIGNS OF SIXTUS IV AND INNOCENT VIII HE rule of Sixtus was as vigorous as it was scandalous. To say —as has been said — that with his succession to Saint Peter’s Chair came for the Church a still sadder time than that which had receded it, is not altogether true. Politically, at least, Sixtus did much to strengthen the position of the Holy See and of the Pontificate. He was not long in giving the Roman factions a taste of his stern quality. If he employed unscrupulous means, he employed them against unscrupulous men — on the sound principle of similia similibus curantur and to some extent they were justified by the ends in view. He found the temporal throne of the Pontifts tottering when he ascended it. Stefano Porcaro and his distinguished following already in 1453 had at- tempted the overthrow of the pontifical authority, inspired, no doubt, by the attacks that had been levelled against it by the erudite and daring Lorenzo Valla. This Valla was the distinguished translator of Homer, Herodotus, and Thucydides, and more than any one of his epoch he advanced the movement of Greek and Latin learning, which, whilst it had the effect of arresting the development of Italian lit- erature, enriched Europe by opening up to it the sources of ancient erudition, of philosophy, poetry, and literary taste. Towards the year 1435 he drifted16 THE HOUSE OF THE BULL to the court of Alfonso of Aragon, whose secretary he ultimately became. Some years later he attacked the Temporal Power and urged the secularization of the States of the Church. “‘Ut Papa,” he wrote, “‘tantum Vicarius Christi sit, et non etiam Cesari.” In his “De falso credita et ementita Constantini Donatione,” he showed that the decretals of the Do- nation of Constantine, upon which rests the Pope’s claim to the Pontifical States, was an impudent forgery; that Constantine had never had the power to give, nor had given, Rome to the Popes, and that they had no right to govern there. He backed up this formidable indictment by a round attack upon the clergy, its general corruption and its practices of simony; and as a result he fell into the hands of the Inquisition. There it might have gone very ill with him had not King Alfonso rescued him from the clutches of that dread priestly tribunal. Meanwhile, he had fired his petard. If a pretext had been wanting to warrant the taking up of arms against the Papacy, that pretext Valla had afforded. Never was the temporal power of the Church in such danger, and ultimately it must inevitably have suc- cumbed but for the coming of so strong and unscru- pulous a man as Sixtus IV to stamp out the patri- cian factions that were heading the hostile move- ment. His election, it is generally admitted, was simonia- cal; and by simony he raised the funds necessary for his campaign to reéstablish and support the papal authority. This simony of his, says Dr. Jacob Burck- hardt, quoting Battista Mantovano,! ‘ ‘grew to un- 1 De Calamitatibus Temporum, |. iti.SIXTUS IV AND INNOCENT VIII 17 heard-of proportions, and extended from the appoint- ment of cardinals down to the sale of the smallest benefice.” Had he employed these means of raising funds for none but the purpose of putting down the assailants of the Pontificate, a measure of justification (political if not ecclesiastical) might be argued in his favour. Un- fortunately, having discovered these ready sources of revenue, he continued to exploit them for purposes far less easy to condone. As a nepotist Sixtus was almost unsurpassed in the history of the Papacy. Four of his nephews and their aggrandizement were the particular objects of his attentions, and two of these — as we have already said — Piero and Girolamo Riario, were universally recognized to be his sons. Piero, who was a simple friar of twenty-six years of age at the time that his father became Pope, was given the Archbishopric of Florence, made Patriarch of Constantinople, and created Cardinal to the title of San Sisto, with a revenue of sixty thousand crowns. We have it on the word of Cardinal Ammanati * — the same gentleman who, with Roderigo de Lanzol y Borja, made so scandalously merry in De Bichis’s garden at Siena — that Cardinal Riario’s luxury “exceeded all that had been displayed by our fore- fathers or that can even be imagined by our descend- ants”: and Macchiavelli? tells us that, “although of very low origin and mean rearing, no sooner had he obtained the scarlet hat than he displayed a pride and ambition so vast that the Pontificate seemed too small for him, and he gave a feast in Rome which 1 Ina letter to Francesco Gonzaga, ~ * Istorie Fiorentine.18 THE HOUSE OF THE BULL would have appeared extraordinary even for a king, the expense exceeding twenty thousand florins.” Knowing so much, it is not difficult to understand that in one year or less he should have dissipated two hundred thousand florins, and found himself in debt to the extent of a further sixty thousand. In 1473, Sixtus being at the time all but at war with Blovences: ‘this Cardinal Riario visited Venice and Milan. In the latter State he was planning with Duke Galeazzo Maria that the latter should become King of Lombardy, and then assist him with money and troops to master Rome and ascend the papal throne — which, it appears, Sixtus was quite willing to yield to him — thus putting the Papacy on a hereditary basis like any other secular State. It is as well, perhaps, that he should have died on his return to Rome in January of 1474 — worn out by his excesses and debaucheries, say some; of poison administered by the Venetians, say others, including Macchiavelli — leaving a mass Gflebes cortura@redn in his transactions with the World, the Flesh, and the Devil, to be cleared up by the Wicd of Ghree His brother Girolamo, meanwhile, had married Caterina Sforza, a natural daughter of Duke Galeazzo Maria. She brought him as her dowry the city of Imola, and in addition to this he received from His Holiness the city of Forli, to which end the Ordelafi were dispossessed of it. Here : again we have a papal attempt to found a family dynasty, and an attempt that might have been carried further under circum- stances more propitious and had not Death come to check their schemes. The only one of the four “nephews” of Sixtus —SIXTUS IV AND INNOCENT VIII 19 and to this one was imputed no nearer kinship — who was destined to make any lasting mark in history was Giuliano della Rovere. He was raised by his uncle to the purple with the title of San Pietro in Vincoli, and thirty-two years later he was to become Pope (as # Julius II). Of him we shall hear much in the course of this story. Under the pontificate of Sixtus IV the position and ‘influence of Cardinal Roderigo were greatly increased, for once again the Spanish Cardinal had made the most of his opportunities. As at the election of Pius II, so at the election of Sixtus IV it was Cardi- nal Roderigo who led the act of accession which gave the new Pope his tiara, and for this act Roderigo — ‘+n common with the Cardinals Orsini and Gonzaga who acceded with him — was richly rewarded and advanced, receiving as his immediate guerdon the wealthy Abbey of Subiaco. At about this time, 1470, must have begun the relations between Cardinal Roderigo and Giovanna Catanei, or Vannozza Catanei, as she is styled in contemporary documents — Vannozza being a cor- ruption or abbreviation of Giovannozza, an afftec- tionate augmentative of Giovanna. Who she was, or whence she came, are facts that have never been ascertained. She is generally assumed to have been a Roman; but there are no obvious grounds for the assumption, her name, for instance, being common to many parts of Italy. And just as we have no sources of information upon her origin, neither have we any certain elements from which to paint her portrait. Gregorovius rests the probability that she was beautiful upon the known characteristics20 THE HOUSE OF THE BULL and fastidious tastes of the Cardinal. Since it is un- thinkable that such a man would have been capti- vated by an ugly woman or would have been held by a stupid one, it is not unreasonable to conclude that she was beautiful and ready-witted. All that we do know of her up to the time of her liaison with Cardinal Roderigo is that she was born on July 13, 1442, this fact being ascertainable by a simple calculation from the elements afforded by the inscription on her tomb in Santa Maria del Popolo: Vix ann. Lxxvi m. Iv d. xu Objit anno mpxvimt xxv1, Nov. And again, just as we know nothing of her family origin, neither have we any evidence of what her circumstances were when she c caught the magnetic eye of Cardinal Roderigo de Lanzol y Borja — or Borgia as by now his name, which had undergone italianiza- tion, was more generally spelled. Infessura states in his diaries that Roderigo desir- ing later — as Pope Alexander VI — to create car- dinal his son by her, Cesare Borgia, he caused false witness to be borne to the fact that Cesare was the legitimate son of one Domenico d@’ Arignano, to whom he, the Pope, had in fact married her. Guicciardini ! makes the same statement, without, however, men- tioning the name of this D’Arignano. Now, bastards were by canon law excluded from the purple, and it is probably upon this circumstance that both Infessura and Guicciardini have built the assumption that some such means as these had been adopted to circumvent the law, and — as so often happens in chronicles concerning the Borgias — the 1 [storia d’ Italia.SIXTUS IV AND INNOCENT VIII 21 mere assumption is presented as a proven fact. But there were other methods of circumventing awkward commandments, and, unfortunately for the accuracy of these statements by Infessura and Guicciardini, it is ascertainable that another method was adopted in this instance. As early as 1480, Pope Sixtus [V had eranted Cesare Borgia — in a Bull dated October ist ! — dispensation from proving the legitimacy of his birth. This entirely removed the necessity for any such subsequent measures as those which are suggested by these chroniclers. Moreover, had Cardinal Roderigo desired to fasten the paternity of Cesare on another, there was ready to his hand Vannozza’s actual husband, Giorgio della Croce.2. When exactly this man became her husband is not to be ascertained. All that we know 1s that he was so in 1480, and that she was living with him in that year in a house in Piazza Pizzo di Merlo (now Piazza Sforza Cesarini), not far from the house on Banchi Vecchi which Cardinal Roderigo, as Vice- Chancellor, had converted into a palace for himself, and a palace so sumptuous as to excite the wonder of that magnificent age. This Giorgio della Croce was a Milanese, under the protection of Cardinal Roderigo, who had obtained for him a post at the Vatican as apostolic secretary. According to some, he married him to Vannozza in order to afford her an official husband and thus cloak his own relations with her. It is an assumption which 1 See the supplement to the Appendix of Thuasne’s edition of Burchard’s Diarium. 2 —D’Arignano story. appears to be as much a fiction as the rest of Infessura’s22 THE HOUSE OF THE BULL you will hesitate to accept. If we know our Cardinal Roderigo at all, he was never the man to pursue his pleasures in a Roletint: corner fashion, nor one to be- think him of a cloak for his amusements. Had he but done so, scandalmongers would have had less to fasten upon in their work of playing havoc with his reputation. What is far more likely is that della Croce owed Cardinal Roderigo’s protection and the appointment as apostolic secretary to his own complacency in the matter of his wife’s relations with the splendid prelate. However we look at it, the figure cut in this story by della Croce is not heroic. Between the years 1474 and 1476, Vannozza bore Roderigo two sons, Cesare Borgia (afterwards Car- dinal of Valencia aad Duke of Valentinois), the cen- tral figure of our story, and Giovanni Borgia (after- wards Duke of Gandia). Lucrezia Borgia, we know from documentary evi- dence before us, was born on April 19, 1479. But there is a mystery about the precise respective ages of Vannozza’s two eldest sons, and we fear that at this time of day it has become impossible to estab- lish beyond reasonable doubt which was the first- born; and this in spite of the documents discovered by Gregorovius and his assertion that they remove all doubt and enable him definitely to assert that Gio- vanni was born in 1474 and Cesare 1n 1476. Let us look at these documents. They are letters from ambassadors to their masters; probably correct, and the more credible since they happen to agree and corroborate one another; still, not so utterly and abso- lutely reliable as to suffice to remove the doubts en-SIXTUS IV AND INNOCENT VIII 23 gendered by the no less reliable documents whose evi- dence contradicts them. The first letters quoted by Gregorovius are from the ambassador Gianandrea Boccaccio to his master, the Duke of Ferrara, in 1493. In these he mentions Ce- sare Borgia as being sixteen toseventeen years of ageat the time. But the very manner of writing — “sixteen to seventeen years” — is a common way of vaguely suggesting age rather than positively stating it. So we may pass that evidence over, as of secondary 1m- portance. Next is a letter from Gerardo Saraceni to the Duke of Ferrara, dated October 26, 1501, and it is more valuable, claiming as it does to be the relation of something which His Holiness told the writer. It isin the post-scriptum that this ambassador says: “The Pope gave me to understand that the said Duchess ([Lucrezia Borgia] will complete twenty-two years of age next April, and at that same time the Duke of Ro- magna will complete his twenty-sixth year.” * This certainly fixes the year of Cesare’s birth as 1476; but we are to remember that Saraceni is speak- ing of something that the Pope had recently told him; exactly how recently does not transpire. An error would easily be possible in so far as the age of Cesare ‘s concerned. In so far as the age of Lucrezia is con- cerned, an error is not only possible, but has actually been committed by Saraceni. At least the age given in his letter is wrong by one year, as we know by a legal document drawn up in February of 1491 — Lu- 1 “Facendomi intendere che epsa Duchessa é di etA di anni ventidul, lt quali finiranno a questo Aprile; in el qual tempo anche lo Illmo. Duca di Romagna fornir4 anni ventisel.”24 THE HOUSE OF THE BULL crezia’s contract of marriage with Don Juan Cherubin de Centelles.} According to this protocol in old Spanish, dated February 26, 1491, Lucrezia completed her twelfth year on April 19, 1491,” which definitely and posi- tively gives us the date of her birth as April 19, 1479. A quite extraordinary error is that made by Gre- gorovius when he says that Lucrezia Borgia was born on April 18, 1480, extraordinary considering that he made it apparently with this very protocol under his eyes, and cites it, in fact (Document IV in the Appen- dix to his “Lucrezia Borgia’’) as his authority. To return, however, to Cesare and Giovanni, there is yet another evidence quoted by Gregorovius in sup- port of his contention that the latter was the elder and born in 1474; but it is of the same nature and of no more, nor less, value than those already mentioned. Worthy of more consideration in view of their greater official and legal character are the Ossuna doc- uments, given in the Supplement of the Appendix in Thuasne’s edition of Burchard’s “Diary,” namely: (a) October 1, 1480. A Bull from Sixtus IV, already mentioned, dispensing Cesare from proving his legit- imacy. In this he is referred to as in his sixth year — “in sexto tuo etatis anno.” This, assuming Boccaccio’s letter to be correct in the matter of April being the month of Cesare’s birth, fixes the year of his birth as 1475. (4) dugust 16, 1482. A Bull of Sixtus IV, appoint- ing Roderigo Borgia administrator of Cesare’s bene- 1 A contract never executed. * “Item mes attenent que dita Dona Lucretia a xviiii de Abril prop. vinent entrara in edat de dotze anys.”SIXTUS IV AND INNOCENT VIII 25 fices. In this he is mentioned as being seven years of age (that is, presumably, in his eighth year), which again gives us his birth-year as 1475. (c) September 12, 1484. A Bull of Sixtus IV, ap- pointing Cesare treasurer of the Church of Carthage. In this he is mentioned as in his ninth year — “in nono tuo ztatis anno.” This is at variance with the other two, and gives us 1476 as the year of his birth. To these evidences, conflicting as they are, may be added Burchard’s mention in his “‘ Diary” under date of September 12, 1491, that Cesare was then seven- teen years of age. This would make him out to have been born in 1474. Clearly the matter cannot definitely be settled upon such evidence as we have. All that we can positively assert is that he was born between the years 1474 and 1476, and we cannot, we think, do better for the pur- poses of this story than assume his birth-year to have been 1475. We know that between those same years, or in one or the other of them, was born Giovanni Borgia; but just as the same confusion prevails with regard to his exact age, so is it impossible to determine with any finality whether he was Cesare’s junior or senior. The one document that appears to us to be the most important in this connection is that of the in- scription on their mother's tomb. This runs: FAUSTIE CATHANZ, CESARE VALENTIN, JOHANN-E CANDIA, JUFFREDO SCYLATII, ET LUCRETIA FERRARIZ© DUCIB. FILIIS NOBILI PROBITATE INSIGNI, RELIGIONE EXIMIA, ETC., ETC.26 THE HOUSE OF THE BULL If Giovanni was, as is claimed, the eldest of her children, why does his name come second? If Cesare was her second son, why does his name take the first place on that inscription? It has been urged that if Cesare was the elder of these two, he, and not Giovanni, would have suc- ceeded to the Duchy of Gandia on the death of Pedro Luis — Cardinal Roderigo’s eldest son, by an un- known mother. But that does not follow inevitably; for it is to be remembered that Cesare was already destined for an ecclesiastical career, and it may well be that his father was reluctant to change his plans. Meanwhile the turbulent reign of Sixtus IV went on, until his ambition to increase his dominions had the result of plunging the whole of Italy into war. Lorenzo de’ Medici had thwarted the Pope’s pur- poses in Romagna, coming to the assistance of Citta di Castello when this was attacked in the Pope’s interest by the warlike Giuliano della Rovere. To avenge himself for this, and to remove a formidable obstacle to his family’s advancement, the Pope in- spired the Pazzi conspiracy against the lives of the famous masters of Florence. The conspiracy failed; for although Giuliano de’ Medici fell stabbed to the heart — before Christ’s altar, and at the very moment of the elevation of the Host — Lorenzo escaped with slight hurt, and, by the very risk to which he had been exposed, rallied the Florentines to himself more closely than ever. Open war was the only bolt remaining in the papal quiver, and open war he declared, preluding it by a Bull of Excommunication against the Florentines.SIXTUS IV AND INNOCENT VIII 27 Naples took sides with the Pope. Venice and Milan came to the support of Florence, whereupon Milan’s attentions were diverted to her own affairs, Genoa be- ing cunningly set in revolt against her. In 1480 a peace was patched up; but it was short- lived. A few months later war flared out again from the Holy See, against Florence this time, and on the pretext of its having joined the Venetians against the Pope in the late war. A complication now arose, created by the Venetians, who seized the opportunity to forward their own ambitions and increase their territories on the mainland, and upon a pretext of the pettiest themselves declared war upon Ferrara. Genoa and some minor tyrannies were drawn into the uarrel on the one side, whilst on the other Florence, Naples, Mantua, Milan, and Bologna stood by Fer- rara. Whilst the papal forces were holding in check the Neapolitans who sought to pass north to aid Fer- rara, whilst the Roman Campagna was being har- assed by the Colonna, and Milan was engaged with Genoa, the Venetians invested Ferrara, forced her to starvation and to yielding-point. Thereupon the Pope, perceiving the trend of affairs, and that the only likely profit to be derived from the campaign would lie with Venice, suddenly changed sides that he might avoid a contingency so far removed from all his aims. He made a treaty with Naples, and permitted the Neapolitan army passage through his territories, of which they availed themselves to convey supplies to Ferrara and neutralize the siege. At the same time the Pope excommunicated the Venetians, and urged all Italy to make war upon them. In this fashion the campaign dragged on to every28 THE HOUSE OF THE BULL one’s disadvantage and without any decisive battle fought, until at last the peace of Bagnolo was con- cluded in August of 1484, and the opposing armies withdrew from Ferrara. The news of it literally killed Sixtus. When the ambassadors divulged to him the terms of the treaty he was thrown into a violent rage, and declared the peace to be at once shameful and humiliating. The gout from which he suffered flew to his heart, and on the following day — August 12, 1484 — he died. Two things he did during his reign to the material advantage of the Church, however much he may have neglected the spiritual. He strengthened her hold upon her temporal possessions and he enriched the Vatican by the addition of the Sistine Chapel. For the decoration of this he procured the best Tuscan talent of his day — and of many days — and brought Alessandro Filipeppi (Botticelli), Pietro Vannuccio (I] Perugino), and Domenico Bigordi (Il Ghirlandajo) from Florence to adorn its walls with their frescoes.? In the last years of the reign of Pope Sixtus, Car- dinal Roderigo’s family had suffered a loss and under- gone an increase. In 1481 Vannozza bore him another son — Giuf- fredo Borgia, and in the following year died his eldest son (by an unknown mother) Pedro Luis de Borgia, who had reached the age of twenty-two and was be- trothed at the time of his decease to the Princess Maria d’ Aragona. In January of that same year, 1482, Cardinal Ro- ‘The glory of the Sistine Chapel, however, is Michelangelo’s “Last Judgment,” which was added later, in the reign of Pope Julius II (Giuliano della Rovere).SIXTUS IV AND INNOCENT VIII 29 derigo had married his daughter Girolama— now aged £fteen — to Giovanni Andrea Cesarini, the scion of a patrician Roman house. The alliance strengthened the bonds of good feeling which for some considerable time had prevailed between the two families. Unfor- tunately the young couple were not destined to many years of life together, as in 1483 both died. All that we know of Cesare at this period 1s confined to what we can glean from the papal bulls conferring several benefices upon him. In July, 1482, he was granted the revenues from the prebendals and canonries of Valencia; in the following month he was appointed Canon of Valencia and apos- tolic notary. In April, 1484, he was made Provost of Alba, and in September of the same year Treasurer of the Church of Carthage. No doubt he was living with his mother, his brothers, and his sister at the house +n the Piazza Pizzo di Merlo, where an ample if not magnificent establishment was maintained. By this time Cardinal Roderigo’s wealth and power had grown to stupendous proportions, and he lived in a splendour well worthy of his lofty rank. He was now fifty-three years of age, still retaining the air and vigour of a man in his very prime, which, no doubt, he owed as much as to anything to his abstemious and singularly sparing table-habits. He derived a stupen- dous income from his numerous abbeys in Italy and Spain, his three bishoprics of Valencia, Porto, and Carthage, and his ecclesiastical offices, among which the Vice-Chancellorship alone yielded him annually eight thousand florins.* 1 The gold florin, ducat, or crown was equal to ten shillings of our pres- ent money, and had a purchasing power of six or seven times that amount.30 THE HOUSE OF THE BULL Volterra refers with wonder to the abundance of his plate, to his pearls, his gold embroideries, and his books, the splendid equipment of his beds, the trap- | I ) } ping gold, y S s of his horses, and other similar furnishings in in silver, and in silk. In short, he was the wealthiest Prince of the Church of his day, and he lived with a magnificence worthy of a king or of the Pope himself. Of the actual man, Volterra, writing in 1486, says: “He is of a spirit capable of anything, and of a great intelligence. A ready speaker, and of distinction, not- withstanding his indifferent literary culture; . naturally astute, and of marvellous talent in the conduct of affairs.’ In the year in which Volterra wrote of Cardinal Roderigo in such terms Vannozza was left a widow by the death of Giorgio della Croce. Her widowhood was short, however, for in the same year — on June 6th — he took a cerontl husband. This was Carlo Canale, a Mantovese scholar who had served Cardmal Francesco Gonzaga in the capacity of chamberlain, and who had come to Rome on the death of his pa- tron. The marriage contract shows that by this time Vannozza had removed her residence to Piazza Branchis. In addition to this she had acquired a villa with its beautiful gardens and vineyards in the Su- burra near San Se in Vincoli. She is also known to have been the proprietor of an inn — the Albergo del Leone — in Via del Orso, opposite the Torre di Nona, for she figures with della Croce in a contract regard. ing a lease of it in 1483. With her entrance into second nuptials, her rela-SIXTUS IV AND INNOCENT VIII 31 tions with Cardinal Roderigo came to an end, and his two children by her, then in Rome — Lucrezia and Giuffredo — went to take up their residence with Adriana Orsini (née De Mila) at the Orsini Palace on Monte Giordano. This Adriana Orsini was a cousin of Roderigo’s, and the widow of Lodovico Orsini, by whom she had a son, Orso Orsini, who from early youth had been betrothed to Giulia Farnese, the daughter of a patrician family, still comparatively obscure, but destined through this very girl to rise to conspicuous eminence, For her surpassing beauty this Giulia Farnese has been surnamed La Bella — and as Giulia La Bella was she known in her day — and she has been immor- talized by Pinturicchio and Guglielmo della Porta. She sat to the former as a model for his Madonna in the Borgia Tower of the Vatican, and to the latter for the statue of Truth which adorns the tomb of her brother Alessandro Farnese, who became Pope Paul III. Here in Adriana Orsini’s house, where his daugh- ter Lucrezia was being educated, Cardinal Roderigo, now at the mature age of some six-and-fifty years, made the acquaintance and became enamoured of this beautiful golden-headed Giulia, some forty years his junior. To the fact that she presently became his mistress — somewhere about the same time that sbe became Orso Orsini’s wife — is due the sudden rise of the House of Farnese. This began with her handsome, dissolute brother Alessandro’s elevation to the purple by her lover, and grew to vast proportions during his subsequent and eminently scandalous occupation of the papal throne as Paul III.32 THE HOUSE OF THE BULL In the year 1490 Lucrezia was the only one of Ro- derigo’s children by Vannozza who remained in Rome. Giovanni Borgia was in Spain, whither he had gone on the death of his brother Pedro Luis, to take posses- sion of the Duchy of Gandia, which the power of his father’s wealth and vast influence at the Valencian Court had obtained for that same Pedro Luis. To this Giovanni now succeeded. Cesare Borgia — now aged fifteen — had for some two years been studying his humanities in an atmos- phere of Latinity at the Sapienza of Perugia. There, if we are to believe the praises of him uttered by Pom- pilio, he was already revealing his unusual talents and a precocious wit. In the preface of the ‘ ‘Syllabica on the Art of Prosody” dedicated to him by Pompilio, the latter hails him as the hope and ornament of the House of Borgia — “Borgize familie spes et decus.” From Perugia he was moved in 1491 to the famous University of Pisa, a college frequented by the best youth of Italy. For preceptor he had Giovanni Vera of Arcilla, a Spanish gentleman who was later created a cardinal by Cesare’s father. There in Pisa Cesare maintained an establishment of a magnificence in keeping with his father’s rank and with the example set him by that same father. It was Cardinal Roderigo’s wish that Cesare should follow an ecclesiastical career; and the studies of canon law which he pursued under Filippo Decis, the most celebrated lecturer on canon law of his day, were such as peculiarly to fit him for that end and for the highest honours the Church might have to bestow upon him later. At the age of seventeen, while still at Pisa, he was appointed prothonotary of the Church and preconized Bishop of Pampeluna.SIXTUS IV AND INNOCENT VIII 33 Sixtus IV died, as we have seen, in August, 1482. The death of a Pope was almost invariably the sig- nal for disturbances in Rome, and they certainly were not wanting on this occasion. The Riario palaces were stormed and looted, and Girolamo Riario— the Pope’s “nepot” — threw himself into the castle of Sant’ An- gelo with his forces. The Orsini and Colonna were in arms, “so that ina few days incendiarism, robbery, and murder raged in several parts of the city. The cardinals besought the Count to surrender the castle to the Sacred College, withdraw his troops, and deliver Rome from the fear of his forces: and he, that he might win the favour of 1 the future Pope, obeyed, and withdrew to Imola.” The cardinals, having thus contrived to restore some semblance of order, proceeded to the creation of a new Pontiff, and a Genoese, Giovanni Battista Cibo, Cardinal of Malfetta, was elected and took the name of Innocent VIII. Again, as in the case of Sixtus, there is no lack of those who charge this Pontiff with having obtained his election by simony. According to scandal-mon- gers, the Cardinals Giovanni d’ Aragona (brother to the King of Naples) and Ascanio Sforza (brother of Lodovico, Duke of Milan) disposed of their votes in the most open and shameless manner, practi- cally putting them up for sale to the highest bidder. Italy rang with the scandal of it, he assures us. Under Innocent’s lethargic rule the Church again began to lose much of the vigour with which Sixtus had inspired it. If the reign of Sixtus had been scan- dalous, infinitely worse was that of Innocent — a sor- 1 Macchiavelli, [storie Fiorentine.34 THE HOUSE OF THE BULL did, grasping sensualist, without even the one redeem- ing virtue of strength that had been his predecessor’s. Nepotism had characterized many previous pontifi- cates; open paternity was to characterize his, for he was the first Pope who, in flagrant violation of canon law, acknowledged his children for his own. He pro- ceeded to provide for some seven bastards, and that provision appears to have been the only aim and scope of his pontificate.’ Not content with raising money by the sale of pre- ferments, Innocent established a traffic in indul- gences, the like of which had never been seen before. In the Rome of his day you might, had you the money, buy anything, from a cardinal’s hat toa par- don for the murder of your father. The most conspicuous of his bastards was Fran- cesco Cibo — conspicuous chiefly for the cupidity which distinguished him as it distinguished the Pope his father. For the rest he was a poor-spirited fellow who sorely disappointed Lorenzo de’ Medici, whose daughter Maddalena he received in marriage. Lo- renzo had believed that, backed by the Pope’s influ- ence, Hrancesco would establish for himself a dynasty in Romagna. But father and son were alike too inver- tebrate — the one to inspire, the other to execute, any such designs as had already been attempted by the nepots of Calixtus III and Sixtus IV. Under the weak and scandalous rule of Innocent VIII, Rome appears to have been abandoned to the 1 From among the inevitable contemporary lampoons may be culled the following: “Octo nocens pueros genuit, totidemque puellas, Flunc merito poterit dicere Roma patrem.”SIXTUS IV AND INNOCENT VIII eos most utter lawlessness. Anarchy, robbery, and mur- der preyed upon the city. No morning dawned with- out revealing corpses in the streets; and if by chance the murderer was caught, there was pardon for him ‘f he could afford to buy it, or Tor’ di Nona and the hangman’s noose if he could not. It is not wonderful that when at last Innocent Vill died, Infessura should have blessed the day that rid the world of such a monster. But his death did not happen until 1492. A feeble old man, he had become subject to lethargic or cata- leptic trances, which had several times already de- ceived those in attendance into believing him dead. He grew weaker and weaker, and it became impos- sible to nourish him upon anything but human milk. Towards the end came, Infessura tells us, a Hebrew physician who claimed to havea prescription by which he could save the Pope’s life. For his infusion! he needed young human blood, and to obtain it he took three boys of the age of ten, and gave them a ducat apiece for as much as he might require of them. Un- fortunately he took so much that the three boys 1n- continently died of his phlebotomy, and the Hebrew was obliged to take to flight to save his own life, for the Pope, being informed of what had taken place, execrated the deed and ordered the physician's arrest. “Tudeus quidem aufugit, et Papa sanatus non est,” concludes Infessura. Innocent VIII breathed his last on July 25, 1492- afforded by later writers, that this 1 The silly interpretation of this because unthinkable pted transfusion of blood — silly, physician attem new nothing of the circulation of the blood — has in an age which k already been exploded.CHAPTER III ALEXANDER VI HE ceremonies connected with the obsequies of Pope Innocent VIII lasted — as prescribed — nine days; they were concluded on August 5, 1492, and, says Infessura naiv ely, “‘sic finita fuit eius me- moria.’ The Sacred College consisted at the time of twenty- seven cardinals, four of whom were absent at distant sees and image to reach Rome in time for the immur- ing of the Conclave. The twenty-three present were, in the order of their seniority: Roderigo Borgia, Oli viero Caraffa, Giuliano della Rovere, Battista Zeno, Giovanni Michieli, Giorgio Costa, (Giralane della Rovere, Paolo Fregosi, “Te manatee della Rovere, Giovanni dei Conti, Giovanni Giacomo Sclafetani, Lorenzo Cibo, Ardicino della Porta, Antoniotto Pallavicino, Mafteo Gerardo, Francesco Piccolomini, Raffaele Riario, Giovanni Battista Savelli, Giovanni Colonna, Giovanni Orsini, Ascanio Maria Sforza, Giovanni de’ Medici, and Francesco Sanseverino. On August 6th they assembled in Saint Peter’s to hear the Sacred Mass of the Holy Ghost, which was celebrated by Giuliano della Rovere on the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles, and to listen to the dis- course “Pro eligendo Pontefice,” delivered by the learned and eloquent Bishop of Carthage. Thereafter the Cardinals swore upon the Gospels faithfully toALEXANDER VI 37 observe their trust, and thereupon the Conclave was immured. According to the dispatches of Valori, the Ferrarese ambassador in Rome, it was expected that either the Cardinal of Naples (Oliviero Caraffa) or the Cardinal of Lisbon (Giorgio Costa) would be elected to the Pontificate; and according to the dispatch of Cava- lieri, the ambassador of Modena,’ the King of France had deposited two hundred thousand ducats with a Roman banker to forward the election of Giuliano della Rovere, who was backed also by Genoa, to the extent of one hundred thousand ducats. Neverthe- less, early on the morning of August 11th it was an- nounced that Roderigo Borgia was elected Pope, and we have it on the word of Valori that the election was unanimous, for he wrote on the morrow to the Council of Eight (the Signory of Florence) that after long con- tention Alexander VI was created ““omnium consen- sum — ne li manco un solo voto.”’ The subject of this election is one with which we rarely find an author dealing temperately. To vitu- perate in superlatives is the common practice of most who have taken in hand this and other episodes in the history of the Borgias. Every fresh writer who comes to the task seems inspired by the desire to emulate his forerunners, allowing his pen to riot zestfully in the accumulation of scandalous matter, and seeking to increase by a degree or two if possible its lurid quality. Asa rule there is not even an attempt made to put forward evidence in substantiation of any thing that is alleged. Wild and sweeping statement takes the place that should be held by reasoned comment. 1 In Atti e Memorie di Storia Patria.THE HOUSE OF THE BULL “TTe was the worst Pontiff that ever filled Saint Peter’s Chair,’ is one of these sweeping statements, culled from the pages of an able, modern Italian AEN whose writings, sound in all that concerns other matters, are strewn with the most foolish ex- travagances and flagrant inaccuracies in connection with Alexander VI and his family. To say of him, as that writer says, that “he was the worst Pontiff that ever filled Saint Peter’s Chair,” can only be justified by an utter ignorance of papal history. You have but to compare him calmly and honestly — your mind stripped of preconceptions — with the wretched and wholly contemptible Innocent VIII whom he succeeded, or with the latter’s precur- sor, the terrible Sixtus IV. That he was better than these men, morally or ec- clesiastically, is not to be pretended; that he was worse — measuring achievement by opportunity — is not honestly to be maintained. For the rest, that he was infinitely more gifted and infinitely more a man of affairs is not to be gainsaid by any unpreju- diced critic. If we detach him from the background of the Re- naissance, and judge him singly and individually, we behold a man who, as achurchman and Christ’s Vicar, fills us with horror and loathing, as a scandalous ex- ception from what we are justified in supposing from his ofice must have been the rule. T herefore, that he may be judged by the standard of his own time if he 1s to be judged at all, if we are even to attempt to under- stand him, have we given a sketch of the careers of those Popes who immediately preceded him, with whom as Vice-Chancellor he was intimately associ-ALEXANDER VI 39 ated, and whose examples were the only papal exam- ples that he possessed. That this should justify his course we do not pre- tend. A good churchman in his place would have be- thought him of his duty to the Master whose Vicar he was, and would have aimed at the sorely needed re- form. But we are not concerned to study him as a good churchman. It is by no means clear that we are concerned to study a Renaissance Pope as a church- man at all. The Papacy had by this time become far less of an ecclesiastical than a political force; the weapons of the Church were there, but they were be- ing employed for the furtherance not of churchly, but of worldly aims. If the Pontiffs in the pages of this history remembered or evoked their spiritual author- ity, it was but to employ it as an instrument for the advancement of their temporal aims. And personal considerations entered largely into these. Self-aggrandizement, insufferable in a cleric, is an ambition not altogether unpardonable in a temporal rince; and if Alexander aimed at self-aggrandizement and at the founding of a permanent dynasty for his family, he did not lack examples in the careers of those among his predecessors with whom he had been associated. That the Papacy was Christ's Vicarship was a fact that had long since been obscured by the conception that the Papacy was a kingdom of this world. In striving, then, for worldly eminence by every means in his power, Alexander is no more blameworthy than any other. What, then, remains? The fact that he succeeded better than any of his forerunners. But are we on that account to select him for the special40 THE HOUSE OF THE BULL object of our vituperation? The Papacy had tumbled into a slough of materialism in which it was to wallow even after the Reformation had given it pause and warning. As he found it, so Alexander VI carried it on, as much a self-seeker, as much a worldly prince, as much a family man and as little a churchman as any of those who had gone immediately before him, or, for that matter, as those who were to come immedi- ately after him. By the outrageous discrepancy between its pro- fessed and its actual aims, the Papacy was fast be- coming an object of execration, and it is Alexander’s misfortune that, coming when he did, he has re- mained as the type of his class. The mighty of this world shall never want for de- tractors. The mean and insignificant, writhing under the consciousness of his own shortcomings, ministers to his self-love by vilifying the great that he may lessen the gap between himself and them. To achieve greatness is to achieve enemies. For greatness ex- cites envy; and envy is the most fruitful of all the seeds of hatred. Does this need amplifying? Have we not abundant instances about us of the vulgar tittle-tattle and scandalous unfounded gossip which, born Heaven alone knows on what back-stairs or in what servants’ hall, circulates currently to the detriment of the distinguished in every walk of life? And the more conspicuously great the individual, the greater the incentive to slander him, for the interest of the slander is commensurate with the eminence of the personage assailed. ~ Such to a great extent is the case of Alexander VI. He was too powerful for the stomachs of many of hisALEXANDER VI 4! contemporaries, and he and his son Cesare had a way of achieving their ends. Since this could not be de- nied, it remained to inveigh loudly against the means adopted; and with pious uplifting of hands and eyes, to cry, “Shame!” and “Horror!”’ and “The like has never been heard of!” in wilful blindness to what had been happening at the Vatican for generations. Later writers take up the tale of it. Itis a fine sub- ject about which to make phrases, and the passion for phrase-making will often outweigh the respect for truth. Thus Villari with his “the worst Pontiff that ever filled Saint Peter’s Chair,” and again, elsewhere, echoing what many a writer has said before him from Guicciardini downwards, in utter and diametric oppo- sition to the actual, known facts of the case: “The announcement of his election was received through- out Italy with universal dismay.” To this Villari adds the ubiquitous story of King Ferrante’s burst- ing into tears at the news — “though never before known to weep for the death of his own children.” Let us pause a moment to contemplate the grief of the Neapolitan King. What is the picture it 1s 1n- tended to evoke by this statement of his bursting into tears at Alexander’s election? Wesee— do wenot r— a pious, noble soul, stricken by horror at the sight of the Papacy’s corruption; a truly sublime figure, whose tears will surely stand to his credit in heaven; a great heart breaking; a venerable head bowed down with lofty, righteous grief, watering with his tears the grave of Christian hopes. Such surely is the image we are meant to see by Guicciardini and his many hollow echoers. Turn now for corroboration of that noble picture to42 THE HOUSE OF THE BULL the history of this same Ferrante. A shock awaits you. You find in this bastard of the great and brilliant Alfonso, a cruel, greedy, covetous monster, so treacher- ous and so brite entre you are compelled to extend him the charity of supposing him to be something less than sane. Consider but one of his charaetenenee: He loved to have his enemies under his own super- vision, and he kept them so — the living ones caged and puarded, the dead ones embalmed and habited as in life; and this collection of mummies was his pride and delight. More, and worse could we tell you of him. But — ex pede, Herculem. This man shed tears we are told. Not another word. It is left to our imagination to paint for us a picture of this weeping; it is left to us to conclude that these precious tears were symbolical of the grief of Italy herself; that the catastrophe provoking them must have been terrible indeed. But now that we know what manner of man was this who wept, see how different is the inference that we may draw from his sorrow. Can we still imagine it —as we are disingenuously desired to do—to have sprung from a lofty, Christian piety? Let us track these tears to their very source, and we shall find them to be compounded of rage and fear. Ferrante saw trouble ahead of him with Lodovico Sforza, concerning a matter which shall be considered in the next chapter, and not at all would it suit him at such a time that such a Pope as Alexander — who, he had every reason to suppose, would be on the side of Lodovico — should rule in Rome. So he had set himself, by every means in his power, 1 Giovio: [storie del Suo Tempo, vol. 1.ALEXANDER VI 43 to oppose Roderigo’s election. His rage at the news that all his efforts had been vain, his fear of a man of Roderigo’s mettle, and his undoubted dread of the consequences to himself of his frustrated oppesition of that man’s election, may indeed have loosened the tears of this Ferrante who had not wept even at the death of his own children. We say “may” advisedly; for the matter, from be- ginning to end, is one of speculation. If we leave it for the realm of fact, we have to ask — Were there any tears at all? Upon what authority rests the state- ment of the Florentine historian? What, in fact, does he say? It is well known that the King of Naples, for all that in public he dissembled the pain it caused him, signified to the queen, his wife, with tears — which were unusual in him even on the death of his children — that a Pope had been created who would be most pernicious to Italy, and to all Christendom.! So that, when all is said, Ferrante shed his kingly tears to his wife in private, and to her in private he de- livered his opinion of the new Pontiff. How, then, came Guicciardini to know of the matter? True, he says, “It is well known” — meaning that he had those tears upon hearsay. It is, of course, possible that Ferrante’s queen may have repeated what passed between herself and the King; but that would surely have been in contravention of the wishes of her hus- band, who had, be it remembered, “‘dissembled his grief in public.” And Ferrante does not impress one 1 [storia a’ Italia, \ib. 1.4A THE HOUSE OF THE BULL as the sort of husband whose wishes his wife would be bold enough to contravene. It is surprising that upon no better authority than this should these precious tears of Ferrante’s have been crystallized in history. If this trivial matter has been dealt with at such length, it is because, for one reason, it is typical of the foundation of so many of the Borgia legends, and, for another, because when history has been carefully sifted for aries of the “universal dismay with which the election of Roderigo Borgia was received,” King Ferrante’s tears are ‘the only evidence that comes through the mesh at all. Therefore was it ex- pedient to examine it minutely. This “universal dismay” — like the tears of Fer- rante — rests upon the word of Guicciardini. He says that “men were filled with dread and horror by this election, because it had been effected by such evil ways [con arte si brutte]; and no less because the nature and condition of the person elected were largely known to ’» many. Guicciardini is to be read with the greatest cau- tion and reserve when he deals with Rome. His bias against, and his enmity of, the ebay are as obvious as they are notorious, and in his endeavours to bring it as much as possible into discredit he does not even spare his generous patrons, the Medicean Popes — Leo X and Clement VII. If he finds it impossible to restrain his invective against these Pontiffs, who heaped favours and honours upon him, what but virulence can be expected of him when he writes of Alexander VI? He is largely to blame for the flagrant exaggeration of many of the charges brought againstALEXANDER VI ° 46 the Borgias; that he hated them we know, and that when he wrote of them he dipped his golden Tuscan pen in vitriol and set down what he desired the world to believe rather than what contemporary documents would have revealed to him, we can prove here and now from that one statement of his which we have quoted. Who were the men who were filled with dismay, horror, or dread at Roderigo’s election? The Milanese? No. For we know that Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, the Duke of Milan’s brother, was the most active worker in favour of Roderigo’s election, and that this same election was received and cele- brated in Milan with public rejoicings. The Florentines? No. For the Medici were friendly to the House of Borgia, and we know that they wel- comed the election, sal that from Florence Manfredi — the Ferrarese ambassador — wrote home: “It ts said he will be a glorious Pontiff” (“‘Dicesi che sara glorioso Pontefice’’). Were Venice, Genoa, Mantua, Siena, or Lucca dis- mayed by this election? Surely not, if the super- latively laudatory congratulations of their various ambassadors are of any account. Venice confessed that “‘a better pastor could not have been found for the Church,” since he had proved himself “‘a chief full of experience and an excellent cardinal.” Genoa said that “his merit lay not in having been elected, but in having been desired.”’ Mantua declared that it “had long awaited the pontificate of one who, during forty years, had ren- dered himself, by his wisdom and justice, capable of any office.”46 THE HOUSE OF THE BULL Siena expressed its joy at seeing the summit of eminence attained by a Pope solely upon his merits — “Pervenuto alla dignita pontificale meramente per meriti propril.”’ Lucca praised the excellent choice made, and ex- tolled the accomplishments, the wisdom, and experi- ence of the Pontiff. Not dismay, then, but actual rejoicing must have been almost universal in Italy on the election of Pope Alexander VI. And very properly — always consider- ing the Pontificate as the temporal State it was then being accounted; for Roderigo’s influence was vast, his intelligence was renowned, and had again and again been proved, and his administrative talents and capacity for affairs were known to all. He was well- born, cultured, of a fine and noble presence, and his wealth was colossal, comprising the archbishoprics of Valencia and Porto, the bishoprics of Majorca, Carthage, Agria, the abbeys of Subiaco, the Monastery of Our Lady of Bellefontaine, the deaconry of Sancta Maria in Via Lata, and his offices of Vice-Chancellor and Dean of Holy Church. We are told that he gained his election by simony. It is very probable that he did. But the accusation has never been categorically established, and until that happens it would be well to moderate the vitu- peration hurled at him. Charges of that simony are common; conclusive proof there is none. We find Giacomo Trotti, the French ambassador in Milan, writing to the Duke of Ferrara a fortnight after Roderigo’s election that “the Papacy has been sold by simony and a thousand rascalities, which is a thing ignominious and detestable.”ALEXANDER VI 47 Ignominious and detestable, indeed, if true; but be it remembered that Trotti was the ambassador of France, whose candidate, backed by French influence and French gold, as we have seen, was Della Rovere; and, even if his statement was true, the “ignominious and detestable thing” was not only a commonplace in papal elections, it was the very same ignominious and detestable thing which Trotti’s government had been seeking to encompass for another candidate. Yet Guicciardini, treating of this matter, says: “He -ained the Pontificate owing to discord between the Cardinals Ascanio Sforza and Giuliano di San Pietro in Vincoli, and still more because, in a manner without yrecedent in that age [con esempio nuovo in quella eta] he openly bought the votes of many cardinals, some with money, some with promises of his offices and benefices, which were very great.” Again Guicciardini betrays his bias by attempting to render Roderigo’s course, assuming it for the mo- ment to be truly represented, peculiarly odious by this assertion that it was without precedent in that age. Without precedent! What of the accusations of simony against Innocent VIII, which rest upon a much sounder basis than these against Alexander, and what of those against Sixtus IV? Further, if a simoniacal election was unprecedented, what of Lorenzo Valla’s fierce indictment of simony — for which he so narrowly escaped the clutches of the Inquisition some sixty years before this date? Simony was rampant at the time, and only the most contemptible hypocrisy of partisan writers can explain this outcry against Alexander’s uses of it, and this pretence that it was unusual.48 THE HOUSE OF THE BULL Whether he really was elected by simony or not de- pends largely — so far as the evidence available goes — upon what we are to consider as simony. If pay- ment in the literal sense was made or promised, then unquestionably simony there was. But this, though often asserted, still awaits proof. Lord Acton, in an essay on the Borgias, says that it is known what were the bribes paid in each instance by Alexander VI to en- sure election. He might say the same of any Pope since Saint Peter; for, after all, it is merely a malicious way of saying that it is known upon whom were con- ferred the benefices which fell vacant by Cardinal Roderigo’s elevation to the papal throne. Consider that by his election to the Pontificate his archbishoprics, offices, nay, his very house itself — which at the time of which we write 1t was customary to abandon to pillage — are vacated; and remember that, as Pope, they are now in his gift and that they must of necessity be bestowed upon somebody. In an age in which Pontiffs are imbued with a spiritual sense of their office and duties, they will naturally make such bestowals upon those whom they consider best fitted to use them for the greater honour and glory of God. But we are dealing with no such spiritual golden age as that when we deal with the Cinque- cento; therefore, all that we can expect of a Pope 1s that he should bestow the preferments he has vacated upon those among the cardinals whom he believes to be devoted to himself. Considering his election 1n a temporal sense, it is natural that he should behave as any other temporal prince; that he should remember those to whom he owes the Pontificate, and that he should reward them suitably. Alexander VI undoubt-ALEXANDER VI 49 edly pursued such a course, and the greatest profit f-om his election was derived by the Cardinal Sforza who — as Roderigo himself admitted — had certainly exerted all his influence with the Sacred College to gain him the Pontificate. Alexander gave him the vacated Vice-Chancellorship (for which, when all is said, Ascanio Sforza was excellently fitted), his vacated palace on Banchi Vecchi, the town of Nepi, and the Bishopric of Agri. To Orsini he gave the Church of Carthage and the lecation of the Marche; to Colonna the Abbey of 9 Subiaco; to Savelli the legation of Perugia (from which he afterwards recalled him, not finding him suited to so difficult a charge); to Raffaele Riario went Span- ‘sh benefices worth four thousand ducats yearly; to Sanseverino Roderigo’s house in Milan, whilst he con- sented that Sanseverino’s nephew — known as F'ra- cassa — should enter the service of the Church with a condotta of a hundred men-at-arms and a stipend + - of thirteen thousand ducats yearly Guicciardini says of all this that Ascanio Sforza induced many of the cardinals “ to that abominable contract, and not only by request and persuasion, but by example; because, corrupt and of an insatiable appetite for riches, he bargained for himself, as the reward of so much turpitude, the Vice-Chancellor- ships, churches, fortresses [the very plurals betray the frenzy of exaggeration dictated by his malice] and his ([Roderigo’s] palace in Rome full of furniture of great value.” What possible proof can Guicciardini have — what possible proof can there be — of such a “bargain”’? It rests upon purest assumption formed after those50 THE HOUSE OF THE BULL a properties had changed hands — Ascanio being re- warded by them for his valuable services, and, also — so far as the Vice-Chancellorship was concerned — being suitably preferred. To say that Ascanio re- ceived them in consequence of a “bargain” and as the price of his vote and electioneering services is not only an easy thing to say, but it 1s the obvious thing for any one to say w hose aim is defamation. It is surprising that we should find in Guicciardin1 no mention of the four mule-loads of silver removed before the election from Cardinal Roderigo’s palace on Banchi Vecchi to Cardinal Ascanio’s palace in Trastevere. This is generally alleged to have been part of the price of Ascanio’s services. Whether it was so, or whether, as has also been urged, it was merely removed to save it from the pillaging by the mob of the palace of the cardinal elected to the Pon- tificate, the fact is interesting as indicating in either case Cardinal Roderigo’s assurance of his election. M. Yriarte does not hesitate to say: ““We know to-day, by the dispatches of Valori, the narrative of Girolamo Porzio, and the ‘ Diarium’ of Burchard, the Master of Ceremonies, each of the stipulations mace with the electors whose votes were bought.” Now whilst Valori and Porzio certainly do tell u in what manner Alexander disposed of his boner they do not tell us of any stipulations made. As a moment’s reflection will show, such a thing could not possibly lie within their knowledge. But the utter recklessness of M. Yriarte’s statement, and his des- perate anxiety to convict, are much more fully re- vealed when he quotes, as yet another reference, the “Diarium” of Burchard. That work would certainlyALEXANDER VI 51 have been of authority on the subject, for Burchard was the Master of Ceremonies at the Vatican. But it is impossible that M. Yriarte can have consulted the “Diarium” as he pretends. Had he done so, he would have made the discovery that Burchard has nothing whatever to say in the matter, for the excellent rea- son that there is no diary for the period under con- sideration. Burchard’s narrative is interrupted on the death of Innocent VIII, on July 12th, and not resumed until December 2d, when it is not retrospective. There is, it is true, the “Diarium” of Infessura. But that is of no more authority on such a matter than the narrative of Porzio or the letters of Valori. Lord Acton — in the essay to which allusion has been made —has not been content to rest the im- putation of simony upon such grounds as satisfied M. Yriarte. He realizes that the only evidence of any real value in such a case would be that of such cardinals as might be willing to bear witness to the attempt to bribe them. We must assume that he has taken it for granted that this evidence exists, to justify the judgment so freely pronounced. For he tells us confidently that the charge rests upon the testimony of those cardinals who refused Roderigo’s bribes. This it most certainly does not. If it did there would be an end to the matter, and so much ink would not have been spilled over it. No single cardinal has left any such evidence as Lord Acton too lightly assumes. It suffices to consider that, according to the only evidences available — the Casanatense Codices * 1“ — essendo concordi tutti i cardinalt, quasi da contrari vott rivolti °° ° ° ”» ge tutti in favore di uno solo, crearono lui sommo pontefice (Casanatense MSS). See P. Leonetti, Alessandro VI.62 THE HOUSE OF THE BULL and the dispatches of that same Valori } whom M. Yriarte so confidently cites, Roderigo Borgia’s elec- tion was unanimous. Who, then, were these cardi- nals who refused his Bribese @e are we to believe that, notwithstanding that refusal — a refusal which we may justifiably suppose to have been a scandalized and righteously - indignant one — they still afforded him their votes? This charge of simony was levelled with the object of heaping odium upon Alexander VI by making him appear a scandalous exception to the prevz ailing rule. So much has that object engrossed and blinded those inspired by it,.that, of itself, it betrays them. Had their horror Geen honest, had it sprung from true principles, had it been aR of anything but the desire to befoul and bespatter at all costs Roderigo Borgia, it is not against him that they would have hurled their denunciations, but against the whole College of Cardinals which fant part in the sacrilege and which included three future Popes.’ Assuming not only that there was simony, but that it was on as wholesale a scale as was alleged, and that for gold — coined or in the form of benefices — Roderigo bought the cardinals’ votes, what then? He bought them, true. But they — they sold him their sacred trust, their duty to their God, their priestly honour, heir holy vows. For the gold he offered them Bi bartered these. So much admitted, then surely, in “Fu pubblicato il Cardinale Vice-Cancelliere in Sommo Pontefice ie indro VIto nuncupato, el quale dopo una lunga contentione fu creato omnium consensum — ne li manco un solo voto” (Valori’s letter to the Otto di Pratica, August 12, 1492). See Supplement to Appendix in E. Thuasne’s edition of Burchard’s Diarium. . # Cardinals Piccolomini, De’ Medici, and Giuliano della Rovere.ALEXANDER VI 53 that transaction, those cardinals were the prostitutes! The man who bought so much of them, at least, was on no baser level than were they. Yet invective sin- gles him out for its one object, and so betrays the aforethought malice of its inspiration. If we hold, as we have said, that simony probably did take place, we do so, not so much upon the in- conclusive evidence of the fact, as upon the circum- stance that it had become almost the established cus- tom thus to purchase the tiara, and that Roderigo Borgia — since his ambition clearly urged him to the Pontificate — would have been an exception had he refrained. It may seem that to have disputed so-long to con- clude by admitting so much is no better than a waste of labour. Not so, we hope. Our aim has been to correct the adjustment of the focus and properly to trim the light in which Roderigo Borgia is to be viewed, to the end that you may see him as he was — neither better nor worse; the creature of his age, of his environment, and of the’system in which he was reared and trained. Thus shall you also get a clearer view of his son Cesare, when presently he takes the stage more prominently. During the seventeen days of the interregnum be- tween the death of Innocent and the election of Alexander, the wild scenes usual to such seasons had been taking place in Rome; and, notwithstanding the Cardinal-Chamberlain’s prompt action in seizing the gates and bridges, and the patrols’ endeavours to maintain order, crime was unfettered to such an ex- tent that some two hundred and twenty murders are54 THE HOUSE OF THE BULL computed to have taken place — giving the terrible average of thirteen a day. It was a very natural epilogue to the lax rule of the lethargic Innocent. One of the first acts of Alex- ander’s reign was to deal summarily with this lawless- ness. He put down violence with a hard hand that knew no mercy. He razed to the ground the house of a murderer caught red-handed, and hanged him above the ruins, and so dealt generally that such order came to prev al as had never before been known in Rome. Infessura tells us how, in the very month of his election, he appointed inspectors of prisons and four commissioners to administer justice, and that he him- self gave audience on Tuesdays and settled dis- putes, concluding, “et justitiam mirabili modo facere coepit.”’ He paid all salaries promptly — a striking de- parture, it would seem, from what had been ‘weual under his predecessor — and the effect of his im- proved and strenuous legislation was shortly seen in the diminished prices of commodities. He was crowned Pope on August 6th, on the steps of the Basilica of Saint Peter, by the Cardinal-Arch- deacon Piccolomini. The ceremony was conducted with a splendour worthy of the splendid figure that was its centre. Through the eyes of Michele Ferno — despite his admission that he 1s unable to convey a worthy notion of the spectacle — you may see the gorgeous procession to the Lateran in which Alex- ander VI showed himself to the applauding Romans; the multitude of richly adorned men, gay and festive; the seven hundred priests and prelates, with theirALEXANDER VI 66 familiars; the splendid cavalcade of knights and nobles of Rome; the archers and Turkish horsemen, and the Palatine Guard, with its great halberds and flashing shields; the twelve white horses, with their golden bridles, led by footmen; and then / lexander himself on a snow-white horse, “serene of brow and of majestic dignity,” his hand uplifted — the Fisher- man’s Ring upon its forefinger — to bless the kneel- ing populace. The chronicler flings into superlatives when he comes to praise the personal beauty of the man, his physical vigour and health, ‘“‘which go to 1n- crease the veneration shown him.” Thus, in the brilliant sunshine of that Italian Au- gust, amid the plaudits of assembled Rome, amid banners and flowers, music and incense, the flash of steel and the blaze of decorations with the Borgian arms everywhere displayed —or, a grazing steer gules — Alexander VI passes to the Vatican, the aim and summit of his vast ambition. Friends and enemies alike have sung the splendours of that coronation, and the Bull device — as you can imagine — plays a considerable part in those verses, be they pzans or lampoons. The former allude to Borgia as “the Bull,” from the majesty and might of the animal that was displayed upon their shield; the latter render it the subject of much scurrilous in- vective, to which it lends itself as readily. And there- after, in almost all verse of their epoch, writers ever say ‘‘the Bull” when they mean the Borgia.CHAPTER. [IV BORGIA ALLIANCES T the time of his father’s election to the throne A of Saint Peter, Cesare Borgia — now in his eighteenth year — was still at the University of Pisa. It is a little odd, considering the great affection for his children w Nicht was ever one of Roderigo’s most conspicuous characteristics, that he should not have ordered Cesare to Rome at once, to share in the general rejoicings. It has been suggested that Alex- ander wished to avoid giving scandal by the presence of his children at such a time. But that again looks like an opinion formed upon modern standards, for by the standards of his day one cannot conceive that he would have given very much scandal; moreover, it is to be remembered that Lucrezia antl Gintnede. at least, were in Rome at the time of their father’s election to the tiara. However that may be, Cesare did not quit Pisa un- til August of that year 1492, and even then not for Rome, but for Spoleto — in accordance with his faier's orders — where he took up his residence in the castle. Thence he wrote a letter to Piero de’ Medici, which is interesting, firstly, as showing the good relations prevailing between them; secondly, as refuting a story in Guicciardini, wherewith that historian, ready, as ever, to belittle the Borgias, at- tempts to show him cutting a poor figure. He tellsBORGIA ALLIANCES 67 us ! that, whilst at Pisa, Cesare had occasion to make an appeal to Piero de’ Medici in the matter of a crim- ‘nal case connected with one of his familiars; that he went to Florence and waited several hours in vain for an audience, whereafter he returned to Pisa ‘accounting himself despised and not a little injured.” No doubt Guicciardini is as mistaken in this as in many another matter, for the letter written from Spoleto expresses his regret that, on the occasion of his passage through Florence (on his way from Pisa to Spoleto), he should not have had time to visit Piero, particularly as there was a matter upon which he de- sired urgently to consult with him. He recommends to Piero his faithful Remolino, whose ambition it is to occupy the chair of canon law at the University of Pisa, and begs his good offices in that connection. That Juan Vera, Cesare’s preceptor and the bearer of that letter, took back a favourable answer is highly srobable, for in Fabroni’s “Hist. Acad. Pisan”’ we find this Remolino duly established as a lecturer on canon law in the following year. The letter is further of interest as showing Cesare’s full consciousness of the importance of his position; ‘ts tone and its signature — ‘your brother, Cesar de Borgia, Elect of Valencia” — being such as were usual between princes. The two chief aims of Alexander VI, from the very beginning of his Pontificate, were to reéstablish the ower of the church, which was then the most despised of the temporal States of Italy, and to promote the fortune of his children. Already on the very day of his 1 Jstoria a’ Italia, vol. v.58 THE HOUSE OF THE BULL coronation he conferred upon Cesare the bishopric of Valencia, whose revenues amounted to an annual yield of sixteen thousand ducats. For the time being, however, he had his hands very full of other matters, and he found it necessary at first to move slowly and with the extremest caution. The clouds of war were lowering heavily over Italy when Alexander came to Saint Peter’s throne, and his first concern was to find for himself a safe position against the bursting of the storm. The chief menace to the general peace was Lodovico Maria Sforza, sur- named I! Moro," who sat as regent for his nephew, Duke Gian Galeazzo, upon the throne of Milan. That regency he had usurped from Gian Galeazzo’s mother, and he was now in a fair way to usurp the throne itself. He kept his nephew virtually a prisoner in the Castle of Pavia, together with his young bride, Isabella of Aragon, who had been sent thither by her father, the Duke of Calabria, heir to the crown of Naples. Gian Galeazzo thus bestowed, Lodovico Maria went calmly about the business of governing, like one who did not mean to relinquish the regency save to * Touching Lodovico Maria’s by-name of “I! Moro” — which is gen- erally translated as ““The Moor,” whilst in one writer we have found him mentioned as “Black Lodovico” — Benedetto Varchi’s explanation (in his Storia Fiorentina) may be of interest. He tells us that Lodovico was not so called on account of any swarthiness of complexion, as is supposed by Guicciardini, because, on the contrary, he was fair; nor yet on account of his device, showing a Moorish squire, who, brush in hand, dusts the gown of a young woman in regal apparel, with the motto, “Per Italia nettard’ ogni bruttura.” This device of the Moor, he tells us, was a rébus or pun upon the word “moro,” which also means the mulberry, and was so meant by Lodovico. The mulberry burgeons at the end of winter and blossoms very early. Thus Lodovico symbolized his own prudence and readiness to seize opportunity betimes.BORGIA ALLIANCES 59 become duke. But it happened that a boy was born to the young prisoners at Pavia, whereupon, spurred perhaps into activity by this parenthood and stimu- lated by the thought that they had now a son’s in- terests to fight for as well as their own, they made appeal to King Ferrante of Naples that he should enforce his great-grandson’s rights to the throne of Milan. King Ferrante could desire nothing better, for if his grandchild and her husband reigned in Milan, and by his favour and contriving, great should be his influence in the North of Italy. Therefore he stood their friend. Matters were at this stage when Alexander VI ascended the papal throne. This election gave Ferrante pause, for, as we have seen, he had schemed for a Pope devoted to his in- terests, to stand by him in the coming strife. Whilst he was still considering his next move, the wretched Francesco Cibo (Pope Innocent’s son) offered to sell the papal fiefs of Cervetri and Anguillara, which had been made over to him by his father, to Gentile Orsini —the head of his powerful House. And Gentile urchased them under a contract signed at the palace of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, on September 3d, for the sum of forty thousand ducats advanced him by Ferrante. Alexander protested strongly against this illegal transaction, for Cervetri and Anguillara were fiefs of the Church, and neither had Cibo the right to sell nor Orsini the right to buy them. Moreover, that they should be in the hands of a powerful vassal of Naples such as Orsini suited the Pope as little as it suited Lodovico Maria Sforza. It stirred the latter intoTHE HOUSE OF THE BULL 60 taking measures against the move he ftared Ferrante might make to enforce Gian Galeazzo’s claims. Lodovico Maria went about this with that sly shrewdness so He Oe aot of him, so well symbolized by his mulberry badg a humorous shrewdness al- most, which makes ne one of the most delightful rogues in history, Just as he was one of the most ‘debo- nair and cultured. He may, indeed, be considered as a type of the subtle, crafty, selfish politician that was the ideal of Macchiavelli. You see him, then, effacing the tight-lipped, cunning smile from his comely face and pointing out to Venice with a grave, sober countenance how little it can suit her to have the Neapolitan Spaniards ruffling it in the North, as must happen if Ferrante has his way with Milan. This was a fact so obvious that Venice made haste to enter into a league with him, and into the camp thus formed came, for their own sakes, Mantua, Ferrara, and Siena. T he le eague was powerful enough thus to cause Ferrante to think twice before he took up the cudgels for Gian Galeazzo. If Lodovico could include the Pope, the league’s might would be so paralyzing that Ferrante would cease to think at all about his grandchildren’s affairs. Foreseeing this, Ferrante had perforce to dry the tears which Guicciardini tells us that he shed, and, re- placing them by a smile, servile and ebsequiolse re- paired, hat in hand, to protest his friendship for the Pope’s Holiness. And so, in December of 1492, came the Prince of Altamura — Ferrante’s second son — to Rome to lay his father’s homage at the feet of the Pontiff, and at the same time to implore His Holiness to refuse theBORGIA ALLIANCES 61 King of Hungary the dispensation the latter was ask- ing of the Holy See, to enable him to repudiate his wife, Donna Leonora — Ferrante’s daughter. Altamura was received in Rome and sumptuously entertained by the Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere. This cardinal had failed, as we have seen, to gain the Pontificate for himself, despite the French influence by which he had been supported. Writhing under his defeat, and hating the man who had defeated him with a hatred so bitter and venomous that the imprint of it is upon almost every act of his life — beginning with the facilities he afforded for the assignment to Orsini of the papal fiefs that Cibo had to sell — he was already scheming for the overthrow of Alexander. To this end he needed great and powerful friends; to this end had he lent himself to the Cibo-Orsini trans- action: to this end did he manifest himself the warm well-wisher of Ferrante; to this end did he cordially welcome the latter’s son and envoy, and promise his support to Ferrante’s petition. But the Holy Father was by no means as anxious for the friendship of the old wolf of Naples. The mat- ter of the King of Hungary was one that required consideration, and, meanwhile, he may have hinted slyly there was between Naples and Rome a little matter of two fiefs to be adjusted. Thus his most shrewd Holiness thought to gain a little time to look about him and consider what alli- ances would suit his interests best. At this Cardinal della Rovere, in high dudgeon, flung out of Rome and away to his Castle of Ostia to fortify — to wield the sword of Saint Paul, since he had missed the keys of Saint Peter. It was a shrewd62 THE HOUSE OF THE BULL move. He foresaw the injured dignity of the Spanish House of Naples, and Ferrante’s wrath at the Pope’s light treatment of him and apathy for his interests; and the Cardinal knew that with Ferrante were allied the mighty Houses of Colonna and Orsini. Thus, by his political divorcement from the Holy See, he flung in his lot with theirs, hoping for red war and the deposition of Alexander. But surely he forgot Milan and Lodovico Maria, whose brother, Ascanio Sforza, was at the Pope’s el- bow, the energetic friend to whose efforts Alexander owed the tiara, and who was therefore hated by Della Rovere perhaps as bitterly as Alexander himself. Alexander went calmly about the business of forti- fying the Vatican and the Castle of Sant’ Angelo, and gathering mercenaries into his service. And, lest any attempt should be made upon his life w hen he went abroad, he did so with an imposing escort of men-at- arms; hich so vexed and fretted King Ferrante, that he did not omit to comment upon it in scathing terms in a letter that presently we shall consider. For the rest, the Pope’s Holiness preserved an unruffled front in the face of the hostile preparations that were toward in the Kingdom of Naples, knowing that he could check them when he chose to lift his finger and beckon the Sforza into alliance. And presently Naples heard an alarming rumour that Lodovico Maria had, in fact, made overtures to the Pope, and that the Pope had met these advances to the extent of be- trothing his daughter Lucrezia to Giovanni Sforza, Lord of Pesaro and cousin to Lodovico. So back to the Vatican went the Neapolitan envoys with definite proposals of an alliance to be cementedBORGIA ALLIANCES 63 by a marriage between Giuffredo Borgia -- aged twelve — and Ferrante’s granddaughter Lucrezia of Aragon. The Pope, with his plans but half-matured as yet, temporized, was evasive, and continued to arm and to recruit. At last, his arrangements completed, he abruptly broke off his negotiations with Naples, and on April 25, 1493, publicly proclaimed that he had joined the northern league. The fury of Ferrante, who realized that he had been played with and outwitted, was expressed in a rabid letter to his ambassador at the Court of Spain. This Pope [he wrote] leads a life that is the abomination of all, without respect for the seat he occupies. He cares for nothing save to aggrandize his children, by fair means or by foul, and this is his sole desire. From the beginning of his Pontificate he has done nothing but disturb the peace, mo- lesting everybody, now in one way, now in another. Rome is more full of soldiers than of priests, and when he goes abroad it is with troops of men-at-arms about him, with helmets on their heads and lances by their sides, all his thoughts being given to war and to our hurt; nor does he overlook anything that can be used against us, not only in- citing in France the Prince of Salerno and other of our reb- els, but befriending every bad character in Italy whom he deems our enemy; and in all things he proceeds with the fraud and dissimulation natural to him, and to make money he sells even the smallest office and preferment. Thus Ferrante of the man whose friendship he had been seeking some six weeks earlier, and who had rejected his advances. It is as well to know the pre- cise conditions under which that letter was indited, for extracts from it are too often quoted against Alexander. These conditions known, and known the64 THE HOUSE OF THE BULL man who wrote it, the letter’s proper value is at once apparent. It was Ferrante’s hope, and no doubt the hope of Giuliano della Rovere, that the King of Spain would lend an ear to these grievances, and move in the matter of attempting to depose Alexander; but an event more important than any other in the whole history of Spain — or of Europe, for that matter — was at the moment claiming its full attention, and the trifling affairs of the King of Naples — trifling by comparison — went all unheeded. For this was the year in which the Genoese navigator, Cristofero Colombo, returned to tell of the new and marvel- lous world he had discovered beyond the seas, and Ferdinand and Isabella were addressing an appeal to the Pope — as Ruler of the World — to establish them in the possession of the discovered continent. Whereupon the Pope drew a line from pole to pole, and granted to Spain the dominion over all lands dis- covered, or to be discovered, one hundred miles west- ward of Cape Verde and the Azores. Thus Ferrante’s appeal to Spain against a Pope who showed himself so ready and complaisant a friend to Spain went unheeded by Ferdinand and Isabella. And what time the Neapolitan nursed his bitter chagrin, the alliance between Rome and Milan was consolidated by the marriage of Lucrezia Borgia to Giovanni Sforza, the comely weakling who was Lord of Pesaro and Cotignola. Lucrezia Borgia’s story has been told elsewhere: her rehabilitation has been undertaken even by one who is generally hostile to her family,’ and all serious- 1 Ferdinand Gregorovius, Lucrezta Borgia.BORGIA ALLIANCES 65 minded students must be satisfied at this time of day that the Lucrezia Borgia of Hugo’s tragedy is a creature of fiction, bearing little or no resemblance to the poor lady who was a pawn in the ambitious game played by her father and her brother Cesare before she withdrew to Ferrara, where eventually she died in child-birth in her forty-first year. We know that she left the Duke, her husband, stricken with a grief that was shared by his subjects, to whom she had so deeply endeared herself by her exemplary life and loving rule.* Later, in the course of this narrative, where she crosses the story of her brother Cesare, it will be necessary to deal with some of the revolting calumnies concerning her that were circulated, and, in passing, shall be revealed the sources of the malice that in- spired them and the nature of the evidence upon which they rest, to the eternal shame alike of those pretended writers of fact and those avowed writers of fiction who, as dead to scruples as to chivalry, have not hesitated to make her serve their base melodra- matic or pornographic ends. At present, however, there is no more than her first marriage to be recorded. She was fourteen years of age at the time, and, like all the Borgias, of a rare personal beauty, with blue eyes and golden hair. Twice before, already, had she entered into betrothals with gentlemen of her father’s native Spain; but his ever-soaring ambition had caused him successively to cancel both those unfulfilled contracts. A husband worthy of the daughter of Cardinal Roderigo Borgia 1 See, inter alia, the letters of Alfonso d’ Este and Giovanni Gonzaga on her death, quoted by Gregorovius, in Lucrezia Borgia.66 THE HOUSE OF THE BULL was no longer worthy of the daughter of Pope Alex- ander VI, for whom an alliance must now be sought among Italy’s princely houses. And so she came to be bestowed upon the Lord of Pesaro, with a dowry of thirty thousand ducats. Her nuptials were celebrated in the Vatican on June 12, 1493, in the splendid manner worthy of the rank of all concerned and of the reputation for magni- ficence which the Borgias had acquired. That night the Pope gave a supper-party, at which were present some ten cardinals and a number of ladies and gentle- men of Rome, besides the ambassadors of Ferrara, Venice, Milan, and France. There was vocal and instrumental music, a comedy was performed, the ladies danced, and they appear to have carried their gaieties well into the dawn. Hardly the sort of scene for which the Vatican was the ideal stage. Yet at the time it should have given little or no scandal. But what a scandal was there not, shortly afterwards, in connection with it, and how that scandal was heaped up later, by stories so revolting of the doings of that night that one is appalled at the minds that conceived them and the credulity that accepted them! Infessura writes of what he heard, and he writes venomously, as he betrays by the bitter sarcasm with which he refers to the fifty silver cups filled with sweet meats which the Pope tossed into the laps of ladies present at the earlier part of the celebration. “He did it,” says Infessura, “to the greater honour and glory of Almighty God and the Church of Rome.” Beyond that he ventures into no great detail, checking him- self betimes, however, with a suggested motive forBORGIA ALLIANCES 69 reticence a thousand times worse than any formal accusation. Thus: “‘Much else is said, of which I do not write, because either it is not true, or, if true, in- credible.” * It is amazing that the veil which Infessura drew with those words should have been pierced — not, indeed, by the cold light of fact, but by the hot eye of prurient imagination; amazing that he should be quoted at all—he who was not present — consid- ering that we have the testimony of what did take place from the pen of an eye-witness, in a letter from Gianandrea Boccaccio, the ambassador of Ferrara, to his master. At the end of his letter, which describes the pro- ceedings and the wedding-gifts and their presentation, he tells us how the night was spent. “Afterwards the ladies danced, and, as an interlude, a worthy com- edy was performed, with much music and singing, the Pope and all the rest of us being present throughout. What else shall I add? It would make a long letter. The whole night was spent in this manner; let your lordship decide whether well or ill.” Is not that sufficient to stop the foul mouth of slanderous invention? What need to suggest happen- ings unspeakable? Yet it is the fashion to quote the last sentence above from Boccaccio’s letter in the original — “totam noctem consumpsimus; judicet modo Ex™: Dominatio vestra si bene o male” — as though decency forbade its translation; and at once this poisonous reticence does its work, and the 1m- agination — and not only that of the unlettered — 1“ Et multa alia dicta sunt, que hic non scribo, que aut non sunt, vel si sunt, incredibilia.” (Infessura, Diarium.)68 THE HOUSE OF THE BULL is fired, and all manner of abominations are specula- tively conceived. Infessura, being absent, says that the comedies performed were licentious (“‘lascive’”’). But what comedies of that age were not? It was an age which had not yet invented modesty, as we understand it. That Boccaccio, who was present, saw nothing un- usual in the comedy — there was only one, accord- ing to him —is proved by his description of it as «ec Py 3? cc ; = ») worthy” (“una degna commedia’’). M. Yriarte on this same subject * is not only petty, but grotesque. He chooses to relate the incident from the point of view of Infessura, whom, by the way, he translates with an amazing freedom,’ and he makes bold to add regarding Gianandrea Boccaccio that: “Tt must also be said that the ambassador of Ferrara, either because he did not see everything, or because he was less austere than Infessura, was not shocked by the comedies, etc.” (“soit qu'il n’ait pas tout vu, soit qu'il ait été moins austere qu’Infessura, n’est pas ehoque . . .’") M. Yriarte, you observe, does not scruple to opine that Boccaccio, who was present, did not see every- thing; but he has no doubt that Infessura, who was not present, and who wrote from “hearsay,” missed nothing. 1 Ta Vie de César Borgia. 2 Thus, in the matter of the fifty silver cups tossed by the Pope into the ladies’ laps, “‘sinum” is the word employed by Infessura — a word which has too loosely been given its general translation of “bosom,” ignoring that it equally means “lap” and that “lap” it obviously means in this instance. M. Yriarte, however, goes a step further, and prefers to trans- late it as “corsage,” which at once, and unpleasantly, falsifies the picture; and he adds matter to dot the #’s to an extent certainly not warranted even by Infessura.BORGIA ALLIANCES 69 Too much of the history of the Borgias has been written in this spirit, and the discrimination in the selection of authorities has ever been with a view to obtaining the more sensational rather than the more truthful narrative. Although it is known that Cesare came to Rome in the early part of 1493 — for his presence there 1s re- ported in a letter from Gianandrea Boccaccio in March of that year — there is no mention of him at this time in connection with his sister’s wedding. Apparently, then, he was not present, although it is impossible to suggest where he might have been at the time. Boccaccio draws a picture of him in that same letter, which is worthy of attention: On the day before yesterday I found Cesare at home in Trastevere. He was on the point of setting out to go hunt- ing, and entirely in secular habit; that is to say, dressed in silk and armed. Riding together, we talked a while. I am among his most intimate acquaintances. He is a man of great talent and of an excellent nature; his manners are those of the son of a great prince; above everything, he ts joyous and light-hearted. He is very modest, much supe- rior to, and of a much finer appearance than, his brother the Duke of Gandia, who also is not short of natural gifts. The Archbishop never had any inclination for the priest- hood. But his benefice yields him over sixteen thousand . ducats. It may not be amiss — though perhaps no longer very necessary, after what has been written — to say a word at this stage on the social position of bastards in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, so as to em- phasize the fact that no stigma attached to Cesare70 THE HOUSE OF THE BULL Borgia or to any other member of his father’s family on the score of the illegitimacy of their birth. It is sufficient to consider the marriages they con- tracted to perceive that, however shocking to modern notions, the circumstance of their father being a Pope not only cannot have been accounted extraordinarily scandalous (if scandalous at all), but, on the contrary, rendered them eligible for alliances even princely. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries we see the bastard born of a noble, as noble as his father, display- ing his father’s arms without debruisement and en- joying his rank and inheritance unchallenged on the score of his birth, even though that inheritance should be a throne — as witness Lucrezia’s husband Gio- vanni, who, though a bastard of the House of Sforza, succeeded, nevertheless, his father in the Tyranny of Pesaro and Cotignola. Later we shall see this same Lucrezia, her illegiti- macy notwithstanding, married into the noble House of Este and seated upon the throne of Ferrara. And before then we shall have seen the bastard Cesare married to a daughter of the royal House of Navarre. Already we have seen the bastard Francesco Cibo take to wife the daughter of the great Lorenzo de’ Medici; we have seen the bastard Girolamo Riario married to Caterina Sforza — a natural daugh- ter of the ducal House of Milan —and we have seen the pair installed in the Tyranny of Imola and Forli. A score of other instances might be added; but these should suffice. The matter calls for the making of no philosophies, craves no explanation, and, above all, needs no apol- ogy. It clears itself. The fifteenth and sixteenth cen-BORGIA ALLIANCES a turies — more just than our own more enlightened times — attributed no shame to the men and women born out of wedlock, saw no reason — as no reason is there, Christian or Pagan — why they should suffer for a condition that was none of their contriving. To mention it may be of help in visualizing and un- derstanding that direct and forceful epoch, and may even suggest some lenience in considering a Pope's carnal paternity. To those to whom the point of view of the Renaissance does not promptly suggest itself from this plain statement of fact, all unargued as we leave it, we recommend a perusal of Gianpietro de Crescenzi’s “Il Nobile Romano.” ' The marriage of Lucrezia Borgia to Giovanni Sforza tightened the relations between the Pope and Milan, as the Pope intended. Meanwhile, however, the crafty and mistrustful Lodovico, having no illusions as to the true value of his allies, and realizing them to be self- seekers like himself, with interests that were funda- mentally different from his own, perceived that they were likely to adhere to him for only just so long as it suited their own ends. He bethought him, therefore, of looking about him for other means by which to crush the power of Naples. France was casting longing eyes upon Italy, and it seemed to Lodovico that in France was a ready cat’s-paw. Charles VIII, as the representative of the House of Anjou, had a certain meagre claim upon the throne of Naples. If he could be induced to ride south, lance on thigh, and press that claim, there would be an end to the dominion of the House of Aragon, and so an end to Lodovico’s fears of a Nea-72. THE HOUSE OF THE BULL politan interference with his own occupation of the throne of Milan. To an ordinary schemer that should have been enough; but as a schemer Lodovico was wholly ex- traordinary. His plans grew in the maturing, and ab- sorbed side-i issues, until he saw that Naples should be to Charles VIII as the cheese within the mouse- trap. His advent into Italy to break the power of Naples should be free and open; but, once within, he should find Milan and the northern allies between himself and his retreat, and Lodovico’s should it be to bring him to his ences Thus schemed Lodovico, to shiver first Naples and then France, before hurling the latter back across the Alps. A daring, bold, and yet simple plan of action. And what a power in Italy should not Lodovico derive from its success! Forthwith he got secretly to work upon it, send- ing his invitation to Charles to come and make good his claim to Naples, and offering the French troops free passage through his territory.1. And by the very character of his invitation’he played upon the nature of the malformed, ambitious Charles, whose brain was stuffed with romance and aMivalne rodomontades. The conquest of Naples he represented as an easy affair, to be no more than a first step in the glorious enterprise that awaited the French king; for from Naples he could cross to engage the Turk, and win back the Holy Sepulchre, thereby becoming a second Charles the Great. Thus Lodovico Maria the crafty, to dazzle Charles the romantic, and to take the bull of impending 1n- vasion by the very horns. 1 See Corio, Storia di Milano, and Lodovico’s letter to Charles VIII, quoted therein, lib. vu.BORGIA ALLIANCES 73 We have seen the failure of the appeal to Spain against the Pope made by the King of Naples. To that failure was now added the tightening of Rome’s relations with Milan by the marriage between Lucre- zia Borgia and Giovanni Sforza. And Ferrante —ru- mours of a French invasion, with Naples for its objec- tive being already in the air — realized that nothing now remained him but to make another attempt to conciliate the Pope’s Holiness. This time he went about his negotiations in a manner better calculated to serve his ends, since his need was grown more urgent. He sent the Prince of Altamura again to Rome for the ostensible purpose of settling the vex- atious matter of Cervetri and Anguillara and mak- ing alliance with the Holy Father, whilst behind Alta- mura was the Neapolitan army ready to move upon Rome should the envoy fail this time. But on the terms now put forward, Alexander was willing to negotiate, and so a peace was patched up between Naples and the Holy See, the conditions of which were that Orsini should retain the fiefs for his lifetime, but that they should revert to Holy Church on his death, and that he should pay the Church for the life-lease of them the sum of forty thousand ducats, which already he had paid to Francesco Cibo; that the peace should be consolidated by the marriage of the Pope’s bastard, Giuffredo, with Sancia of Aragon, the natural daughter of the Duke of Calabria, heir to the throne of Naples, and that she should bring the Principality of Squillace and the County of Coriate as her dowry. The other condition demanded by Naples — at the suggestion of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere — was74 THE HOUSE OF THE BULL that the Pope should disgrace and dismiss his Vice- Chancellor, Ascanio Sforza, which would have shat- tered the pontifical relations with Milan. To this, however, the Pope would not agree, but he compro- mised with Naples in the matter to the extent of con- senting to overlook Cardinal della Rovere’s defection and receive him back into favour. On these terms the peace was at last concluded in August of 1493, and it was no sooner done than there arrived in Rome the Sieur Peron de Basche, an envoy from the King of France charged with the mission of preventing any alliance between Rome and Na aples. The REehchnan was a day after the fair. The Pope took the only course possible in these awkward circumstances, and refused to see the ambassador. Thereupon the offended King of France held a grand council “in which were proposed and treated many things against the Pope and for the reform of the Church.” These royal outbursts of Christianity, these pious kingly frenzies to unseat an unw orthy Pontiff and re- form the Church, follow always, you will observe, upon the miscarriage of royal wishes. In the Consistory of September, 1493, the Pope created twelve new cardinals to strengthen the Sacred College in general and his own hand in particular. Amongst these new creations were his own son Ce- sare, and Alessandro Farnese, the brother of the beau- tiful Giulia. The grant of the red hat to the latter ap- pears to have caused some scandal, for, owing to the Pope’s relations with his sister, to which it was openly said that Farnese owed the purple, he received theBORGIA ALLIANCES 76 by-name of Cardinal della Gonella — the Petticoat Cardinal. That was the first important step in the fortunes of the House of Farnese, which was to give dukes to Parma, and reach the throne of Spain (in the person of Isabella Farnese) before becoming extinct in 1758.BOOK II THE BULL PASCANT Roma Bovem invenit tunc, cum fundatur aratro, Et nunc lapsa suo est ecce renata Bove. From an inscription quoted by BERNARDINO CorioCHAPTER I THE FRENCH INVASION OU see Cesare Borgia, now in his nineteenth year, raised to the purple with the title of Cardi- nal-Deacon of Santa Maria Nuova — notwithstand- ing which, however, he continues to be known in pref- erence, and indeed, to sign himself by the title of his archbishopric, as Cardinal of Valencia. It is hardly necessary to mention that, although al- ready Bishop of Pampeluna and Archbishop of Valen- cia, he had received so far only his first tonsure. He never did receive any ecclesiastical orders beyond the minor and revocable ones. It was said by Infessura, and has since been re- peated by a multitude of historians, upon no better authority than that of this writer on hearsay and in- veterate gossip, that, to raise Cesare to the purple, Alexander was forced to prove the legitimacy of that young man’s birth, and that to this end he procured false witnesses to swear that he was ‘‘the son of Van- nozza de’ Catanei and her husband, Domenico d’ Arig- nano.”’ Already has this been touched upon in an ear- lier chapter, where it was shown that Vannozza never had a husband of the name of d’ Arignano, and it might reasonably be supposed that this circumstance alone would have sufficed to restrain any serious writer from accepting and repeating Infessura’s un- authoritative statement. But if more they needed, it was ready to their hands in the Bull of Sixtus IV of80 THE BULL PASCANT October 1, 1480— to which also allusion has been made — dispensing Cesare from proving his legitt- macy: “Super defectum natalium od ordines et quoe- cumque beneficia.”’ Besides that, of what avail would any false swear- ing have been, considering that Cesare was openly named Borgia, that he was openly acknowledged by his father, and that in the very Bull above mentioned he is stated to be the son of Roderigo Borgia? This is another instance of the lightness, the reck- lessness with which Alexander VI has been accused of unseemly and illicit conduct, which it may not be amiss to mention at this stage, since, if not the accusa- tion itself, at least the matter that occasioned it be- longs chronologically here. During the first months of his reign — following in the footsteps of predecessors who had made additions to the Vatican — Alexander set about the building of the Borgia Tower. For its decoration he brought Perugino, Pinturicchio, Volterrano, and Peruzzi to Rome. Concerning Pinturicchio and Alexander, Va- sari tells us, in his “‘ Vita degli Artefici,” that over the door of one of the rooms in the Borgia Tower the artist painted a picture of the Virgin Mary in the likeness of Giulia Farnese (who posed to him as the model) with Alexander kneeling to her in adoration, arrayed in full pontificals. Such a thing, if true, would be horrible, revolting, sacrilegious. But it does not amount even to a truth untruly told; and our task would be light if all the lies against the Borgias were as easy to refute. True, Pin- turicchio did paint Giulia Farnese as the Madonna; true also that he did paint Alexander kneeling in ado-THE FRENCH INVASION 81 ration — but not to the Madonna, not in the same picture at all. The Madonna for which Giulia Farnese was the model is over a doorway, as Vasarisays. The kneeling Alexander is in another room, and the object of his adoration is the Saviour rising from His tomb. Yet one reputable writer after another has repeated that lie of Vasari’s, and shocked us by the scandalous spectacle of a Pope so debauched and lewd that he kneels in pontificals, in adoration, at the feet of his mistress depicted as the Virgin Mary. In October of that same year of 1493, Cesare ac- companied his father on a visit to Orvieto, a journey which appears to have been partly undertaken in re- sponse to an invitation from Giulia Farnese’s brother Alessandro. Orvieto was falling at the time into decay and ruin, and had ceased to be the prosperous centre of less than a hundred years earlier. But the shrewd eye of Alexander perceived its value as a stronghold, to be used as an outpost of Rome or as a refuge in time of danger; and he proceeded to repair and fortify it. In the following summer Cesare was invested with its governorship, at the request of its inhabitants, who sent an embassy to the Pope with their proposal — by way, no doubt, of showing their gratitude for his interest in the’ town. But in the mean time, towards the end of 1493, King Ferrante’s uneasiness at the ever-swelling ru- mours of the impending French invasion was quick- ened by the fact that the Pope had not yet sent his son Giuffredo to Naples to marry Donna Sancia, as had been contracted. Ferrante feared the intrigues of82 THE BULL PASCANT Milan with Alexander, and that the latter might be induced, after all, to join the northern league. In a frenzy of apprehension, the old king was at last on the point of going to Milan to throw himself at the feet of Lodovico Sforza, who was now his only hope, when news reached him that his ambassadors had been or- dered to leave France. That death-blow to his hopes was a death-blow to the man himself. Upon receiving the news he was smitten by an apoplexy, and upon January 25, 1494, he departed this life without the consolation of being able to suppose that any of his schemes had done any- thing to avert the impending ruin of his House, In spite of all Alexander’s intercessions and repre- sentations, calculated to induce Charles VIII to forgo his descent upon Italy; in spite, no less, of the counsel he received at home from such far-seeing men as had his ear, the Christian King was now determined upon the expedition and his preparations were well ad- vanced. In the month of March he assumed the title of King of Sicily, and sent formal intimation of it to Alexander, demanding his investiture at the hands of the Pope and offering to pay him a heavy annual trib- ute. Alexander was thus given to choose between the wrath of France and the wrath of Naples, and — to put the basest construction on his motives — he saw that the peril from an enemy on his very frontiers would be more imminent than that of an enemy be- yond the Alps. It is also possible that he chose to be guided by his sense of justice and to do in the matter what he considered right. By whatever motive he was prompted, the result was that he refused to accede to the wishes of the Christian King.THE FRENCH INVASION 83 The Consistory which received the French am- bassador — Peron de Basche — became the scene of stormy remonstrances, Cardinal Giuliano della Ro- vere, of course, supporting the ambassador and being supported in his act of insubordination by the Vice- Chancellor Ascanio Sforza (who represented his bro- ther Lodovico in the matter) and the Cardinals Sanseverino, Colonna, and Savelli, all attached to French interests. Peron de Basche so far presumed, no doubt emboldened by this support, as to threaten the Pope with deposition if he persisted in his refusal to obey the King of France. You see once more that kingly attitude, and you shall see it yet again presently and be convinced of its precise worth. In one hand a bribe of heavy annual tribute, in the other a threat of deposition; it was thus they conducted their business with the Holy Father. In this instance His Holiness took the threat, and dis- missed the insolent ambassador. Della Rovere, con- ceiving that in France he had a stouter ally than in Naples, and seeing that he had once more incurred the papal anger by his open enmity, fled back to Os- tia; and, not feeling safe there, for the pontifical forces were advancing upon his fortress, took ship to Genoa, and thence to France, to plot the Pope’s ruin with the exasperated Charles. And, the charge of simony being the only weapon with which they could attack Alexander’s seat upon the papal throne, the charge of simony was once more brandished. His Holiness took the matter with a becoming and stately calm. He sent his nephew, Giovanni Borgia, to Naples to crown Alfonso, and with him went Giuf- fredo Borgia to carry out the marriage contract withTHE BULL PASCANT 84 Alfonso’s daughter, and thus strengthen the alliance between Rome and Naples. By the autumn Charles had crossed the Alps with the most formidable army that had ever been sent out of France, full ninety thousand strong. And so badly was the war conducted by the Neapolitan generals who were sent to hold himin check that the appearance of the French under the very walls of Rome was almost such as to take the Pope by surprise. Charles’s ad- vance from the north had been so swift and unhin- dered that Alexander contemptuously said the French soldiers had come into Italy with wooden spurs and chalk in their hands to mark their lodgings. Charles had been well received by the intriguing Lodovico Sforza, with whom he visited the Castle of Pavia and the wa fortunate Gian Galeazzo, who from long confinement, chagrin, and other causes was now reduced to the sorriest condition. Indeed, on October 22d, some days after that visit, the w Perel Prince expired. Whether or not Lodovico had him poisoned, as has been alleged — a charge, which, after all, rests upon no proof, nor even upon the word of any person of reliance — his death most certainly lies at his am- bitious uncle’s door. Charles was at Piacenza when the news of Gian Galeazzo’s death reached him. Like the good Chris- tian that he accounted himself, he ordered the most solemn and imposing obsequies for the poor youth for whom in life he had done nothing. Gian Galeazzo left a heart-broken girl-widow and two children to succeed him to the throne he had never been allowed to occupy — the eldest, FrancescoTHE FRENCH INVASION 85 Sforza, being a boy of five. Nevertheless, Lodovico was elected Duke of Milan. Not only did he suborn the Parliament of Milan to that end, but he induced the Emperor to confirm him in the title. To this the Emperor consented, seeking to mask the unscrupu- lous deed by a pitiful sophism. He expounded that the throne of Milan should originally have been Lodo- vico’s, and never Galeazzo Maria’s (Gian Galeazzo’s father): because the latter was born before Francesco Sforza had become Duke of Milan, whereas Lodovico was born when he already was so. The obsequies of Gian Galeazzo completed, Charles pushed on. From Florence he issued his manifesto, and although this confined itself to claiming the King- dom of Naples, and said no word of punishing the Pope for his disobedience in crowning Alfonso and be- ing now in alliance with him, it stirred up grave un- easiness at the Vatican. The Pope’s position was becoming extremely diffi- cult; nevertheless, he wore the boldest possible face Ww het he received ake ambassadors of France, and on December gth refused to grant the letters patent of assage through the Pontifical States which the French demanded. Thereupon Charles advanced threaten- ingly upon Rome, and was joined now by those turbu- lent barons Gai Colonna, and Savelli. Alexander VI has been widely accused of effecting a volte-face at this stage and betraying his Neapoli- tan allies; but his conduct, properly considered) can hardly amount to that. What concessions he made to France were such as a wise and inadequately sup- ported man must make to an army ninety thousandTHE BULL PASCANT strong. To be recklessly and quixotically heroic is not within the function of Popes; moreover, Alexander had Rome to consider for Charles had sent word that, if he were resisted he would leave all in ruins, where- as if a free passage were accorded him he would do no hurt nor suffer any pillage to be done in Rome. So the Pope did the only thing consistent with pru- dence: he made a virtue of necessity and gave way where it was utterly impossible for him to resist. He permitted Charles the passage through his territory which Charles was perfectly able to take for himself if refused. There ensued an interchange of compli- ments between Pope and King, and early in January Charles entered Rome in such warlike panoply as struck terror into the hearts of all beholders. Of that entrance Paolo Giovio has left us an impressive pic- ture. The vanguard was composed of Swiss and German mercenaries — tall fellows, these professional war- riors, superb in their carriage and stepping in time to the beat of their drums; they were dressed in varie- gated, close-fitting garments that revealed all their athletic symmetry. A fourth of them were armed with long, square-bladed halberts, new to Italy; the remainder trailed their ten-foot pikes, and carried a short sword at their belts, whilst to every thousand of them there were a hundred arquebusiers. After them came the French infantry, without armour save the officers, who wore steel corselets and head-pieces. These, again, were followed by five thousand Gascon arbalesters, each shouldering his arbalest — a pha- lanx of short, rude fellows, not to be compared with the stately Swiss. Next came the cavalry, advanc-THE FRENCH INVASION 87 ing in squadrons, glittering and resplendent in their steel casings; twenty-five hundred of these were in full heavy armour, wielding iron maces and the pon- derous lances that were usual also in Italy. Every man-at-arms had with him three horses, mounted by a squire and two valets (four men going to the lance in France). Some five thousand of the cavalry were more lightly armed, in corselet and head-piece only, and they carried long wooden bows in the English fashion; whilst some were armed with pikes, intended to complete the work of the heavier cavalry. These were followed by two hundred knights — the very flower of French chivalry for birth and valour — — shouldering their heavy iron maces, their armour covered by purple, gold-embroidered surcoats. Be- hind them came four hundred mounted archers form- ing the bodyguard of the King. The misshapen monarch himself was the very cari- cature of a man, hideous and grotesque as a gargoyle. He was short of stature, spindle-shanked, rachitic and malformed, and of his face, with its colossal nose, loose mouth, and shallow brow, Giovio says that “it was the ugliest ever seen on man.” Such was the person of the young King — he was twenty-four years of age at the time — who poured his legions into Rome, and all full-armed as if for work of immediate destruction. Seen, as they were, by torchlight and the blaze of kindled bonfires — for night had fallen long before the rear-guard had en- tered the city — they looked vague, fantastic, and terrifying. But the most awe-inspiring sight of all was kept for the end; it consisted of the thirty-six pieces of artillery which brought up the rear, each88 THE BULL PASCANT piece upon a carriage swiftly drawn by horses, and the longest measuring eight feet, weighing six thou- sand pounds, and capable of discharging an iron ball as large as a man’s head. The King lay in the Palace of San Marco, where a lodging had been prepared for him, and thither on the day after his entrance came Cesare Borgia, with six Cardinals, from the Castle of Sant’ Angelo, whither the Pope had withdrawn, to wait upon his Christian Majesty. Charles immediately revealed the full and exigent nature of his demands. He required the Pope’s aid and counsel in the conquest of Naples, upon which he was proceeding; that Cesare Borgia be delivered into his hands as a hostage to ensure the Pope’s friendliness; and that the Castle of Sant’ Angelo be handed over to him to be used as a retreat in case of need or danger. Further, he demanded that Prince Djem — the brother of Sultan Bajazet, who was in the Pope’s hands — should be delivered up to him as a further hostage. This Djem (Gem, or Zizim, as his name is variously spelled) was the second son of Mahomet II, whose throne he had disputed with his brother Bajazet on their father’s death. He had raised an army to en- force his claim, and had not lacked for partisans; but he was defeated and put to flight by his brother. For safety he had delivered himself up to Bajazet’s implacable enemies, the Knights of Rhodes. They made him very welcome, for D’Aubusson, the Grand Master of Rhodes, realized that the possession of the Prince’s person was a very fortunate circumstance forTHE FRENCH INVASION 89 Christianity, since by means of such a hostage the Turk could be kept in submission. Accordingly D’Au- busson had sent him to France, and wrote: ““ While Djem lives, and is in our hands, Bajazet will never dare to make war upon Christians, who will thus en- joy great peace. Thus is it salutary that Djem should remain in our power.” And in France Djem had been well received and treated with every consideration due to a person of his princely rank. But he appears to have become a subject of conten- tion among the Powers, several of which urged that he could be of greater service to Christianity in their hands than in those of France. Thus, the King of Hungary had demanded him because, being a neigh- bour of Bajazet’s, he was constantly in apprehension of Turkish raids. Ferdinand of Spain had desired him because the possession of him would assist the Catho- lic King in the expulsion of the Moors. Ferrante of Naples had craved him because he lived in perpetual terror of a Turkish invasion. In the end, because they discovered that Bajazet was offering enormous bribes to Charles for the sur- render of Djem, and because they feared lest Charles should succumb to the temptation, the Knights of Rhodes sent him to Rome. He went willingly enough under their advice — this in the reign of Pope Innocent VIII — and in Rome he had since remained, Sultan Bajazet making the Pope an annual allowance of forty thousand duc- ats for his brother’s safe custody. He was a willing prisoner, or rather a willing exile, for, far from being kept a prisoner, he was treated at Rome with every consideration, associating freely with those about the90 THE BULL PASCANT Pontifical Court, and being frequently seen abroad in the company of the Pope and the Duke of Gandia. Now Charles was aware that the Pope, in his dread of a French invasion, and seeing vain all his efforts to avert it, had appealed for aid to Bajazet. For so doing he has been severely censured, and with some justice, for the picture of the Head of Christianity making appeal to the infidel to assist him against Christians is not an edifying one. Still, it receives some measure of justification when we reflect what was the attitude of these same Christians towards their Head. Bajazet himself, thrown into a panic at the thought of Djem’s falling into the hands of a king who proposed to make a raid upon him, answered the Pope begging His Holiness to “have Djem removed from the tribu- lations of this world, and his soul transported to an- other, where he might enjoy a greater peace.” For this service he offered the Pope three hundred thou- sand ducats, to be paid on delivery of the Prince’s body. If the price was high, so was the service re- quired, for it would have ensured Bajazet a peace of mind he could not hope to enjoy while his brother lived. This letter was intercepted by Giovanni della Ro- vere, the Prefect of Sinigaglia, who very promptly handed it to his brother, the Cardinal Giuliano. The Cardinal, in his turn, laid it before the King of France, who now demanded of the Pope the surrender of the person of this Djem as a further hostage. Alexander began by rejecting the King’s proposals severally and collectively , but Charles pressed him toTHE FRENCH INVASION gi reconsider his refusal, and so, being again between the sword and the wall, the Pope was compelled to sub- mit. A treaty was drawn up and signed on January 1th, the King, on his side, promising to recognize the Pope and to uphold him in all his rights. On the following day Charles made solemn act of veneration to the Pontiff in Consistory, kissing his ring and his foot, and professing obedience to him as the kings of France, his forbears, had ever done. You may absolve him of any sense of irony. Charles remained twelve days longer in Rome, and set out at last, on January 28th, upon the conquest of Naples. First he went solemnly to take his leave of the Pope, and they parted with every outward mark of a mutual esteem which they most certainly cannot inwardly have felt. When Charles knelt for the Pope's blessing, Alexander raised him up and embraced him; whilst Cesare completed the show of friendliness by presenting Charles with six beautiful chargers. They set out immediately afterwards, the French King taking with him his hostages, neither of whom he was destined to retain for long, with Cesare riding in the place of honour on his right. The army lay at Marino that night, and on the fol- lowing at Velletri. In the latter city Charles was met by an ambassador of Spain — Antonio da Fonseca. Ferdinand and Isabella were moved at last to befriend their cousins of Naples, whom all else had now aban- doned, and at the same time serve their own interests. Their ambassador demanded that Charles should abandon his enterprise and return to France, or else be prepared for war with Spain. It is eminently probable that Cesare had knowledge92 THE BULL PASCANT of this ultimatum to Charles, and that his knowledge influenced his conduct. However that may be, he slipped out of Velletri in the dead of that same night disguised as a groom. Half a mile out of the town, Francesco del Sacco, an officer of the Podesta of Vel- letri, awaited him with a horse, and on this he sped back to Rome, where he arrived on the night of the 30th. He went straight to the house of one Antonio Flores, an auditor of the Tribunal of the Ruota and a person of his confidence, who through his influence and protection was destined to rise to the eminence of the Archbishopric of Avignon and Papal Nuncio to the Court of France. Cesare remained at Flores’s house, sending word to the Pope of his presence, but not attempting to ap- proach the Vatican. On the following day he with- drew to the stronghold of Spoleto. Meanwhile Rome was thrown into a panic by the young Cardinal’s action and the dread of reprisals on the part of France. The quaking municipality sent representatives to Charles to assure him that Rome had had no part in this breach of the treaty, and to implore him not to visit it upon the city, The King replied by a special embassy to the Pope, and there apparently dropped the matter, for a few days later Cesare reappeared at the Vatican. : Charles, meanwhile, despite the threats of Spain, ushed on to accomplish his easy conquest. King Alfonso had already fled the kingdom (Janu- ary 2sth), abdicating in favour of his brother Fed- erigo. His avowed object was to withdraw to Sicily, retire from the world, and do penance for his sins, for which no doubt there was ample occasion. TheTHE FRENCH INVASION 93 real spur was probably — as opined by Commines — cowardice; for, says that Frenchman, “ Jamais homme cruel ne fut hardi.” Federigo’s defence of the realm consigned to him was not conspicuous, for, within twenty days of their departure from Rome, the French entered Naples al- most without striking a blow. Scarcely had Charles laid aside his armour when death robbed him of the second hostage he had brought from the Vatican. On February 25th, after a week’s illness, Prince Djem died of dysentery at the Castle of Capua, whither Charles had sent him. Rumours that he had been poisoned by the Pope arose almost at once; but, considering that twenty- eight days had elapsed since his parting from Alex- ander, it was, with the best intentions in the world, rather difficult to make that poisoning credible, until the ingenious notion was conceived, and made public, that the poison used was a “white powder ” of un- known components, which did its work slowly, and killed the victim some time after it had been admin- istered. Thus, by a bold and brazen invention, an impossible falsehood was made to wear a possible aspect. And in that you have most probably the origin of the famous secret poison of the Borgias. Having been invented to fit the alleged poisoning of Prince Djem, which it was desired to fasten upon the Pope by hook or by crook, it was found altogether too valuable an invention not to be used again. By means of it, it be- came possible to lay almost any death in the world at the door of Alexander.94 THE BULL PASCANT Before proceeding to inquire further into this par- ticular case, let us here and now say that, just as to-day there is no inorganic toxin known to science that will either lie fallow for weeks in the human system, suddenly to become active and slay, or yet to kill by slow degrees involving some weeks in the process, so none was known in the Borgian or any other era. Science, indeed, will tell you that the very notion of any such poison is flagrantly absurd, and that such a toxic action is against all the laws of nature. But a scientific disquisition 1s unnecessary. For our present needs arguments of common sense should abundantly suffice. This poison — this white powder — was said to be a secret of the Borgias. If that 1s so, by what Borgia was the secret of its existence ever divulged? Or, if it never was divulged, how comes it to be known that a poison so secret, and working at such distances of time, was ever wielded by them? The very nature of its alleged action was such as utterly to conceal the hand that had administered it; yet here, on the first recorded occasion of its alleged use, the identity of that hand was more or less com- mon knowledge, if Giovio and Guicciardini are to be believed! Sagredo ! says that Djem died at Terracina three days after having been consigned to Charles VIII, of poison administered by Alexander, to whom Bajazet had promised a large sum of money for the deed. The same is practically Giovio’s statement, save that Gio- vio causes him to die at a later date and at Gaeta; Guicciardini and Corio tell a similar story, but inform us that he died in Naples. 1 In Mem. Storiche dei Monarchi Ottoman.THE FRENCH INVASION 96 It is entirely upon the authority of these four writers that the Pope is charged with having poisoned Djem, and it is noteworthy that in the four narratives we find different dates and three different places given as the date and place of the Turk’s death, and more noteworthy still that in not one instance of these four is date or place correctly stated. Now the place where Djem died, and the date of his death, were public facts about which there was no mystery; they were to be ascertained — as they are still — by any painstaking examiner. His poisoning, on the other hand, was admittedly a secret matter, the truth of which it was impossible to ascertain with utter and complete finality. Yet of this poisoning they know all the secrets, these four nimble writers who cannot correctly tell us the date and place of the man’s death! We will turn from the fictions they have left us — which have too often been preferred by subsequent writers to the facts which lay just as ready to their hands, but of course were less sensational — and we will consider instead the evidence of those contem- poraries who do, at least, know the time and place of Djem’s decease. If any living man might have known of a secret poison of the Borgias at this stage, that man was Burchard the Ceremoniarius, and, had he known of it, not for a moment would he have been silent on the oint. Yet not a word of this secret poison shall you find in his “‘ Diary,” and concerning the death of Djem he records that ‘‘on February 25th died at the Castle of Capua the said Djem, through meat or drink that disagreed with him.”96 THE BULL PASCANT Panvinio, who, being a Neapolitan, was not likely to be any too friendly to the Pope — as, indeed, he proves again and again — tells us positively that Djem died of dysentery at Capua." Sanuto, writing to the Council of Ten, says that Djem took ill at Capua of a catarrh, which “de- scended to his stomach’”’; and that so he died. And now mark Sanuto’s reasoning upon his death, which is the very reasoning we should ourselves em- ploy finally to dispose of this chatter of poisoning, did we not find it awaiting quotation, more authoritative therefore than it could be from us, and utterly irrefu- table and conclusive in its logic. “This death 1s very harmful to the King of France, to all Italy, and chiefly to the Pope, who is thereby deprived of forty thousand ducats yearly, which was paid him by his [Djem’s] brother for his custody. And the King showed him- self greatly grieved by this death, and it was sus- pected that the Pope had poisoned him, which, how- ever, was not to be believed, as it would have been to his own loss.”’ Just so — to his own infinite loss, not only of the forty thousand ducats yearly, but — what 1s in- finitely more important — of the hold which the custody of Djem gave him upon the Turks. The reason assigned by those who charged Alex- ander with this crime was the bribe of three hundred thousand ducats offered by Bajazet in the intercepted letter. The offer — which, incidentally, had never reached the Pope — was instantly taken as proof of its acceptance; a singular case of making cause fol- oS low upon effect, a method all too prevalent with the 1 Vitis Pontif. Rom.THE FRENCH INVASION 97 Borgian chroniclers. Moreover, they entirely over- looked the circumstance that, for Djem’s death in the hands of France, the Pope panic ae no claim upon Bay azet. Finally — though the danger be incurred of be- coming tedious upon this point — they also forgot that, years before, Bajazet had offered such bribes to) Chatles for ‘the life of Djem as had caused the Knights of Rhodes to remove the Turk from French keeping. Upon that circumstance they might, had it sorted with their inclinations, have set up a stronger case of poisoning against Giarles than against the Pope, and they would not have been put to the ne- cessity of inventing a toxin that never had place in any earthly pharmacopeeia. It is not, by this, suggested that there is any shadow of a case against Charles. Djem died a perfectly natural death, as is established by the only authorities competent to speak upon the matter, and his death was against the interests of everybody save his brother Bajazet; and against nobody’s more than the Pope’s.CHAPTER II THE POPE AND THE SUPERNATURAL Y the middle of March of that year 1495 the conquest of Naples was a thoroughly: accom- plished fact, and the French rested upon their vic- tory, took their ease, and made merry in the capital of the vanquished kingdom. But in the north Lodovico Sforza — now Duke of Milan de facto, as we have seen — set about the sec- ond part of the game that he was playing. He had a valuable ally in Venice, which looked none too favourably on the French and was fully disposed to gather its forces against the common foe. The Council of Ten sent their ambassador, Zorzi, to the Pope to propose an alliance. News reached Charles in Naples of the league that was being formed. He laughed at it, and the mat- ter was made the subject of ridicule in some of the comedies that were being performed for the amuse- ment of his Court. Meanwhile, the intrigue against him went forward; on March 26th His Holiness sent the Golden Rose to the Doge, and on Palm Sunday the league was solemnly proclaimed in Saint Peter’s. Its terms were vague; there was nothing in it that was directly menacing to Charles; it was simply declared to have been formed for the common good. But in the north the forces were steadily massing to cut off the retreat of the French, and suddenly Lodovico SforzaTHE POPE AND THE SUPERNATURAL — 99 threw aside the mask and made an attack upon the French navy at Genoa. At last Charles awoke to his danger.and began to care for his safety. Rapidly he organized the oc- cupation of Naples, and, leaving Montpensier as Viceroy and D’Aubigny as Captain-General, he set out for Rome with his army, intent upon detaching the Pope from the league; for the Pope, being the immediate neighbour of Naples, would be as dan- gerous as an enemy as he was valuable as an ally to Charles. He entered Rome on June 1st. The Pope, however, was not there to receive him. Alexander had left on May 28th for Orvieto, accompanied by Cesare, the Sacred College, two hundred men-at-arms, and one thousand horse and three thousand foot, supplied by Venice. At Orvieto, on June 3d, the Pontiff received an ambassador from the Emperor, who had joined the league, and on the 4th he refused audience to the ambassador of France, sent to him from Ronciglione, where the King had halted. Charles, insistent, sent again, determined to see the Pope; but Alexander, quite as determined not to see the King, pushed on to Perugia with his escort. There His Holiness abode until the French and Italians had met on the River Taro and joined battle at Fornovo, of which encounter both sides claimed the victory. If Charles’s only object was to win through, then the victory undoubtedly was his, for he certainly succeeded in cutting a way through the Italians who disputed his passage. But he suffered heavily, and left behind him most of his precious artillery, his tents and carriages, and the immenseTOO THE BULL PASCANT Neapolitan booty he was taking home, with which he had loaded (says Gregorovius) twenty thousand mules. All this fell into the hands of the Italian allies under Gonzaga of Mantua, whilst from Fornovo Charles’s retreat was more in the nature of a flight. Thus he won back to France, no whit the better for his expedition, and the only mark of his passage which he left behind him was an obscene ailment, which, with the coming of the French into Italy, fest manifested itself in Europe, and which the Italians paid them the questionable compliment of calling “the French disease” — morbo gallico, or il mal francese. During the Pope’s visit to Perugia an incident oc- curred which is not without importance to students of his character, and of the character left of him by his contemporaries and others. There lived in Perugia at this time a young nun of the Order of Saint Dominic, who walked in the w ay of Saint Catherine of Siena, Colomba da Rieti by name. You will find some marvellous things about her in the Perugian chronicles of Matarazzo, which, for that matter, abound in marvellous things — too marvel- lous mainly to be true. When he deals with events happening beyond the walls of his native town Matarazzo, as an historian, is contemptible to a degree second only to that of those who quote him as an authority. W hen he deals with matters that, so to speak, befell under his very eyes, he is worthy, if not of credit, at least of attention, for his “‘ atmosphere’ is valuable. Of this Sister Colomba, Matarazzo tells us that sheTHE POPE AND THE SUPERNATURAL ior ate not nor drank, save sometimes some Jujube fruit, and even this but rarely. “On the day of her coming to Perugia (which happened in 1488), as she was crossing the Bridge of Saint Gianni some young men attempted to lay hands upon her, for she was comely and beautiful; but as they did so, she showed them the jujube fruit which she carried in a white cloth, where- ut‘on they instantly stood bereft of strength and wits.” Next he tells us how she would pass from life for an hour or two, and sometimes for half a day, and her pulse would cease to beat, and she would seem all dead. And then she would quiver and come to her- self again, and prophesy the future, and threaten disaster. And again: “(One morning two of her teeth were found to have fallen out, which had happened in fighting with the Devil; and, for the many inter- cessions which she made, and the scandals which she repaired by her prayers, the people came to call her saint.” Notwithstanding all this, and the fact that she lived without nourishment, he tells us that the brothers of Saint Francis had little faith in her. Nevertheless, the community built her a very fine monastery, which was richly endowed, and many nuns took the habit of her Order. Now it happened that whilst at Perugia in his student days, Cesare had witnessed a miracle per- formed by this poor ecstatic girl; or rather he had arrived on the scene — the Church of Saint Catherine of Siena — to find her, with a little naked boy in her lap, the centre of an excited, frenzied crowd, which was proclaiming loudly that the child had been dead and that she had resurrected him. This was a state-102 THE BULL PASCANT ment which the Prior of the Dominicans did not seem disposed unreservedly to accept, for, when ap- proached with a suggestion that the bells should be rung in honour of the event, he would not admit that he saw any cause to sanction such a course. In the few years that were sped since then, however, Sister Colomba had acquired the great reputation of which Matarazzo tells us, so that, throughout che plain of Tiber, the Dominicans were preaching her fame from convent to convent. In December of 1495 Charles VIII heard of her at Siena, and was stirred by a curiosity which he accounted devotional — the same curiosity that caused one of his gentlemen to entreat Savonarola to perform “just a little miracle” for the King’s entertainment. You conceive the gloomy fanatic’s reception of that invitation. The Pope now took the opportunity of his sojourn in Perugia to pay Colomba da Rieti a visit, and there can be no doubt that he did so in a critical spirit. Accompanied by Cesare and some cardinals and gen- tlemen of his following, he went to the Church of Saint Dominic and was conducted to the sister’s cell by the Prior — the same who in Cesare’s student- days had refused to cause the bells to be rung. Upon seeing the magnificent figure of the Pontift filling the doorway of her little chamber, Sister Co- lomba fell at his feet, and, taking hold of the hem of his gown, she remained prostrate and silent for some moments, when at last she timidly arose. Alexander set her some questions concerning the Divine Mys- teries. These she answered readily at first, but, as his questions grew, she faltered, became embar- rassed, and fell silent, standing before him whiteTHE POPE AND THE SUPERNATURAL 103 and trembling, no doubt a very piteous figure. The Pope, not liking this, turned to the Prior to demand an explanation, and admonished him sternly: “ Ca- veto, Pater, quia ego Papa sum!”’ This had the effect of throwing the Prior into con- fusion, and he set himself to explain that she was in reality very wonderful, that he himself had not at first believed in her, but that he had seen so much that he had been converted. At this stage Cesare came to his aid, bearing witness, as he could, that he himself had seen the Prior discredit her when others were already hailing her as a saint; wherefore, if he now was con- vinced, he must have had very good evidence to con- vince him. We can imagine the Prior’s gratitude to the young Cardinal for that timely word when he saw himself in danger, perhaps, of being called to account for fostering and abetting an imposture. What was Alexander’s opinion of her in the end we do not know; but we do know that he was not read- ily credulous. When, for instance, he heard that the stigmata were alleged to have appeared upon the body of Lucia di Narni, he did what might be ex- pected of a sceptic of our own times rather than of a churchman of his superstitious age— he sent his physicians to examine her. That is but one instance of his common-sense atti- tude towards supernatural manifestations. His cold, calm judgment caused him to seek, by all available and practical means, to discriminate between the true and the spurious in an age in which men, by their credulity, were but too ready to become the prey of any impostor. It argues a breadth of mind altogether beyond the times in which he had his being. Witches104 THE BULL PASCANT and warlocks, who elsewhere — and even in much later ages, and in Protestant as well as Catholic States — were given to the fire, he contemptuously ignored. The unfortunate Moors and Jews, who elsewhere in Europe were being persecuted by the Holy Inquisi- tion and burnt at the stake as an act of faith for the good of their souls and the greater honour and glory of God, found in Alexander a tolerant protector -and in Rone a safe shelter. These circumstances concerning him are not sufh- ciently known; it is good to know them for their own sake. But, apart from that, they have a great historical value which it is well to consider. It is not to be imagined that such breadth of views could be tolerated in a Pope in the dawn of the sixteenth century. The times were not ripe for it; men did not understand ; it; and what men do not understand they thirst to explain, and have a way of explaining 1n their own fashion and according to their own lights. A Pope who did such things could not be a good Pope, since such things must be abhorrent to God — as men conceived God then. To understand this is to understand much of the bad feeling against Alexander and his family, for this is the source of much of it. Because he did not burn witches and magicians, it was presently said that he was himself a warlock, and that he practised black magic. It was not, perhaps, wanton calumny; it was said in good faith, for it was the only reason commend- ing itself to the times to account for his restraint. Be- cause he tolerated Moors and Jews, it was presently said by some that he was a Moor, by others that he was a Jew, and by others still that he was both.THE POPE AND THE SUPERNATURAL 105 What wonder, then, if the rancorous Cardinal Giu- liano della Rovere venomously dubbed him Moor and Jew, and the rabid fanatic Savonarola screamed that he was no Pope at all, that he was not a Christian, nor did he believe in any God? Misunderstood in these matters, he was believed to be an infidel, and no crime was too impossible to be fastened upon the man who was believed to be that in the Italy of the Cinquecento. Alexander, however, was very far from being an infidel, very far from not being a Christian, very far from not believing in God, as he has left abundant evidence in the Bulls he issued during his Pontificate. It is certainly wrong to assume — and this is pointed out by L’Espinois — that a private life which seems to ignore the commandments of the Church must pre- clude the possibility of a public life devoted to the service of the Church. Such a state of things — such a dual personality — is by no means impossible in churchmen of the fifteenth, or, for that matter, of the twentieth century. | The whole truth of the matter is contained in a Portuguese rhyme, which may roughly be translated: Soundly Father Thomas preaches. Don’t do as he does; do as he teaches. A debauchee may preach virtue with salutary effect, just as a man may preach hygiene without practising the privations which it entails, or may save you from dyspepsia by pointing out to you what is indigestible without himself abstaining from it. Such was the case of Alexander VI, as we are jus- tified in concluding from the evidence that remains.106 THE BULL PASCANT Let us consider the apostolic zeal revealed by his Bull granting America to Spain. This was practically conceded — as the very terms of it will show — on condition that Spain should employ the dominion accorded her over the New World for the purpose of propagating the Christian faith and the conversion and baptism of the heathen. This is strictly enjoined, and emphasized by the command that Spain shall send out God-fearing men who are learned in religion and capable of teaching it to the people of the newly discovered lands. Thus Alexander invented the missionary. To King Manuel the Fortunate (of Portugal), who sought the Pope’s authority for the conquest of Africa, he similarly insisted that he should contrive that the name of the Saviour be adored there, and the Catholic faith spread and honoured, to the end that the King “might win eternal life and the blessing of the Holy See. To the soldiers going upon this expedition His Holiness granted the same indulgences as to those who fought in the Holy Land, and he aided the kings of Spain and Portugal in this propagation of Chris- tianity out of the coffers of the Church. He sent to America a dozen of the children of Saint Francis, as apostles to preach the Faith, and he invested them with the amplest powers. He prosecuted with stern rigour the heretics of Bohemia, who were obscenely insulting Church and Sacraments, and he proceeded similarly against the " Picards” and “Vaudois.” Against the Lombard demoniacs, who had grown bold, were banding them- selves together and doing great evil to property, toTHE POPE AND THE SUPERNATURAL 107 life, and to religion, Alexander raised his mighty arm. Then there is his Bull of June 1, 1501, against those who already were turning to evil purposes the newly invented printing-press. In this he inveighed against the printing of matter prejudicial to healthy doctrine, to good manners, and, above all, to the Catholic Faith or anything that should give scandal to the faithful. He threatened the printers of impious works with excommunication should they persist, and en- listed secular weapons to punish them in a tempo- ral as well as a spiritual manner. He ordered the preparation of indexes of all works containing any- thing hurtful to religion, and pronounced a ban of excommunication against all who should peruse the books so indexed. Thus Alexander invented the “Index Expurgato- rius.”’ There is abundant evidence that he was a fervid celebrant, and his extreme devotion to the Blessed Virgin — in whose honour he revived the ringing of the Angelus Bell — shall be considered later. Whatever his private life, it is idle to seek to show that his public career was other than devoted to up- holding the dignity and honour of the Church.CHAPTER III THE ROMAN BARONS AVING driven Charles VIII out of Italy, it still remained for the allies to remove all traces of his passage from Naples and to restore the rule of the House of Aragon. In this they had the aid of Ferdinand and Isabella, who sent an army under the command of that distinguished soldier Gonzalo de Cordoba, known in his day as the Great Captain. He landed in Calabria in the spring of 1496, and war broke out afresh through that already sorely devastated land. The Spaniards were joined by the allied forces of Venice and the Church under the condotta of the Marquis Gonzaga of Mantua, the leader of the Italians at Fornovo. Lodovico had detached himself from the league, and again made terms with France for his own safe- ty’s sake. But his cousin, Giovanni Sforza, Tyrant of Pesaro — the husband of Lucrezia Borgia — con- tinued in the pontifical army at the head of a condotta of six hundred lances. Another command in the same ranks was one of seven hundred lances under the youthful Giuffredo Borgia, now Prince of Squillace and the husband of Dofia Sancia of Aragon, a lady of exceedingly loose morals, who had brought to Rome the habits acquired in the most licentious Court of that licentious age. The French lost Naples even more easily than they had conquered it, and by July 7th Ferdinand IJ wasTHE ROMAN BARONS 109 able to reénter his capital and reascend his throne. D’Aubigny, the French general, withdrew to France, whilst Montpensier, the Viceroy, retired to Pozzuolt, where he died in the following year. Nothing could better have suited the purposes of Alexander than the state of things which now pre- vailed, affording him, as it did, the means to break the power of the insolent Roman barons, who already had so vexed and troubled him. So in the Consistory of June 1st he published a Bull whereby Gentile Virginio Orsini, Giangiordano Orsini, and his bastard Paolo Orsini and Bartolomeo d’ Alviano, were declared out- lawed for having borne arms with France against the Church, and their possessions were confiscated to the State. This decree was to be enforced by the sword, and, for the purposes of the impending war, the Duke of Gandia was recalled to Rome. He arrived early in August, having left at Gandia his wife Maria Enriquez, a niece of the royal House of ape It was Cesare Borgia who took the initiative in the pomp with which his brother was received in Rome, riding out at the head of the entire Pontifical Court to meet and welcome the young Duke. In addition to being Duke of Gandia, Giovanni Borgia was already Duke of Sessa and Prince of Teano, which further dignities had been conferred upon Kim on the occasion of his brother Giuffredo’s marriage to Dofia Sancia. To these the Pope now added the governorship of Viterbo and of the Patri- mony of Saint Peter, dispossessing Cardinal Farnese of the latter office to esto it upon this well-beloved son. In Venice it was being related, a few months later,11IO THE BULL PASCANT —_ in October — that Gandia had brought a woman from Spain for his father, and that the latter had taken her to live with him. The story is given in Sanuto, and of course has been unearthed and served up by most historians and essayists. It cannot posi- tively be said that it is untrue; but it can be said that ‘t is unconfirmed. There is, for instance, no word of it in Burchard’s “ Diarium,” and when you consider how ready a chronicler of scandalous matter was this Master of Ceremonies, you will no doubt conclude that, if any foundation there had been for that Venetian story, Burchard would never have been silent on the subject. The Pope had taken into his pay that distinguished condottiero, Duke Guidobaldo of Urbino, who later was to feel the relentless might of Cesare. To Guido- baldo’s command was now entrusted the punitive ex- pedition against the Orsini, and with him was to go the Duke of Gandia, ostensibly to share the leader- ship, in reality that, under so able a master, he might serve his apprenticeship to the trade of arms. So on October 25th Giovanni Borgia was very solemnly created Gonfalonier of the Church and Captain-Gen- eral of the pontifical troops. On the same day the three standards were blessed in Saint Peter's — one being the Papal Gonfalon bearing the arms of the Church and the other two the personal banners of Guidobaldo and Gandia. The two condottieri at- tended the ceremony, arrayed in full armour, and re- ceived the white truncheons that were the emblems of their command. On the following day the army set out, accompan- ied by the Cardinal de Luna as papal legate a latere,THE ROMAN BARONS III and within a month ten Orsini strongholds had sur- rendered. So far all had been easy for the papal forces; but now the Orsini rallied in the last three fortresses that remained them — Bracciano, T'revignano, and Anguil- lara, and their resistance suddenly acquired a stub- born character, particularly that of Bracciano, which was captained by Bartolomeo d’ Alviano, a clever, re- sourceful young soldier who was destined to go far. Thus the campaign, so easily conducted at the outset, received a check which caused it to drag on into the winter. And now the barons received further rein- forcements. Vitellozzo Vitelli, the Tyrant of Citta di Castello, came to the aid of the Orsini, as did also the turbulent Baglioni of Perugia, the Della Rovere in Rome, and all those who were hostile to Alexander VI. On the other hand, however, the barons Colonna and Savelli ranged themselves on the side of the Pope. Already Trevignano had fallen, and the attack of the pontifical army was concentrated upon Bracciano. Hard pressed, and with all supplies cut off, Bartolomeo d’ Alviano was driven to the very verge of surrender, when over the hills came Carlo Orsini, with the men of Vitellozzo Vitelli, to take the papal forces by sur- prise and put them to utter rout. Guidobaldo was made prisoner, whilst the Duke of Gandia, Fabrizio Colonna, and the papal legate narrowly escaped, and took shelter in Ronciglione, the Pope’s son being slightly wounded in the face. It was a severe and sudden conclusion to a war that had begun under such excellent auspices for the Pontificals. Yet, notwithstanding that defeat, which had left guns and baggage in the hands of the enemy,112 THE BULL PASCANT the Pope was the gainer by the campaign, having won eleven strongholds from the Orsini in exchange for one battle lost. The barons now prepared to push home their advantage and complete the victory; but the Pope checkmated them by an appeal to Gonzalo de Cor- doba, who promptly responded and came with Pros- pero Galena to the aid of the Church. He laid siege to Ostia, which was being held for Cardinal della Ro- vere, and compelled it to a speedy surrender, thereby bringing the Orsini resistance practically to an end. For the present the might of the barons was broken, and they were forced to pay Alexander the sum of fifty thousand ducats to redeem their captured for- tresses. Gonzalo de Cordoba made a triumphal entry into Rome, bringing with him Monaldo da Guerra, the un- fortunate defender of Ostia, in chains. He was re- ceived with great honour by the Duke of Gandia, accompanied by his brother-in-law, Giovanni Sforza, and they escorted him to the Vatican, where the Pope awaited him. This was but one of the many occasions just then on which Giovanni Sforza was conspicuous in public in close association with his father-in-law, the Pope. Burchard mentions his presence at the blessing of the candles on the Feast of the Purification, and shows him to us as a candle-bearer standing on the Pope’s right hand. Again we see him on Palm Sunday in attendance upon Alexander, he and Gandia standing together on the steps of the pontifical throne in the Sistine Chapel during the Blessing of the Palms. There and elsewhere Lucrezia’s husband is prominentTHE ROMAN BARONS 113 in the public eye during those months of February and March of 1497, and we generally see him sharing, with the Duke of Gandia, the honour of close attendance upon the Pontiff, all of which but serves to render the more marked his sudden disappearance from that scene. The matter of his abrupt and precipitate flight from Rome is one concerning which it is unlikely that the true and complete facts will ever be revealed. It was public gossip at this time that his marriage with Lucrezia was not a happy one, and that dis- cord marred their life together. Lucrezia’s reported grievance upon this subject reads a little vaguely to us now, whatever it may have conveyed at the time. She complained that Giovanni “did not fittingly keep her company,” 1 which may be taken to mean that a good harmony did not prevail between them, or, almost equally well, that there were the canonical grounds for complaint against him as a husband which were afterwards formally preferred and made the grounds for the divorce. It is also possible that Alexander’s ambition may have urged him to dissolve the marriage to the end that she might be free to be used again as a pawn in his far-reaching game. All that we do know positively is that, one evening in Holy Week, Sforza mounted a Turkish horse, and, on the pretext of going as far as the Church of Sant’ Onofrio to take the air, he slipped out of Rome, and so desperately did he ride that, twenty-four hours later, he was home in Pesaro, his horse dropping dead as he reached the town. Certainly some terrible panic must have urged him, 1 “Che non gli faceva buona compagnia.”114 THE BULL PASCANT and this rather lends colour to the story told by Almerici in the “‘Memorie di Pesaro.’”’ According to this, the Lord of Pesaro’s chamberlain, Giacomino, was in Lucrezia’s apartments one evening when Ce- sare was announced, whereupon, by Lucrezia’s orders, Giacomino eneceaied himself behind a screen. The Cardinal of Valencia entered and talked freely with his sister, the essence of his conversation being that the order had been issued for her husband’s death. The inference to be drawn from this is that Gio- vanni had been given to choose in the matter of a divorce, and that he had refused to be a party to it, whence it was resolved to remove him in a still more effective manner. Be that as it may, the chroniclers of Pesaro proceed to relate that, after Cesare had left her, Lucrezia asked Giacomino if he had heard what had been said, and, upon being answered in the affirmative, urged him to go at once and warn Giovanni. It was as a con- sequence of this alleged w arning that Giovanni made his precipitate departure. A little while later, at the beginning of June, Lucre- zia left the Vatican and withdrew to the Convent of San Sisto, in the Appian Way, a step which immed1- ately gave rise to speculation and to unbridled SOSSIP, all of which, however, is too vague to be worthy of the least attention. Apernet s advices to the Cardinal Ippolito d’Este suggest that she did not leave the Vatican on good terms with her family, and it 1s very possible, if what the Pesaro chroniclers state 1s true, that her withdrawal arose out of her having warned Giovanni of his danger and enabled him to escape. At about the same time that Lucrezia withdrew toTHE ROMAN BARONS 11g her convent her brother Gandia was the recipient of further honours at the hands of his fond father. The Pope had raised the fief of Benevento to a dukedom, and as a dukedom conferred it upon his son, to him and to his legitimate heirs for ever. To this he added the valuable lordships of Terracina and Pontecorvo. Cesare, meanwhile, had by no means been forgotten, and already this young Cardinal was — with perhaps the sole exception of the Cardinal d’Estouteville — the richest churchman in Christendom. To his many other offices and benefices it was being proposed to add that of Chamberlain of the Holy See, Cardinal Riario, who held the office, being grievously ill and his recovery beyond hope. Together with that office it was the Pope’s avowed intention to bestow upon Cesare the palace of the late Cardinal of Mantua, and with it, no doubt, he would receive a proportion of the dead cardinal’s benefices. Cesare was twenty-two years of age at the time. Tall, of an athletic slenderness, and exceedingly grace- ful in his movements, he was acknowledged to be the handsomest man of his age. His face was long and pale, his brow lofty, his nose delicately aquiline. He had long auburn hair, and his hazel eyes, large, quick in their movements, and singularly searching in their glance, were alive with the genius of the soul behind them. He inherited from his father the stupendous health and vigour for which Alexander had been re- markable in his youth, and was remarkable still in his old age. The chase had ever been Cesare’s favour- ite pastime, and the wild boar his predilect quarry; and in the pursuit of it he had made good use of his exceptional physical endowments, cultivating them116 THE BULL PASCANT until — like his father before him — he was equal to the endurance of almost any degree of fatigue. In the Consistory of June 8th he was appointed legate a latere to go to Naples to crown King Federigo of Aragon — for in the mean while another change had taken place on the Neapolitan throne by the death of young Ferdinand II, who had been succeeded by his uncle, Federigo, Prince of Altamura. Cesare made ready for this important mission, upon which he was to be accompanied by his brother Gio- vanni, Duke of Gandia. They were both to be back in Rome by September, when Gandia was to return to Spain, taking with him his sister Lucrezia. Thus had the Pope disposed; but the Borgia family stood on the eve of the darkest tragedy associated with its name, a tragedy which was to alter all these plans.CHAPTER Lv THE MURDER OF THE DUKE OF GANDIA N June 14, 1497, the eve of Cesare and Giovanni Borgia’s departure for Naples, their mother Vannozza gave them a farewell supper in her beautiful vineyard in Trastevere. In addition to the two guests of honour several other kinsmen and friends were present, among whom were the Cardinal of Monreale and young Giuffredo Borgia. They remained at supper until an advanced hour of the night, when Cesare and Giovanni took their departure, attended only by a few servants and a mysterious man in a mask, who had come to Giovanni whilst he was at table, and who almost every day for about a month had been in the habit of visiting him at the Vatican. The brothers and these attendants rode together into Rome and as far as the Vice-Chancellor Ascanio Sforza’s palace in the Ponte Quarter. Here Giovanni drew rein, and informed Cesare that he would not be returning to the Vatican just yet, as he was first “‘soing elsewhere to amuse himself.” With that he took his leave of Cesare, and, with one single ex- ception — in addition to the man in the mask — dismissed his servants. The latter continued their homeward way with the Cardinal, whilst the Duke, taking the man in the mask upon the crupper of his horse and followed by his single attendant, turned and made off in the direction of the Jewish quarter. In the morning it was found that Giovanni had not118 THE BULL PASCANT yet returned, and his uneasy servants informed the Pope of his absence and of the circumstances of it. The Pope, however, was not at all alarmed. Explain- ing his son’s absence in the manner so obviously suggested by Giovanni’s parting words to Cesare on the previous night, he assumed that the gay young Duke was on a visit to some complacent lady and that presently he would return. Later in the day, however, news was brought that his horse had been found loose in the streets, in the neighbourhood of the Cardinal of Parma’s palace, with only one stirrup-leather, the other having clearly been cut from the saddle, and, at the same time, it was related that the servant who had accompanied him after he had separated from the rest had been found at dawn in the Piazza della Giudecca mortally wounded and beyond speech, expiring soon after his removal to a neighbouring house. Alarm spread through the Vatican, and the anxious Pope ordered inquiries to be made in every quarter where it was possible that anything might be learned. It was in answer to these inquiries that a boatman of the Schiavoni — one Giorgio by name — came for- ward with the story of what he had seen on the night of Wednesday. He had passed the night on board his boat, on guard over the timber with which she was laden. She was moored along the bank that runs from the Bridge of Sant’ Angelo to the Church of Santa Maria Nuova. He related that at about the fifth hour of the night, just before daybreak, he had seen two men emerge from the narrow street alongside the Hospital of San Girolamo, and stand on the river’s brink at the spotTHE MURDER OF THE DUKE OF GANDIA 11g where it was usual for the scavengers to discharge their refuse carts into the water. These men had looked carefully about, as if to make sure that they were not being observed. Seeing no one astir, they made a sign, whereupon a man well mounted on a handsome white horse, his heels armed with golden spurs, rode out of that same narrow street. Behind him, on the crupper of his horse, Giorgio beheld the body of a man, the head hanging in one direction and the legs in the other. This body was supported there by two other men on foot, who walked on either side of the horseman. Arrived at the water’s edge, they turned the horse’s hind-quarters to the river; then, taking the body be- tween them, two of them swung it well out into the stream. After the splash, Giorgio had heard the horseman inquire whether they had thrown well into the middle, and had heard him receive the affirmative answer — ‘‘Signor, si.” The horseman then sat scan- ning the surface a while, and presently pointed out a dark object floating, which proved to be their victim’s cloak. he men threw stones at it, and so sank it, whereupon they turned, and all five departed as they had come. Such is the boatman’s story, as related in the “Djarium” of Burchard. When the Pope had heard it, he asked the fellow why he had not immediately gone to give notice of what he had witnessed, to which this Giorgio replied that, in his time, he had seen over a hundred bodies thrown into the Tiber without ever anybody troubling to know anything about them. This story and Gandia’s continued absence threw the Pope into a frenzy of apprehension. He orderedFe Bae Na a 120 THE BULL PASCANT the bed of the river to be searched foot by foot. Some hundreds of boatmen and fishermen got to work, and on that same afternoon the body of the ill-fated Duke of Gandia was brought up in one of the nets. He was not only completely dressed — as was to have been expected from Giorgio’s story — but his gloves and his purse containing thirty ducats were still at his belt, as was his dagger, the only weapon he had car- ried; the jewels upon his person, too, were all intact, which made it abundantly clear that his assassination was not the work of thieves. His hands were still tied, and there were nine wounds on his body, in addition to which his throat had been cut.? The corpse was taken in a boat to the Castle of Sant’ Angelo, where it was stripped, washed, and ar- rayed in the garments of the Captain- General of the Church. That same night, on a bier, the body cov- ered with a mantle of Brocade: the faces looking more beautiful than in life,” he was carried by torch- light from Sant’ Angelo to Santa Maria del Popolo for burial, quietly and with little pomp. The Pope’s distress was terrible. As the procession was crossing the Bridge of Sant’ Angelo, those who stood there heard his awful cries of anguish, as is re- lated in the dispatches of an eye-witness quoted by Sanuto. Alexander shut himself up in his apartments with his passionate sorrow, refusing to see anybody; and it was only by insistence that the Cardinal of Segovia and some of the Pope’s familiars contrived to gain admission to his presence; but even then, not for 1 Alexander’s own letter to the Doge, of the 19th June, quoted by Sanuto,THE MURDER OF THE DUKE OF GANDIA rar three days could they induce him to taste food, nor did he sleep. At last he roused himself, partly in response to the instances of the Cardinal of Segovia, partly spurred by the desire to avenge the death of his child, and he ordered Rome to be ransacked for the assassins; but, although the search was pursued for two months, it proved utterly fruitless. That is the oft-told story of the death of the Duke of Gandia. Those are all the facts concerning it that are known or that ever will be known. The rest 1s speculation, and this speculation has been prone to follow the trend of malice rather than of evidence. Suspicion fell at first upon Giovanni Sforza, who was supposed to have avenged himself thus upon the Pope for the treatment he had received. There certainly existed that reasonable motive to actuate him, but not a particle of evidence against him. Next rumour had it that Cardinal Ascanio Sforza’s was the hand that had done this work, and with this rumour Rome was busy for months. It was known that he had quarrelled violently with Gandia, who had been grossly insulted by a chamberlain of Ascanio’s, and who had wiped out the insult by having the man seized and hanged. Sanuto quotes a letter from Rome on July 21st, which states that “‘it is certain that Ascanio murdered the Duke of Gandia.’ Cardinal Ascanio’s numerous enemies took care to keep the accusation alive at the Vatican, and Ascanio, in fear for his life, left Rome and fled to Grottaferrata. When summoned to Rome, he refused to come save under safe-conduct. His fears,ro THE BULL PASCANT 12! however, appear to have been groundless, for the Pope attached no importance to the accusation against him, convinced of his 1 Innocence, as he informed him. Thereupon public opinion looked about for some other likely person upon whom to fasten its indict- ment, and lighted upon Giuffredo Borgia, Gandia’s youngest brother. Here, again, a motive was not wanting. Already has mention been made of the wanton ways of Giuffredo’s Neapolitan wife, Dofia Sancia. That she was prodigal of her favours there is no lack of evidence, and it was said that amongst those she admitted to them was the dead Duke. Jealousy, then, it was alleged, was the spur that had driven Giuffredo to the deed; and that the rumour of this must have been insistent is clear when we find the Pope publicly exonerating his youngest son, in the Consistory held on the rgth June. Thus matters stood, and thus had public opinion spoken, when in the month of August the Pope or- dered the search for the murderer to cease. Bracci, the Florentine ambassador, explains this action of Alexander’s. He writes that His Holiness knew who were the murderers, and that he was taking no fur- ther steps in the matter in the hope that thus, con- ceiving themselves to be secure, they might more completely discover themselves. Bracci’s next letter bears out the supposition that he writes from inference, and not from knowledge. He repeats that the investigations have been suspended, and that to account for this some say what already he has written, whilst others deny it; but that the truth of the matter is known to none. Later in the year we find the popular voice denounc-THE MURDER OF THE DUKE OF GANDIA 123 ing Bartolomeo d’ Alviano and the Orsini. Already in August the Ferrarese ambassador, Manfredi, had written that the death of the Duke of Gandia was be- ing imputed to Bartolomeo d’ Alviano, and in De- cember we see in Sanuto a letter from Rome which announces that it is positively stated that the Orsint had caused the death of Giovanni Borgia. These various rumours are hardly worth mention- ing for their own values, but they are important as showing how public opinion fastened the crime in turn upon everybody it could think of as at all likely to have had cause to commit it, and more important still for the purpose of refuting what has since been written concerning the immediate connection of Cesare Borgia with the crime in the popular mind. Not until February of the following year was the name of Cesare ever mentioned in connection with the deed. The first rumour of his guilt synchronized with that of his approaching renunciation of his eccle- siastical career, and there can be little doubt that the former sprang from the latter. The world — blind to the possibility that it might be confusing cause and effect — conceived that it had discovered on Cesare’s part a motive for the murder of his brother. That motive — of which so very much has been made — shall presently be examined. Meanwhile, to deal with the actual rumour, and its crystallization into history. The Ferrarese ambassa- dor heard it in Venice on February 12, 1498. Capello seized upon it, and repeated it two and half years later, stating on September 28, 1500, “etiam amazo il fratello.” And there you have the whole source of all the124 THE BULL PASCANT unbridled accusations subsequently launched against Cesare, all of which find a prominent place in Gre- gorovius’s “Geschichte der Stadt Rom,” ! whilst the rumours accusing others, which we have mentioned here, are there slurred over. The striking talents of Gregorovius are occasionally marred by the pedantry sometimes characteristic of the scholars of his nation. He is too positive; he sel- dom opines; he asserts with finality the things that only God can know; occasionally his knowledge, transcending the possible, quits the realm of the his- torian for that of the romancer, as for instance — to cite one amid a thousand — when he actually tells us what passes in Cesare Borgia’s mind at the corona- tion of the King of Naples. In the matter of author- ities, he follows a dangerous and insidious method of selection, preferring those who support the point of view which he has chosen, without a proper regard for their intrinsic values. He tells us definitely that, if Alexander had not positive knowledge, he had at least moral conviction that it was Cesare who had killed the Duke of Gandia. In that, again, you see the God-like knowledge which he usurps; you see him clairvoyant rather than his- torical. Starting out with the positive assertion that Cesare Borgia was the murderer, he sets himself, in default of evidence, to prove it by piling up a mass of arguments, whose worthlessness it is incredible he should not have realized. ~ According to the general opinion of the day, which in all probability was correct, Cesare was the mur- derer of his brother.” ‘Lib. x1u, cap. v.THE MURDER OF THE DUKE OF GANDIA 125 Thus Gregorovius in his “Lucrezia Borgia.”” A mis- statement singularly gross! For, as we have been at pains to show, not until the crime had been fastened upon everybody whom public opinion could conceive to be a possible assassin, not until nearly a year after Gandia’s death did rumour for the first time connect Cesare with the deed. Until then the ambassadors’ letters from Rome in dealing with the murder and re- porting speculation upon possible murderers never make a single allusion to Cesare as the guilty per- son. Later, when once it had been bruited, it found its way into the writings of every defamer of the Borgias, and from several of these it is taken by Gregorovius to help him uphold this theory. Two motives were urged for the crime. One was Cesare’s envy of his brother, whom he desired to supplant as a secular prince, fretting in the cassock imposed upon himself which restrained his unbounded ambition. The other — and no epoch but this one under consideration, in its reaction from the age of chivalry, could have dared to level it without a care- ful examination of its sources — was Cesare’s jeal- ousy, springing from the incestuous love for their sister Lucrezia, which he is alleged to have disputed with his brother. Thus, as L’Espinois has pointed out, to convict Cesare Borgia of a crime which cannot absolutely be proved against him, all that 1s necessary is that he should be charged with another crime still more horrible of which even less proof exists. This latter motive, it is true, is rejected by Gre- gorovius. “Our sense of honesty,” he writes, “repels us from attaching faith to the belief spread in that126 THE BULL PASCANT most corrupt age.’”’* Yet the authorities urging one motive are commonly those urging the other, and Gregorovius quotes those that suit him, without con- sidering that, if he is convinced they lie in one con- nection, he has not the right to assume them truthful in another. The contemporary, or quasi-contemporary writers upon whose “authority” it is usual to show that Cesare Borgia was guilty of both those revolting crimes are: Sanazzaro, Capello, Macchiavelli, Mata- razzo, Sanuto, Pietro Martire d’ Anghiera, Guicciar- dini, and Panvinio. A formidable group of witnesses! But consider them, one by one, at close quarters, and critically ex- amine the precise evidence of each by the canons of modern equity. SANAZZARO was a Neapolitan poet and epigram- matist, who could not — his times being what they were — be expected to overlook the fact that in these slanderous rumours of incest was excellent matter for epigrammatical verse. Therefore, he crystallized them into lines which, whilst doing credit to his wit, reveal his brutal cruelty. No one will seriously suppose that such a man would be concerned with the veracity of the matter of his verses — even leaving out of the question his enmity towards the House of Borgia,? which will transpire later. For him a ben trovato was as good matter as a truth, or better. He measured its ‘In his Lucrezia Borgia. But it is to be suspected that this is only be- cause to have admitted the charge would have rendered untenable the point of view he had chosen when he embarked upon his vindication of Lucrezia. 2 This is admitted even by Gregorovius. See footnote 2, page 131.THE MURDER OF THE DUKE OF GANDIA 127 value by its piquancy, by its adaptability to epigram- matic rhy mes. Conceive the heartlessness of the man who, at the moment of Alexander’s awful grief at the murder of his son — a grief which so moved even his enemies that the bitter Savonarola, and the scarcely less bitter Cardinal della Rovere, wrote to condole with him — could pen that terrible epigram: Piscatorem hominum ne te non, Sexte, putemus, Piscaris notum retibus ecce tuum. Consider the ribaldry of this, and ask yourselves whether this is a man who would immolate the chance of a witticism upon the altar of Truth. It is significant that Sanazzaro, for what he may be worth, confines himself to the gossip of incest. No- where does he mention that Cesare was the murderer, and we think that his silence upon the matter, if it shows anything, shows that Cesare’s guilt was not so very much the “general opinion of the day,” as Gre- gorovius asks us to believe. CAPELLO was not in Rome at the time of the murder nor until three years later, when he merely repeated the rumour that had first sprung up some eight months after the crime. The precise value of his famous “relation” (in which this matter is recorded, and to which we shall return in its proper p lace) and the spirit that actuated him is revealed in another accusation of murder which he levels at Cesare, an accusation which, of course, has also been widely disseminated upon no better authority than his own. It is Capello who tells us that128 THE BULL PASCANT Cesare stabbed the chamberlain Perrotto in the Pope’s very arms; he adds the details that the man had fled thither for shelter from Cesare’s fury, and that the blood of him, when he was stabbed, spurted up into the very face of the Pope. Where he got the story 1s not readily surmised — unless it be assumed that he evolved it out of his feelings for the Borgias. The only contemporary accounts of the death of this Perrotto — or Pedro Caldes, as was his real name — state that he fell by accident into the Tiber and was drowned. Burchard, the Master of Ceremonies at the Vatican, who could not have failed to know if the stabbing story had been true, and would not have failed to report it, chronicles the fact that Perrotto was fished out of the Tiber, having fallen in six days earlier — “non libenter.”” And this is corroborated in a letter from Rome of February 20, 1498, quoted by Marino Sanuto in his “‘ Diarii.”” This states that Perrotto had been missing for some days, no one knowing what had become of him, and that now “‘he has been found drowned in the Tiber.”’ We mention this, in passing, with the twofold ob- ject of slaying another calumny, and revealing the true value of Capello, who happens to be the chief “witness for the prosecution” put forward by Gre- gorovius. “Is it not of great significance,” inquires the German historian, ‘‘that the fact should have been related so positively by an ambassador who ob- tained his knowledge from the best sources?” The question is frivolous, for the whole trouble in this matter is that there were no sources at all, in the proper sense of the word — good or bad. There wasTHE MURDER OF THE DUKE OF GANDIA 129 simply gossip, which had been busy with a dozen names already. MaccHIAVELLI includes a note in his “Extracts from Letters to the Ten,” in which he mentions the death of Gandia, adding that “at first nothing was known, and then men said it was done by the Cardinal of Valencia.” There is nothing very authoritative in that. Be- sides, incidentally it may be mentioned, that it is not clear when or how the Extracts were compiled by Macchiavelli (in his capacity of Secretary to the Signory of Florence) from the dispatches of her am- bassadors. But it has been shown — though we are hardly concerned with that at the moment — that these extracts are confused by comments of his own, either for his own future use or for that of another. Matarazzo is the Perugian chronicler of whom we have already expressed the only tenable opinion. The task he set himself was to record the contempo- rary events of his native town — the stronghold of the blood-dripping Baglioni. He enlivened it by every scrap of scandalous gossip that reached him, however alien to his avowed task. The authenticity of this scandalmongering chronicle has been questioned; but, even assuming it to be authentic, it is so wildly in- accurate when dealing with matters happening be- yond the walls of Perugia as to be utterly worthless. Matarazzo relates the story of the incestuous rela- tions prevailing in the Borgia family, and with an un- sparing wealth of detail not to be found elsewhere; but on the subject of the murder he has a tale to tell130 THE BULL PASCANT entirely different from any other that has been left us. For, whilst he urges the incest as the motive of the crime, the murderer, he tells us, was Giovanni Sforza, the outraged husband; and he gives us the fullest ae tails of that murder, time and place and exactly how committed, and all the other matters which have never been brought to light. Itis allaw orthless, garbled piece of fiction, most ob- viously; as such it has ever been treated; but’ itis as plausible as it is untrue, and, at least, as authoritative as any available evidence assigning the guilt to Cesare. SANUTO we accept as a more or less careful and painstaking chronicler, whose writings are valuable; and Sanuto on the matter of the murder confines him- self to quoting the letter of February, 1498, in which the accusation against Cesare is first mentioned, after having given other earlier letters which accuse first Ascanio and then Orsini far more positively than does the latter letter accuse Cesare. On the matter of the incest there is no word in Sa- nuto; but there is mention of Dona Sancia’s indis- cretions, and the suggestion that, through jealousy on her account, it was rumoured that che murder had been committed — another proof of how vague and ill-defined the rumours were. Pietro MartTire D’ ANGHIERA writes from Burgos, in Spain, that he is convinced of the fratricide. It 1s interesting to know of that conviction of his; but difh- cult to conceive how it is to be accepted as evidence. If more needs to be said, let it be mentioned that the letter in which he expresses that conviction 1sTHE MURDER OF THE DUKE OF GANDIA 131 dated April, 1497 — two months before the murder took place! * GurccIARDINI is not a contemporary chronicler of events as they happened, but an historian writing some thirty years later. He merely repeats what Ca- pello and others have said before him. It is for him to quote authorities for what he writes, and not to be set up as an authority. He is not reliable, and he is a no- torious defamer of the Papacy,” sparing nothing that will serve his ends. He dilates with gusto upon the ac- cusation of incest. Lastly, PANvinio is in the same category as Guic- ciardini. He was not born until some thirty years after these events, and his “History of the Popes” was not written until some sixty years after the murder of the Duke of Gandia. This history bristles 1 Gregorovius, whose writings hardly justify the assumption that he was troubled by a sense of humour, tells us, nevertheless, that he smiled as he read Roscoe’s defence of Cesare Borgia from this charge of fratricide. Others may be disposed to smile even more broadly at the following egregiousness of Gregorovius in the matter of Anghiera’s testimony: “Petrus Martyr Anglerius, in his Ep. X. of the gth April, 1497, shows himself convinced of the fratricide. But I refer only in passing to this writer because, not to say more, the date of his epistle, anterior to that of the event, caused Ranke justly to suspect that the author had subse- quently retouched these letters.” (Geschichte der Stadt Rom, \ib. xl, cap. Vv, note 39.) 2 This should by now be clear from the quotations given already from the Florentine historian’s work. Yet Gregorovius, in putting him forward as one of the witnesses against Cesare in this matter, does not hesitate to say: “The rumours of incest are noted not only by enemies, such as Sanaz- zaro... but even by those who were not personally hostile to the Borgias, such as Guicciardini,” etc. (Lib. xml, cap. v, note 36). Bad faith in the submission of evidence can hardly go further than to represent as friendly a witness who is bitterly hostile.132 THE BULL PASCANT with inaccuracies; he never troubles to verify his facts, and as an authority on events during the Papacy of Alexander VI he is obviously negligible. In the valuable “Diarium” of Burchard there is unfortunately a lacuna at this juncture, from the da after the murder (of which he gives the full particu- lars to which we have gone for our narrative of that event) until the month of August following. And now we may see Gregorovius actually using si- lence as evidence. He seizes upon that lacuna, and goes so far as to set up the tentative and audaciously arbitrary explanation that Burchard ‘perhaps pur- posely interrupted his Diary so that he might avoid mentioning the fratricide.” If such were the case, it would be a strange depar- ture from Burchard’s invariable habit of cold, relent- less, uncritical chronicling of events, in which reti- cence has no place. Besides, any significance with which that lacuna might be invested is discounted by the fact that such gaps are of fairly common occur- rence in the course of Burchard’s record. So much for the valuable authorities, out of which —and by means of a selection which is not quite clearly defined — Gregorovius claims to have proved that the murderer of the Duke of Gandia was his brother Cesare Borgia, Cardinal of Valencia.! ‘ It is rather odd that, in the course of casting about for a possible mur- derer of Gandia, public opinion should never have fastened upon Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. He had lately been stripped of the Patrimony of Saint Peter that the governorship of this might be bestowed upon Gandia; his resentment had been provoked by that action of the Pope’s, and the relations between himself and the Borgias were strained in consequence.THE MURDER OF THE DUKE OF GANDIA 133 Now to examine more closely the actual motives given by those authorities and by later, critical writers, for attributing the guilt to Cesare. In September of the year 1497, the Pope had dis- solved the marriage of his daughter Lucrezia and Giovanni Sforza, and the grounds for the dissolution were that the husband was impotens et frigidus na- tura — admitted by himself.’ If you know anything of the Italy of to-day, you will be able to conceive for yourself how the Italy of the fifteenth century must have held her sides and pealed her laughter at the contemptible spectacle of an unfortunate who afforded such reason to be bun- dled out of a nuptial bed. The echo of that mighty burst of laughter must have rung from Calabria to the Alps, and well may it have filled the handsome weak- ling who was the object of its cruel ridicule with a tal- ion fury. The weapons he took up wherewith to de- fend himself were a little obvious. He answered the odious reflections upon his virility by a wholesale charge of incest against the Borgia family; he screamed that what had been said of him was a lie invented by the Borgias to serve their own unutterable ends.? Possibly there was clear proof that he could have had no connection with the crime. 1 “E] S. de Pesaro ha scripto qua de sua mano non haverla mai co- gnosciuta et esser impotente, alias la sententia non se potea dare. E] pre- fato S. dice pero haver scripto cosi per obedire el Duca de Milano et Aschanio.” (Collenuccio’s letter from Rome to the Duke of Ferrara, Dec. 25, 1497-) 2 “Et mancho se e curato de fare prova de qua con Done per poterne chiarire el Rev. Legato che era qua, sebbene sua Excellentia tastandolo sopra cio gli ne abbia facto offerta.” And further: “Anzi haverla conos- ciuta infinite volte, ma chel Papa non gelha tolta per altro se non per usare con lei.” (Costabili’s letter from Milan to the Duke of Ferrara, June 23, 1497-)THE BULL PASCANT Such was the accusation with which the squirming Lord of Pesaro retaliated, and I do not think that due weight has been given to the fact that it was an obvi- ous and commonplace accusation in an age that was not lightly shocked. Almost contemporaneously the identical accusa- tion was being uttered by his defamers against Henry VIII of E ngland (and this by no means in connection with his marriage with Catherine of Aragon), and abundant other instances might be cited. It 1s to be remembered that any lesser vice, the imputation of which might serve to-day to brand a man as unfit for decent society, would hardly have aroused interest among Cinquecentists. Yet, however obvious, it was not an accusation that the world of Roderigo Borgia’s day would lightly cast aside, for all that the perspicacious may have rated it at its proper value. What is of great importance to students of the his- tory of the Borgias is that this was the first occasion on which the charge of incest was raised against them. Of course it persisted; such a charge could not do otherwise. But now that we see in what vindictive soil 1t had its roots we shall know what importance to attach to it. Not only did it persist, but it developed, as was but natural. Cesare and the dead Gandia were in- cluded in it, and presently it suggested a motive — of which no one had dreamed until then — why Cesare might have been his brother’s murderer. Then, early in 1498, came the rumour that Cesare was intending to abandon the purple; and later writers, from Capello down to our own times, haveTHE MURDER OF THE DUKE OF GANDIA 135 chosen to see in Cesare’s supposed contemplation of that step a motive so strong for the crime as to afford the most absolutely conclusive proof of it. In no case could it be such proof, even if it were admitted as a possible motive. But is it really so to be admitted: Did such a motive exist at all? Does it really follow — as has been taken for granted — that Cesare must have remained an ecclesiastic had Gandia lived? We cannot see that it does. Indeed, such evidence as there is, when properly considered, points in the oppo- site direction, even if no account is taken of the fact that this was not the first occasion on which it was proposed that Cesare should abandon the ecclesiasti- cal career, as is shown by the Ferrarese ambassador's dispatches of March, 1493. It is contended that Gandia was a stumbling- block to Cesare, and that Gandia held the secular possessions which Cesare coveted; but if that were really the case why, when eventually (some fourteen months after Gandia’s death) Cesare doffed the pur- ple to replace it by a soldier’s harness, did he not assume the secular possessions that had been his brother’s? His dead brother’s lands and titles went to his dead brother’s son, whilst Cesare’s career was totally differ- ent, as his aims were totally different, from any that had been Gandia’s, or that might have been Gandia’s had the latter lived. True, Cesare became Captain- General of the Church in his dead brother’s place; but for that his brother’s death was not necessary. Gan- dia had neither the will nor the intellect to under- take the things that awaited Cesare. He was a soft- natured, pleasure-loving youth, whose way of life was136 THE BULL PASCANT already mapped out for him. His place was at Gan- dia, in Spain, and, whilst he might have continued lord of all the possessions that were his, it would have been Cesare’s to become Duke of Valentinois, and to have made himself master of Romagna, precisely as he did. In conclusion, Gandia’s death no more advanced, than his life could have impeded, the career which Cesare afterwards made his own, and to say that Ce- sare murdered him to supplant him is to set up a the- ory which the subsequent facts of Cesare’s life will nowise justify. It is idle of Gregorovius to say that the logic of the crime 1s inexorable — in its assigning the guilt to Ce- sare — fatuous of him to suppose that, as he claims, he has definitely proved Cesare to be his brother’s murderer. There is much against Cesare Borgia, but it never has been proved, and never will be proved, that he was a fratricide. Indeed, the few really known facts of the murder all point to a very different conclusion — a conclusion more or less obvious, which has been discarded, it would seem, out of a morbid reluctance to acquit a Borgia of any villainy ever charged against him. Where was all this need to go so far afield in quest of a probable murderer imbued with political mo- tives! Where the need to accuse in turn every enemy that Gandia could possibly possess before finally fas- tening upon his own brother? Certain evidence is afforded by the known facts of the case, scant as they are. It may not amount toTHE MURDER OF THE DUKE OF GANDIA 137 much, but at least it is sufficient to warrant a plau- sible conclusion, and there is no justification for dis- carding it in favour of something for which not a par- ticle of evidence is forthcoming. There is, first of all, the man in the mask to be ac- counted for. That he is connected with the crime is eminently probable, if not absolutely certain. It is to be remembered that for a month — accord- ing to Burchard — he had been in the habit of visiting Gandia almost daily. He comes to Vannozza’s villa on the night of the murder. Isit too much to suppose that he brought a message from some one from whom he was in the habit of bringing messages! He was seen last on the crupper of Gandia’s horse as the latter rode away towards the Jewish quarter.” Gandia himself announced that he was bound on pleasure — going to amuse himself. Does that count for nothing as evidence? Even without the knowledge which we possess of his licentious habits, no doubt could arise as to the nature of the amusement upon which he was thus bound at dead of night; and there are the conclusions formed in the morning by his father, when it was found that Gandia had not re- turned.” Is it so very difficult to conceive that Gandia, in the course of the assignation to which he went — to which he practically stated that he was going — should have fallen into the hands of an irate father, husband, 1 The Ghetto was not yet in existence. It was not built until 1556, under Paul IV. 2«« | .N. Signore fece tenere tutto heri la cos che epso Duca potesse essere intrato, per causa de Daunde non fosse poi potuto uscire questa nocte passata.’ Ascanio Sforza to Lodovico, 16th June, 1497:) a secreta, persuadendose femine, in qualche loco. ’ (Letter from138 THE BULL PASCANT or brother? Is it not really the obvious inference to draw from the few facts that we possess? That it was the inference immediately drawn by the Pope we have already seen; and that he clung to it even some time after the crime and while rumours of a different sort were rife, is further shown by the perquisition made in the house of Antonio Pico della Mirandola, who had a daughter whom it was conceived might have been the object of the young Duke’s nocturnal visit, and whose house was near the place where Gan- dia was flung into the Tiber. We could hazard s speculations that would account for He. man in the mask, but it is not our business to speculate save where the indications are fairly clear. Let us consider the significance of Gandia’s tied hands and the wounds upon his body in addition to the mortal gash across his throat. To what does this condition Ge Surely not to a murder of expedi- ency so much as to a fierce, lustful butchery of venge- ance. Why else were his wrists pinioned? Had he been swiftly done to death there would have been no need for that. Had hired assassins done the work they would not have stayed to pinion him, not do we think they would have troubled to fling him into the river; they would have slain and left him where he fell.? 1 A recent writer on this subject sees in the number of Gandia’s wounds “proof that the Duke had bravely defended himself.” With his wrists pinioned? For it can hardly be supposed that they were tied after he was slain. It might be assumed that he took the nine lesser wounds in the course of a struggle in which he was overpowered (although even against this theory is the fact that his dagger was found in its sheath when his body was fished out of the Tiber). Being overpowered, his hands were tied, and the mortal wound in his throat was dealt him subsequently. There is nothing in this that does not fit into such a set of circumstances as we have postulated.THE MURDER OF THE DUKE OF GANDIA 139 The whole aspect of the case suggests the presence of the master, of the personal enemy himself. We can conceive Gandia’s wrists being tied, to the end that this personal enemy might do his will upon the wretched young man. We cannot explain the pinioned wrists in any other way. Then the man on the hand- some white horse, the man whom the four others addressed as men address their lord. Remember his gold spurs — a trifle, perhaps; but hired assassins do not wear gold spurs, even though their bestriding handsome white horses may be explainable. Surely that was the master, the personal enemy himself — and it was not Cesare, for Cesare at the time was at the Vatican. There we must leave the mystery of the murder of the Duke of Gandia; but we leave it persuaded that such scant evidence as there is, points entirely to an affair of sordid gallantry.CHAPTER V THE RENUNCIATION OF THE PURPLE A the Consistory of June 19, 1497, the Sacred College beheld a broken-hearted old man who declared that he had done with the world, and that henceforth life could offer him nothing that should endear it to him. ‘“‘A greater sorrow than this could not be ours, for we loved him exceedingly, and now we can hold neither the Papacy not any other thing as of concern. Had we seven Papacies, we would give them all to re- store the Duke to life.’”’ So ran his bitter lament. He denounced his course of life as not having been all that it should have been, and appeared to see in the murder of his son a punishment for the evil of his ways. Much has been made of this, and quite unnec- essarily. It has been taken eagerly as an admission of his unparalleled guilt. An admission of guilt it un- doubtedly was; but what man is not guilt ty? and how many men — aye, and saints even — in the hour of tribulation have cried out that they were being made to feel the wrath of God for the sins that no man is without. If humanity contains a type that would not have seen in such a cause for sorrow a visitation of God, it is the type of inhuman monster to which we are poked to believe that Alexander VI belonged. A sinner un- questionably he was, and a great one; but a human sinner, and not an incarnate devil, else there couldTHE RENUNCIATION OF THE PURPLE 141 have been no such outcry from him in such an hour as this. He announced that henceforth the spiritual needs of the Church should be his only care. He inveighed against the corruption of the ecclesiastical estate, con- fessing himself aware of how far it had strayed from the ancient discipline and from the laws that had been framed to bridle licence and cupidity, which were now rampant and unchecked; and he proclaimed his intention to reform the Curia and the Church of Rome. To this end he appointed a commission consisting of the Cardinal-Bishops Oliviero Caratfta and Giorgio Costa, the Cardinal-Priests Antonietto Pallavicino and Gianantonio Sangiorgio, and the Car- dinal-Deacons Francesco Piccolomini and Raffaele Riario. There was even a suggestion that he was proposing to abdicate, but that he was prevailed upon to do nothing until his grief should have abated and his judgment be restored to its habitual calm. This sug- gestion, however, rests upon no sound authority. Letters of condolence reached him on every hand. Even his arch-enemy, Cardinal Giuliano della Ro- vere, put aside his rancour in the face of the Pope’s overwhelming grief and also because it happened to consort with his own interests, as will presently transpire. He wrote to Alexander from France that he was truly pained to the very soul of him in his concern for the Pope's Holiness — a letter which, no doubt, laid the foundations to the reconciliation that was toward between them. Still more remarkable was it that the thaumaturg¢i- cal Savonarola should have paused in the atrabilious142 THE BULL PASCANT invective with which he was inflaming Florence against the Pope, to send him a letter of condolence in which he prayed that the Lord of all mercy might comfort His Holiness in his tribulation. " That letter is a singular document; singularly hu- man, yielding a singular degree of insight 3 into the na- ture of the man who penned i it. A whole chapter of in- telligent speculation upon the character of Savona- rola, based upon a study of externals, could not reveal as much of the mentality of that fanatical demagogue as the consideration of just this letter. The sympathy by which we cannot doubt it to have been primarily inspired is here overspread by the man’s rampant fanaticism, there diluted by the prophecies from which he cannot even now refrain; and, throughout, the manner is that of the pulpit- thumping orator. The first half of his letter is a prel- ude in the form of a sermon upon I aith, all very trite and obvious; and the notion of this excommunicated friar holding forth to the Pope’s Holiness in polemical platitudes delivered with all the authority of inspired discoveries of his own is one more proof that at the root of fanaticism, in all ages and upon all questions, lies an utter lack of a sense of fitness and proportion. Having said that “the just man liveth in the Lord by faith,” and that “the Lord in His mercy passeth over all our sins,” he proclaims that he announces things of which he is assured, and for which he is ready to “suf. fer all persecutions, and begs His Holiness to turn a favourable eye upon the work of faith in which he is labouring, and to give heed no more to the impious, promising the Holy Father that thus shall the Lord bestow upon him the essence of } joy instead of theTHE RENUNCIATION OF THE PURPLE 143 spirit of grief. Having begun, as we have seen, with an assurance that “the Lord in His mercy passeth over all our sins,’”’ he concludes by prophesying, with questionable logic, that “the thunders of His wrath will ere long be heard.”’ Nor does he omit to mention — with an apparent arrogance that again betrays that same want of a sense of proportion — that all his predictions are true. His letter, however, and that of Cardinal della Ro- vere, among so many others, show us how touched was the word by the Pope’s loss and overwhelming prief, how shocked at the manner in which this had been brought about. The commission which Alexander had appointed for the work of reform had meanwhile got to work, and the Cardinal of Naples edited the articles of a constitution which was undoubtedly the object of pro- longed study and consideration, as is revealed by the numerous erasures and emendations which it bears. Unfortunately asons which are not apparent — it was never pub lished by Alexander. Possibly by the time that it was concluded the aggrandizement of the temporal power was claiming his entire attention to the neglect of the spiritual needs of the Holy See. It is also possible —as has been abundantly sug- gested — that the stern mood of penitence had soft- ened with his sorrow, and was now overpast. Nevertheless, it may have been some lingering rem. nant of this fervour of reform that dictated the severe punishment which fell that year upon the flagitious Bishop of Cosenza. A fine trade was being driven in Rome by the sale of forged briefs of indulgence. Ray- naldus cites a Bull on that score addressed by Alexan-144 THE BULL PASCANT der, in the first year of his pontificate, to the bishops of Sp ain, enjoining them to visit with punishment all who in that kingdom should be discovered to be pur- suing such a trafic. On September 4, 1497, Burchard tells us, three servants of the Pontifical Secretary, the Archbishop of Cosenza (Bartolomeo Florido), were arrested in consequence of the discovery of twenty forged briefs issued by them. In their examination they incriminated their master the Archbishop, who was consequently put upon his trial and found guilty. Alexander deposed, degraded, and imprisoned him in Sant’ Angelo in a dark room, where he was sup- plied with oil for his lamp and read and water for his nourishment until he died. His underlings were burnt in the Campo di Fiori in the following month. The Duke of Gandia left a widow and two children — Giovanni, a boy of three years of age, and Isabella, a girl of two. In the interests of her son, the widow a Duchess applied to the Governor of V pleneiain in the following September for the boy’s investiture in the rights of his deceased father. This was readily granted upon authority from Rome, and so the boy Giovanni was recognized as third Duke of Gandia, Prince of Sessa and Teano, and Lord of Cerignola and Monte- foscolo, and the administration of his estates dur- ing his minority was entrusted to his uncle, Cesare Borgia. The Lordship of Benevento — the last grant made to Giovanni Borgia — was not mentioned; nor was it then nor ever subsequen tly claimed by the widow. It is the one possession of Gandia’s that went to Cesare, who was confirmed in it by the King of Naples.THE RENUNCIATION OF THE PURPLE 145 The Gandia branch of the Borgia family remained in Spain, prospered and grew in importance, and, in- cidentally, produced Saint Francis de Borgia. This Duke of Gandia was Master of the Household to Charles V, and thus a man of great worldly conse- quence; but it happened that he was so mov ed by the sight of the disfigured body of his master’s beautiful queen that he renounced the world and entered the Society of Jesus, eventually becoming its General. He died in 1562, and in the fullness of time was canonized. Cesare’s departure for Naples as legate a latere to anoint and crown Federigo of Aragon was naturally delayed by the tragedy that had assailed his House, and not until July 22d did he take his leave of the Pope and set out with an escort of two hundred horse. Naples was still in a state of ferment, split into two parties, one of which favoured France and the other Aragon, so that disturbances were continual. Alexan- der expressed the hope that Cesare might appear in that distracted kingdom in the guise of an “angel of peace,” and that by his coronation of King Federigo he should set a term to strife. The city of Naples itself was now being ravaged by fever, and in consequence e of this it was determined that (Clesnic should repair instead to Capua, where Federigo would await him. Arrived there, however, Cesare fell ill, and the coronation ceremony again suffered a postponement until August 1oth. Cesare remained a fortnight in the kingdom, and on August 22d set out to return to Rome, and his departure appears to have been a matter of relief to Federigo, for so impoverished did the King of Naples find Roe146 THE BULL PASCANT self that the entertainment of the legate and his nu- merous escort had proved a heavy tax upon his flabby urse. On the morning of September 6th all the cardinals in Rome received a summons to attend at the Monas- tery of Santa Maria Nuova to welcome the returned Cardinal of Valencia. In addition to the Sacred Col- lege all the ambassadors of the Powers were present, and, after the celebration of the Mass, the entire as- sembly proceeded to the Vatican, where the Pope was waiting to receive his son. When the young Cardinal presented himself at the foot of the papal throne, Alexander opened his arms to him, embraced, and kissed him, speaking no word. This rests upon the evidence of two eye-witnesses,” and the circumstance has been urged and propounded into the one conclusive piece of evidence that Cesare had murdered his brother, and that the Pope knew it. In this you have some more of what Gregorovius terms “inexorable logic.’ He kissed him, but he spake no word to him; therefore, they reason, Cesare murdered Gandia. Can absurdity be more absurd, fatuity more fatuous? Lucus a non lucendo! To square the circle should surely present no difficulty to these subtle reasoners. It was, as we have seen, in February of 1498 that it was first rumoured that Cesare intended to put off the purple; and that the rumour had ample founda- tion was plain from the circumstance that the Pope was already laying plans whose fulfilment must be 1 “Non dixit verbum Pape Valentinus, nec Papa sibi, sed eo deosculato, descendit de solio.” (Burchard’s Diarium, and “Solo lo bacié,” in letter from Rome in Sanuto’s Diarii.)THE RENUNCIATION OF THE PURPLE 147 dependent upon that step, and seeking to arrange a marriage for Cesare with Carlotta of Aragon, King Federigo of Naples’s daughter, stipulating that her dowry should be such that Cesare, in taking her to wife, should become Prince of Altamura and Taren- tum. But Federigo showed himself unwilling, possibly in consideration of the heavy dowry demanded and of the heavy draft already made by the Borgias — through Giuffredo Borgia, Prince of Squillace — upon this Naples which the French invasion had so impoverished. He gave out that he would not have his daughter wedded to a priest who was the son of a priest and that he would not give his daughter unless the Pope could contrive that a cardinal might marry and yet retain his hat. It all sounded as if he were actuated by nice scru- ples and high principles; but the opinion is unfor- tunately not encouraged when we find him, never- theless, giving his consent to the marriage of his nephew Alfonso to Lucrezia Borgia upon the pro- nouncement of her divorce from Giovanni Sforza. The marriage, let us say in passing, was celebrated at the Vatican on June 20, 1498, Lucrezia receiving a dowry of forty thousand ducats. But the astute Alexander saw to it that his family should acquire more than it gave, and contrived that Alfonso should receive the Neapolitan cities of Bisell1 and Quadrata, being raised to the title of Prince of Biselli. Nevertheless, there was a vast difference between giving in marriage a daughter who must take a weighty dowry out of the kingdom and receiving a daughter who would bring a handsome dowry with148 THE BULL PASCANT her. And the facts suggest that such was the full measure of Federigo’s scruples. Meanwhile, to dissemble his reluctance to let Ce- sare have his daughter to wife, Federigo urged that he must first take the feeling of Ferdinand and Isa- bella in this matter. While affairs stood thus, Charles VIII died suddenly at Amboise in April of that year 1498. Some work was being carried out there by artists whom he had brought from Naples for the purpose, and, in going to Visit this, the King happened to enter a Aack ‘gallery, and errnck his forehead so v iolently against the edge of a door that he expired the same day — at the age of twenty-eight. He was a poor, malformed fellow, as we have seen, and ‘of little understanding,’ Com- mines tells us; “but so good that it would have been impossible to have found a kinder creature.’ With him the Valois dynasty came to an end. He was succeeded by his cousin, the Duke of Orleans, who, upon his coronation at Rheims, assumed the title of King of France and the Two Sicilies and Duke of Milan —a matter which considerably perturbed Federigo of Aragon and Lodovico Sforza. Each of these rulers saw in that assu mptio yn of his own title by Louis XII a declaration of enmity, the prelude to a declaration of open war; wherefore, deeming it idle to send their ambassadors to represent them at the Court of France, they refrained from doing so. Louis XII’s ale 4im upon the Duchy of Milan was based upon his being the grandson of Valentina Visconti, and, considering himself a Visconti, he nat- urally looked upon the Sforza dominion as no bet- ter than a usurpation which too long had been leftTHE RENUNCIATION OF THE PURPLE 149 undisturbed. To disturb it now was the first aim of his kingship. And to this end, as well as in another matter, the friendship of the Pope was very desirable to Louis. The other matter concerned his matrimonial affairs. No sooner did he find himself King of France than he applied to Rome for the dissolution of his marriage with Jeanne de Valois, the daughter of Louis XI. The srounds he urged were threefold: Firstly, between himself and Jeanne there existed a relationship of the fourth degree and a spiritual affinity, resulting from the fact that her father, Louis XI, had held him at the baptismal font — which before the Council of Trent did constitute an impediment to marriage. Secondly, he had not been a willing party to the union, but had entered into it as a consequence of intimidation from the terrible Louis XJ, who had threatened his life and possessions if not obeyed in this. Thirdly, Jeanne laboured under phy sical disabilities which rendered her incapable of maternity. Of such a nature was the appeal he made to Alex- ander, and Alexander responded by appointing a commission presided over by the Cardinal of Luxem- bourg, and composed of that same Cardinal and the Bishops of Albi and Ceuta, assisted by five other bishops as assessors, to investigate the King’ Ss griev- ance. There € appears to be no good reason for assum- ing that the inquiry was not conducted fairly and honourably or that the finding of the bishops and ultimate annulment of the marriage was not In ac- cordance with their consciences. We are encouraged to assume that all this was indeed so, when we consider that Jeanne de Valois submitted without150 THE BULL PASCANT protest to the divorce, and that neither then nor subsequently at any time did she prefer any com- plaint, accepting the judgment, it is presumable, as a just and fitting measure. She applied to the Pope for permission to found a religious order, whose special aim should be the adoration and the emulation of the perfections of the Blessed Virgin, a permission which Alexander very readily accorded her. He was, himself, imbued with a very special devotion for the Mother of the Saviour. We see the spur of this special devotion of his in the votive offering of a silver efhgy to her famous altar of the Santissima Nunziata in Florence, which he had promised in the event of Rome being freed from Charles VIII. Again, after the accident of the collapse of a roof in the Vatican, in which he narrowly escaped death, it is to Santa Mattia Nuova that we see him going in procession to hold a solemn thanksgiving service to Our Lady. In a dozen different ways did that devotion find expression during his pontificate; and be it remembered that Catholics owe it to Alex- ander VI that the Angelus-bell is rung thrice daily in honour of the Blessed Virgin. To us this devotion to the Mother of Chastity on the part of a churchman openly unchaste in flagrant subversion of his vows is a strange and incongruous spectacle. But the incongruity of it is illuminating. It reveals Alexander’s simple attitude towards the sins of the flesh, and shows how, in common with most churchmen of his day, he found no conscientious difficulty in combining feavid devotion with perfervid licence. Whatever it may seem by our lights, by his — by the light of the examples about him from hisTHE RENUNCIATION OF THE PURPLE 151 youth, by the light of the precedents afforded him by his predecessors in Saint Peter’s Chair — his conduct was normal enough, and can have afforded him little “a with which to reproach himself. In the matter of the annulment of the marriage of louis XII it is to be conceded that Alexander made the most of the opportunity it afforded him. He per- ceived that the moment was propitious for enlisting the services of the King of France to the achievement of his own ends, more particularly to further the matter of the marriage of Cesare Borgia with Carlotta of Aragon, who was being reared at the Court of France. Accordingly Alexander desired the Bishop of Ceuta to lay his wishes in the matter before the Christian King, and, to the end that Cesare might find a fitting secular estate awaiting him when eventu- ally he emerged from the clergy, the Pope further suggested to Louis, through the Bishop's agency, that Cesare should receive the investiture of the counties of Valentinois and Dyois in Dauphiny. On the face of it this wears the look of inviting bribery. In reality it scarcely amounted to so much, although the opportunism that prompted the request ‘s undeniable. Yet it is worthy of consideration that ‘1 what concerned the counties of Valentinois and Dyois, the Pope's suggestion was politically astute. These territories, over which the Popes claimed do- minion, had been in dispute between France and the Holy See for a matter of some two hundred years. The papal claims had been admitted by Louis XI, d the counties to the Church; but who had relinquishe shortly after his death the Parliament of Dauphiny had restored them to the crown of France. Charles VIII152 THE BULL PASCANT ~/ and Innocent VIII had wrangled over them, and an arbitration was finally projected, but never held. Alexander now perceived a way to solve the diffi- culty by a compromise which should enrich his son and give the latter a title to replace that of cardinal which he was to relinquish. So his proposal to Louis XII was that the Church should abandon its claim upon the territories, whilst the King, raising Valen- tinois to the dignity of a duchy, shea so confer it upon Cesare Borgia. Although the ‘proposal was politically 7 sound, constituted at the same time an act of flagrant mn tism. But let us bear in mind that Alexander did not lack a precedent for this particular act. When Louis XI had surrendered Valentinois to Sixtus IV, this Pope had bestowed it upon his nephew Gipoenan thereby vitiating any claim that the Holy See might subsequen tly have upon the territory. We judge it — in the circumstances that Louis XI had surrendered it to the Church — to be a far more flagrant piece of nepotism than was Alexander’s now. Louis XII, nothing behind the Pope in opportu- nism, saw in the concession asked of him the chance of acquiring Alexander’s good-will. He consented, ac- companying his consent by a request for a cardinal’s hat for Georges d’Amboise, Bishop of Rouen, who had been his devoted friend in less prosperous times, the sharer of his misfortunes under the previous reign, and was now his chief counsellor and minister. sin addition he besought — dependent, of course, upon the granting of the. solicited divorce — a dispensation to marry Anne of Brittany, the beautiful widow of Charles VIII. This was Louis’s way of raising theTHE RENUNCIATION OF THE PURPLE 153 price, as it were, of the concession and services asked of him; yet, that there might be no semblance of bar- gaining, his consent to Cesare’s being created Duke of Valentinois was simultaneous with. his request for further favours. With the Royal Patents conferring that duchy upon the Pope’s son, Louis de Villeneuve reached Rome on August 7, 1498. On the same day the young Cardinal came before the Sacred College, assembled in Con- sistory, to crave permission to doff the purple. After the act of adoration of the Pope’s Holiness, he humbly submitted to his brother cardinals that his inclinations had ever been opposed to his assumption of ecclesiastical dignity, and that, in accepting this, he had yielded to the instances of His Holiness, just as he had persevered in it to gratify him; but that, his inclinations and desires for the secular estate per- sisting, he implored the Holy Father, of his clem- ency, to permit him to put off his habit and eccle- een rank, restoring his hat and benefices to the Church, and to grant him dispensation to return to the world and be free to contract marriage. And he prayed the very reverend cardinals to use their good offices on his behalf f, adding their intercessions to his own. The cardinals relegated the decision of the matter to the Pope. Cardinal Ximenes alone — as the repre- sentative of Spain — stood out against the grant- ing of the solicited dispensation, and threw obstacles in the w ay of it. In this, no doubt, he obeyed his in- structions from Herdiaend and ligealbyallle, who saw to the bottom of the intrigue with France, antl perceived the alliance that impended between Louis XII and the154 THE BULL PASCANT Holy See — an alliance not at all to the interests of Spain. The Pope made a speedy rout of the Cardinal’s ob- jections with the most apostolic and irresistible of all weapons. He pointed out that it was not for him to hinder the Cardinal of Valencia’s renunciation of the purple, since that renunciation was cle arly become necessary for the salvation of his soul — “Pro salute anime suze’? — to which, of course, Ximenes had no answer, But, with the object of conciliating Spain, this ever- politic Pope indicated that, if Cesare was about to become a Prince of France, his many ecclesiastical benefices, yielding some thirty- five thousand gold florins yearly, being mostly in Spain, would wee be- stowed upon Spanish churchmen, and he further begged Ximenes to remember that he already had a - nephew’ ’ at the Court of Spain in the person of the heir of Gandia, whom he particularly commended to the favour of Berdinand and Isabella Thus was Cesare Borgia’s petition granted, and his return to the world accomplished. And, by a strange chance of homonymy, his title remained unchanged despite his change of estate. The Cardinal of Valencia, in Spain, became the Duke of Valence — or V alen- tinois — in France, and in Italy Valentino remained Valentino.BOOK III THE BULL RAMPANT Cum numine Cesaris omen. (Motto on Cesare Borgia’s sword.)CHAPTER I THE DUCHESS OF VALENTINOIS ING LOUIS XII dispatched the Sieur de Sarenon by sea, with a fleet of three ships and five galleys, to the end that he should conduct the new Duke to France, which fleet was delayed so that it did not drop its anchors at Ostia until the end of September. Meanwhile, Cesare’s preparations for departure had been going forward, and were the occasion of a colossal expenditure on the part of his sire. For the Pope de- sired that his son, in going to France to assume his estate, and for the further purposes of marrying a wife, of conveying to Louis the dispensation permitting his marriage with Anne of Brittany, and of bearing the red hae to Amboise, should display the extraordinary magnificence for w hich the princes of cultured and luxurious Italy were at the time renowned. His suite included fully a hundred attendants, be- ing composed of esquires, pages, lackeys and grooms, whilst twelve chariots and fifty sumpter- mules were laden with his baggage. The horses of his followers were all sumptuously Y caparisoned, and their bridles and stirrups were of solid silver. For the rest, the splendour of the liveries, the weapons and the jewels, and the richness of the pifts he bore with him were the amazement even of that age of dazzling displays. In Cesare’s train went Ramiro de Lorqua, the158 THE BULL RAMPANT Master of his Household; Agabito Gherardi, his sec- retary; and his Spanish phy sician, Gaspare Torella — the only medical man of his age who had succeeded in discovering a treatment for the pudendagra w Thich the French had left in Italy, and who had dedicated to Cesare his learned treatise upon that disease. As a bodyguard, or escort of honour, Cesare took with him thirty gentlemen, mostly Romage among whom were Giangiordano Orsini, Pietro Santa Croce, Mario di Mariano, Damenice Sanguigna, Guile Alberini, Butialonen Capranica, aol Gianbattista Mancini — all young, and all members of those pa- trician families which Alexander VI had skilfully attached to his own interest. The latest of these was the Orsini family, with which an alliance was established by the marriage celebrated at the Vatican on September 28th of that same year between Fabio Orsini and Girolama Borgia, a niece of the Pope's. Cesare’s departure roa place on October Ist, in the early morning, when he rode out with his princely retinue, and followed the Tiber along Trastevere, with- out crossing the city. He was ented on a hand- some charger, capar isoned in red silk and gold brocade — the colours of France, in which he had ‘also dressed his lackeys. He wore a doublet of white damask laced with gold, and carried a mantle of black ve elvet swinging from his shoulders. Of black velvet, too, was nee cap on his auburn head, its sable Eclour an effective background for the ruddy effulgence of the great rubies Bae as large as beans’ — with which it was adorned. Of the gentlemen who followed him, the RomansTHE DUCHESS OF VALENTINOIS 1$9 were dressed in the French mode, like himself, whilst the Spaniards adhered to the fashions of cheie native Spain. He was escorted as far as the end of the Banchi by four cardinals, and from a window of the Vatican the Pope watched the 1 imposing cavalcade and followed it with his eyes until it was lost to view, weeping, we are told, for very joy at the contemplation of the splendour and magnificence which it had been his to bestow upon his beloved son — “the very heart of him,’’ as he wrote to the King of France in that letter of which Cesare was the bearer. On October 12th the Duke of Valentinois landed at Marseilles, where he was received by the Bishop of Dijon, w hom the King had sent to meet him, and who now accompanied the illustrious visitor to Avi ignon. There Cesare was awaited by the Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere. This prelate was now anxious to make his peace with Alexander — and presently we shall look into the motives that probably inspired him, a mattef which has so far, we fancy, escaped criticism for reasons that we shall also strive to make apparent. To the beginnings of a reconciliation with the Pontiff afforded by his touching letter of condolence on the FE ath of the Duke of Gandia, he now added a very cordial reception and entertainment of Cesare; and throughout his sojourn in France the latter received at the hands of Della Rovere the very friendliest treatment, the Cardinal missing no opportunity of working in the Duke’s interests and for the advance- ment of his ends. The Pope wrote to the Cardinal commending Cesare to his good graces, and the Cardinal replied160 THE BULL RAMPANT with protestations which he certainly proceeded to make good. Della Rovere was to escort Cesare to the King, who was with his Court then at Chinon, awaiting the completion of the work that was being carried out at his Castle of Blois, which was presently to become his chief residence. But Cesare appears to have lingered in Avignon, for he was still there at the end of October, nor did he reach Chinon until the middle of December. The pomp of his entrance was a thing stupendous. We find a detailed relation of it in Brantéme, translated into prose from some old verses which, he tells us, he found in the family treasury. He complains of their coarseness, and those who are acquainted with the delightful old Frenchman’s own frankness of expression may well raise their brows at that criticism of his. Whatever the coarse liberties taken with the subject — of which we are not allowed more than an occasional glimpse — and despite the fact that the relation was in verse, which ordinarily makes for the indulgence of the rhymer’s fancy the description appears to be fairly accurate, for it corresponds more or less with the particulars given in Sanuto. At the head of the cavalcade went twenty-four sumpter-mules, laden with coffers and other baggage under draperies embroidered with Cesare’s arms — prominent among which would be the red bull, the emblem of his house, and the three-pointed flame, his own particular device. Behind these came another twenty-four mules, caparisoned in the King’s colours of scarlet and gold, followed in their turn by sixteen beautiful chargers led by hand, similarly caparisoned,THE DUCHESS OF VALENTINOIS 161 and their bridles and stirrups of solid silver. Next came eighteen pages on horseback, sixteen of whom were in scarlet and yellow, whilst the remaining two were in cloth of gold. T fete were followed by a posse of lackeys in the same liveries and two mules laden with coffers draped with cloth of gold, which contained the gifts of which Cesare was the bearer. Behind these rode the Duke’s thirty gentlemen, in cloth of gold and silver, and amongst them came the Duke himself. Cesare was mounted on a superb war-horse that was all empanoplied in a cuirass of gold leaves of ex- quisite workmanship, its head surmounted by a golden artichoke, its tail confined in a net of gold abun- dantly studded with pearl: s. He was in black’ velvet, through the slashin gs of which appeared the sold brocade of the undergarment. Suspended anil a chain said by Brantdme’s poet to be worth thirty thousand ducats, a medallion of diamonds blazed upon his breast, and in his black velvet cap glowed those same wonderful rubies that we saw on the occasion of his departure from Rome. His boots were of black velvet, laced with gold thread that was studded with gems. The rear of the cavalcade was brought up by more mules and the chariots bearing his plate and tents and all the other equipage with which a prince was wont to travel. It is said by some that his own horse was shod with solid gold, and there is alsoa story 7, but prob- ably untrue — that some of his mules were shod in the same metal, and that, either because the shoes were loosely attached of intent, or because the metal, being soft, parted readily from the hooves, these162 THE BULL RAMPANT golden shoes were freely cast and left as largesse for those who might care to take them. The Bishop of Rouen — that same Georges d’Am- boise for whom he was bringing the red hat — the Seneschal of Toulouse, and several gentlemen of the Court went to meet him on the bridge, and escorted him up through the town to the castle, where the King awaited him. Louis XII gave him a warm and cordial welcome, showing him then and thereafter the friend- liest consideration. Not so, however, the lady he was come to woo. It was said in Venice that she was in love with a young Breton gentleman in the following of Queen Anne. Whether this was true, and Carlotta acted in the matter in obedience to her own feelings, or whether she was merely pursuing the instructions she had received from Naples, she obstinately and absolutely refused to entertain or admit the suit of Cesare. Della Rovere, on January 18th, wrote to the Pope from Nantes, whither the Court had moved, a letter in which he sang the praises of the young Duke of Valentinois. “By his modesty, his readiness, his prudence, and his other virtues he has known how to earn the aftec- tions of every one.” Unfortunately, there was one important exception, as the Cardinal was forced to add: ‘‘The damsel, either out of her own con- trariness, or because so induced by others, which is easier to believe, constantly refuses to hear of the wedding.” Della Rovere was quite justified in finding it easier to believe that Carlotta was acting upon instructions from others, for, when hard pressed to consent to theTHE DUCHESS OF VALENTINOIS 163 alliance, she demanded that the Neapolitan ambas- sador should himself say that her father desired her to do so — a statement which, it seems, the ambassador could not bring himself to make. Baffled by the persistence of that refusal, Cesare all but returned a bachelor to Italy. So far, indeed, was his departure a settled matter that in February of 1499, at the Castle of Loches, he received the King’s messages for the Pope. Yet Louis hesitated to let him go without having bound His Holiness to his own interests by stronger bonds. In the task of tracing the annals of the Borgias, the honest seeker after truth is compelled to proceed axe in hand that he may hack himself a way through the tangle of irresponsible or malicious statements that have grown up about this subject, driving their roots deep into the soil of history. Not a single chance does malignity, free or chartered, appear to have missed for the invention of flagitious falsehoods concerning this family, or for the no less flagitious misinterpreta- tion of known facts. Amid a mass of written nonsense dealing with Cesare’s sojourn in France is the oft-repeated, totally unproved statement that he withheld from Louis the dispensation enabling the latter to marry Anne of Brittany, until such time as he should have obtained f-om Louis all that he desired of him — 1n short, that he sold him the dispensation for the highest price he could extract. The only motive served by this state- ment is once more to show Alexander and his son in the perpetration of simoniacal practices, and the statement springs, beyond doubt, from a passage in164 THE BULL RAMPANT Macchiavelli’s ‘“‘Extracts from Dispatches to the Ten.” Elsewhere has been mentioned the confusion prevailing in those extracts, and their unreliability as historical evidences. That unreliability can now be established. The passage in question runs as follows: This dispensation was given to Valentinois when he went to France without any one being aware of its exist- ence, with orders to sell it dearly to the King, and not until satisfied of the wife and his other desires. And, whilst these things were toward, the King learnt from the Bishop of Ceuta that the dispensation already existed, and so, without having received or even seen it, the marriage was celebrated, and for revealing this the Bishop of Ceuta was put to death by order of Valentinois. Now, to begin with, Macchiavelli admits that what passed between Pope and Duke was secret. How, then, does he pretend to possess these details? But, Te saving that out of the question, the charge he brings — so abundantly repeated by later writers — is refuted by every one of the actual facts of the case. That there can have been no secret at all about the dispensation is made plain by the fact that Manfredi, the Ferrarese ambassador, writes of it to Duke Ercole on October 2d — the day after Cesare’s departure from Rome. And as for the death of Fernando d’Al- meida Bishop of Ceuta, this did not take place at that time, nor until more than a year later (on January 7 7, 1500) at the siege of Forli, whither he had gone in Cesare’s train — as 1s Peete in Bernardi’s « Chronicles” and Bonoli’s history of that town.THE DUCHESS OF VALENTINOIS 165 To return to the matter of Cesare’s imminent de- parture unwed from France, Louis XII was not the only monarch to whom this was a source of anxiety. Keener far was the anxiety experienced on that score by the King of Naples, who feared that its immediate consequence would be to drive the Holy Father into alliance with Venice, which was paying its court to him at the time and with that end in view. Eager to conciliate Alexander in this hour of peril, Federigo approached him with alternative proposals, and offered to invest Cesare in the principalities of Salerno and Sanseverino, which had been taken from the rebel barons. To this the Pope might have consented, but that, in the moment of considering it, letters reached him from Cesare which made him pause. Louis XII had also discovered an alternative to the marriage of Cesare with Carlotta, and one that should more surely draw the Pope into the alliance with Venice and himself. Among the ladies of the Court of Queen Anne — Louis had now been wedded a month — there were, besides Carlotta, two other ladies either of whom might make Cesare a suitable duchess. One of these was a niece of the King’s, the daughter of the Comte de Foix; the other was Charlotte d’Albret, a daughter of Alain d’Albret, Duc de Guyenne, and sister to the King of Navarre. Between these two Cesare was now given to choose by Louis, and his choice fell upon Charlotte. She was seventeen years of age and said to be the most beautiful maid in France, and she had been reared at the honourable and pious Court of Jeanne de Valois, whence she had passed into that of Anne166 THE BULL RAMPANT of Brittany, which latter, says Hilarion de Coste,’ was ‘‘a school of virtue, an academy of honour.” Negotiations for her hand were opened with Alain, who, it is said, was at first unwilling, but in the end won over to consent. Navarre had need of the friend- ship of the King of France, that it might withstand the predatory humours of Castille; and so, for his som’s sake, Alain could not long oppose the wishes of Louis. Considering closely the pecuniary difficulties under which this Alain d’Albret was labouring and his notorious avarice, one is tempted to conclude that such difficulties as he may have made were dictated by his reduced circumstances, his impossibility, or un- willingness, to supply his daughter with a dowry fit- ting her rank, and an unworthy desire to drive in the matter the best bargain possible. And this is abun- dantly confirmed by the obvious care and hard- headed cunning with which the Sieur d’Albret in- vestigated Cesare's circumstances and sources of rev- enue to verify their values to be what was alleged. Eventually he consented to endow her with thirty thousand livres Tournois (ninety thousand francs) to be paid as follows: six thousand livres on the cele- bration of the marriage and the balance by annual instalments of fifteen hundred livres until cleared of. This sum, as a matter of fact, represented her portion of the inheritance from her deceased mother, Francoise de Bretagne, and it was tendered subject to her renouncing all rights and succession in any property of her father’s or her said deceased mother’s. Thus is it set forth in the contract drawn up by 1 Eloges e+ vies des Reynes, Princesses, ete.THE DUCHESS OF VALENTINOIS 167 Alain at Castel-Jaloux on March 23, 1499, which contract empowers his son Gabriel and one Regnault de Saint-Chamans to treat and conclude the marriage urged by the King between the Duke of Valentinois and Alain’s daughter, Charlotte d’Albret. But this was by no means all. Among other conditions im- posed by Alain, he stipulated that the Pope should endow Charlotte with one hundred thousand livres Tournois, and that for his son, Amanieu d’Albret, there should be a cardinal’s hat — for the fulfilment of both of which conditions Cesare took it upon himself to engage his father. On April 15th the treaty between France and Venice was signed at Blois. It was a defensive and offensive alliance directed against all, with the sole exception of the reigning Pontiff, who should have the faculty to enter into it if he so elected. This was the first decisive step against the House of Sforza, and so secretly were the negotiations conducted that Lodo- vico Sforza’s first intimation of them resulted from the capture in Milanese territory of a courier from the Pope with letters to Cesare in France. From these he learnt, to his dismay, not only of the existence of the league, but that the Pope had joined it. The immedi- ate consequence of this positive assurance that Alex- ander had gone over to Sforza’s enemies was Ascanio Sforza’s hurried departure from Rome on July 13th. In the mean time Cesare’s marriage had followed almost immediately upon the conclusion of the treaty. The nuptials were celebrated on May 12th, and on the 19th he received at the hands of the King of France the knightly Order of Saint Michael, which was then the highest honour that France could confer. When168 THE BULL RAMPANT the news of this reached the Pope, he celebrated the event in Rome with public festivities and illumi- nations. Of Cesare’s courtship we have no information. The fact that the marriage was purely one of political expediency would tend to make us conceive it as invested with that sordid lovelessness which must so commonly attend the marriages of princes. But some data exist from which we may draw certain permissible inferences. This damsel of seventeen was said to be the loveliest in France, and there 1s more than a suggestion in Le Feron’s “De Gestis Regnum Gallorum,” that Cesare was by no means indifferent to her charms. He tells us that the Duke of Valen- tinois entered into the marriage very heartily, not only for the sake of its expediency, but for “‘the beauty of the lady, which was equalled by her virtues and the sweetness of her nature.’’ Cesare, we have it on more than one authority, was the handsomest man of his day. The gallantry of his bearing merited the approval of so fastidious a critic in such matters as Baldassare Castiglione, who men- tions it in his ‘Il Cortigiano.” Of his personal charm there is also no lack of commendation from those who had his acquaintance at this time. Added to this, his Italian splendour and flamboyance may well have dazzled a maid who had been reared amid the grey and something stern tones of the Court of Jeanne de Valois. And soit may well be that affection blessed the little space allotted them in each other's company. The sequel justifies in a measure the assumption. Just one little summer out of the span of their lives — briefTHE DUCHESS OF VALENTINOIS 169 though those lives were — did they spend together, and it is good to find some little evidence that, during that brief season at least, they inhabited life’s rose- garden. In September — just four short months after the wedding-bells had pealed above them — the trumpets of war blared out their call to arms. Louts’s prepara- tions for the invasion of Milan were complete and he poured his troops through Piedmont under the com- mand of Giangiacomo Trivulzio. Cesare was to accompany Louis into Italy. He ap- pointed his seventeen-year-old duchess governor and administrator of his lands and lordships in France and Dauphiny under a deed dated September 8th, and he made her heiress to all his moveable possessions 1n the event of his death. Surely this bears some witness, not only to the prevailing of a good understanding be- tween them, but to his esteem of her and the confi- dence he reposed in her mental qualities. The rest her later mourning of him shows. Thus did Cesare take leave of the young wife whom he was never to see again. Their child — born in the following spring — he was never to see at all. Ambition-driven, to fulfil the destiny expected of him, he turned his back upon that pleasant land of Dau- phiny where the one calm little season of his manhood had been spent, where happiness and peace might have been his lifelong portion had he remained. He set his face towards Italy and the storm and stress be- fore him, and in the train of King Louis he set out upon his turbulent course, meteoric in its brilliance as in its brevity.CHAPTER II THE KNELL OF THE TYRANTS N the hour of his need Lodovico Sforza found him- self without friends or credit. It is the fate of ego- tists, and he had to pay the price of the sly, faithless policy he had so long pursued with profit. His far-reaching schemes were flung into confusion because a French king had knocked his brow against a door, and had been succeeded by one who conceived that he had a legal right to the throne of Milan, as he certainly had the intent and might to enforce it, be the right legal or not. It was in vain now that Lodo- vico turned to the powers of Italy for assistance, in vain that his cunning set fresh intrigues afoot. His neighbours had found him out long since; he had played fast and loose with them too often, and there was none would trust him now. Thus he beheld himself isolated, and in no case to withstand the French avalanche which was rolling down upon his duchy. The fall of Milan was a matter of days; of resistance there was practically none. Town after town threw up its gates to the invaders, and Lodovico, finding himself abandoned on all sides, sought in flight the safety of his own person. Cesare took no part in the war, which, after all, was no war — no more than an armed progress. He was at Lyons with the King, and he did not move intoTHE KNELL OF THE TYRANTS 171 Italy until Louis went to take possession of his new duchy. Amid the acclamations of the ever-fickle mob, hail- ing him as the deliverer, Louis XII rode triumphantly into Milan on October 6th, attended by a little host of princes, including the Prince of Savoy, the Dukes of Montferrat and Ferrara, and the Marquis of Mantua. But the place of honour went to Cesare Borgia, who rode at the King’s side, a brilliant and arresting figure. This was the occasion on which Baldassare Castigli- one — who was in the Marquis of Mantua’s suite — was moved to such praise of the appearance and gal- lant bearing of the Duke, and of the splendid equip- ment of his suite, which outshone those of all that little host of attendant princes. From this time onward Cesare signs himself “Ce- sare Borgia of France,” and quarters on his shield the golden French lilies with the red bull of the House of Borgia. The conditions on which Alexander VI joined the league of France and Venice became apparent at about this time. They were to be gathered from the embassy of his nephew, the Cardinal Giovanni Bor- gia, to Venice in the middle of September. There the latter announced to the Council of Ten that the Pope’s Holiness aimed at the recovery to the Church of those Romagna tyrannies which were fiefs of the Holy See, but were held by unfaithful vicars, who had long since repudiated the pontifical authority, refused the payment of their tributes, and in some instances had even gone so far as to bear arms against the Church.172 THE BULL RAMPANT With one or two exceptions the violent and evil mis- government of these turbulent princelings was a scan- dal to all Italy. They ruled by rapine and murder, and rendered Romagna little better than a nest of brigands. And when Cesare Borgia’s campaign in Romagna is criticized as one of the most glaring in- stances of Pope Alexander’s flagitious and unexam- pled nepotism, it is well to consider that it was the nepotism of his predecessors which rendered neces- sary that campaign to restore those fiefs to Mother Church, from which they had been abstracted. Popes such as Sixtus IV and Innocent VIII had broken up the States of the Church that they might endow their children and their nephews. The only result of their nepotism was to impoverish the Holy See by the loss of the fiefs thus unlawfully distributed. But the nepo- tism of Alexander — this Pope who 1s held up to oblo- quy as the archetype of the nepotist — had the con- trary and commendable tendency to enrich it. It was not to the States of the Church, not by easy ways of plundering the territories of the Holy See, the posses- sions in his stewardship, that he turned to found do- minions and dynasties for his children. He went be- yond and outside of them, employing princely alli- ances as the means to his ends. Gandia was a duke in Spain; Giuffredo a prince in Naples; and Cesare a duke in France. For none of these could it be said that territories had been filched from Rome, whilst the alliances made for them were such as tended to strengthen the power of the Pope, and, therefore, of the Church. The reconsolidation of the States of the Church, the recovery of her full temporal power, which his prede-THE KNELL OF THE TYRANTS 173 cessors had so grievously dissipated, had ever been Alexander’s aim; Louis XII afforded him, at last, his opportunity, since with French aid the thing now might be attempted. Flis son Cesare was the Hercules to whom was to be given the labour of cleaning out the Augean stable of the Romagna. That Alexander may have been single-minded in his purpose has never been supposed. It might, in- deed, be to suppose too much; and the general as- sumption that, from the outset, his chief aim was to found a powerful State for his son may be accepted. But let us at least remember that this had been the aims of several Popes before him. Sixtus IV and Inno- cent VIIT had similarly sought to found dynasties in Romagna for their families; but, lacking the talents and political acuteness of Alexander and a son of the mettle and capacity of Cesare Borgia, the feeble trail left by their ambition is apt to escape attention. Alexander’s formidable Bull published in October of that year 1499 set forth how, after trial, it had been found that the Lords or Vicars of Rimini, Pesaro, Imola, Forli, Camerino, and F'aenza, with other feuda- tories of the Holy See (including the Duchy of Ur- / bino) had never paid the yearly tribute due to the Church, wherefore he, by virtue of his apostolic au- thority, deprived them of all their rights, and did de- clare them so deprived. It has been said again and again that this Bull, amounting to a declaration of war, was no more than a pretext to indulge his rapacity. Yet surely it bears the impress of a real grievance, and announces a meas- ure for which there were just and ample grounds.THE BULL RAMPANT 174 The effect of that Bull, ‘ssued at a moment when Cesare stood at arms with the might of France at his back, ready to enforce it, was naturally to throw into a state of wild dismay these Romagna tyrants whose acquaintance we shall make at closer quarters pres- ently in the course of following Cesare’s campaign. Cesare Borgia may have been something of a wolf; but it is grotesque to represent the Romagna as a fold of lambs. Giovanni Sforza — Cesare’s sometime brother-in- law, and Lord of Pesaro — fies in hot haste to Venice There are no lengths to which he will for protection. heir purpose, to save not go to thwart the Borgias in t his tyranny from falling into the power of this family which he hates most rabidly, and of which he declares that, having robbed him of his honour, it would now deprive him of his possessions. He even offers to make a gift of his dominions to the Republic. There was much traders’ blood in Venice, and, trader-like, she was avid of possessions. You can sur- mise how she must have watered at the mouth to see so fine a morsel cast thus into her lap, and yet to know that the consumption of it might beget a woeful in- digestion. Venice shook her head regretfully. She could not afford to quarrel with her ally, King Louis, and so she made answer — a thought contemptuously, — it seems— that Giovanni should have made his offer while he was free to do so. The Florentines exerted themselves to save Forlt f-om the fate that threatened it. They urged a league of Bologna, Ferrara, Forli, Piombino, and Siena for a proposal which came to their common safetyTHE KNELL OF THE TYRANTS 175 nothing, probably because Ferrara and Siena, not be- ing threatened by the Bull, saw no reason why, for the sake of others, they should call down upon themselves the wrath of the Borgias and their mighty allies. Venice desired to save Faenza, whose tyrant, Man- fredi, was also attainted for non-payment of his trib- utes, and to this end the Republic sent an embassy to Rome with the moneys due. But the Holy Father re- fused the gold, declaring that it was too late for pay- ment. Forli’s attempt to avert the danger was of a differ- ent sort, and not exerted until this danger — in the shape of Cesare himself — stood in arms beneath her walls. Two men, both named Tommaso — though it does not transpire that they were related — one a chamberlain of the Palace of Forli, the other a musi- cian, were so devoted to the Countess Sforza-Riario, the grim termagant who ruled the fiefs of her mur- dered husband, Girolamo Riario, as to have under- taken an enterprise from which they cannot have hoped to emerge with their lives. It amounted to no less than the murder of the Pope. They were arrested on November 21st, and in the possession of one of them was found a hollow cane containing a letter “so impregnated with poison that even to unfold it would be dangerous.” This letter was destined for the Holy Father. The story reads like a gross exaggeration emanat- ing from men who, on the subject of poisoning, display the credulity of the fifteenth century, so ignorant in these matters and so prone to the fantastic. And our minds receive a shock upon learning that, when put to the question, these messengers actually made a con-THE BULL RAMPANT fession — upon which the story rests — admitting that they had indeed been sent by the Countess to slay the Pope, in the hope that thus Forli might be saved to the Riarii. At first we conclude that those wretched men, examined to the accompaniment of torture, confessed whatever was required of them, as SO frequently happened in such cases. And this we find to be the very explanation advanced by more than one writer, coupled with the suggestion, in some in- stances, that the whole affair was trumped up by the Pope to serve his own ends. They will not only believe, but they will labour to render credible to others, Re wildest and silliest of poisoning stories (such as Ghose of Djem and Cardinal Giovanni Borgia) which reveal the Borgias as the poisoners; but let another be accused and the Borgias be the intended victims, and at once they grow ra- tional, and point out to you the flagrancies of the statements, the unreliability of the ev vidence, and its violation of known possibilities. Yet it is a singular fact that a thorough investigation of this case of the Countess Sforza-Riario’s poisoned letter reveals it to be neither wild nor impossible, but of a diabolical simplicity. The whole explanation of the matter ts to be found in Andrea Bernardi’s “‘Chronicles of Forlt.”’ He tells us exactly how the thing was contrived, with a preci- sion of detail which we could wish to see emulated by other contemporaries of his who so lightly throw out accusations of poisoning. He informs us that a deadly and infectious disease was rampant in Forli in that year 1499, and that, before dispatching her letter to the Pope, the Countess caused it to be placed uponTHE KNELL OF THE TYRANTS 177 the body of one who was sick of this infection — thus hoping to convey it to His Holiness.’ Alexander held a thanksgiving service for his escape at Santa Maria della Pace, and Cardinal Raffaele Riario fled precipitately from Rome, justly fearful of being involved in the papal anger that must fall upon his House. By that time, however, Cesare had already taken the field. The support of Louis, conqueror of Milan, had been obtained, and in this Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere had once more been helpful to the Borgtas. His reconciliation with the Pope, long since de- served by the services he had rendered the House of Borgia in forwarding Cesare’s aims, as we have seen, was completed now by an alliance which bound the two families together. His nephew, Francesco della Rovere, had married Alexander’s niece, Angela Bor- gia. There is a letter from Giuliano to the Pope, dated October 12, 1499, in which he expresses his deep gratitude in the matter of this marriage, which natu- rally redounded to the advantage of his House, and pledges himself to exert all the influence which he com- mands with Louis XII for the purpose of furthering the Duke of Valentinois’s wishes. So well does he keep this promise that we see him utterly abandoning his cousins the Riarii, who were likely to be crushed under the hoofs of the now charging bull, and devot- ing himself strenuously to equip Cesare for that same charge. So far does he go in this matter that he is one 1 “Dite litre lei le aveva fate tocare et tenere adose ad uno nostro infetado.” (Andrea Bernardi, Cronache dt Forli.)178 THE BULL RAMPANT of the sureties — the other being the Cardinal Gio- vanni Borgia — for the loan of forty-five thousand ducats raised by Cesare in Milan towards the cost of his campaign. This is the moment in which to pause and consider this man, who, because he was a bitter enemy of Alex- ander’s, and because earlier he had covered the Pope with obloquy and insult and is to do so again later, is acclaimed a fine, upright, lofty, independent, noble soul. Not so fine, upright, or noble but that he can put aside his rancour when he finds that there is more profit in fawning than in snarling; not so independent but that he can become a sycophant who writes pane- gyrics of Cesare and letters breathing devotion to the Pope, once he has realized that thus his interests will be better served. This is the man, remember, who dubbed Alexander a Jew and a Moor; this the man who agitated at the Courts of France and Spain for Alexander’s deposition from the pontificate on the score of the simony of his election; this the man whose vituperations of the Holy Father are so often quoted, because — coming from lips so honest — they must, from the very moment that he utters them, be merited. Della Rovere had discovered vain his w ote of defa- mation, vain his attempts to induce the Kings of France and Spain to summon a General Council and depose the man whose seat he coveted; therefore, to advance his interests in the only way remaining, he sought to make his peace with the Holy Father. The death of Charles VIII, and the succession of a king who had need of the Pope’s friendship and who foundTHE KNELL OF THE TYRANTS 179 a friend in Alexander, rendered it all the more neces. sary that Della Rovere should set himself to recon- quer, by every means in his power, the favour of Alexander. And so you see this honourable, upright man sac- rificing his very family to gain that personal end. Where now is that stubbornly honest conscience of his which made him denounce Alexander as no Chris- tian and no Pope? Stifled by self-interest. It is as well that this should be understood, for this way lies the understanding of many things. The funds for the campaign being found, Cesare re- ceived from Louis three hundred lances captained by Yves d’Allégre and four thousand foot, composed of Swiss and Gascons, led by the Bailie of Dijon. Fur- ther troops were being assembled for him at Cesena — the one fief of Romagna that remained faithful to the Church — by Achille Tiberti and Ercole Benti- vogli, and to these were to be added the pontifical troops that would be sent to him. So that Cesare found himself ultimately at the head of a considerable army, some ten thousand strong, well-equipped and supported by good artillery. Louis XII left Milan on November 7th — one month after his triumphal entrance — and set out to return to France, leaving Trivulzio to represent him as ruler of the Milanese. Two days later Cesare’s army took the road, and he himself went with his horse by way of Piacenza, whilst the foot, under the Bailie of Dijon, having obtained leave of passage through the territories of Ferrara and Cremona, followed the Po down to Argenta.180 THE BULL RAMPANT Thus did Cesare Borgia — personally attended by a Ceesarian guard, wearing his livery — set out upon the conquest of the Romagna. Perhaps at no period of his career is he more remarkable than at this mo- ment. To all trades men serve apprenticeships, and to none is the apprenticeship more gradual and arduous than to the trade of arms. Yet Cesare Borgia served none. Like Minerva, springing full-grown and armed into existence, so Cesare sprang to generalship in the hour that saw him made a soldier. This was the first army in which he had ever marched, yet he marched at the head of it. In his twenty-four years of life he had never so much as witnessed a battle pitched; yet here was he riding to direct battles and to wrest vic- tories. Boundless audacity and swiftest intelligence welded into an amazing whole!CHAPTER III IMOLA AND FORLI ETWEEN his departure from Milan and his ar- rival before Imola, where his campaign was to be opened, Cesare paid a flying visit to Rome and his father, whom he had not seen for a full year. He re- mained three days at the Vatican, mostly closeted with the Pope’s Holiness. At the end of that time he went north again to rejoin his army, which by now had been swelled by the forces sent to join it from Cesena, some pontifical troops, and a condotta under Vitellozzo Vitelli. This last, who was Lord of Castello, had gone to Milan to seek justice at the hands of Louis XII against the Florentines, who had beheaded his brother Paolo — deservedly, for treason in the conduct of the war against Pisa. Vitellozzo was a valuable and experienced captain. He took service with Ce- sare, spurred by the hope of ultimately finding a way to avenge himself upon the Florentines, and in Cesare’s train he now advanced upon Imola and Forli. The warlike Countess Caterina Sforza-Riario had earlier been granted by her children full administra- tion of their patrimony during their minority. To the defence of this she now addressed herself with all the resolution of her stern nature. Her life had been un- fortunate, and of horrors she had touched a surfeit. Her father, Galeazzo Sforza, was murdered in Milan Cathedral by a little band of patriots; her brother182 THE BULL RAMPANT Giangaleazzo had died, of want or poison, in the Castle of Pavia, the victim of her ambitious uncle, Lodovico; her husband, Girolamo Riario, she had seen butchered and flung naked from a window of the very castle which she now defended; Giacomo Feo, whom she had secretly married in second nuptials, was done to death in Forli, under her very eyes, by a party of insurrectionaries. Him she had terribly avenged. Getting her men-at-arms together, she had ridden at their head into the quarter inhabited by the murderers, and there ordered — as Macchiavelli tells tus — the massacre of every human being that dwelt in it, women and children included, whilst she re- mained at hand to see it done. Thereafter she took a third husband in Giovanni di Pierfrancesco de’ Me- dici, who died in 1498. By him this lusty woman — whom Sanuto has called “‘great-souled, but a most cruel virago”’ — had a son whose name was to ring through Italy as that of one of the most illustrious captains of his day — Giovanni delle Bande Nere. Such was the woman who now shut herself into her castle to defy the Borgia. She had begun by answering the Pope’s Bull of at- tainder with the statement that, far from owing the Holy See the tribute which it claimed, the Holy See was actually in her debt, her husband, Count Giro- lamo Riario, having been a creditor of the Church for the provisions made by him in his office of Captain- General of the pontifical forces. This subterfuge, how- ever, had not weighed with Alexander, whereupon, having also — as we have already seen — been frus- trated in her attempt upon the life of the Pope’s Holi- ness, she had proceeded to measures of martial resist-IMOLA AND FORLI 183 ance. Her children and her treasures she had dis- patched to Florence that they might be out of danger, retaining of the former only her son Ottavi lano, a young man of some twenty years; but, for all that she kept him near her, it is plain that she did not account him worthy of being entrusted with the defence of his tyranny, for it was she, herself, the daughter of the warlike race of Sforza one set about the organiza- tion of it. Disposing of forces that were entirely inadequate to take the field against the invader, she entrenched herself in her (entrees of Forli, provisioning it to withstand a protracted siege and fortifying it by throwing up outworks and causing all the gates but one to be built up. Whilst herself engaged upon military measures she sent her son Ottaviano to Imola to exhort the Council to loyalty and the defence of the city. But Ottavi- ano’s mission met with no success. Labouring against him was a mighty factor which in other future cases was to facilitate Cesare’s subjection of the Romagna. The Riarit — in common with so many other of the Romagna tyrants— had so abused their rule, so ground the people with taxation, so offended them by violence, and provoked such deep and bitter enmity that in this hour of their need they found themselves deservedly abandoned by their subjects. The latter were eager to try a change of rulers, in the hope of finding thus an improved condition of things; a worse, they were convinced, would be impossible. So detested were the Riarii and so abhorred the memory they left behind them in Imola that for years afterwards the name of Cesare Borgia was blessed184 THE BULL RAMPANT there as that of a minister of divine justice (“tanquam minister divina justitie’’) who had lifted from them the harsh yoke by which they had been oppressed. And so it came to pass that, before ever Cesare had come in sight of Imola, he was met by several of its gentlemen who came to offer him the town, and he re- ceived a letter from the pedagogue Flaminio with as- surances that, if it should be at all possible to them, the inhabitants would throw open the gates to him on his approach. And Flaminio proceeded to implore the Duke that should he, nevertheless, be constrained to have recourse to arms to win admittance, he should not blame the citizens nor do violence to the city by putting it to pillage, assuring him that he would never have a more faithful, loving city than Imola once this should be in his power. The Duke immediately sent forward Achille Tiberti with a squadron of horse to demand the surrender of the town. And the captain of the garrison of Imola re- lied that he was ready to capitulate, since that was the will of the people. Three days later — on Novem- ber 27th — without striking a blow, Cesare rode in as conqueror. The example of the town, however, was not fol- lowed by the citadel. Under the command of Dioni- gio di Naldo the latter held out, and, as the Duke’s army made its entrance into Imola, the castellan sig- nified his resentment by turning his cannon upon the town itself, with such resolute purpose that many houses were set on fire and demolished. This Naldo was one of the best reputed captains of foot of his day, and he had seen much service under the Sforza; but his experience could avail him little here.IMOLA AND FORLI 185 On the 28th Cesare opened the attack, training his guns upon the citadel; but it was not until a week later that, having found a weak spot in the walls on the side commanding the town, he opened a breach through which his men were able to force a passage, and so possess themselves of a half-moon. Seeing the enemy practically within his outworks, and being himself severely wounded in the Reade Naldo ac- counted it time to parley. He begged a three days’ armistice pledging himself to surrender at the end of that time should he not receive reinforcements 1n the meanwhile; and to this arrangement the Duke con- sented. The good faith of Naldo has been questioned, and it has been suggested that his asking for three days’ grace was no better than a cloak to cover his treacher- ous sale of the fortress to the besieger. It seems, however, to be no more than one of those lightly ut- tered, irresponsible utterances with which the chron- icles of the time abound, for Naldo had left his wife and children at Forli in the hands of the Countess, as hostages for his good faith, and this renders im- robable the unsupported story of his baseness. On December 7, no reinforcements having reached him, Naldo made formal surrender of the citadel, Bafa: conduct having been granted to his garrison. A week later there arrived at Imola Cesare’s cousin, the Cardinal Giovanni Borgia, whom the Pope Red constituted legate in Bologna and the Romagna in place of the Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, and whom he had sent to support Cesare’s operations with ecclesias- tical authority. Cardinal Giovanni, as the Pope's representative, received in the @hureh of San Domen-186 THE BULL RAMPANT ico the city’s oath of fealty to the Holy See. This was pledged by four representative members of the Coun- etl cof i hirty; and by that act the conquest and subjection of the town became a fully accomplished fact. The lesser strongholds of the territory threw up their gates one by one before the advancing enemy, until only Forl: remained to be taken. Cesare pushed forward to reduce it. On his way he passed through Faenza, whose tyrant, Manfredi, deeming himself secure in che protection of Venice and in view of the circumstance that the Republic had sent to Rome the arrears of tribute due from his fief, and anxious to conciliate the Pope, re- ceived and entertained Cesare very cordially. At Forli the case of Imola was practically repeated. Notwithstanding that the inhabitants were under the immediate eye of the formidable Countess, and al- though she sent her brother, Alessandro Se. to exhort the people and the Council to stand by her, ie latter, weary as the rest of the oppressive tyranny of her family, dispatched their representatives to Cesare to offer him the town. The Countess’s valour was of the sort that waxes as the straits become more desperate. Since the town abandoned and betrayed her, she would depend upon her citadel, and by a eanbborn resistance make Cesare pay as dearly as possible for possession of the place. To the danger which she seems almost eager to incur for her own part, this strong-minded, comely matron will not subject the son she has kept beside her until now; and so she packs Ottaviano off to Florence and safety. That done, she gives her mutinous subjects aIMOLA AND FORLI 187 taste of her anger by attempting to seize half a dozen of the principal citizens of Forli. As it happened, not only did this intent miscarry, but 1t went near being the means of involving her in battle even before the Duke’s arrival; for the people, getting wind of the affair, took up arms to defend their threatened fellow- citizens. She consoled herself, however, by seizing the per- sons of Nicolo Tornielli and Lodovico Ercolani, whom the Council had sent to inform her that their repre- sentatives had gone to Cesare with the offer of the town. Further, to vent her rage and signify her hu- mour, she turned her cannon upon the Communal Palace and shattered the tower of it. Meanwhile Cesare advanced. It was again Tibertt who now rode forward with his horse to demand the surrender of Forli. This was accorded as readily as had been that of Imola, whereupon Cesare came up to take possession in person; but, despite the cordial invitation of the Councillors, he refused to enter the gates until he had signed the articles of capitulation. On December 1gth, under a deluge of rain, Cesare, in full armour, the banner of the Church borne ahead of him, rode into Forli with his troops. He was housed in the palace of Count Luffo Nomaglie (one of the gentlemen whom Caterina had hoped to capture), and his men were quartered through the town. These foreign soldiers of his seem to have got a little out of hand here at Forli, and they committed a good many abuses, to the dismay and discomfort of the citizens. Sanuto comments upon this with satisfaction, account- ing the city well served for having yielded herself up like a strumpet. It is a comment more pictur-188 THE BULL RAMPANT esque than just, for obviously Forli did not surren- der through pusillanimity, but to the end that it might be delivered from the detestable rule of the Riarii. The city occupied, it now remained to reduce the fortress and bring its warrior-mistress to terms. Cesare set aeael this at once, nor allowed the Christmas festivities to interfere with his labours, but kept his men at work to bring the siege-guns into position. On Christmas Day the Countess belatedly attempted a feeble ruse in the hope of intimidating them. She flew from her battlements a banner, bear- ing the device of the lion of Saint Mark, thinking to trick Cesare into the belief that she had obtained the protection of Venice, or, perhaps, signifying thus that she threw herself into the arms of the Republic, mak- ing surrender of her fiefs to the Venetians to the end that she might spite a force which she could not long withstand — as Giovanni Sforza had sought to do. But Cesare, nowise disturbed by that banner, pur- sued his preparations, which included the mounting of seven cannons and ten falconets in the square be- fore the Church of Saint John the Baptist. When all was ready for the bombardment, he attempted to make her realize the hopelessness of resistance and the vain sacrifice of life it must entail. He may have been moved to this by the valour she displayed, or it may have been that he obeyed the instincts of general- ship which made him ever miserly i in the matter of the lives of his soldiers. Be that as 1t may, with intent to bring her to a reasonable view of the situation, he rode twice to the very edge of the ditch to parley with her; but all that came of his endeavours was that on the occasion of his second appeal to her, he had a narrowIMOLA AND FORLI 189 escape of falling a victim to her treachery, and so losing his life. She came down from the ramparts, and, ordering the lowering of the bridge, invited him to meet her upon it that there they might confer more at their ease, having, meanwhile, instructed her castellan to raise the bridge again the moment the Duke should set foot upon it. The castellan took her instructions too literally, for even as the Duke did set one foot upon it there was a grind and clank of machinery, and the great structure swung up and clattered into place. The Duke remained outside, saved by a too great eagerness on the part of those who worked the winches, for had they waited but a second longer they must have trapped him. Cesare returned angry to Forli, and set a price upon Caterina’s head — twenty thousand ducats if taken alive, ten thousand if dead; and on the morrow he opened fire. For a fortnight this was continued with- out visible result, and daily the Countess was to be seen upon the walls with her castellan, directing the defences. But on January 12th, Cesare’s cannon hav- ing been concentrated upon one point, a breach was opened at last. Instantly the waiting citizens, who had been recruited for the purpose, made forward with their faggots, heaping them up in the moat until a passage was practicable. Over this went Cesare’s soldiers to force an entrance. A stubborn fight ensued within the ravelin, where the Duke’s men were held in check by the defenders, and not until some four hundred corpses choked that narrow space did the besieged give ground before them.THE BULL RAMPANT Like most of the Italian fortresses of the period, the castle of Forli consisted of a citadel within a citadel. In the heart of the main fabric — but cut off from it again by its own moat — arose the great tower known as the Maschio. This was ever the last retreat of the besieged when the fortress itself had been carried by assault, and, in the case of the Maschio of the Citadel of Forli, so stout was its construction that it was held to be practically invulnerable. Had the Countess’s soldiers made their retreat in good order to this tower, where all the munitions and provisions were stored, Cesare would have found the siege no more than beginning; but in the confusion of that grim hour, besieged and besiegers, Borgian and Riarian, swept forward interlocked, a writhing, hacking, bleeding mob of men-at-arms. Thus they flung themselves in a body across the bridge that spanned the inner moat, and so into the Maschio, whilst the stream of Cesare’s soldiers that poured un- interruptedly across in the immediate wake of that battling mass rendered it impossible for the defenders to take up the bridge. Within the tower the carnage went on, and the Duke’s men hacked their way through what remained of the Forlivese until they had made themselves masters of that inner stronghold whither Caterina had sought her last refuge. A Burgundian serving under the Bailie of Dijon was the first to come upon her in the room to which she had fled with a few attendants and a handful of men, amongst whom were Alessandro Sforza, Paolo Riario, and Scipione Riario — this last an illegitimate son of her first husband’s, whom she had adopted. TheIMOLA AND FORLI 191 Burgundian declared her his prisoner, and held her for the price that had been set upon her head until the arrival of Cesare, who entered the citadel with his officers a little while after the final assault had been delivered. Cesare received and treated her with the greatest courtesy, and, seeing her for the moment destitute, he presented her with a purse containing two hundred ducats for her immediate needs. Under his escort she left the castle, and was conducted, with her few re- maining servants, to the Nomaglie Palace to remain in the Duke’s care, his prisoner. Her brother and the other members of her family found with her were similarly made prisoners. After her departure the citadel was given over to pillage, and all hell must have raged in it if we may judge from an incident related by Bernardi in his ~ Chronicles.”” A young clerk, named Evangelista da Monsignane, being seized by a Burgundian soldier who asked him if he had any money, produced and surrendered a purse containing thirteen ducats, and so got out of the mercenaries’ clutches, but only to fall into the hands of others, one of whom again declared him a prisoner. The poor youth, terrified at the violence about him, and eager to be gone from that shambles, cried out that, if they would let him go, he would pay them a ransom of a hundred ducats. Thereupon “Surrender to me!” cried one of the soldiers, and, as the clerk was about to do so, another, equally greedy for the ransom, thrust himself forward. “No. Surrender to me, rather,” demanded this one. The first insisted that the youth was his prisoner, whereupon the second brandished his sword, threaten-192 THE BULL RAMPANT ing to kill Evangelista. The clerk, in a panic, flung himself into the arms of a monk who was with him, crying out for mercy, and there in the monk’s arms he was brutally slain, “to put an end,” said his murderer, “to the dispute.’ Forlimpopoli capitulated a few days later to Yves d’Allégre, whom Cesare had sent thither; whilst in Forli, as soon as he had reduced the citadel, and before even attempting to repair the damage done, the Duke set about establishing order and providing for the dispensation of justice, exerting to that end the rare administrative ability which not even his bitterest de- tractors have denied him. He sent a castellan to Forlimpopoli and fetched from Imola a Podesta for Forli.1 He confirmed the Council of Forty that governed Forli — being ten for each quarter of the city — and generally he made sound and wise provision for the town’s well-being, which we shall presently see bearing fruit. Next the repairing of the fortress claimed his at- tention, and he disposed for this, entrusting the exe- cution of his instructions to Ramiro de Lorqua, whom he left behind as governor. In the place where the breach had been opened by his cannon he ordered the placing of a marble panel bearing his arms; and there it is to be seen to this day: dexter, the sable bars of the House of Lenzol:; sinister, the Borgia bull in chief, and the lilies of France; and, superimposed, an inescutch- eon bearing the pontifical arms. 1 It was customary throughout Italy that the Podesta, or chief magis- trate, should never be a native of the town — rarely of the State — in which he held his office. Thus, having no local interests or relationships, he was the likelier to dispense justice with desirable single-mindedness.IMOLA AND FORLI 193 All measures being taken so far as Forli was con- cerned, Cesare turned his attention to Pesaro, and prepared to invade it. Before leaving, however, he awaited the return of his absent cousin, the Cardinal Giovanni Borgia, who, as papal legate, was to receive the oath of fealty of the town; but, instead of the Cardinal whom he was expecting, came a messenger with news of his death of fever at Fossombrone. Giovanni Borgia had left Forli on December 28th to go to Cesena, with intent, it was said, to recruit to his cousin’s army those men of Rimini, who, exiled and in rebellion against their tyrant Malatesta, had sought shelter in that pontifical fief. Thence he had moved on to Urbino, where—in the ducal palace — he awaited news of the fall of Forli, and where, whilst waiting, he fell ill. Nevertheless, when the tidings of Cesare’s victory reached him, he insisted upon getting to horse, to repair to Forl1; but, finding himself too ill to keep the saddle, he was forced to abandon the journey at Fossombrone, whilst the outcome of the attempt was an agsravation of the fever resulting in his death. Cesare appears to have been deeply grieved by the loss of Giovanni. There is every reason to sup- pose that a sincere attachment prevailed between the cousins, and it is perfectly clear that in Giovannl, Cesare had a devoted friend and servant who was labouring loyally to advance his interests. Yet Cesare has been charged with his death, and accused of hav- ing poisoned him, and, amidst the host of silly, base- less accusations levelled against Cesare, you shall find none more silly or baseless than this. In other instances of unproved crimes with which he has been chargedNE te een 194 THE BULL RAMPANT there may be some vestiges of matter that may do duty for evidence or be construed into motives; here there is none that will serve one purpose or the other, and the appalling and rabid unscrupulousness, the re- lentless malice of Borgian chroniclers is in nothing so completely apparent as in this accusation. Sanuto mentions the advices received, and the ru- mours which say that Cesare murdered him through jealousy, knowing him beloved by the Pope, seeing him a legate, and fearing that he might come to be given the governorship of some Romagna fief. When Gandia died and Cesare was accused of hav- ing murdered him, the motive advanced was that Cesare, a papal legate, resented a brother who was a duke. Now, Cesare, being a duke, resents a cousin’s being a papal legate. You will observe that, if this method of discovering motives is pursued a little further, there is no man who died in Cesare’s lifetime whom Cesare could not be shown to have had motives for murdering. Sillier even than Sanuto’s is the motive with which Giovio attempts to bolster up the accusation which he reports: ‘‘He [Cesare] poisoned him because he [Giovanni] favoured the Duke of Gandia.”’ That, apparently, was the best that Giovio could think of. It is hardly intelligible — which is perhaps natural, for it is not easy to be intelligible when you don’t quite know, yourself, what you mean, which must have been Giovio’s case. The whole charge is so utterly foolish, stupid, and malicious that it would scarcely be worth mentioning, were it not that so many modern writers have in- cluded this among the Borgia crimes. As a matter ofIMOLA AND FORLI 195 fact — and as a comparison of the above-cited dates will show — eighteen days had elapsed between Gio- vanni Borgia’s leaving Cesare at Forli and his suc- cumbing at Urbino — which in itself disposes of the matter. It may be mentioned that this is a circum- stance which those foolish or deliberately malicious calumniators either did not trouble to ascertain or else thought it wiser to slur over. Although, had they been pressed, there was always the death of Djem to be cited and the fiction of the slow-working poison specially invented to meet and explain his case. The preparations for the invasion of Pesaro were complete, and it was determined that on January 22d the army should march out of Forli; but on the night of the 2Ist a disturbance occurred. The Swiss under the Bailie of Dijon became mutinous — they appear throughout to have been an ill-conditioned lot — and they clamoured now for higher pay if they were to go on to Pesaro, urging that already they had served the Duke of Valentinois as far as they had pledged them- selves to the King of France. Towards the third hour of the night the Bailie him- self, with these mutineers at his heels, presented himself at the Nomaglie Palace to demand that the Countess Sforza-Riario should be delivered into his hands. His claim was that she was his prisoner, since she had been arrested by a soldier of his own, and that her surrender was to France, to which he added — a thought inconsequently, it seems — that the French law forbade that women should be made prisoners. Valentinois, taken utterly by surprise, and without the force at hand to resist the Bailie and his Swiss, was196 THE BULL RAMPANT compelled to submit and to allow the latter to carry the Countess off to his own lodging; but he dispatched a messenger to Forlimpopoli with orders for the im- mediate return of Allégre and his horse, and in the morning, after Mass, he had the army drawn up in the market place; and so, backed by his Spanish, French, and Italian troops, he faced the threatening Swiss. The citizens were in a panic, expecting to see battle blaze out at any moment, and apprehensive of the consequences that might ensue for the town. The Swiss had grown more mutinous than ever overnight, and they now refused to march until they were paid. It was Cesare’s to quell and restore them to obedience. He informed them that they should be paid when they reached Cesena, and that, if they were retained thereafter in his employ, their pay should be on the improved scale which they demanded. Beyond that he made no concessions. The remainder of his harangue was matter to cow them into submission, for he threatened to order the ringing of the alarm- bells, and to have them cut to pieces by the people of Forli whom their gross and predatory habits had already deeply offended. Order was at last restored, and the Bailie of Dijon was compelled to surrender back the Countess to Cesare. But their departure was postponed until the morrow. On that day, January 23d, after receiving the oath of fealty from the Anziani in the Church of San Mercuriale, the Duke marched his army out of Forli and took the road to Pearso. Caterina Sforza-Riario went with him. Dressed in black and mounted upon a white horse, the hand-IMOLA AND FORLI 197 some Amazon rode between Cesare Borgia and Yves d’ Allegre. At Cesena the Duke made a halt, and there he left the Countess in the charge of Allégre whilst he himself rode forward to overtake the main body of his army, which was already as far south as Cattolica. As for Giovanni Sforza, despite the fact that the Duke of Urbino had sent some foot to support him, he was far more likely to run than to fight. He had al- ready taken the precaution of placing his money and valuables in safety and was disposing, himself, to follow them. But it happened that there was not yet the need. Fate — in the shape of his cousin Lodovico of Milan — postponed the occasion. On the 26th Cesare lay at Montefiori, and there he was reached by couriers sent at all speed from Milan by Trivulzio. Lodovico Sforza had raised an army of Swiss and German mercenaries to reconquer his dominions, and the Milanese were opening their arms to receive him back, having already discovered that, in exchanging his rule for that of the French, they had but exchanged King Log for King Stork. Trivulzio begged for the instant return of the French troops serving under Cesare, and Cesare, naturally compelled to accede, was thereby so reduced in strength as to be compelled to interrupt his campaign, a matter which must have been not a little vexatious at such a mo- ment. He returned, therefore, to Cesena, where, on the 27th, he dismissed Yves d’Allégre and his men, who made all haste back to Milan, so that Cesare was left with a force of not more than a thousand foot and five hundred horse. These, no doubt, would have sufficed198 THE BULL RAMPANT him for the conquest of Pesaro, but Giovanni Sforza, encouraged by his cousin’s return, and hopeful now of assistance, would certainly entrench himself and submit to a siege which must of necessity be long- drawn, since the departure of the French had de- priv eal Cesare of his artillery. Therefore the Duke disposed matters for his return to Rome instead, and, leaving Ercole Bentivogli with five hundred horse and Gonsalvo de Mirafuente with three hundred foot to garrison Forli, he departed from Cesena with the remainder of his forces, including Vitelli’s horse, on January j3oth. With him went Caterina Sforza-Riario, and of course there were not wanting those who alleged that, during the few days at Cesena he had carried his conquest of her further than the matter of her territories ! — a rumour whose parent was, no doubt, the ribald jest made in Milan by Triv niaio when he heard of her capture. He conducted her to Rome — in golden chains, “like another Palmyra,” it 1s said — and there she was given the beautiful Belvedere for her prison until she attempted an escape in the following June; whereupon, for greater safety, she was transferred to the Castle of Sant’ Angelo. Here she remained until May of 1501, when, by the intervention of the King of France, she was set at liberty and permitted to withdraw to Florence to rejoin her children. In the city of the lilies she abode, devoting herself to good works until she ended her turbulent, unhappy life in 1509. The circumstance that she was not made to pay 1“Teneva detta Madona (la qual € belissima dona, fiola del Ducha Galeazo di Milan) di zorno e di note in la sua camera, con la quale — judicio omnium — si deva piacer.” (Sanuto’s Diarii.)IMOLA AND FORLI 199 with her life for her attempt to poison the Pope 1s surely something in favour of the Borgias, and it goes some way towards refuting the endless statements of their fierce and vindictive cruelty. Of course, it has been urged that they spared her from fear of France; but, if that is admitted, what then becomes of the theory of that secret poison which might so well have been employed in such a case as this?CHAPTER IV GONFALONIER OF THE CHURCH LTHOUGH Cesare Borgia’s conquest of Imola and Forli cannot seriously be accounted extraor- dinary military achievements — save by consider- ation of the fact that this was the first campaign he had conducted — yet in Rome the excitement caused by his victory was enormous. Possibly this should be assigned to the compelling quality of the man’s per- sonality, which was beginning to manifest and assert itself and to issue from the shadow into which it had been cast hitherto by that of his stupendous father. The enthusiasm mounted higher and higher whilst preparations were being made for his reception, and it reached a climax on February 26th, when, with over- powering pomp, he made an entrance into Rome that was a veritable triumph. Sanuto tells us that, as news came of his approach, the Pope, in his joyous impatience and excitement, be- came unable to discharge the business of his office, and no longer would give audience to any one. Alexander had ever shown himself the fondest of fathers to his children, and now he overflowed with pride in this son who already gave such excellent signs of his capacity as a condottiero, and justified his having put off the cassock to strap a soldier’s harness to his lithe and comely body. Cardinals Farnese and Borgia, with an imposingGONFALONIER OF THE CHURCH 201 suite, rode out some way beyond the gates of Santa Maria del Popolo to meet the Duke. At the gate itself a magnificent reception had been prepared him, and the entire Pontifical Court, prelates, priests, am- hassadors of the Powers, and officials of the city and curia down to the apostolic abbreviators and secreta- ries, waited to receive him. It was towards evening — between the twenty- second and the twenty-third hours — when he made his entrance. In the van went the baggage-carts, and behind these marched a thousand foot in full cam- paign apparel, headed by two heralds in the Duke’s livery and one in the livery of the King of France. Next came Vitellozzo’s horse followed by fifty mounted gentlemen-at-arms — the Duke’s Cesarean uard — immediately preceding Cesare himself. The handsome young Duke — ~ bello e biondo” — was splendidly mounted, but very plainly dressed in black velvet with a simple gold chain for only orna- ment, and he had about him a hundred guards on foot, also in black velvet, halbert on shoulder, and a posse of trumpeters in a livery that displayed his arms. In immediate attendance upon him came several cardinals on their mules, and behind these followed the ambassadors of the Powers, Cesare’s brother Giuffredo Borgia, and Alfonso of Aragon, Duke of Biselli and Prince of Salerno — Lucrezia’s husband and the father of her boy Roderigo, born some three months earlier. Conspicuous, too, in Cesare’s train would be the imposing figure of the formidable Countess Sforza-Riario, in black upon her white horse, riding in her golden shackles between her two attendant women.202 THE BULL RAMPANT As the procession reached the Bridge of Sant’ Angelo a salute was thundered forth by the guns from the castle, where floated the banners of Cesare and of the Church. The press of people from the Porta del Popolo all the way to the Vatican was enormous. It was the year of the Papal Jubilee, and the city was thronged with pilgrims from all quarters of Europe who had flocked to Rome to obtain the plenary in- dulgence offered by the Pope. So great was the con- course on this occasion that the procession had the greatest difficulty in moving forward, and the prog- ress through the streets, packed with shouting multi- tudes, was of necessity slow. At last, however, the Bridge of Sant’ Angelo being crossed, the procession pushed on to the Vatican along the new road inau- gurated for the Jubilee by Alexander in the previous December. From the loggia above the portals of the Vatican the Pope watched his son’s imposing approach, and when the latter dismounted at the steps His Holiness, with his five attendant cardinals, descended to the Chamber of the Papagallo— the papal audience- chamber, contiguous to the Borgia apartments — to receive the Duke. Thither sped Cesare with his multitude of attendants, and at sight of him now the Pope’s eyes were filled with tears of joy. The Duke advanced gravely to the foot of the throne, where he fell upon his knees, and was overheard by Burchard to express to his father, in their native Spanish, all that he owed to the Pope’s Holiness, to which Alexander re- plied in the same tongue. Then Cesare stooped and kissed the Pope’s feet and then his hand, whereupon Alexander, conquered, no doubt, by the paternal in-GONFALONIER OF THE CHURCH 203 stincts of affection that were so strong in him, raised his son and took him fondly in his arms. The festivities in honour of Cesare’s return were re- newed in Rome upon the morrow, and to this the circumstance that the season was that of carnival un- doubtedly contributed, lending the displays a the- atrical character which might otherwise have been absent. In these the Duke’s victories were made the subject of illustration. There was a procession of great chariots in Piazza Navona, with groups symbol- izing the triumphs of the ancient Cesar, in the ar- rangement of which, no doubt, the assistance had been enlisted of that posse of valiant artists who were then flocking to Rome and the Pontifical Court. Yriarte, mixing his facts throughout with a liberal leaven of fiction, tells us that “this is the precise moment in which Cesare Borgia, fixing his eyes upon the Roman Cesar, takes him definitely for his model and adopts the device “Aut Cesar, aut nihil.’”” Cesare Borgia never adopted that device, and never displayed it. In connection with him it is only to be found upon the sword of honour made for him when, while still a cardinal, he went to crown the King of Naples. It is not at all unlikely that the inscription of the device upon that sword — which throughout is en- graved with illustrations of the career of Julius Caesar — may have been the conceit of the sword-maker as a rather obvious play upon Cesare’s name.! Undoubt- edly, were the device of Cesare’s own adoption we should find it elsewhere, and nowhere else is it to be found. 1 The scabbard of this sword is to be seen in the South Kensington Museum; the sword itself is in the possession of the Caetani family.THE BULL RAMPANT Shortly after Cesare’s return to Rome, Imola and Forli sent their ambassadors to the Vatican to beseech His Holiness to sign the articles which those cities had drawn up an id. by virtue of which they created Cesare their lord in the place of the deposed Riarii. It is quite true that Alexander had announced that, in promoting the Romagna c campaign, he had for object to restore to the Church the States which had rebelliously seceded from her. Yet there is not sufficient reason to suppose that he was flagrantly breaking his word in acceding to the request of which those ambassadors were chew bearers and in creating his son Count of Imola and Forli. Admitted that this was to Cesare’s benefit and advancement, it is still to be remembered that those fiefs must be governed for the Church by a Vicar, as had ever been the case. That being so, who could have been preferred to Cesare for the dignity, s seeing that not only was the expulsion of the tyrants his work, but that the inhab- itants themselves desired him for their lord? For the rest, granted his exceptional qualifications, it is to be remembered that the Pope was his father, and — setting aside the guilt and scandal of that paternity — it is hardly reasonable to expect a father to prefer some other to his son for a stewardship for which none is so well equipped as that same son. That Imola and Forli were not free gifts to Cesare, detached, for the purpose of so making them, from the Holy See, is clear from the title of Vice with which Cae assumed control of them, as set forth in the Bull of investiture. In addition to his receiving the rank of Vicar and Count of Imola and Forli, it was in this same monthGONFALONIER OF THE CHURCH 205 of March at last — and after Cesare may be said to have earned it — that he received the Gonfalon of the Church. With the unanimous concurrence of the Sacred College, the Pope officially appointed him Captain-General of the pontifical forces — the covet- ing of which position was urged, it will be remembered, as one of the motives for his alleged murder of the Duke of Gandia three years earlier. On March 29th Cesare came to Saint Peter’s to re- ceive his new dignity and the further honour of the Golden Rose which the Pope was to bestow upon him — the symbol of the Church Militant and the Church Triumphant. Having blessed the Rose, the Pope was borne solemnly into Saint Peter’s, preceded by the College of Cardinals. Arrived before the High Altar, he put off his Tiara — the conical, richly jewelled cap, woven from the plumage of white peacocks — and bareheaded knelt to pray; whereafter he confessed himself to the Cardinal of Benevento, who was the celebrant on this occasion. That done, he ascended and took his seat upon the pontifical throne, whither came the cardinals to adore him, while the organ pealed forth and the choir gave voice. Last of all came Cesare, dressed in cloth of gold with ermine border, to kneel upon the topmost step of the throne; whereupon the Pope, removing his tiara and deliver- ing it to the attendant Cardinal of San Clemente, pronounced the beautiful prayer of the investiture. That ended, the Pope received from the hands of the Cardinal of San Clemente the splendid mantle of the gonfalonier, and set it about the Duke’s shoulders with the prescribed words:206 THE BULL RAMPANT “May the Lord array thee in the garment of salvation and surround thee with the cloak of happiness.” Next he took from the hands of the Master of the Ceremonies — that same Burchard whose “Diary” supplies us with these details — the gonfalonier’s cap of scarlet and ermine richly decked with pearls and surmounted by a dove — the emblem of the Holy Ghost — likewise wrought in pearls. This he placed upon Cesare’s auburn head; whereafter, once more putting off his tiara, he uttered the prescribed prayer over the kneeling Duke. That done, and the Holy Father resuming his seat and his tiara, Cesare stooped to kiss the Pope’s feet, then rising, went in his gonfalonier apparel, the cap upon his head, to take his place among the cardinals. The organ crashed forth again; the choir intoned the “Tntroibo ad altare Dei’’; the celebrant ascended the altar, and, having offered incense, descended again and the Mass began. The Mass being over, and the celebrant having doffed his sacred vestments and rejoined his brother cardinals, the Cardinal of San Clemente repaired once more to the papal throne, preceded by two chamber- lains carrying two folded banners, one bearing the Pope’s personal arms, the other the arms of Holy Church. Behind the Cardinal followed an acolyte with the censer and incense-boat and another with the holy water and the aspersorio, and behind these again two prelates with a missal and a candle. The Pope rose, blessed the folded banners and incensed them, having received the censer from the hands of a priest who had prepared it. Then, as he resumed his seat,GONFALONIER OF THE CHURCH 207 Cesare stepped forward once more, and, kneeling, placed both hands upon the missal and pronounced in a loud, clear voice the words of the oath of fealty to Saint Peter and the Pope, swearing ever to protect the latter and his successors from harm to life, limb, or possessions. Thereafter the Pope took the blessed banners and gave the charge of them to Cesare, de- livering into his hands the white truncheon that was the symbol of his office, whilst the Master of Ceremo- nies handed the actual banners to the two deputies who in full armour had followed to receive them, and who attached them to the lances provided for the purpose. The investiture was followed by the bestowal of the Golden Rose, whereafter Cesare, having again kissed the Pope’s feet and the Ring of the Fisherman on his finger, had the cap of office replaced upon his head by Burchard himself, and so the ceremony ended. The Bishop of Isernia was going to Cesena to assume the governorship of that pontifical fief, and, profiting by this, Cesare appointed him his lieutenant-general in Romagna, with authority over all his other officers there and full judiciary powers. Further, he desired him to act as his deputy and receive the oath of fealty of the Duke’s new subjects. Meanwhile, Cesare remained in Rome, no doubt impatient of the interruption which his campaign had suffered, and which it seemed must continue yet awhile. Lodovico Sforza had succeeded at first in driving the French out of his dominions as easily as he, himself, had been driven out by them a few months earlier. But Louis XII sent down a fresh army un-208 THE BULL RAMPANT der La Trémouille, and Lodovico, basely betrayed by his Swiss mercenaries at Novara in April, was taken prisoner. That was the definite end of the Sforza rule in Milan. For ten years the crafty, scheming Lodovico was left to languish a prisoner in the Castle of Loches, at the end of which time he miserably died. Immediately upon the return of the French to Milan, the Pope asked for troops that Cesare might resume his enterprise not only against Pesaro, Faenza, and Rimini, but also against Bologna, where Giovanni Bentivogli had failed to support — as in duty bound — the King of France against Lodovico Sforza. But Bentivogli repurchased the forfeited French protec- = tion at the price of forty thousand ducats, and so escaped the impending danger. Meanwhile Venice was growing concerned to see no rofit accruing to herself out of this league with France and Rome; and that was a matter which her trader spirit could not brook. Therefore, Venice intervened ‘n the matter of Rimini and Faenza, which she pro- tected in somewhat the same spirit as the dog pro- tected the straw in the manger. Next, when, hav- ing conquered the Milanese, Louis XII turned his thoughts to the conquest of Naples, and called upon Venice to march with him as became a good ally, the Republic made it quite clear that she was not disposed to move unless there was to be some profit to herself. She pointed out that Mantua and Ferrara were in the same case as Bologna, for having failed to lend assistance to the French in the hour of need, and pro- posed to Louis XII] the conquest and division of those territories. Thus matters stood, and Cesare had perforce toGONFALONIER OF THE CHURCH 209 await the conclusion of the Pisan war in which the French were engaged, confident, however, that, once that was at an end, Louis, in his anxiety to maintain friendly relations with the Pope, would be able to in- duce Venice to withdraw her protection from Rimini and Faenza. So much accomplished for him, he was now in a position to do the rest without the aid of French troops 1f necessary. The Jubilee — protracted for a further year, so vast and continuous was the con- course of the faithful, two hundred thousand of whom knelt in the square before Saint Peter’s on Easter Day to receive the Pope’s blessing — was pouring vast sums of money into the pontifical coffers, and for money men were to be had in plenty by a young con- dottiero whose fame had been spreading ever since his return from the Romagna. He was now the hope of the soldiers of fortune who abounded in Italy, attracted thither from all quarters by the continual opportunities for employment which that turbulent land afforded. It is in speaking of him at about this time, and again praising his personal beauty and fine appearance, that Capello says, oT he lives, he will be one of Italy’s epreatest captains.’ Such glimpses as in the pages of contemporary records we are allowed of Cesare during that crowded time of the Papal Jubilee are slight and fleeting. On April 13th we see him on horseback accompany ing the Pope Genen Rome in the cavalcade that visited the four Basilicas to win the indulgence offered, and, as usual, he is attended by his hundred armed grooms in black. On another occasion we behold him very differently210 THE BULL RAMPANT engaged — giving an exhibition of his superb physt- cal gifts, his strength, his courage, and his matchless address. On June 24th, at a bull-fight held in Rome — the Spanish tauromachia having been introduced from Naples, where it flourished under the Aragon domin- ion — he went down into the arena, and on horse- back, armed only with a light lance, he killed five wild bulls. But the master-stroke he reserved for the end. Dismounting, and taking a double-handed sword to the sixth bull that was loosed against him, he beheaded the great beast at a single stroke, “a feat which all Rome considered great.” Thus sped the time of waiting, and meanwhile he gathered about him a Court not only of captains of fortune, but of men of art and letters, whom he patronized with a liberality — indeed, a prodigality — so great that it presently became proverbial, and, incidentally, by its proportions, provoked his father’s disapproval. In the brilliant group of men of letters who enjoyed his patronage were such writers as Justolo, Sperulo, and that unfortunate poet Serafino Cimino da Aquila, known to fame and posterity as the great Aquilano. And it would be, no doubt, during these months that Pier di Lorenzo painted that portrait of Cesare which Vasari afterwards saw in Florence, but which, unfor- tunately, is not now known toexist. Bramante, too, was of his Court at this time, as was Michelangelo Buonarroti, whose superb group of “Mercy,” painted for Cardinal de Villiers, had just amazed all Rome. With Pinturicchio, and Leonardo da Vinci — whom we shall see later beside Cesare — Michelangelo was ever held in the highest esteem by the Duke.GONFALONIER OF THE CHURCH or1 The story of that young sculptor’s leap into fame may not be so widely known but that its repetition may be tolerated here, particularly since, remotely at least, it touches Cesare Borgia. When, in 1496, young Buonarroti, at the age of twenty-three, came from Florence to Rome to seek his fortune at the opulent Pontifical Court, he brought a letter of recommendation to Cardinal Sforza-Riario. This was the time of the great excavations about Rome: treasures of ancient art were daily being res- cued from the soil, and Cardinal Sforza-Riario was a great dilettante and collector of the antique. With pride of possession, he conducted the young sculptor through his gallery, and, displaying his statuary to him, inquired could he do anything that might com- pare with it. If the Cardinal meant to use the young Florentine cavalierly, his punishment was immediate and poetic, for amid the antiques Michelangelo be- held a kneeling Cupid which he instantly claimed as his own work. Riario was angry; no doubt suspicious, too, of fraud. This Cupid was — as its appearance showed — an antique, which the Cardinal had pur- chased from a Milanese dealer for two hundred duc- ats. Michelangelo, in a passion, named the dealer — one Baldassare — to whom he had sent the statue after treating it, with the questionable morality of the Cinquecentist, so as to give it the appearance of hav- ing lain in the ground, to the end that Baldassare might dispose of it as an antique. His present fury arose from his learning the price aid by the Cardinal to Baldassare, from whom Michelangelo had received only thirty ducats. In his wrath he demanded — very arbitrarily, it seems —212 THE BULL RAMPANT the return of his statue. But to this the Cardinal would not consent until Baldassare had been arrested and made to disgorge the money paid him. Then, at last, Sforza- Riario con plied with Michelangelo’s Horien dere and delivered him his Cupid — a piece of yee whose possession had probably ceased to give any pleasure to that collector of antiquities. But the story was bruited abroad, and cultured Rome was agog to see the statue which had duped so astute a judg xe as Sforza-Riario. The fame of the young sculptor spread like a ripple over water, and it was Cesare Borgia — at that time still Cardinal of Valencia — who bought the Cupid. Years later he sent it to Isabella d’ Este, assuring her that it had not its equal among contemporary w orks of art.CHAPTER: V. THE MURDER OF ALFONSO OF ARAGON E come now to the consideration of an event which, despite the light that so many, and with such assurance, have shed upon it, remains wrapped in uncertainty, and presents a mystery sec- ond only to that of the murder of the Duke of Gandia. It was, you will remember, in July of 1498 that Lu- crezia eal a second husband in Alfonso of Aragon, the natural son of Alfonso II of Naples and nephew of Federigo, the reigning king. He was a handsome boy of seventeen at the time of his m arriage — one year younger than Lucrezia — and, in honour of the event and in compliance with the Pope’ s insistence, he was created by his uncle Duke of Biselli and Prince of Salerno. On every hand the marriage was said to bea love match, and of it had been Bonn in November of 1499, the boy Roderigo. On July 15, 1500, at about the third hour of the night, Alfonso was assaulted and grievously wounded — “mortally, it was said at first —on the steps of Saint Peter’s. Burchard’s account of the affair is that the young Prince was assailed by several assassins, who wounded him in the head, right arm, and knee. Leaving him, no doubt, for dead, they fled down the steps, at the foot of w Kien some forty horsemen awaited them, who escorted them out of the city by the Pertusa Gare The Prince was residing in the palace of the Cardinalo14 THE BULL RAMPANT of Santa Maria in Portico, but so desperate was his condition that those who found him upon the steps of the Basilica bore him into the Vatican, where he was taken to a chamber of the Borgia Tower, whilst the Cardinal of Capua at once gave him absolution in articulo mortis. The deed made a great stir in Rome, and was, of course, the subject of immediate gossip, and three days later Cesare issued an edict forbidding, under pain of death, any man from going armed between Sant’ Angelo and the Vatican. News of the event was carried immediately to Na- ples, and King Federigo sent his own physician, Gall- eno, to treat and tend his nephew. In the care of that doctor and a hunchback assistant, Alfonso lay ill of his wounds until August 17th, when suddenly he died, to the great astonishment of Rome, which for some time had believed him out of danger. In recording his actual death, Burchard is at once explicit and reticent to an extraordinary degree. “Not dying,” he writes, “from the wound he had taken, he was yesterday strangled in his bed at the nineteenth hour.” Between the chronicling of his having been wounded on the steps of Saint Peter's and that of his death, thirty-three days later, there is no entry in Burchard’s “Diary” relating to the Prince, nor anything that can in any way help the inquirer to a conclusion; whilst, on the subject of the strangling, not another word does the Master of Ceremonies add to what has above been quoted. That he should so coldly — al- most cynically — state that Alfonso was strangled, without so much as suggesting by whom, 1s singular in one who, although often grimly laconic, is seldom rett-THE MURDER OF ALFONSO OF ARAGON 215 cent — however he may so have been accounted by those who despair of finding in his “Diary” the con- firmation of such points of view as they happen to have chosen and of such matters as it pleases them to believe and propagate. That same evening Alfonso’s body was borne, with- out pomp, to Saint Peter’s and placed in the Chapel of Santa Maria delle Febbre. It was accompanied by Francesco Borgia, Archbishop of Cosenza. The doctor who had been in attendance upon the deceased and the hunchback were seized, taken to Sant’ Angelo and examined, but shortly thereafter set at liberty. So far we are upon what we may consider safe ground. Beyond that we cannot go, save by treading the uncertain ways of speculation, and by following the accounts of the various rumours circulated at the time. Formal and absolutely positive evidence of the author of Alfonso’s murder there is none. The Venetian ambassador, the ineffable, gossip- mongering Paolo Capello, whom we have seen pos- sessed of the fullest details concerning the Duke of Gandia’s death — although he did not come to Rome until two and a half years after the crime — is again as circumstantial in this instance. You see in this Capello the forerunner of the modern journalist of the baser sort, the creature who prowls in quest of scraps of gossip and items of scandal, and who, having found them, does not concern himself greatly in the matter of their absolute truth so that they provide him with sensational “copy.” It is this same Capello, bear in mind, who gives us the story of Cesare’s mur- dering in the Pope’s very arms that Pedro Caldes who216 THE BULL RAMPANT is elsewhere shown to have fallen into the Tiber and been drowned, down to the lurid details of the blood’s spurting into the Pope’s face. His famous “‘Relazione”’ to the Senate in Septem- ber of 1500 is little better than an epitome of all the scandal current in Rome during his sojourn there as ambassador, and his resurrection of the old affair of the murder of Gandia goes some way towards showing the spirit by which he was actuated. It has pleased most writers who have dealt with the matter of the murder of Alfonso of Aragon to follow Capello’s statements; consequently these must be examined. He writes from Rome — as recorded by Sanuto — that on July 16th Alfonso of Biselli was assaulted on the steps of Saint Peter’s, and received four wounds, ‘one in the head, one in the arm, one in the shoulder, and one in the back.”’ That was all that was known to Capello at the time he wrote that letter, and you will observe already the discrepancy between his state- ment and Burchard’s. According to Burchard the wounds were three, and they were in the head, night arm, and knee. On the 19th Capello writes again, and, having stated that Lucrezia — who was really prostrate with grief at her husband’s death — was stricken with fe- ver, adds that “‘it is not known who has wounded the Duke of Biselli, but it is said that it was the same who killed and threw into the Tiber the Duke of Gandia. My Lord of Valentinois has issued an edict that no one shall henceforth bear arms between Sant’ Angelo and the Vatican.’’ On the face of it, that edict of Valentinois’s seems to argue vexation at what had happened, and the desireTHE MURDER OF ALFONSO OF ARAGON 217 to provide against its repetition — a provision hardly likely to be made by the man who had organized the assault, unless he sought, by this edict, to throw dust into the eyes of the world; and one cannot associate dissimulation after the event and the fear of criticism with such a nature as Cesare’s or with such a charac- ter as is given him by those who are satisfied that it was he who murdered Bisellt. The rumour that Alfonso had been assailed by the murderer of Gandia is a reasonable enough rumour, so long as the latter remains unnamed, for it would simply point to some enemy of the House of Borgia who, having slain one of its members, now attempts to slay another. Whether Capello actually meant Cesare when he penned those words on July 19th, ts not as obvious as may be assumed, for it is to be borne in mind that, at this date, Capello had not yet compiled the “Relation” in which he deals with Gan- dia’s murder. On July 23d he wrote that the Duke was very ill, indeed, from the wound in his head, and on the 28th that he was in danger owing to the same wound, al- though the fever had abated. On August 18th he announces Alfonso’s death in the following terms: ““The Duke of Biselli, Madonna Lucrezia’s husband, died to-day because he was plan- ning the death of the Duke [of Valentinois] by means of an arbalest-bolt when he walked in the garden; and the Duke has had him cut to pieces in his room by his archers.” This “‘cutting-to-pieces” form of death is one very dear to the imagination of Capello, and bears some Ay i witness to his sensation-mongering proclivities.218 THE BULL RAMPANT Coming to matters more public, and upon which his evidence is more acceptable, he writes on the 20th that some servants of the Prince’s have been arrested, and that, upon being put to the question, they con- fessed to the Prince’s intent to kill the Duke of Valen- tinois, adding that a servant of the Duke’s was impli- cated. On the 23d Capello circumstantially confirms this matter of Alfonso’s attempt upon Cesare’s life, and states that this has been confessed by the master of Alfonso’s household, “‘the brother of his mother, Madonna Drusa.”’ That is the sum of Capello’s reports to the Senate, as recorded by Sanuto. The rest, the full, lurid, richly-coloured, sensational story, is contained in his “Relation” of September 20th. He prefaces the nar- rative by informing the Senate that the Pope is on very bad terms with Naples, and proceeds to relate the case of Alfonso of Aragon as follows: He was wounded at the third hour of night near the pal- ace of the Duke of Valentinois, his brother-in- law, and the Prince ran to the Pope, saying that he had been wounded and that he knew by w hom; and his wife Lucrezia, the Pope’s daughter, who was in the room, fell into anguish. He was ill for thirty-three days, and his wife and sister, who is the wife of the Prince of Squillace, another son af the Pope’s, were with him and cooked for him in a saucepan for fear of his being poisoned, as the Duke of Valentinois so hated him. And the Pope had him guarded by sixteen men for fear that the Duke should kill him. And when the Pope went to visit him, Valentinois did not accompany him, save on one occasion, when he said that what had not been done at breakfast might be done at supper. ...On August 17th he [Valentinois] entered the room where the Prince was al-THE MURDER OF ALFONSO OF ARAGON 219 ready risen from his bed, and, driving out the wife and sis- ter, called in his man, named Michieli, and had the Prince strangled; and that night he was buried. Now the following points must arise to shake the student’s confidence in this narrative, and in Capello as an authority upon any of the other matters that he relates: (1) “He was wounded near the palace of the Duke of Valentinois.” This looks exceedingly like an attempt to pile up evidence against Cesare, and shows a dis- position to resort to the invention of it. Whatever may not have been known about Alfonso’s death, it was known by everybody that he was wounded on the steps of Saint Peter’s, and Capello himself, in his dis- patches, had said so at the time. A suspicion that Capello’s whole “‘ Relation” is to serve the purpose of heaping odium upon Cesare at once arises and re- ceives confirmation when we consider that, as we have already said, it 1s in this same “Relation” that the fiction about Pedro Caldes finds place and that the guilt of the murder of the Duke of Gandia 1s defi- nitely fixed upon Cesare. (2) ‘He ran to the Pope {corse dal Papa”’] saying that he had been wounded, and that he knew by whom.” A man with a wound in his head which endangered his life for over a week would hardly be conscious on receiving it, nor is it to be supposed that, had he been conscious, his assailants would have departed. It can- not be doubted that they left him for dead. He was carried into the palace, and we know, from Burchard, that the Cardinal of Capua gave ae absolution in articulo mortis, which abundantly shows his condi-220 THE BULL RAMPANT tion. It is unthinkable that he should have been able to “run to the Pope,” doubtful that he should have been able to speak; and, if he did, who was it reported his words to the Venetian ambassador? Capello wisely refrains from saying. (3) Lucrezia and Sancia attempt to protect him from poison by cooking his food in his room. ‘This is quite incredible. Even admitting the readiness to do so on the part of these Princesses, where was the need, con- sidering the presence of the doctor — admitted by Capello — sent from Naples and his hunchback as- sistant? (4) ““The Pope had him guarded by sixteen men for fear the Duke should kill him.” Yet when, according to Capello, the Duke comes on his murderous errand, attended only by Michieli (who has been generally assumed by writers to have been Don Michele da Corella, one of Cesare’s captains), where are these sixteen guards? Capello mentions the dismissal only of Lucrezia and Sancia. (s) ““Valentinois... said that what had not been done at breakfast might be done at supper.” It will be observed that Capello never once considers it neces- sary to give his authorities for anything that he states. It becomes, perhaps, more particularly noteworthy than usual in the case of this reported speech of Ce- sare’s. He omits to say to whom Cesare addressed those sinister words, and by whom they were re- ported. The statement is hardly one to be accepted without that very necessary mention of authorities, nor can we conceive Capello omitting them had he possessed them. It will be seen that it is scarcely necessary to go out-THE MURDER OF ALFONSO OF ARAGON 221 side of Capello’s own “Relation” for the purpose of traversing the statements contained in it, so far as the death of Alfonso of Aragon is concerned. It is, however, still to be considered that, if Alfonso knew who had attempted his life — as Capello states that he told the Pope — and knew that he was in hourly danger of death from Valentinois, it may surely be taken for granted that he would have imparted the information to the Neapolitan doctor sent him by his uncle, who must have had his confi- dence. We know that, after the Prince’s death, the physt- cian and his hunchback assistant were arrested, but subsequently released. They returned to Naples, and in Naples, if not elsewhere, the truth must have been known — definite and authentic facts from the lips of eye-witnesses, not mere matters of rumour, as was the case in Rome. It is to Neapolitan writings, then, that we must turn for the truth of this affair; and yet from Naples all that we find 1s a rumour — the echo of the Roman rumour — “‘They say,” writes the Venetian ambassador at the Court of King Federigo, “that he was killed by the Pope’s son.”’ A more mischievous document than Capello’s “Relazione” can seldom have found its way into the pages of history; it is the prime source of several of the unsubstantiated accusations against Cesare Bor- gia upon which subsequent writers have drawn — ac- cepting without criticism — and from which they have formed their conclusions as to the Duke’s char- acter. Even in our own times we find Gregorovius fol- lowing Capello’s “Relation” step by step, and dealing222 THE BULL RAMPANT out this matter of the murder of the Duke of Biselli in his own paraphrases, as so much substantiated, un- questionable fact. We find in his Lucrezia Borgia the following statement: ~ The affair was no longer a mys- tery. Cesare himself publicly declared that he had killed the Duke because his life had been attempted by the latter.” To say that Cesare “publicly declared that he had killed the Duke” is to say a very daring thing, and 1s dangerously to improve upon Capello. If it is true that Cesare made this public declaration, how does it happen that no one but Capello heard him? — for in all other documents there is no more than offered us a rumour of how Alfonso died. Surely it is to be sup- posed that, had Cesare made any such declaration, the letters from the ambassadors would have rung with it. Yet they will offer you nothing but state- ments of what is being rumoured! Nor does Gregorovius confine himself to that in his sedulous following of Capello’s ~ Relation.” He serves up out of Capello the lying story of the murder of Pedro Caldes. ‘‘What,” he says of Cesare, to sup- port his view that Cesare murdered Alfonso of Ara- gon, “could be beyond this terrible man who had poignarded the Spaniard Pedro Caldes ... under the Pope’s very cloak, so that his blood spurted up into the Pope’s face?” This in his “History of Rome.” In his ““Lucrezia Borgia” he almost improves upon it when he says that ““The Venetian ambassador, Paolo Capello, reports how Cesare Borgia stabbed the cham- berlain Perotto, etc., dut Burchard makes no mention of the fact.” Of the fact of the stabbing, Burchard cer- tainly makes no mention; but he does mention that theTHE MURDER OF ALFONSO OF ARAGON 223 man was accidentally drowned, as has been consid- ered. It is again — and more flagrantly than ever — a case of proving Cesare guilty of a crime of which there is no conclusive evidence by ch larging him with another, which — in this instance — there is actually evidence that he did not commit. But this is by the way. Burchard’s entries in his “Diary” relating to the assault upon Alfonso of Aragon can no more escape the criticism of the thoughtful than can Capello’s “Relation.” His forty horsemen, for instance, need explaining. Apart from the fact that this employ ment of forty horsemen would be an altogether amazing and incredible w ay to set about the murder of a single man, it is to be considered that such a tr oop, drawn up in the square before Saint Peter’s, must of necessity have attracted some attention. It was the first hour of the night, remember — according to Burchard — that is to say, at dusk. Presumably, too, those horse- men were waiting when the Prince arrived. How then, did he — and why was he allowed to — pass them, only to be assailed in ascending the steps? Bur- neneh presumably, did not himself see these horse- men; certainly he cannot have seen them escorting the murderers to the Pertusa Gate. Therefore Re must have had the matter reported to him. Naturally enough, had the horsemen existed, they must have been seen. How, then, does it happen that Capello did not hear of ahem nor the Florentine ambassador, who says that the murderers were four, nor, appar- ently, any one else? To turn for a moment to the Florentine ambassa-224 THE BULL RAMPANT dor’s letters upon the subject, we find in this other Capello — Francesco Capello was his name — ac- counts which differ alike from Paolo Capello's and from Burchard’s stories. But he is careful to say that he is simply repeating the rumours that are abroad, and cites several different versions that are current, adding that the truth of the affair is not known to any- body. His conclusions, however, particularly those given in cipher, point to Cesare Borgia as the per- petrator of the deed, and hint at some such motive of retaliation for an attempt upon his own life as that which is given by the ambassador of Venice. There is much mystery in the matter, despite Gre- gorovius’s assertion to the contrary — mystery which mere assertion will not dissipate. This conclusion, however, it is fair to draw: if, on Capello’s evidence, we are to accept it that Cesare Borgia is responsible for the death of Alfonso of Aragon, then, on the same evidence, we must accept the motive as well as the deed. We must accept as equally exact his thrice- repeated statement in letters to the Senate that the Prince had planned Cesare’s death by posting cross- bowmen to shoot him.’ Either we must accept all, or we must reject all, that Capello tells us. If we reject all, then we are left utterly without information as to how Alfonso of Ara- 1 Tt is extremely significant that Capello’s Re/azione contains no men- tion of Alfonso’s plot against Cesare’s life, a matter which, as we have seen, had figured so repeatedly in that ambassador’s dispatches from Rome at the time of the event. This omission is yet another proof of the malicious spirit by which the Re/ation was inspired. The suppression of anything that might justify a deed attributed to Cesare reveals the extent to which defamation and detraction were the aims of this Venetian,THE MURDER OF ALFONSO OF ARAGON 225 gon died. If we accept all, then we find that it was as a measure of retaliation that Cesare compassed the death of his brother-in-law, which made it not a mur- der, but a private execution — justifiable under the circumstances of the provocation received and as the adjustment of these affairs was understood in the Cinquecento.CHAPTER VI RIMINI AND PESARO ty the autumn of 1500, fretting to take the field again, Cesare was occupied in raising and equipping an army — an occupation which received an added stimulus when, towards the end of August, Louis de Villeneuve, the French ambassador, arrived in Rome with the articles of agreement setting forth the terms upon which Louis XII was prepared further to assist Cesare in the resumption of his campaign. In these it was stipulated that, in return for such assistance, Cesare should engage himself, on his side, to aid the King of France in the conquest of Naples when the time for that expedition should be ripe. Further, Louis XII was induced to make representations to Venice to the end that the Republic should remove her protection from the Manfredi of Faenza and the Malatesta of Rimini. Venice being at the time in trouble with the Turk, and more anxious than ever to conciliate France and the Pope, was compelled to swallow her reluctance and submit with the best grace she could assume. Accordingly she dispatched her ambassadors to Rome to convey her obedience to the Pope’s Holiness, and formally to communicate the news that she withdrew her protection from the proscribed fiefs. Later in the year — in the month of October — the Senate was to confer upon Cesare Borgia the highest honour in her gift, the honour of which the VenetiansRIMINI AND PESARO 227 were jealous above all else — the honour of Venetian citizenship, inscribing his name in the Golden Book, bestowing upon him a palace in Venice and conferring the other marks of distinction usual to the occasion. One is tempted to ask, Was it in consequence of Paolo Capello’s lurid “Relation” that the proud Republic considered him qualified for such an honour: To return, however, to the matter of the Republic’s removal of her shield from Rimini and Faenza, Alex- ander received the news of this with open joy and celebrated it with festivities in the Vatican, whilst from being angry with Venice and from declaring that the Republic need never again look to him for favour, he now veered round completely and assured the Venetian envoys, in a burst of gratitude, that he esteemed no Power in the world so highly. Cesare joined in his father’s expressions of gratitude and ap- preciation, and promised that Alexander should be succeeded in Saint Peter’s Chair by such a Pope as should be pleasing to Venice, and that, if the cardinals but remained united, the Pontificate should go to none but a Venetian. Thus did Cesare, sincerely or otherwise, attempt to lessen the Republic’s chagrin to see him ride lance-on- thigh as conqueror into the dominions which she so long had coveted. France once more placed Yves d’Allégre at Ce- sare’s disposal, and with him went six hundred lances and six hundred Swiss foot. These swelled the forces which already Cesare had assembled into an army some ten thousand strong. The artillery was under the command of Vitellozzo Vitelli, whilst228 THE BULL RAMPANT Bartolomeo da Capranica was appointed camp- master. Cesare’s banner was joined by a condotta under Paolo Orsini — besides whom there were sev- eral Roman gentlemen in the Duke’s following, in- cluding most of those who had formed his guard of honour on the occasion of his visit to France, and who had since then continued to follow his fortunes. Achille Tiberti came to Rome with a condotta which he had levied in the Romagna of young men who had been moved by Cesare’s spreading fame to place their swords at his disposal. A member of the exiled Malvezzi family of Bologna headed a little troop of fellow-exiles which came to take service with the Duke, whilst at Perugia a strong body of foot awaited him under Gianpaolo Baglioni. In addition to these condotte, numerous were the adventurers who came to offer Cesare their swords; indeed, he must have possessed much of that personal magnetism which is the prime equipment of every born leader, for he stirred men to a high pitch of enthusiasm in those days, and inspired other than warriors to bear arms for him. We see men of letters, such as Justolo, Calmeta, Sperulo, and others throw- ing down their quills to snatch up swords and follow him. Painters and sculptors, too, are to be seen aban- doning the ideals of art to pursue the ugly realities of war in this young condottiero’s train. Among these artists bulks the great Pietro Torrigiani. The astound- ing pen of his brother-sculptor, Benvenuto Cellini, has left us a sharp portrait of this man, in which he speaks of his personal beauty and tells us that he had more the air of a great soldier than a sculptor (which must have been, we fancy, Cellini’s own case). TorrigiantRIMINI AND PESARO 229 lives in history chiefly for two pieces of work widely dissimilar in character — the erection of the tomb of Henry VII of England, and the breaking of the nose of Michelangelo Buonarroti in the course sof a quarrel which he had with him in Florence when they were fellow-students under Masaccio. Of nothing that he ever did in life was he so proud — as you may gather from Cellini — as of having disfigured Michelangelo, and in that sentiment the naive spirit of his age again peeps forth. We shall also see Leonardo da Vinci joining the Duke’s army as engineer — but that not until some months later. Meanwhile Valentinois’s forces grew daily in Rome, and his time was consumed in organizing, equipping, and drilling these, to bring about that perfect unity for which his army was to be conspicuous in spite of the variety of French, Italian, Spanish, and Swiss elements of which it was composed. So effectively were his troops armed and so excellent was the dis- cipline prevailing among them, that their like had probably never before been seen in the peninsula, and they were to excite — as much else of Cesare’s work — the wonder and admiration of that great critic Macchiavelli. So much, however, was not to be achieved without money, and still more would be needed for the cam- paign ahead. For this the Church provided. Never had the coffers of the Holy See been fuller than at this moment. Additional funds accrued from what is al- most universally spoken of as “the sale of twelve cardinals’ hats.” In that year —in September — twelve new car-240 THE BULL RAMPANT ae dinals were appointed, and upon each of those was levied, as a tax, a tithe of the first year’s revenues of the benefices upon which they entered. The only justifiable exception that can be taken to this lies in the number of cardinals elected at one time, which lends colour to the assumption that the sole aim of that election was to raise additional funds for Cesare’s campaign. Probably it was also Alexander’s aim fur- ther to strengthen his power with the Sacred Col- lege, so that he could depend upon a majority to ensure his will in all matters. But we are at the moment concerned with the matter of the levied tax. It has been dubbed “‘an atrocious act of simony ’; but the reasoning that so construes it is none so clear. The cardinals’ hats carried with them vast benefices. These benefices were the property of the Church; they were in the gift and bestowal of the Pope, and in the bestowing of them the Pope levied a proportionate tax. Setting aside the argument that this tax was not an invention of Alexander’s, does such a proceeding really amount to a sale of benefices? A sale presup- poses bargaining, a making of terms between two parties, an adjusting of a price to be paid. There is evidence of no such marketing of these benefices; in- deed, one cardinal, vowed to poverty, received his hat without the imposition of a tax, another was Cesare s brother-in-law, Amanieu d’Albret, who had been romised the hat a year ago. It is further to be borne in mind that, four months earlier, the Pope had levied a similar decima, or tax, upon the entire College of Cardinals and every official in the service of the Holy See, for the purposes of the expedition against theRIMINI AND PESARO 231 Muslim, who was in arms against Christianity. Natu- rally that tax was not popular with luxurious, self- seeking, Cinquecento prelates, who in the main cared entirely for their own prosperity and not at all for that of Christianity, and you may realize how, by levying it, Alexander laid himself open to harsh criticism. The only impugnable matter in the deed lies, as has been said, in the number of cardinals so created at a batch. But the ends to be served may be held to justify, if not altogether, at least in some measure, the means adopted. The Romagna war for which the funds were needed was primarily for the advance- ment of the Church, to expunge those faithless vicars who, appointed by the Holy See and holding their fiefs in trust for her, refused payment of just tribute and otherwise so acted as to alienate from the Church the States which she claimed for her own. Their restoration to the Church — however much it might be a means of founding a Borgia dynasty in the Ro- magna — made for the greater power and slory of the Holy See. Let us remember this, and that such was the end which that tax, levied upon those newly elected cardinals, went to serve. The aggrandizement of the House of Borgia was certainly one of the results to be expected from the Romagna campaign, but we are not justified in accounting it the sole aim and end of that campaign. Alexander had this advantage over either Sixtus IV or Innocent VIII — not to go beyond those Popes whom he had served as Vice-Chancellor, for instances of flagrant nepotism — that he at least served two purposes at once, and that, in aggrandizing his own family, he strengthened the temporal power of theTHE BULL RAMPANT Church, whereas those others had done nothing but undermine it that they might enrich their progeny. And whilst on this subject of the sale of cardinals’ hats, it may not be amiss to say a word concerning the sale of indulgences with which Alexander has been so freely charged. Here again there has been too loud an outcry against Alexander — an outcry whose in- dignant stridency leads one to suppose that the sale of indulgences was a simony invented by him, or else practised by him to an extent shamefully unprece- dented. But this is very far from being the case. The archetype of indulgence-seller — as of all other simoniacal practices — is Innocent VIII. In his reign we have seen the murderer commonly given to choose between the hangman and the purchase of a pardon, and we have seen the moneys so obtained providing his bastard, the Cardinal Francesco Cibo, with the means for the luxuriously licentious life whose gross disorders prematurely killed him. To no such flagitious lengths as these can it be shown that Alexander carried the sale of the indul- gences he dispensed. He had no lack of precedent for the practice, and, so far as the actual practice it- self is concerned, it would be difficult to show that it is unjustifiable or stmoniacal so long as confined with- in certain well-defined bounds, and so long as the sums levied by it were properly employed to the benefit of Christianity. It is a practice comparable with that of mulcting a civil offender against secular laws. Because our magistrates levy fines as alternatives to imprisonment, it does not occur to modern critics to say that they sell pardons and immunity from gaol. It is universally recognized as a wise and commend-RIMINI AND PESARO 233 able measure, serving the twofold purpose of punish- ing the offender and benefiting the temporal State against which he has Ofrenda: Need it be less commendable in the case of spiritual offences against a spiritual State? It is more useful than to impose the pattering of a dozen prayers at bedtime, and since, no doubt, it falls more heavily upon the penitent, it pos- sibly makes to an even greater extent for his spiritual improvement. Thus considered, this sale of indulgences loses a deal of the heinousness with which it has been invested. The funds so realized go into the coffers of the Church, which is fit and proper. What afterwards becomes of them at the hands of Alexander opens up another matter altogether, one in which we cannot close our eyes to the fact that he was as undutiful as many an- other who wore the Ring of the Fisherman before him. Yet this is to be said for him: that, if he plunged his hands freely into the treasury of He Holy See, at least he had the ability to contrive that this treasury should be well supplied; and the circumstance that, when he died, he left the Church far wealthier and more pow rerful than she had been for centuries, with her do- minions which his precursors had wantonly alienated reconsolidated into that powerful State that was to endure for three hundred years, is an argument to the credit of his pontificate not lightly to be set aside. Imola and Forli had, themselves, applied to the Pontiff to appoint @ichte Borgia their ruler in the place of the deposed Ruarit. To these was now added Cesena. In July disturbances occurred there between Guelphs and Ghibellines. Swords were drawn and234 THE BULL RAMPANT blood flowed in the streets, until the governor was constrained to summon Ercole Bentivogli and his horse from Forli to quell the rioting. The direct out- come of this was that — the Ghibellines predominat- ing in council — Cesena sent an embassy to Rome to beg His Holiness to give the lordship of the fief to the Duke of Valentinois. To this the Pope acceded, and on August 2d Cesare was duly appointed Lord Vicar of Cesena. He celebrated his investiture by re- mitting a portion of the taxes, abolishing altogether the duty on flour, and by bringing about a peace be- tween the two prevailing factions. By the end of September Cesare’s preparations for the resumption of the campaign were complete, and early in October (his army fortified in spirit by the Pope’s blessing) he set out, and made his first halt at Nepi. Lucrezia was there, with her Court and her child Roderigo, having withdrawn to this her castle to mourn her dead husband Alfonso. And there she abode until recalled to Rome by her father some two months later. Thence Cesare pushed on, as swiftly as the foul weather would allow him, by way of Viterbo, Assisi, and Nocera, to cross the Apennines at Gualdo. Here he paused to demand the release of certain prisoners in the hill fortress of Fossate. He was answered by a refusal. Angered by this and determined to discourage others from following the insubordinate example of Fossate, he was swift and terrible in his rejoinder. He seized the citadel, and did by force what had been refused to his request. Having liberated the prison- ers in durance there, he gave the territory over to devastation by fire and pillage.RIMINI AND PESARO 235 That done he resumed his march, but the weather retarded him more and more. The heavy and contin- uous rains had reduced the roads to such a condition that his artillery fell behind, and he was compelled to call a halt once more, at Deruta, and wait there four days for his guns to overtake him. In Rimini the great House of Malatesta was rep- resented by Pandolfo — Roberto Malatesta’s bastard and successor — a degenerate so detested by his sub- jects that he was known by the name of Pandolfaccio (a pejorative, expressing the evil repute in which he was held). Among the many malpractices and the many abuses to which he resorted for the purposes of extorting money from his long-suffering subjects was that of compelling the richer men of Rimini to purchase from him the estates which he confiscated from the fuo- rusciti — those who had sought in exile safety from the anger provoked by their just resentment of his oppressive misrule. He was in the same case as other Romagna tyrants, and now that Venice had lifted from him her pro- tecting zegis, he had no illusions as to the fate in store for him. So when once more the tramp of Cesare Borgia’s advancing legions rang through the Ro- magna, Pandolfaccio disposed himself, not for battle, but for surrender on the best terms that he might succeed in making. He was married to Violante, the daughter of Gio- vanni Bentivogli of Bologna, and in the first week of October he sent her, with their children, to seek shelter at her father’s Court. Himself, he withdrew236 THE BULL RAMPANT ~ ‘nto his citadel — the famous fortress of his terrible orandfather Sigismondo. The move suggested almost that he was preparing to resist the Duke of Valen- tinois, and it may have prompted the message sent him by the Council to inquire what might be his intention. Heroics were not to be expected of Pandolfaccio. Since all was lost it but remained — by his lights — to make the best bargain that he could and get the highest possible price in gold for that which he was compelled to relinquish. So he replied that the Council must do whatever it considered to its best advantage; and meanwhile to anticipate its members in any offer of surrender, and thus earn the favour and deserve good terms at the hands of this man who came to cast him out from the throne of his family, he dispatched a confidential servant to Cesare to offer him town and citadel. Simultaneously — as Pandolfo fully expected — the Council also sent proposals of surrender to Cesare, as well as to his lieutenant-general of Romagna, Bishop Olivieri, at Cesena. The communications had the effect of bringing Olivieri immediately to Rimini, and there, on October toth, the articles of capitulation were signed by the Bishop, as the Duke’s represent- ative, and by Pandolfo Malatesta. It was agreed ‘n these that Malatesta should have safe-conduct for himself and his familiars, three thousand ducats and the value — to be estimated — of the artillery which he left in the citadel. Further, for the price of fifty- fve hundred ducats he abandoned also the strong- holds of Sarsina and Medola and the castles of the Montagna.RIMINI AND PESARO 237 Having thus disposed of his tyranny, Pandolfaccio took ship to Ravenna, where the price of his dishonour was to be paid him, and in security for which he took with him Gianbattista Baldassare, the son of the ducal commissioner. On the day of his departure, to celebrate the blood- less conquest of Rimini, Solemn High Mass was sung in the Cathedral, and Bishop Olivieri received the city’s oath of allegiance to the Holy See, whither very shortly afterwards Rimini sent her ambassadors to express to the Pope her gratitude for her release from the thraldom of Pandolfaccio. Like Rimini, Pesaro too fell without the striking of a blow, for all that it was by no means as readily re- linquished on the part of its ruler. Giovanni Sforza had been exerting himself desperately for the past two months to obtain help that should enable him to hold his tyranny against the Borgia might. But all in vain. His entreaties to the Emperor had met with no re- sponse, whilst his appeal to Francesco Gonzaga of Mantua — whose sister, it will be remembered, had been his first wife — had resulted in the Marquis’s sending him a hundred men under an Albanian, named Giacopo. What Giovanni was to do with a hundred men it is difficult to conceive, nor are the motives of Gonzaga’s action clear. We know that at this time he was eagerly seeking Cesare’s friendship, sorely uneasy as to the fate that might lie in store for his own dominions, once the Duke of Valentinois should have disposed of the feudatories of the Church. Early in that year 1500 he had asked Cesare to stand godfather for his child, and Cesare had readily con-8 THE BULL RAMPANT 4 a 3 sented, whereby a certain bond of relationship and good feeling had been established between them, which everything shows Gonzaga most anxious to preserve unsevered. The only reasonable conclusion ‘a the matter of that condotta of a hundred men is that Gonzaga desired to show friendliness to the Lord of Pesaro, yet was careful not to do so to any extent that might be hurtful to Valentinots. As for Giovanni Sforza, of whom so many able pens have written so feelingly as the continuously unfor- tunate victim of Borgia ambition, there is no need to enter into analyses for the purpose of judging him here. His own subjects did so effectively in his own day. When a prince is beloved by all classes of his people, it must follow that he is a good prince and a wise ruler; when his subjects are divided into two factions, one to oppose and the other to support him, he may be good or bad, or good and bad; but when a prince can find none to stand by him in the hour of peril, it is to be concluded that he has deserved little at the hands of those whom he has ruled. This last is the case of Giovanni Sforza — a prince whom, Yriarte tells us, “rendered sweet the lives of his subjects.” The nobility and the proletariat of Pesaro abhorred him; the trader classes stood neutral, anxious to avoid the consequences of partisanship, since 1t was upon themselves that those consequences must weigh most heavily. On Sunday, October 11th — the day after Pandolfo Malatesta had relinquished Rimini — news reached Pesaro that Ercole Bentivoglt’s horse was marching upon the town, in advance Cesare’s army. of the main body of Instantly there was an insurrectionRIMINI AND PESARO 239 against Giovanni, and the people, taking to arms, raised the cry of “Duca!” in acclamation of the Duke of Valentinois, under the very windows of their ruler’s palace. Getting together the three hundred men that con- stituted his army, Giovanni beat a hasty retreat to Pesaro’s magnificent fortress; not, however, with in- tent to hold it. That same night he secretly took ship to Ravenna accompanied by the Albanian Gia- copo, leaving his half-brother, Galeazzo Sforza di Cotignola, in command of the citadel. Thence Gio- vanni repaired to Bologna, and, already repenting his precipitate flight, he appealed for help to Bentivogli, who was himself uneasy, despite the French protec- tion he enjoyed. Similarly, Giovanni addressed fresh appeals to Francesco Gonzaga; but neither of these tyrants could or dared assist him, and, whilst he was still imploring their intervention his fief had fallen into Cesare’s power. Ercole Bentivogli, with a small body of horse, had presented himself at the gates of Pesaro on October 21st, and Galeazzo Sforza, having obtained safe- conduct for the garrison, surrendered. Cesare, meanwhile, was at Fano, where he paused to allow his army to come up with him, for he had out- ridden it from Fossate, through foul wintry weather, attended only by his light horse. It was said that he hoped that Fano might offer itself to him as other fiefs had done, and — if Pandolfo Collenuccio is correct — he had been counselled by the Pope not to attempt to impose himself upon Fano, but to allow the town a free voice in the matter. If his hopes were as stated, he was disappointed in them, for Fano made no offer240 THE BULL RAMPANT to him, and matters remained for the present as they were. On the 27th, with the banners of the bull unfurled, he rode into Pesaro at the head of two thousand men, making his entrance with his wonted pomp, of whose dramatic values he was so fully aware. He was met at the gates by the Council, which came to offer him the keys of the town, and, despite the pouring rain under which he entered the city, the people of Pesaro thronged the streets to acclaim him as he rode. He took up his lodgings at the Sforza Palace, so lately vacated by Giovanni — the palace where Lucre- zia Borgia had held her Court when, as Giovanni's wife, she had been Countess of Pesaro and Cotignola. Early on the morrow he visited the citadel, which was one of the finest in Italy, rivalling that of Rimini for strength. Onhisarrival there, a flourish of trumpets 1m- posed silence, while the heralds greeted him formally as Lord of Pesaro. He ordered one of the painters 1n his train to draw up plans of the fortress to be sent to the Pope, and issued instructions for certain repairs and improvements which he considered desirable. Here in Pesaro came to him the famous Pandolfo Collenuccio, as envoy from the Duke of Ferrara, to congratulate him upon the victory. In sending Collenuccio at such a time Ercole d’ Este paid the Duke of Valentinois a subtly graceful compliment. This distinguished poet, dramatist, and historian was a native of Pesaro who had been exiled ten years earlier by Giovanni — which was the Tyrant’s way of showing his gratitude to the man who, more than any other, had contributed to the bastard Sforza’s succes- sion to his father as Lord of Pesaro and Cotignola.RIMINI AND PESARO 241 Collenuccio was one of the few literary men of his day who did not disdain the use of the Italian tongue, treating it seriously as a language and not merely as a debased form of Latin. He was eminent as a juris- consult, and, being a man of action as well as a man of letters, he had filled the office of Podesta in various cities; he had found employment under Lorenzo de’ Medici, and latterly under Ercole d’ Este, whom we now see him representing. Cesare received him with all honour, sending the master of his household, Ramiro de Lorqua, to greet him on his arrival and to bear him the usual gifts of welcome, consisting of barley, wine, capons, candles, sweetmeats, etc., whilst on the morrow the Duke gave him audience, treating him in the friendliest manner, as we see from Collenuccio’s own report to the Duke of Ferrara. In this he says of Cesare: “He is accounted valiant, joyous, and open-handed, and it is believed that he holds honest men in great esteem. Harsh in his vengeance, according to many, he is great of spirit and of ambition, athirst for eminence and fame.” Collenuccio was reinstated by Cesare in the pos- sessions of which Giovanni had stripped him, a mat- ter which so excited the resentment of the latter that, when ultimately he returned to his dominions, one of his first acts was to avenge it. Collenuccio, fearing that he might not stand well with the Tyrant, had withdrawn from Pesaro. But Giovanni, with all semblance of friendliness, treacherously lured him back to cast him into prison and have him strangled — a little matter which those who, to the detriment of the Borgia, seek to make a hero of this Giovanni Sforza, would do well not to suppress.242 THE BULL RAMPANT A proof of the splendid discipline prevailing in Cesare’s army is afforded during his brief sojourn in Pesaro. In the town itself, some two thousand of his troops were accommodated, whilst some thousands more swarmed in the surrounding country. Occu- pation by such an army was, naturally enough, cause for deep anxiety on the part of a people who were but too well acquainted with the ways of the fifteenth- century men-at-arms. But here was a general who knew how to curb and control his soldiers. Under pain of death his men were forbidden from indulging any of the predations or violences usual to their kind; and, as a consequence, the inhabitants of Pesaro had little of which to complain. Justolo gives us a picture of the Duke of Valen- tinois on the banks of the River Montone, which again throws into relief the discipline which his very presence — such was the force of his personality — was able to impose. A disturbance arose among his soldiers at the crossing of this river, which was so swol- len by the rains that the bridge had been destroyed. It became necessary to effect the crossing in one small boat — the only craft available — and the men, crowding to the bank, stormed and fought for precedence until the matter assumed a threatening aspect. Cesare rode down to the river, and his mere presence was sufhicient to restore peace. Under that calm, cold eye of his the men instantly became or- derly; and, whilst he sat his horse and watched them, the crossing was soberly effected, and as swiftly as the single craft would permit. The Duke remained but two days in Pesaro. On the 29th, having appointed a lieutenant to represent him,RIMINI AND PESARO 243 and a captain to the garrison, he marched out again, to lie that night at Cattolica and enter Rimini on the morrow. There again he was received with open arms, and he justified the people’s welcome of him by an im- mediate organization of affairs which gave universal satisfaction. He made ample provision for the proper administration of justice and the preservation of the peace; he recalled the fuorusciti exiled by the un- scrupulous Pandolfaccio, and he saw them reinstated in the property of which that tyrant had dispossessed them. As his lieutenant in Rimini, with strict in- junctions to preserve law and order, he left Ramiro de Lorqua, when, on November 2d, he departed to march upon Faenza, which had prepared for resist- ance. What Cesare did in Rimini was no more than he was doing throughout the Romagna, as its various archives bear witness. They bear witness no less to his vast ability as an administrator, showing how he resolved the prevailing chaos into form and order by his admirable organization and suppression of injus- tice. The same archives show us also that he found time for deeds of beneficence which endeared him to the people, who everywhere hailed him as their deliverer from thraldom. It would not be wise to join in the chorus of those who appear to have taken Cesare’s altruism for granted. The rejection of the wild stories that picture him as a corrupt and mur- derous monster, utterly inhuman, and lay a dozen ghastly crimes to his account, need not entail our viewing Cesare as an angel of deliverance, a divineTHE BULL RAMPANT agent almost, rescuing a suffering people from op- pression out of sheer humanitarianism. He is the one as little as the other. He is just — as Collenuccio wrote to Ercole d’ Este — “great of spirit and of ambition, athirst for eminence and fame.’’ He was consumed by the desire for power and worldly greatness, a colossus of egotism to whom men and women were pieces to be handled by him on the chess-board of his ambition, to be sacrificed ruthlessly where necessary to his ends, but to be husbanded and guarded carefully where they could serve him. With his eyes upon the career of Cesare Borgia, Macchiavelli was anon to write of principalities newly acquired, that “however great may be the mill- tary resources of a prince, he will discover that, to obtain firm footing in a province, he must engage the favour and interest of the inhabitants.” This was a principle self-evident to Cesare — the principle upon which he acted throughout in his conquest of the Romagna. By causing his new sub- jects to realize at once that they had exchanged an oppressive for a generous rule, he attached them to himself.CHAPTER VII THE SIEGE OF FAENZA HE second campaign of the Romagna had opened for Cesare as easily as had the first. So far his conquests had been achieved by little more than a processional display of his armed legions. Like another Joshua, he reduced cities by the mere blare of his trumpets. At last, however, he was to receive a check. Where grown men had fled cravenly at his approach, it remained for a child to resist him at Faenza, as a woman had resisted him at Forli. Fis progress north from Pesaro was of necessity slow. He paused, as we have seen, at Rimini, and he paused again, and for a rather longer spell, at Forli. So that it was not until the second week of November that Astorre Manfredi — the boy of sixteen who was to hold Faenza— caught in the distance the flash of arms and the banners with the bull device borne by that host which the Duke of Valentinois led against him. At first it had been Astorre’s intent to follow the examples set him by Malatesta and Sforza, and he had already gone so far as to remove his valuables to Ravenna, where he, too, meant to seek refuge. But he was in better case than any of the tyrants so far deposed inasmuch as his family, which had ruled Faenza for two hundred years, had known how to preserve the affections of its subjects, and these were now ready and willing to stand loyally by their young246 THE BULL RAMPANT lord. But loyalty alone can do little, unless backed by the might of arms, against such a force as Cesare was prepared to hur! upon Faenza. This Astorre realized, and for his own and his subjects’ sake he was preparing to depart, when, to his undoing, support reached him from an unexpected quarter. Bologna — whose ruler, Giovanni Bentivogli, was Astorre’s grandfather —in common with Florence and Urbino, grew daily more and more alarmed at the continual tramp of armed multitudes about her frontiers, and at the steady growth in numbers and in capacity of this splendid army which followed Cesare — an army captained by such enemies of the Bentivogli as the Baglioni, the Orsini, and the exiled Malvezzi. Bentivogli had good grounds for his anxiety, not knowing how long he might depend upon the pro- tection of France, and well aware that, once that protection was removed, there would be no barrier between Bologna and Cesare’s manifest intentions concerning her. Next to Cesare’s utter annihilation, to check his progress was the desire dearest just then to the heart of Bentivogli, and with this end in view he dispatched Count Guido Torella to Faenza, in mid-October, with an offer to assist Astorre with men and money. Astorre, who at the age of three had succeeded Galeotto Manfredi in the Tyranny of Faenza, had been and still continued under the tutelage of the Council which really governed his territories. To this Council came Count Torella with Bentivogli’s offer, adding the proposal that young Astorre should be sent to = Venice for his personal safety. But to this the CouncilTHE SIEGE OF FAENZA 247 replied that if such a course were ad op Eeey it would be useless to attempt resistance. The people could be urged to it only by their affection for their young lord, and that, if he were removed from their midst, they would insist upon surrender. News of these negotiations reached Rome, and on October 24th the Pope sent Bentivogli his commands to refrain, under pain of excommunication, from in- terfering in the affairs of Faenza. Bentiv ogi made a feeble attempt to dissemble his disobedience. The troops with which he intended to assist his grandson were sent ostensibly to Castel Bolognese, but with instructions to desert thence and make for Faenza. This they did, and thus was Astorre strengthened by a thousand men, whilst the work of preparing his city for resistance went briskly forward. Meanwhile, ahead of Cesare Borgia, swept Vitel- lozzo Vitelli with his horse into etarere s dominions. He descended upon the valley of the Lamone, and commenced hostilities by the capture and occupa- tion of Brisghella on November 7th. The other lesser strongholds and townships offered no resistance to Cesare’s arms. Indeed, they were induced into ready rebellion against their lord by Dionigio di Naldo — the sometime defender of Imol a, who had now taken service with Cesare. On November toth Cesare himself halted his host beneath the walls of Faenza and called upon the town to surrender. Being denied, he encamped his army for the siege. He chose the eastern side of the town, be- tween the rivers Lamone and Marzano, and, that his artillery might have free play, he caused several houses to be demolished.248 THE BULL RAMPANT In Faenza itself, meanwhile, the easy conquest of the valley had not produced a a good effect. Moreover, the defenders had cause to ae treachery within pheis gates, for a paper had been picked up out of the moat containing an offer of surrender. It had been shot into the castle on an arbalest-bolt, and was intended for the castellan Castagnini. This Castagnini was arrested, thrown into prison, and his possessions confiscated, whilst the Council placed the citadel in the hands of four of its own members together with Gianevangelista Manfredi — Astorre's half-brother, and a bastard of Galeotto’s. These set about defend ing it against Cesare, who h ad now opened fire. The Duke caused the guns to be trained upon a certain bastion through w hich he judged that a good assault might be delivered and an entrance pained. Night and day was the bombardment of that bastion kept up, yet without producing visible effect until the morning of the 20th, when suddenly one of its towers collapsed thunderously into the moat. Instantly, and without orders, the soldiers, all eager to be among the first to enter, flung themselves faawatd in utter and fierce disorder to storm the breach. Cesare, at breakfast — as he himself wrote to the Duke of Urbino — sprang up at the great noise, and, surmising what was taking place, dashed out to restrain his men. But the task was no easy one, for, gathering excitement and the frenzy of combat as they ran, they had already gained the edge of the ditch, and thither Cesare was forced to follow them, using voice and hands to beat back again. At last he succeeded in regaining control of them, and in compelling them to make an orderly retreat,THE SIEGE OF FAENZA 249 and curb their impatience until the time for storming should have come, which was not yet. In the affair Cesare had a narrow escape from a stone-shot fired from the castle, whilst one of his officers — Onorio Savelli — was killed by a cannon-ball from the Duke’s own guns, whose men, unaware of what was taking place, were continuing the bombardment. Hitherto the army had been forced to endure foul weather — rain, fogs, and wind; but there was worse to come. Snow began to fall on the morning of the 22d. It grew to a storm, and the blizzard continuec all that day, which was Sunday, all night, and all the following day, lashing the men pitilessly and blind- ingly. The army, already reduced by shortness of victuals, was now in a miserable plight i in its unshel- tered camp, and the defenders of Faenza, as if realizing this, made a sortie on the 23d, from which a fierce fight ensued, with severe loss to both sides. On the 25th the snow began again, whereupon the hitherto unconquerable Cesare, defeated at last by the elements and seeing that his men could not possibly continue to endure the situation, was compelled to strike camp on the 26th and go into winter quarters, no doubt with immense chagrin at leaving so much work un- accomplished. So he converted the siege into a blockade, closing all roads that led to Faenza, with a view to shutting out supplies from the town; and he distributed troops throughout the villages of the territory with orders constantly to harass the garrison and allow it no rest. He also sent an envoy with an offer of terms of surrender, but the Council rejected it with the proud answer that its members “‘had agreed, in general as-THE BULL RAMPANT ~ sembly, to defend the dominions of Manfredi to the death.”’ Thereupon Cesare withdrew to Forli with one hundred and fifty lances and twenty-five hundred foot, and here he affords a proof of his considerateness. The town had already endured several occupations and the severities of being the actual seat of war during the siege of the citadel. Cesare was deter- mined that the present occupation should press upon it as little as possible; so he issued an order to the inhabitants upon whom his soldiers were quartered to supply the men with only bed, light, and fire. What more they required must be paid for, and, to avoid disputes as to prices of victuals and other neces- saries, he ordered the Council to draw up a tariff, and at the same time issued an edict forbidding his sol- diers, under pain of death, from touching any property of the townsfolk. Lest they should doubt his earnest- ness, he hanged two of his soldiers on December 7th — a Piedmontese and a Gascon — and on the 13th a third, all from the windows of his own palace, and all with a label hanging from their feet proclaiming that they had been hanged for appropriating the goods of others in spite of the ban of the Lord Duke, etc. He remained in Forli until the 23d, when he de- parted to Cesena, which was really his capital in Romagna, and in the huge citadel of which there was ample accommodation for the troops that accom- panied him. In Forli he left, as his lieutenants, the Bishop of Trani and Don Michele da Corella — the “‘Michieli” of Capello’s “Relation” and the ‘““Michelotto” of so many Borgia fables. That this officer ruled the soldiers left with him in Forli inTHE SIEGE OF FAENZA 251 accordance with the stern example set him by his master we know from the “‘Chronicles”’ of Bernardi. In Cesena the Duke occupied the splendid palace of Malatesta Novello, which had been magnificently equipped for him, aad there, on Christmas Eve, he entertained the Council of the town and other im- portant citizens to a banquet worthy of the repu- tation for lavishness which he enjoyed. He was very different in this from his father, whose table habits were of the most sparing — to which, no doubt, His Holiness owed the wonderful, almost youthful vigour which he still enjoyed in this his seventieth year. It was notorious that ambassadors cared little for in- vitations to the Pope’s table, where the meal never consisted of more than one dish. On Christmas Day the Duke attended Mass at the Church of San Giovanni Evangelista with great pomp, arrayed in the ducal chlamys and followed by his gentlemen. With these young patricians Cesare made merry during the day s that Followed The time was spent in games and joustings, in all of which the Duke showed himself freely, making display of his physical perfections, fully aware, no Aonne of what a short cut these afford to the hears of the people, ever ready to worship physical beauty, prowess, and address. Yet business was not altogether neglected, for on January 4th he went to Porto Cesenatico, and there published an edict against all who had practised with the fuorusciti from his States, forbidding the offence under pain of death and forfeiture of possessions. He remained in winter quarters until the following April, from which, however, it is not to be concludedTHE BULL RAMPANT WN 26 that Faenza was allowed to be at peace for that spell. The orders which he had left behind him, that the town was constantly to be harassed, were by no means neglected. On the night of January 21st, by arrangement with some of the inhabitants of ane be- leaguered city, the foot surrounding Faenza attempted to surprise the garrison by a secret escalade. They were, however, discovered betimes in the attempt and repulsed, some who had the mischance — as it hap- pened — to gain the battlements before the alarm was raised being taken and hanged. The Duke’s troops, however, consoled themselves by c capturing Russi and Eolancl the last two strongholds i in the valley that had held for Astorte. Meanwhile, Cesare and his merry young patricians spent the time as agreeably as might be in Cesena during that carnival. The author of the “Diario Cesenate”’ is moved by the Duke’s pastimes to critt- cize him severely as indulging in amusements un- becoming the dignity of his station. He is particularly shocked to know that the Duke should have gone forth in disguise with a few companions to repair to carnival festivities in the surrounding villages and there to wrestle with the rustics. It is not difficult to imagine the discomfiture suffered by many a village Hercules at the hands of this lithe young man, who could behead a bull at a single stroke of a spadoon and break a horseshoe in his fingers. The diary In ques- tion, you will have gathered, is that of a pedant, prim and easily scandalized. So much being obvious, it 1s worthy of very particular note that Cesare’s con- duct should have afforded him no subject for graver strictures than these, Cesare being such a man as hasTHE SIEGE OF FAENZA 253 =- been represented, and the time being that of carnival when licence was allowed full play. The Pope accounted that the check endured by Cesare before Faenza was due not so much to the foul weather by which his army had been beset as to the assistance which Giovanni Bentivogli had rendered his grandson Astorre, and bitter were the complaints of it which he addressed to the King of France. Alarmed by this, and fearing that he might have com- promised himself and jeopardized the French protec- tion by his action in the matter, Bentivogli made haste to recall his troops, and did j in fact withdraw them from Faenza early in December, shortly after Cesare had gone into winter quarters. Nevertheless, the Pope’s complaints continued, Alexander in hig secret, crafty heart no doubt rejoicing that Bentivogli should have afforded him so sound a grievance. As Louis XII desired, for several reasons, to stand well with Rome, he sent an embassy to Bentivogli to express his regret and censure of the latter’s inter- vention in the affairs of Faenza. He informed Ben- tivogli that the Pope was demanding the return of Bologna to the States of the Church, and, without expressing himself clearly as to his own view of the matter, he advised Bentivogli to refrain from alliances with the enemies of the Holy See and to secure Bologna to himself by some sound arrangement. This revealed to Bentivogli in what danger he stood, and his uneasiness was increased by the arrival at Modena of Yves d’Allégre, sent by the King of France with a condotta of five hundred horse for purposes which were not avowed, but which Bentivogli sorely feared might prove to be hostile to himself.254 THE BULL RAMPANT At the beginning of February Cesare moved his quarters from Cesena to Imola, and thence he sent his envoys to demand winter quarters for his troops in Castel Bolognese. This flung Bentivogli into positive terror, as he interpreted the request as a threat of invasion. Castel Bolognese was too valuable a strong- hold to be so lightly placed in the Duke’s hands. Thence Bentivogli might, in case of need, hold the Duke in check, the fortress commanding, as it did, the road from Imola to Faenza. He had the good sense, however, to compromise the matter by return- ing Cesare an offer of accommodation for his men with victuals, artillery, etc., but without the con- cession of Castel Bolognese. With this Cesare was forced to be content, there being no reasonable grounds upon which he could decline so generous an offer. It was a cunning concession on Bentivogli’ S part, ii Dhak strengthening the Duke’s position, it yet gave the latter w hat he ostensibly required, and left no cause for grievance and no grounds upon which to molest Bologna. So much was this the case that on February 26t h the Pope wrote to Bentivogli express- ing his thanks at the assistance which he had thus given Cesare in the Faenza emprise. It was during this sojourn of Cesare’s at Imola that the abduction took place of Dorotea Caracciolo, the young wife of Gianbattista Caracciolo, a captain of foot in the Venetian service. The lady, who was attached to the Duchess of Urbino, had been residing at the latter’s Court, and in the previous December Caracciolo had begged leave of the Council of Ten that he might himself go to Urbino for the purpose ofTHE SIEGE OF FAENZA 256 escorting her to Venice. The Council, however, had replied that he should send for her, and this the cap- tain had done. Near Cervia, on the confines of the Venetian territory, towards evening of February 14th, the lady’s escort was set upon by ten well-armed men, and rudely handled by them, some being wounded and one at least killed, whilst the lady and a woman who was with her were carried off. The Podesta of Cervia reported to the Venetian Senate that the abductors were Spaniards of the army of the Duke of Valentinois, and it was feared in Venice — according to Sanuto — that the deed might be the work of Cesare. The matter contained in that “‘Relation” of Ca- pello’s to the Senate must by now have been wide- spread, and of a man who could perpetrate the wickednesses therein divulged anything could be be- lieved. Indeed, it seems to have followed that, where any act of wickedness was brought to light, at once men looked to see if Cesare might not be responsible, nor looked close enough to make quite sure. To no other cause can it be assigned that, in the stir which the Senate made, the name of Cesare was at once sug- gested as that of the abductor, and this so broadly that letters poured in upon him on all sides begging him to right this cruel wrong. So much do you see assumed, upon no more evidence than was contained in that letter from the Podesta of Cervia, which went no further than to say that the abductors were “Spaniards of the Duke of Valentinois’s army.” The envoy Manenti was dispatched at once to Cesare by the Senate, and he went persuaded, it is clear, that Ce- sare Borgia was the guilty person. He enlisted the sup-256 THE BULL RAMPANT = port of Monsieur de Trans (the French ambassador then on his way to Rome) and that of Yves d’Allégre, and he took them with him to the Duke at Imola. There, acting upon his strong suspicions, Manentt appears to have taken a high tone, representing to the Duke that he had done an unworthy thing, and begging him to restore the lady to her husband. Cesare’s bearing under the insolent assumption, in justification of which Manenti had not a single graia of evidence to advance, is — guilty or innocent — a rare instance of self-control. He condescended to take oath that he had not done this thing which they imputed to him. He admitted that he had heard of the outrage, and he expressed the belief that it was the work of one Diego Ramires — a captain of foot in his service. This Ramires, he explained, had been in the employ of the Duke of Urbino, and in Urbino had made the acquaintance and fallen enamoured of the lady; and he added that the fellow had lately dis- appeared, but that already he had set on foot a search for him, and that, once taken, he would make an example of him. In conclusion he begged that the Republic should not believe this thing against him, assuring the envoy that he had not found the ladies of the Romagna so niggardly of their favours that he should be driven to employ such rude and violent measures. The French ambassador certainly appears to have attached implicit faith to Cesare’s statement, and he privately informed Manenti that Ramires was be- lieved to be at Medola, and that the Republic might rest assured that, if he were taken, exemplary justice would be done.THE SIEGE OF FAENZA 264 All this you will find recorded in Sanuto. After that his diary entertains us with rumours which were reaching Venice, now that the deed was the Duke’s, now that the lady was with Ramires. Later the two rumours are consolidated into one, in a report of the Podesta of Cervia to the effect that ‘the lady is in the Castle of Forli with Ramires, and that he took her there by order of the Duke.” The Podesta says that a man whom he sent to gather news had this story from one Benfaremo. But he omits to say who and what is this Benfaremo, and what the source of his information. Matters remaining thus, and the affair appearing in danger of being forgotten, Caracciolo goes before the Senate on March 16th and implores permission to deal with it himself. This permission is denied him, the Doge conceiving that the matter will best be dealt with by the Senate, and Caracciolo is ordered back to his post at Gradisca. Thence he writes to the Senate on March 3oth that he is certain his wife is in the citadel of Forli. After this Sanuto does not mention the matter again until December of 1503 — nearly three years later — when we gather that, under pressure of con- stant letters from the husband, the Venetian ambassa- dor at the Vatican makes so vigorous a stir that the lady is at last delivered up, and goes for the time be- ing into a convent. But we are not told where or how she is found, nor where the convent in which she seeks shelter. That is Sanuto’s first important omission. And now an odd light is thrown suddenly upon the whole affair, and it begins to look as if the lady, far8 THE BULL RAMPANT 2 WT from being the unwilling victim of an abduction, had, herself, been a party to an elopement. She displays a positive reluctance to return to her husband; she is afraid to do so— “in fear for her very life’’ — and she implores the Senate to obtain from Caracciolo some security for her, or else to grant her permission to withdraw permanently to a convent. The Senate summons the husband, and represents the case to him. He assures the Senate that he has forgiven his wife, believing her to be innocent. This, however, does not suffice to allay her uneasiness — or her reluctance — for on January 4, 1504, Sanuto tells us that the Senate has received a letter of thanks from her in which she relates her misfortunes, and in which again she begs that her husband be compelled to pledge security to treat her well (“ darli buona vita’’) or else that she should be allowed to return to her mother. Of the nature of the misfortunes which he tells us she related in her letter, Sanuto says nothing. That is his second important omission. The last mention of the subject in Sanuto relates to her restoration to her husband. He tells us that Caracciolo received her with great joy; but he 1s. silent on the score of the lady’s emotions on the occasion. There you have all that is known of Dorotea Ca- racciolo’s abduction, which later writers — including Bembo in his “‘Historie’’— have positively assigned to Cesare Borgia, drawing upon their imagination to fill up the lacune in the story. Those lacune, however, are invested with a certain eloquence which it is well not to disregard. Admitting that the construing of silence into evidence 1s a courseTHE SIEGE OF FAENZA 259 fraught with pitfalls, yet it seems permissible to pose the following questions: If the revelation of the circumstances in which she was found, the revelations contained in her letter to the Senate, and the revelations which one imagines must have followed her return to her husband, con- firm past rumours and convict Cesare of the outrage, how does it happen that Sanuto — who has never failed to record anything detrimental to Cesare — should be silent on the matter? And how does it hap- pen that so many pens that busied themselves greed- ily with scandal that touched the Borgias should be similarly silent? Is it unreasonable to infer that those revelations did not incriminate him — that they were really calculated to dispel the rumours that had been current? If that is not the inference, then what is? It is further noteworthy that on January 16th — after Dorotea’s letter to the Senate giving the details of her misfortunes, which details Sanuto has sup- pressed — Diego Ramires, the real and known abduc- tor, is still the object of a hunt set afoot by some Ve- netians. Would that be the case had her revelations shown Ramires to be no more than the Duke’s in- strument? Possibly; but not probably. In such a case he would not have been worth the trouble of pursuing. Reasonably may it be objected: How, if Cesare was not guilty, does it happen that he did not carry out his threat of doing exemplary justice upon Ramires when taken — since Ramires obviously lay in his power for years after the event? The answer to that is possibly to be found in the lady’s reluctance to return to Ca- racciolo, and the tale it tells. It isnot in the least il-260 THE BULL RAMPANT logical to assume that, when Cesare threatened that vengeance upon Ramires for the outrage which it was alleged had been committed, he fully intended to exe- cute it; but that, upon taking Ramires, and upon dis- covering that here was no such outrage as had been represented, but just the elopement of a couple of lovers, he found there was nothing for him to avenge. Was it for Cesare Borgia to set up as a protector and avenger of cuckolds? Rather would it be in keeping with the feelings of his age and race to befriend the fugitive pair who had planted the antlers upon the brow of the Venetian captain. Lastly, Cesare’s attitude towards women may be worth considering, that we may judge whether such an act as was imputed to him is consistent with it. Women play no part whatever in his history. Not once shall you find a woman’s influence swaying him; not once shall you see him permitting dalliance to re- tard his advancement or jeopardize his chances. With him, as with egotists of his type, governed by cold will and cold intellect, the sentimental side of the relation of the sexes has no place. With him one woman was as another woman; as he craved women, so he took women, but with an almost contemptuous lack of dis- crimination. For all his needs concerning them the lupanaria sufficed. Is this mere speculation? Is there no evidence to support it? Consider, pray, in all its bearings the treatise on pudendagra dedicated to a man of Cesare Borgia’s rank by the physician Torella, written to meet his needs, and see what inference you draw from that. Surely such an inference as will invest with the ring of truth — expressing as it does his intimateTHE SIEGE OF FAENZA 261 nature, and confirming further what has here been said — that answer of his to the Venetian envoy “that he had not found the ladies of Romagna so niggardly of their favours that he should be driven to such rude and violent measures.”CHAPTER VIII ASTORRE MANFREDI N March 29th Cesare Borgia departed from Ce- sena — whither, meanwhile, he had returned —to march upon Faenza, resume the attack, and make an end of the city’s stubborn resistance. During the past months, however, and notwith- standing the presence of the Borgia troops in the ter- ritory, the people of Faenza had been able to increase their fortifications by the erection of outworks and a stout bastion in the neighbourhood of the Osser- vanza Hospital, well beyond the walls. This bastion claimed Cesare’s first attention, and it was carried by assault on April 12th. Thither he now fetched his guns, mounted them, and proceeded to a steady bom- bardment of the citadel. But the resistance contin- ued with unabated determination — a determination amounting to heroism, considering the hopelessness of their case and the straits to which the Faentint were by now reduced. Victuals and other necessaries of life had long since been running low. Still the men of Faenza tightened their belts, looked to their de- fences, and flung defiance at the Borgia. The wealth- ier inhabitants distributed wine and flour at prices purely nominal, and lent Astorre money for the pay- ment of his troops. It is written that to the same end the very priests, their patriotism surmounting their duty to the Holy Father in whose name this war was waged, consented to the despoiling of theASTORRE MANFREDI 263 churches and the melting down of the sacred vessels. Even the women of Faenza bore their share of the burden of defence, carrying to the ramparts the heavy stones that were to be hurled down upon the be- siegers, or actually donning casque and body-armour and doing sentry duty on the walls while the men rested. But the end was approaching. On April 18th the Borgia cannon opened at last a breach in the walls, and Cesare delivered a terrible assault upon the cita- del. The fight upon the smoking ruins was fierce and determined on both sides, the Duke’s men pressing forward gallantly under showers of scalding pitch and a storm of boulders, launched upon them by the defenders, who used the very ruins of the wall for ammunition. For four hours was that assault main- tained; nor did it cease until the deepening dusk com- pelled Cesare to order the retreat, since to continue in the failing light was but to sacrifice men to no pur- pose. Cesare’s appreciation of the valour of the garrison ran high. It inspired him with a respect which shows his dispassionate breadth of mind, and he is reported to have declared that with an army of such men as those who held Faenza against him he would have conquered all Italy. He did not attempt a second as- sault, but confined himself during the three days that followed to continuing the bombardment. Within Faenza men were by now in desperate case. Weariness and hunger were so exhausting their endur- ance, so sapping their high valour that nightly there were desertions to the Duke’s camp of men who could bear no more. The fugitives from the town were well264 THE BULL RAMPANT received, all save one — a man named Grammante, a dyer by trade — who, in deserting to the Duke, came in to inform him that at a certain point of the citadel the defences were so weak that an assault delivered there could not fail to carry it. This man afforded Cesare an opportunity of mark- ing his contempt for traitors and his respect for the gallant defenders of Faenza. The Duke hanged him for his pains under the very walls of the town he had betrayed. On the 21st the bombardment was kept up almost without interruption for eight hours, and so shattered was the citadel by that pitiless cannonade that the end was in sight at last. But the Duke’s satisfaction was tempered by his chagrin at the loss of Achille Tiberti, one of the ablest of his captains, and one who had followed his fortunes from the first with conspicu- ous devotion. He was killed by the bursting of a gun. A great funeral at Cesena bore witness to the extent to which Cesare esteemed and honoured him. Astorre, now seeing the citadel in ruins and the pos- sibility of further resistance utterly exhausted, as- sembled the Council of Faenza to determine upon their course of action, and, as a result of their delib- erations, the young Tyrant sent his ambassadors to the Duke to propose terms of surrender. It was a be- lated proposal, for there was no longer on Cesare’s part the necessity to make terms. The city’s defences were destroyed, and to talk of surrender now was to talk of giving something that no longer existed. Yet Cesare met the ambassadors in a spirit of splendid generosity. The terms proposed were that the people of FaenzaASTORRE MANFREDI 265 should have immunity for themselves and their prop- erty; that Astorre should have freedom to depart and to take with him his moveable possessions, his immove- ables remaining at the mercy of the Pope. By all the laws of war Cesare was entitled to a heavy indemnity for the losses he had sustained through the resistance opposed to him. Considering those same laws and the application they were wont to receive in his day, no one could have censured him had he rejected all terms and given the city over to pillage. Yet not only does he grant the terms submitted to him, but in addi- tion he actually lends an ear to the Council’s prayer that out of consideration for the great suffering of the city in the siege he should refrain from exacting any indemnity. This was to be forbearing, indeed; but he was to carry his forbearance even further. In answer to the Council’s expressed fears of further harm at the hands of his troops once these should bein Faenza, he actually consented to effect no entrance into the town. We are not for a moment to consider Cesare as ac- tuated in all this by any lofty humanitarianism. He was simply pursuing that wise policy of his, in re- fraining from punishing conquered States which were to be subject henceforth to his rule, and which, there- fore, must be conciliated so that in return they might be loyal to him. But it is well that you should at least appreciate this policy and the fruit it bore when you read elsewhere that Cesare Borgia was a blood- glutted monster of carnage who ravaged the Ko- magna, rending and devouring it like some beast of rey. On the 26th the Council repaired to Cesare at the266 THE BULL RAMPANT a Hospital of the Osservanza — where he was lodged — to tender the oath of fealty. That same evening Astorre himself, attended by a few of his gentlemen, waited upon the Duke. To this rather sickly and melancholy lad, who had behind him a terrible family history of violence, and to his bastard brother, Gianevangelista, the Duke ac- corded the most gracious welcome. Indeed, so ami- able did Astorre find him that, although the terms of surrender afforded him perfect liberty to go whither he listed, he chose to accept the invitation Cesare ex- tended to him to remain in the Duke’s train. It is eminently probable, however, that the Duke’s object in keeping the young man about him was prompted by another phase of that policy of his which Macchiavelli was later to formulate into rules of conduct, expedient in a prince: In order to preserve a newly acquired State particular attention should be given to two points. In the first place, care should be taken entirely to extinguish the family of the ancient sovereign; in the second, laws should not be changed, nor taxes increased. Thus Macchiavelli. The second point is all that is excellent; the first is all that is wise — cold, horrible, and revolting though it be to our tweatieth-century notions. Cesare Borgia, as a matter of fact, hardly went so far as Macchiavelli advises. He practised discrimina- tion. He did not, for instance, seek the lives of Pan- dolfaccio Malatesta, or of Caterina Sforza-Riario. He saw no danger in their living, no future trouble to apprehend from them. The hatred borne them byASTORRE MANFREDI 267 their subjects was to Cesare a sufficient guarantee that they w ould not be likely to attempt a return to their dominions, and so he permitted them to kee their lives. But to have allowed Astorre Manfredi, or even his bastard brother, to live would have been bad policy from the appallingly egotistical point of view which was Cesare’s —a point of view, remember, which receives Macchiavelli’s horribly 4ntellecenal! utterly unsentimental, revoltingly practical approval. So — to anticipate a little — we see Cesare taking Astorre and Gianevangelista Manfredi to Rome when he returned thither in the following June. A fortnight later — on June 26th — the formidable Amazon of Forli, the Countess Sforza-Riario, was liberated, as we know, from the Castle of Sant’ Angelo, and per- mitted to withdraw to Florence. But the gates of that grim fortress, in opening to allow her to pass out, opened also for the purpose of admitting Astorre and Gianevangelista, upon whom they closed. All that is ehow n positiv ely of the fate of these un- fortunate young men is that they never came forth again alive. The record in Burchard (June 9, 1502) of Astorre’s body having been found in the Tiber with a stone round his neck, suffers in probability from the addition that, “together with it were found the bodies of two young men with their arms tied, a certain woman, and many others.” } The dispatch of Giustiniani to the effect that “J¢ zs 1 Reperti sunt in Tiberi, soffocati ac mortui A. d. Faventiae 1uven. xvilI annor. in circa, pulchrae ae ae et staturae cum balista ad collum, et duo luvenes per brachia simul ligati unus xv annor., et alius xxv., et prope eos erat quaedam femina, et multi alii.268 THE BULL RAMPANT said that this night were thrown into the Tiber and drowned the two lords of Faenza together with their seneschal,”’ was never followed up by any other dis- patch confirming the rumour, nor is it confirmed by any dispatch so far discovered from any other am- bassador, nor yet does the matter find place in the “Chronicles” of Faenza. But that is of secondary importance. The ugliest feature of the case is not the actual assassination of the young men, but the fact that Cesare had pledged himself that Astorre should go free, and yet had kept him at hand — at first, it would seem, in his train, and later as a prisoner — until he put an end to his life. It was an ugly, unscrupulous deed; but there is no need to exaggerate its heinousness, as is constantly done, upon no better authority than Guicciardin1’s, who wrote that the murder had been committed “‘saziata rima la libidine di qualcuno.”’ Of all the unspeakable calumnies of which the Borgias have been the subject, none is more utterly wanton than this foul exhalation of Guicciardini’s lewd invention. Let the shame that must eternally attach to him for it brand also those subsequent writers who repeated and retailed that abominable and utterly unsupported accusation, and more par- ticularly those who have not hesitated to assume that Guicciardini’s “qualcuno” was an old man in his seventy-second year — Pope Alexander VI. Others a little more merciful, a little more careful of physical probabilities (but no whit less salacious), have taken it that Cesare was intended by the Florentine historian. But, under one form or another, the lie has spreadASTORRE MANFREDI 269 as only such foulness can spread. It has become woven into the warp of history; it has esrown to be one of those ‘“‘facts’’ which are unquestioningly ac- cepted, but it stands upon no better foundation than the frequent repetition which a charge so monstrous could not escape. Its source is not a contemporary one. It is first mentioned by Guicciardini; and there is no logical conclusion to be formed other than that Guicciardini invented it. Another story which owes its existence mainly, and its particulars almost en- tirely, to Guicciardini’s libellous pen — the story of the death of Alexander VI, which in its place shall be examined — provoked the righteous indignation of Voltaire. Atheist and violent anti-clerical though he was, the story’s obvious falsehood so revolted him that he was moved to pen the formidable indictment in which he brands Guicciardini a liar who has de- ceived posterity that he might vent his hatred of the Borgias. Better cause still was there in this matter of Astorre Manfredi for Voltaire’s indignation, as there is for the indignation of all earnest seekers after truth.CHAPTER Ins CASTEL BOLOGNESE AND PIOMBINO O return to the surrender of Faenza on April 26, 1501, we see Cesare on the morrow of that event, striking camp with such amazing suddenness that he does not even pause to provide for the government of the conquered tyranny, but appoints a vicar four days later to attend to it. He makes his abrupt departure from Faenza, and is off like a whirlwind to sweep unexpectedly into the Bolognese territory, and, by striking swiftly, to terrify Bentivogli into submission in the matter of Castel Bolognese. This fortress, standing in the Duke’s dominions, on the road between Faenza and Imola, must be a menace to him whilst in the hands of a power that might become actively hostile. Ahead of him Cesare sent an envoy to Bentivogli, to demand its surrender. The alarmed Lord of Bologna, having convened his Council (the Reggimento), replied that they must deliberate in the matter; and two days later they dispatched their ambassadors to lay before Cesare the fruits of these deliberations. They were to seek the Duke at Imola; but they got no farther than Castel San Pietro, which to their dismay they found already in the hands of Vitellozzo Vitelli’s men-at-arms. For, what time Bentivogli had been deliberating, Cesare Borgia had been acting with that promptness whichCASTEL BOLOGNESE AND PIOMBINO 271 was one of his most formidable traits, and, in ad- dition to Castel San Pietro he had already captured Casalfiuminense, Castel Guelfo, and Medecina, which were now invested by his troops. When the alarming news of this swift action reached Bologna it caused Bentivogli to bethink him at last of Louis XII’s advice, that he should come to terms with Cesare Borgia, and herealized that the time to do so could no longer be put off. He made haste, therefore, to agree to the surrender of Castel Bolognese to the Duke, to concede him stipend for one hundred lances of three men each, and to enter into an undertaking to lend him every assistance for one year against any power with which he might be at war, the King of France excepted. In return, Cesare was to relinquish the captured strongholds and undertake that the Pope should confirm Bentivogli in his an- cient privileges. On April 29th, Paolo Orsini went as Cesare’s plenipotentiary to Bologna to sign this treaty. It was a crafty arrangement on Bentivogli’s part, for, over and above the pacification of Cesare and the advantage of an alliance with him, he gained as a result the alliance also of those famous condottiert Vitelli and Orsini, both bitter enemies of Florence — the latter intent upon the restoration of the Medici, the former impatient to avenge upon the Signory the execution of his brother Paolo. As an instalment, on account of that debt, Vitelli had already put to death Pietro da Marciano — the brother of Count Rinuccio da Marciano — when this gentleman fell into his hands at Medicina. Two days before the treaty was signed, Bentivogli272 THE BULL RAMPANT had seized four members of the powerful House of Marescotti. This family was related to the exiled Malvezzi, who were in arms with Cesare, and Bentt- vogli feared that communications might be passing between the two to his undoing. On that suspicion he kept them prisoners for the present, nor did he re- lease them when the treaty was signed, nor yet when, amid public rejoicings expressing the relief of the Bolognese, 1t was published on May od. Hermes Bentivogli — Giovanni's youngest son — was on guard at the palace with several other young Bolognese patricians, and he incited these to go with him to make an end of the traitors who had sought to destroy the peace by their alleged plottings with Bentivogli’s enemies in Cesare’s camp. He led his companions to the chamber where the Marescottt were confined, and there, more or less in cold blood, those four gentlemen were murdered for no better reason — ostensibly — than because it was suspected they had been in communication with their relatives ‘n the Duke of Valentinois’s army. That was the way of the Cinquecento, which appears to have held few things of less account than human life. In passing, it may be mentioned that Guicciardin1, of course, does his ludicrous best to make this murder appear — at least indirectly, since directly it would be impossible — the work of Cesare Borgia. As for Castel Bolognese itself, Cesare Borgia sent 4 thousand demolishers in the following July to raze it to the ground. It 1s said to have been the most beautiful castle in the Romagna; but Cesare had other qualities than beauty to consider in the matter of a stronghold. Its commanding position rendered it al-CASTEL BOLOGNESE AND PIOMBINO 273 most in the nature of a gateway controlling, as we know, the road from Faenza to Imola, and its occupa- tion by the Bolognese or other enemies in time of dis- turbance might be of serious consequence to Cesare. Therefore he ruthlessly ordered Ramiro de Lorqua to set about its demolition. The Council of Castel Bolognese made great pro- test, and implored Ramiro to stay his hand until they should have communicated with the Duke peti- tioning for the castle’s preservation; but Ramiro — a hard, stern man, and Cesare’s most active officer in the Romagna — told them bluntly that to petition the Duke in such a matter would be no better than a waste of time. He was no more than right; for Cesare, being resolved upon the expediency of the castle’s destruction, would hardly be likely to listen to sen- timental arguments for its preservation. Confident of this, Ramiro without more ado set about the exe- cution of the orders he had received. He pulled down the walls and filled up the moat, until nothing remained so much as to show the place where the fortress had stood. Another fortress which shared the fate of Castel Bolognese was the Castle of Sant’ Arcangelo, and similarly would Cesare have disposed of Solarolo, but that, being of less importance and the inhabitants offering, in their petition for its preservation, to un- dertake, themselves, the payment of the castellan, he allowed it to remain. Scarcely was the treaty with Bologna signed than Cesare received letters from the Pope recalling him to Rome, and recommending that he should not molest274 THE BULL RAMPANT the Florentines in his passage — a recommendation which Alexander deemed very necessary considering the disposition towards Florence of Vitelli and Orsini. He foresaw that they would employ arguments to 1n- duce Valentinois into an enterprise of which all the cost would be his, and all the possible profit their own. The Duke would certainly have obeyed and avoided Tuscany, but that — precisely as the shrewd Pope had feared — Vitelli and Orsini implored him to march through Florentine territory. Vitelli, indeed, flung himself on his knees before Cesare in the vehe- mence of his supplications, urging that his only mo- tive was to effect the deliverance from his unjust imprisonment of Cerbone, who had been his exe- cuted brother’s chancellor. Beyond that, he swore he would make no demands upon Florence, that he would not attempt to mix himself in the affairs of the Medici, and that he would do no violence to town or country. Thus implored, Cesare gave way. Probably he re- membered the very circumstances which had induced Vitelli to join his banner, and considered that he could not now oppose a request backed by a promise of so much moderation; so on May 7th he sent his envoys to the Signory to crave leave of passage for his troops through Florentine territory. Whilst still in the Bolognese he was sought out by Giuliano de’ Medici, who begged to be allowed to accompany him, a request which Cesare instantly refused, as being contrary to that to which he had engaged himself, and he caused Giuliano to fall be- hind at Lojano. Nor would he so much as receive in audience Piero de’ Medici, who likewise sought toCASTEL BOLOGNESE AND PIOMBINO 27% join him in Siennese territory, as soon as he perceived what was impending. Yet, however much the Duke protested that he had no intention to make any change in the State of Florence, there were few who be- lieved him. Florence, w eary and sorely reduced by the long struggle of the Pisan war, was an easy prey. onccious ‘of this, great was Her anxiety and alarm at Cesare’s request for passage. The Signory replied granting him the permission sought, but imposing the condition that he should keep to the country, refrain- ing from entering any town, nor bring with him into Florentine territory Vitelli, Orsini, or any other en- emy of the existing government. It h 1appened, how- ever, that when the Florentine ambassador reached him arith this reply, the Duke was already over the frontier of Tuscany with the excluded condottieri in his train. It was incumbent upon him, as a consequence, to vindicate this high-handed anticipation of the un- qualified Florentine permission which had not arrived. So he declared that he had been offended last year by Florence in the matter of Forli, and again this year in the matter of Faenza, both of which cities he charged the Signory with having assisted to resist him, and he announced that, to justify his intentions so far as Florence was concerned, he would explain himself at Barberino. There, on May 12th, he gave audience to the am- Pescador! He declared to him that he desired a good understanding with Florence, and that she should offer no hindrance to the conquest of Piombino, upon which he was now bound; adding that since he placed no trust in the present government, which already276 THE BULL RAMPANT had broken faith with him, he would require some good security for the treaty to be made. Of rein- stating the Medici he said nothing; but he demanded that some satisfaction be given Vitelli and Orsini, and, to quicken Florence in coming to a decision, he pushed forward with his army as far as Forno dei Campi — almost under her very walls. The Republic was thrown into consternation. In- stantly she got together all the forces of which she disposed, and proceeded to fling her artillery into the Arno, to the end that she should be constrained neither to refuse it to Cesare upon his demand, nor yet to deliver it. Macchiavelli censures the Signory’s conduct of this affair as impolitic. He contends that the Duke, being in great strength of arms, and Florence not armed at all, and therefore in no case to hinder his passage, it would have been wiser and the Signory would better have saved its face and dignity, had it accorded Cesare the permission to pass which he demanded, rather than have been subjected to behold him enforce that passage by weight of arms. But all that now con- cerned the Florentines was to be rid of an army whose presence in their territory was a constant menace. And to gain that end they were ready to give any undertakings, just.as they were resolved to fulfil none. Similarly, it chanced that Cesare was in no less haste to be gone; for he had received another letter from the Pope commanding his withdrawal, and in addition, he was being plagued by Vitelli and Orsini — grown restive — with entreaties for permission to go into either Florence or Pistoja, where they did notCASTEL BOLOGNESE AND PIOMBINO 277 lack for friends. To resist them Cesare had need of al] the severity and resolution he could command; and he even went so far as to back his refusal by a threat himself to take up arms against them if they insisted. On the 15th, at last, the treaty — which amounted to an offensive and Me fence e alliance — was signed. By the terms of this, Florence undertook to give Cesare a condotta of three hundred lances for three years, to be used in Florentine service, with a stipend of thirty -six thousand ducats yearly. oe much this really meant the Duke was to discover two days later, when he sent to ask the Signory to lend him some cannon for the emprise against Piombino, and to pay him the first instalment of one quarter of the yearly stipend before he left Florentine territory. The Sig- nory replied that, by the terms of the agreement, there was no obligation for the immediate payment Si the instalment, whilst in the matter of the artillery they put him off from day to day, until Cesare under- stood that their only aim in signing the treaty had been the immediate one of being rid of his army. The risk Florence incurred in so playing fast-and- loose with such a man, particularly in a moment of such utter unfitness to resist him, is, notwithstand- ing the French protection enjoy ed by the Signory, amazing in its reckless audacity. It was fortunate for Florence that the Pope’s orders tied the Duke’s hands — and it may be that of this the Signory had knowl- edge, and that it was upon such knowledge, in con- junction with France’s protection, that it was pre- suming. Cesare took the matter in the spirit of an excellent loser. Nota hint of his chagrin and resent- ment did he betray; instead, he set about furnishing278 THE BULL RAMPANT his needs elsewhere, sending Vitelli to Pisa with a request for artillery, a request to which Pisa very readily responded, as much on Vitelli’s account as on the Duke’s. As for Florence, if Cesare Borgia could be terribly swift in punishing, he could also be for- midably slow. If he could strike upon the instant where the opening for a blow appeared, he could also wait for months until the opening should be found. He waited now. It would be at about this time that young Leonardo da Vinci sought employment in Cesare Borgia’s serv- ‘ce. Leonardo had been in Milan until the summer of 1500, when he repaired to Florence in quest of better fortune; but, finding little or no work to en- gage him there, he took the chance of the Duke of Valentinois’s passage to offer his service to one whose liberal patronage of the arts was become proverbial. Cesare took him into his employ as engineer and arch- itect, leaving him in the Romagna for the present. Leonardo may have superintended the repairs of the Castle of Forli, whilst he certainly built the canal from Cesena to the Porto Cesenatico, before rejoining the Duke in Rome. On May 25th Cesare moved by the way of the valley of Cecina to try conclusions with Giacomo d’ Appiano, Tyrant of Piombino, who with some Genoese and some Florentine aid, was disposed to offer resistance to the Duke. The first strategic movement in this affair must be the capture of the Isle of Elba, whence aid might reach Piombino on jts promontory thrusting out into the sea. For thisCASTEL BOLOGNESE AND PIOMBINO 279 purpose the Pope sent from Civita Vecchia six gal- leys, three brigantines, and two galleons under the command of Lodovico Mosca, captain of the papal navy, whilst Cesare was further reinforced by some vessels sent him from Pisa together with eight pieces of cannon. With these he made an easy capture of Elba and Pianosa. That done, he proceeded to lay siege to Piombino, which, after making a gallant re- sistance enduring for two months, was finally pressed to capitulate. Long before this happened, however, Cesare had taken his departure. Being awaited in Rome, he was unable to conduct the siege Operations in person. So he quitted Piombino in June to join the French un- der D’Aubigny, bound at last upon the conquest of Naples, and claiming — as their treaty with him pro- vided — Cesare’s collaboration.CHAPTER x THE END OF THE HOUSE OF ARAGON ESARE arrived in Rome on June 13th. There was none of the usual pomp on this occasion. He made his entrance quietly, attended only by a small body of men-at-arms, and he was follow ed, on the morrow, by Yves d’Allégre with the army — considerably reduced by the erchine nts which had been left to garrison the Rom: agna, and to lay siege to Piombino. Repairing to his quarters in the Vatican, the Duke remained so close there for the few wenke that he abode in Rome on this occasion? that, from now on- ward, it became a matter of the utmost difficulty to obtain audience from him. This may have been due to his habit of turning night into day and day into night, whether at “yaya or at play, w hich in fact was the excuse offered by the Pope to certain envoys sent to Cesare from Rimini, who were left to cool their heels about the Vatican ante-chambers for a fortnight without succeeding in obtaining an audience. Cesare Borgia was now Lord of Imola, Forli, Ri- mini, Faenza, ‘and Piombino, warranting his assump- tion of the inclusive title of Duke of Romagna which he had taken immediately after the fall of Faenza. As his State grew, so naturally did the affairs of government; and, during those four weeks in Rome, business Minted his attention and an enormous l “Mansit in Palatio secrete,” says Burchard.THE END OF THE HOUSE OF ARAGON 281 amount of it was dispatched. Chiefly was he engaged upon the administration of the affairs of Faenza, which he had so hurriedly quitted. In this his shrewd policy of generosity is again apparent. As his repre- sentative and lieutenant he appointed a prominent citizen of Faenza named Pasi, one of the very mem- bers of that Council which had been engaged in de- fending the city and resisting Cesare. The Duke gave it as his motive for the choice that the man was obviously worthy of trust in view of his fidelity to Astorre. And there you have not only the shrewdness of the man who knows how to choose his servants — which is one of the most important factors of success — but a breadth of mind very unusual, indeed, in the Cinquecento. In addition to the immunity from indemnity pro- vided for by the terms of the city’s capitulation, Cesare actually went so far as to grant the peasantry of the valley two thousand ducats as compensation for damage done in the war. Further, he supported the intercessions of the Council to the Pope for the erec- tion of a new convent to replace the one that had been destroyed in the bombardment. In giving his consent to this — in a brief dated July 12, 1501 — the Pope announces that he does so in response to the prayers of the Council and of the Duke. Giovanni Vera, Cesare’s erstwhile preceptor — and still affectionately accorded this title by the Duke — was now Archbishop of Salerno, Cardinal of Santa Balbina, and papal legate in Macerata, and he was chosen by the Pope to go to Pesaro and Fano for the purpose of receiving the oath of fealty. With him282 THE BULL RAMPANT Cesare sent, as his own personal representative, his secretary, Agabito Gherardi, who had been in his em- ploy in that capacity since the Duke’s journey into France, and who was to follow his fortunes to the end. However the people of Fano may have refrained from offering themselves to the Duke’s dominion when, in the previous October, he had afforded them by his presence the opportunity of doing so, their con- duct now hardly indicated that the earlier absten- tion had been born of reluctance, or else their minds had undergone, in the meanwhile, a considerable change. For, when they received the brief appointing him their lord, they celebrated the event by public rejoicings and illuminations; whilst on July 21st the Council, representing the people, in the presence of Vera and Gherardi, took oath upon the Gospels of allegiance to Cesare and his descendants for ever. In the Consistory of June 25th of that year the French and Spanish ambassadors came formally to notify the Holy Father of the treaty of Granada, en- tered into in the previous November by Louis XII of the one part, and Ferdinand and Isabella of the other, concerning the conquest and division of the Kingdom of Naples. The rival claimants had come to a compromise by virtue of which they were to un- dertake together the conquest and thereafter share the spoil — Naples and the Abruzzi going to France, and Calabria and Puglia to Spain. Alexander immediately published his Bull declaring Federigo of Naples deposed for disobedience to the Church, and for having called the Turk to his aid, either of which charges it would have taxed Alex-THE END OF THE HOUSE OF ARAGON 283 ander’s ingenuity — vast though it was — convinc- ingly to have established; or, being established, to cen- sure when all the facts were considered. The charges were no better than pretexts for the spoliation of the unfortunate king who, in the matter of his daugh- ter’s alliance with Cesare, had conceived that he might flout the Borgias with impunity. On June 28th D’Aubigny left Rome with the French troops, accompanied by the bulk of the considerable army with which Cesare supported his French ally, besides one thousand foot raised by the Pope and a condotta of one hundred lances under Morgante Baglioni. As the troops defiled before the Castle of Sant’ Angelo they received the apostolic benediction from the Pope, who stood on the lower ramparts of the fortress. Cesare himself cannot have followed to join the army until after July roth, for as late as that date there is an edict indited by him against all who should offer injury to his Romagna officers. At about the same time that he quitted Rome to ride after the French, Gonsalo de Cordoba landed a Spanish army in Calabria, and the days of the Aragon dominion in Naples were numbered. King Federigo prepared to face the foe. Whilst himself remaining in Naples with Prospero Colonna, he sent the bulk of his forces to Capua under Fabri- Zio Colonna and Count Rinuccio Marciano — the brother of that Marciano whom Vitelli had put to death in Tuscany. Ravaging the territory and forcing its strongholds as they came, the allies were under the walls of Capua within three weeks of setting out; but onTHE BULL RAMPANT July 17th, when within two miles of the town, they were met by six hundred lances under Colonna, who attempted to dispute their passage. It was Cesare Borgia himself who led the charge against them. Jean d’Auton — in his ‘Chronicles of Louis XII’ — speaks in warm terms of the Duke’s valour and of the manner in which, by words and by example, he en- couraged his followers to charge the Colonna forces, with such good effect that they utterly routed them, and drove them headlong back to the sheiter of Capua’s walls. The allies brought up their cannon, and opened the bombardment. This lasted incessantly from July 17th __ which was a Monday — until the following Friday, when two bastions were so shattered that the French were able to gain possession of them, putting to the sword some two hundred Neapolitan soldiers who had been left to defend those outworks. Thence admit- tance to the town itself was gained four days later — on the 25th — through a breach, according to some, through the treacherous opening of agate, according to others. Through gate or breach the besiegers stormed to meet a fierce resistance, and the most horrible car- nage followed. Back and back they drove the defend- ers, fighting their way through the streets and sparing none in the awful fury that beset them. The defence was shattered; resistance was at an end; yet still the bloody work went on. The combat had impercepti- bly merged into a slaughter; demoralized and panic- stricken in the reaction from their late gallantry, the soldiers of Naples flung down their weapons and fled, shrieking for quarter. But none was given. The in- vader butchered every human thing he came upon,THE END OF THE HOUSE OF ARAGON 285 without discrimination of age or sex, and the blood of some four thousand victims flowed through the streets of Capua like water after a thunder-shower. That sack of Capua is one of the most horrid pages 1n the horrid history of sacks. You will find full details in D’Auton’s “Chronicle,” if you have a mind for such horrors. There is a brief summary of the event in Burchard’s diary under date of July 26, 1501, which runs as follows: At about the fourth hour last night the Pope had news of the capture of Capua by the Duke of Valentinois. The capture was due to the treason of one Fabrizio — a citizen of Capua — who secretly introduced the besiegers and was the first to be killed by them. After him the same fate was met by some three thousand foot and some two hun- dred horse-soldiers, by citizens, priests, conventuals of both Sexes, even in the very churches and monasteries, and all the women taken were given in prey to the greatest cruelty. The total number of the slain is estimated at four thousand. D’Auton, too, bears witness to this wholesale viola- tion of the women, “which,” he adds, “‘is the very worst of all war’s excesses.” He informs us further that “the foot-soldiers of the Duke of Valentinois ac- quitted themselves so well in this, that thirty of the most beautiful women went captive to Rome,” a fig- ure which is confirmed by Burchard. What an opportunity was not this for Guicciardini! The foot-soldiers of the Duke of Valentinois acquitted themselves so well in this, that thirty of the most beautiful women went captive to Rome. Under his nimble, malicious, unscrupulous pen that statement 1s reédited until not thirty but forty is the286 THE BULL RAMPANT number of the captured victims taken to Rome, and not Valentinois’s foot, but Valentinois himself the ravisher of the entire forty! But hear the elegant Florentine’s own words: It was spread about [divulgossi] that, besides other wick- ednesses worthy of eternal infamy, many women who had taken refuge in a tower, and thus escaped the first fury of the assault, were found by the Duke of Valentinois, who, h the title of King’s Lieutenant, followed the army with le than his gentlemen and his guards.! He de- , after carefully examining them he retained forty of the most wit no more peop sired to see them all, and [consideratele diligentemente] beautiful. Guicciardini’s aim is, of course, to shock you; he considers it necessary to maintain in Cesare the char- acter of ravenous wolf which he had bestowed upon him. The marvel is not that Guicciardini should have penned this utterly ludicrous accusation, but that more or less serious subsequent writers and writers of our own time even — instead of being moved to laughter at the wild foolishness of the story, instead of seeking in the available records the germ of true fact from which it 1s sprung, should sedulously and unblushingly carry forward its dissemination. Yriarte not only repeats the tale with all the sober calm of one utterly destitute of a sense of the ridicu- lous, but he improves upon it by a delicious touch, worthy of Guicciardini himself, when he assures us that Cesare took these forty women for his harem. 1 This, incidentally, 1s another misstatement. Valentinois had with him, besides the thousand foot levied by the Pope and the hundred lances under Morgante Baglioni, an army some thousands strong led for him by Yves d’Allegre.THE END OF THE HOUSE OF ARAGON 287 It is a nice instance of how Borgia history has grown, and is still growing. If verisimilitude itself does not repudiate Guicciar- dini’s story, there are the Capuan chronicles to do jt — particularly that of Pellegrini, who witnessed the pillage. In those chronicles from which Guicciardini drew the matter for this portion of his history of Italy, you will seek in vain for any confirmation of that fic- tion with which the Florentine historian — he who had a pen of gold for his friends and one of iron for his foes — thought well to adorn his facts. If the grotesque in history-building is of interest to you, you may turn the pages of the “Storia Civile di Capua,” by F. Granata, published in 1752. This writer has carefully followed the Capuan chroniclers in their relation of the siege; but when it comes to these details of the forty ladies in the tower (in which those chroniclers fail him) he actually gives Guicciar- dini as his authority, setting a fashion which has not lacked for unconscious, and no less egregious, imita- tors. To return from the criticism of fiction to the consid- eration of fact, Fabrizio Colonna and Rinuccio da Marciano were among the many captains of the Nea- politan army that were taken prisoners. Rinuccio was the head of the Florentine faction which had caused the execution of Paolo Vitelli, and Giovio has it that Vitellozzo Vitelli, who had already taken an instal- ment of vengeance by putting Pietro da Marciano to death in Tuscany, caused Rinuccio’s wounds to be poisoned, so that he died two days later. The fall of Capua was very shortly followed by that of Gaeta, and, within a week, by that of Naples, which288 THE BULL RAMPANT was entered on August 3d by Cesare Borgia in com- mand of the vanguard of the army. “He who had come as a cardinal to crown King Federigo, came now as a condottiero to depose him.” Federigo offered to surrender to the French all the fortresses that still held for him, on condition that he should have safe-conduct to Ischia and liberty to re- main there for six months. This was agreed, and Federigo was further permitted to take with him his moveable possessions and his artillery, which latter, however, he afterwards sold to the Pope. Thus the last member of the House of Aragon to sit upon the throne of Naples took his departure, accom- anied by the few faithful ones who loved him well enough to follow him into exile; amongst these was that poet Sanazzaro, who, to avenge the wrong suf- fered by the master whom he loved, was to launch his terrible epigrams against Alexander, Cesare, and Lu- crezia, and by means of those surviving verses enable the enemies of the House of Borgia to vilify its memory through centuries to follow. Federigo’s captains Prospero and Fabrizio Colonna, upon being ransomed, took their swords to Gonzalo de Cordoba, hoping for the day when they might avenge upon the Borgia the ruin which, even in this Neapolitan conquest, they attributed to the Pope and his son. And here, so far as Naples is concerned, closes the history of the House of Aragon. In Italy it was ex- tinct; and it was to become so, too, in Spain within the century.CHAPTER XI THE LETTER TO SILVIO SAVELLI Y September 15th Cesare was back in Rome, the richer in renown, in French favour, and in a mat- ter of forty thousand ducats, which is estimated as the total of the sums paid him by France and Spain for the support which his condotta had afforded them. During his absence two important events had taken place: the betrothal of his widowed sister Lucrezia to Alfonso d’ Este, son of Duke Ercole of Ferrara, and the publication of the Bull of excommunication (of August 20th) against the Savelli and Colonna in con- sideration of all that they had wrought against the Holy See from the pontificate of Sixtus IV to the pres- ent time. By virtue of that Bull the Pope ordered the confiscation of the possessions of the excommunicated families, whilst the Caetani suffered in like manner at the same time. These possessions were divided into two parts, and by the Bull of September 17th they were bestowed, one upon Lucrezia’s boy Roderigo, and with it the title of Duke of Sermoneta; the other to a child, Gio- vanni Borgia (who is made something of a mystery) with the title of Duke of Nepi and Palestrina. The entire proceeding is undoubtedly open to grave censure, since the distribution of the confiscated fiefs subjects to impeachment the purity of the motives prompting their confiscation. It was on the part of290 THE BULL RAMPANT Alexander a gross act of nepotism, a gross abuse of his pontifical authority; but there is, at least, this to be said, that in perpetrating it he was doing no more than in his epoch it was customary for Popes to do. Alexander, it may be said again in this connection, was part of a corrupt system, not the corrupter of a pure one. Touching the boy Giovanni Borgia, the mystery at- taching to him concerns his parentage, and arises out of the singular circumstance that there are two papal Bulls, both dated September 1, 1501, in each of which a different father is assigned to him, the second ap- pearing to supplement and correct the first. The first of these Bulls, addressed to ‘‘ Dilecto Filio Nobili Joanni de Borgia, Infant Romano,” declares him to be a child of three years of age, the illegitimate son of Cesare Borgia, unmarried (as Cesare was at the time of the child’s birth), and of a woman (unnamed, as was usual in such cases), also unmarried. The second declares him, instead, to be the son of Alexander, and runs: ‘“‘Since you bear this deficiency not from the said Duke, but from us and the said woman, which we for good reasons did not desire to express in the preceding writing.” That the second Bull undoubtedly contains the truth of the matter is the only possible explanation of its existence, and the ‘“‘good reasons” that existed for the first one are, no doubt, as Gregorovius says, that officially and by canon law the Pope was inhibited from recognizing children. (His other children, be it remembered, were recognized by him during his cardinalate and before his elevation to Saint Peter’s throne.) Hence the attempt by these Bulls to circum-THE LETTER TO SILVIO SAVELLI 291 vent the law to the end that the child should not suf- fer in the matter of his inheritance. Burchard, under date of November 3d of that year, freely mentions this Giovanni Borgia as the son of the Pope and “a certain Roman woman” (“quadam Romana’’). On the same date borne by those two Bulls a third one was issued confirming the House of Este perpet- ually in the dominion of Ferrara and its other Ro- magna possessions, and reducing by one-third the trib- ute of four thousand ducats yearly imposed upon that family by Sixtus IV; and it was explicitly added that these concessions were made for Lucrezia and her de- scendants. Three days later a courier from Duke Ercole brought the news that the marriage contract had been signed in Ferrara, and it was in salvos of artillery that day and illuminations after dark that the Pope gave expression to the satisfaction afforded him by the prospect of his daughter’s entering one of the most an- cient families and ascending one of the noblest thrones in Italy. It would be idle to pretend that the marriage was other than one of convenience. Love between the contracting parties played no part in this transaction, and Ercole d’ Este was urged to it under suasion of the King of France, out of fear of the growing might of Cesare, and out of consideration for the splendid dowry which he demanded and in the matter of which he displayed a spirit which Alexander contemptu- ously described as that of a tradesman. Nor would Ercole send the escort to Rome for the bride until he had in his hands the Bull of investiture in the fiefs of292 THE BULL RAMPANT Cento and Pieve, which, with one hundred thousand ducats, constituted Lucrezia’s dowry. Altogether a most unromantic affair. The following letter from the Ferrarese ambassador in Rome, dated September 23d, is of interest in con- nection with this marriage: Most ItLtustrious Prince AND Most Noste Lorp, His Holiness the Pope, taking into consideration such matters as might occasion displeasure not only to your Ex- cellency and to the Most Illustrious Don Alfonso, but also to the Duchess and even to himself, has charged us to write to your Excellency to urge you so to contrive that the Lord Giovanni of Pesaro, who, as your Excellency is aware, is in Mantua, shall not be in Ferrara at the time of the nuptials. Notwithstanding that his divorce from the said Duchess is absolutely legitimate and accomplished in accordance with pure truth, as is publicly known not only from the proceed- ings of the trial, but also from the free confession of the said Don Giovanni, it is possible that he may still be actuated by some lingering ill-will; wherefore, should he find himself in any place where the said lady might be seen by him, her Excellency might, in consequence, be compelled to with- draw into privacy, to be spared the memory of the past. Wherefore, His Holiness exhorts your Excellency to pro- vide with your habitual prudence against such a contin- gency. Meanwhile, the festivities wherewith her betrothal was celebrated went merrily amain, and into the midst of them, to bear his share, came Cesare crowned with fresh laurels gained in the Neapolitan war. No merry- makings ever held under the auspices of Pope Alexan- der VI at the Vatican had escaped being the source of much scandalous rumour, but none had been so scan- dalous and disgraceful as the stories put abroad onTHE LETTER TO SILVIO SAVELLI 293 this occasion. These found a fitting climax in that anonymous “Letter to Silvio Savelli,” published in Germany — which at the time, be it borne in mind, was extremely hostile to the Pope, viewing with jaun- diced eyes his ever-growing power, and stirred perhaps to this unspeakable burst of venomous fury by the noble Este alliance, so valuable to Cesare in that it gave him a friend upon the frontier of his Romagna possessions. The appalling publication, which is given in full in Burchard, was fictitiously dated from Gonzola de Cordoba’s Spanish camp at Taranto on November 25th. A copy of this anonymous pamphlet, which is the most violent attack on the Borgias ever penned, perhaps the most terrible indictment of any family ever published —a pamphlet which Gregorovius does not hesitate to call ‘“‘an authentic document of the state of Rome under the Borgias” — fell into the hands of the Cardinal of Modena, who on the last day of the year carried it to the Pope. Before considering that letter it is well to turn to the entries in Burchard’s “‘ Diary” under the dates of October 27th and November 11th of that same year. You will find two statements which have no parallel in the rest of the entire “‘ Diary,” few parallels in any sober narrative of facts. The sane mind must recoil and close up before them, so impossible does it seem to accept them. The first of these is the relation of the supper given by Cesare in the Vatican to fifty courtesans. Burchard tells us how, for the amusement of Ce- sare, of the Pope, and of Lucrezia, these fifty cour- tesans were set to dance after supper with the servantsTHE BULL RAMPANT 294 and some others who were present. He draws for us a ‘cture of those fifty women on all fours, striving for the chestnuts flung to them in that chamber of the Apostolic Palace by Christ's Vicar — an old man of seventy — by his son and his daughter. Nor is that all by any means. There 1s much worse to follow — matter which we dare not translate, but must leave more or less discreetly veiled in the decadent Latin of the Ceerimoniarius: Tandem exposita dona ultima, diploides de serico, paria caligarum, bireta ed alia pro illis qui pluries dictas mere- trices carnaliter agnoscerent; que fuerunt ibidem in aula publice carnaliter tractate arbitrio presentium, dona dis- tributa victoribus. Such is the monstrous story! Gregorovius, in his defence of Lucrezia Borgia, re- fuses to believe that she was present; but he is reluc- tant to carry his incredulity any further. “Some orgy of that nature,” he writes, “or some- thing similar may very well have taken place. But who will believe that Lucrezia, already the legal wife of Alfonso d’ Este and on the eve of departure for Fer- rara, can have been present as a smiling spectator?” Quite so. Gregorovius puts his finger at once upon one of the obvious weaknesses of the story. But where there is one falsehood there are usually others; and if we are not to believe that Lucrezia was present, why should we be asked to believe in the presence of the Pope? If Burchard was mistaken in the one, why might he not be mistaken in the other? But the ques- tion is not really one of whom you will believe to have been present at that unspeakable performance, butTHE LETTER TO SILVIO SAVELLI 295 rather whether you can possibly bring yourself to be- lieve that it ever took place as it is related in the eDiarium.: Gregorovius says, you will observe, “Some orgy of that nature, or something similar, may very well have taken place.” Wecould credit that Cesare held “some orgy of that nature.” He had apartments in the Vati- can, and if it shock you to think that it pleased him, with his gentlemen, to make merry by feasting a par- cel of Roman harlots, you are — if you value justice — to be shocked at the times rather than the man. The sense of humour of the Cinquecento was primi- tive, and in primitive humour prurience plays ever an important part, as 1s discernible in the literature and comedies of that age. If you need further evidence of this you will find it in Burchard’s details of the masks worn at Carnival by some Hee -makers (“‘Venerunt ad plateam S. Petri larvati...habentes nasos lungos et grossos In forma priaporum ”) and you must realize that in Cesare’s conduct in this matter there would have been nothing so very abnormal considered from the point of view of the Cinquecento, even though it were to approach the details given by Burchard. But even so, you will hesitate before you accept the story of this ean in its entirety, and before you believe that an old man of seventy, a priest and Christ’s Vicar, was present with Cesare and his friends. Burchard docs not say that he himself was a witness of what he relates. But the matter shall pres- ently be further considered. Meanwhile, let us pass to the second of these entries in the “Diary,” and (a not unimportant detail) on the very next page of it, under the date of Novem-296 THE BULL RAMPANT ber 11th. In this it is related that certain peasants entered Rome by the Viridarian Gate, driving two mares laden with timber; that, in crossing the Square of Saint Peter’s, some servants of the Pope's ran out and cut the cords so that the timber was loosened and the beasts relieved of their burden; they were then led to a courtyard within the precincts of the palace, where four stallions were loosed upon them. “ Ascen- derunt equas et colerunt cum eis et eas graviter pis- tarunt et leserunt,’’ whilst the Pope at a window above the doorway of the Palace, with Madonna Lu- crezia, witnessed with great laughter and delight the show which it is suggested was specially provided for their amusement. The improbabilities of the saturnalia of the fifty courtesans pale before the almost utter impossibility of this narrative. To render it possible in the related circumstances, a biological coincidence is demanded so utterly unlikely and incredible that we are at once moved to reject the story as a fiction. Yet not one of those many writers who have retailed that story from Burchard’s “ Diarium” as a truth incontestable as the Gospels, has paused to consider this — so blinded are we when it is a case of accepting that which we desire to accept. The narrative, too, is oddly — suspiciously — cir- cumstantial, even to the unimportant detail of the particular gate by which the peasants entered Rome. In a piece of fiction it 1s perfectly natural to fill in such minor details to the end that the picture shall be com- plete; but they are rare in narratives of fact. And one may be permitted to wonder how came the Master of Ceremonies at the Vatican to know the precise gateSa THE LETTER TO SILVIO SAVELLI 297 by which those peasants entered. It is not — as we have seen — the only occasion on which an excess of detail in the matter of a gate renders suspicious the accuracy of a story of Burchard’s. Both these affairs find a prominent place in the ~ Letter to Silvio Savelli.” Indeed, Gregorovius cites the pamphlet as one of the authorities to support Bur- chard, and to show that what Burchard wrote must have been true; the other authority he cites is Mata- razzo, disregarding not only the remarkable discrep- ancy between Matarazzo’s relation and that of Bur- chard, but the circumstance that the matter of that pamphlet became current throughout Italy, and that it was thus — and only thus — that Matarazzo came to hear of the scandal.} The “Letter to Silvio Savelli” opens by congrat- ulating him upon his escape from the hands of the rob- bers who had stripped him of his possessions, and upon his having found a refuge in Germany at the Emper- or s Court. It proceeds to marvel that thence he should have written letters to the Pope begging for justice and reinstatement, the wonder being at the credulity of Savelli in supposing that the Pope — “betrayer of the human race, who has spent his life in betrayals” — will ever do any just thing other than through fear or force. Rather does the writer suggest the adoption of other methods; he urges Savelli to make known 1 The frequency with which the German historian cites Matarazzo as an authority 1s oddly inconsistent, considering that when he finds Ma- tarazzo’s story of the murder of the Duke of Gandia upsetting the theory which Gregorovius himself prefers, by fastening the guilt upon Giovanni Sforza, he devotes some space to showing — with perfect justice — that Matarazzo is no authority at all.298 THE BULL RAMPANT to the Emperor and all princes of the Empire the atrocious crimes of that ‘‘infamous wild beast,” which have been perpetrated in contempt of God and relt- gion. He then proceeds to relate these crimes. Alex- ander, Cesare, and Lucrezia, among others of the Bor- ia family, bear their share of the formidable accusa- tions. Of the Pope are related perfidies, simonies, and ravishments; against Lucrezia are urged the matter of her incest, the supper of the fifty courtesans, and the scene of the stallions; against Cesare there are the death of Biselli, the murder of Pedro Caldes, the ruin of the Romagna, whence he has driven out the legitimate lords, and the universal fear in which he is held. It is, indeed, a compendium of all the stories which from Milan, Naples, and Venice — the three States where the Borgias for obvious reasons are best hated __ have been disseminated by their enemies, and a more violent work of rage and political malice was never uttered. This malice becomes particularly evi- dent in the indictment of Cesare for the ruin of the Romagna. Whatever Cesare might have done, he had not done that —his bitterest detractor could not (without deliberately lying) say that the Romagna was other than benefiting under his sway. That is not a matter of opinion, not a matter of inference or de- duction. It is a matter of absolute fact and irrefut- able knowledge. To return now to the two entries in Burchard’s “Diarium” when considered in conjunction with the “T etter to Silvio Savelli” (which Burchard quotes in full), it is remarkable that nowhere else in the discov- ered writings of absolute contemporaries is there theieee a a A Tia TiS To ices M Le cee Scene eee oe = adn ain Siang FE as THE LETTER TO SILVIO SAVELLI 299 least mention of either of those scandalous stories. The affair of the stallions, for instance, must have been of a fairly public character. Scandalmongering Rome could not have resisted the dissemination of it. Yet, apart from the Savelli letter, no single record of it has been discovered to confirm Burchard. At this time, moreover, it is to be remembered, Lu- crezia’s betrothal to Alfonso d’ Este was already ACs complished; preparations for her departure and wed- ding were going forward, and the escort from Ferrara was daily expected in Rome. If Lucrezia had never been circumspect, she must be circumspect now, when the eyes of Italy were upon her, and there were not wanting those who would have been glad to have thwarted the marriage — one of the objects, no doubt, of the pamphlet we are considering. Yet all that was written to Ferrara was in praise of her — in praise of her goodness and her modesty, her prudence, her devoutness, and her discretion, as presently we shall see. If from this we are to conclude — as seems reason- able — that there was no gossip current in Rome of the courtesans’ supper and the rest, we may assume that there was no knowledge in Rome of such mat- ters; for with knowledge silence would have been im- possible. So much being admitted, it becomes a mat- ter of determining whether the author of the “Letter to Silvio Savelli”’ had access to the “‘ Diary”’ of Burch- ard for his facts, or whether Burchard availed himself of the “Letter to Silvio Savelli”’ to compile these par- ticular entries. The former alternative being out of the question, there but remains the latter — unless it is possible that the said entries have crept into the300 THE BULL RAMPANT ww copies of the ‘ Diarium”’ and are not present in the original, which is not available. The Pope read the anonymous libel when 1t was submitted to him by the Cardinal of Modena — read it, laughed it to scorn, and treated it with the con- tempt which it deserved, yet a contempt which, con- sidering its nature, asks a certain greatness of mind. If the libel was true, it is almost incredible that he should not have sought to avenge it, for an ugly truth is notoriously hurtful and infinitely more provocative of resentment, than a lie. Cesare, however, was not of a temper quite as long-suffering as his father. Enough and more of libels and lampoons had he endured al- ready. Early in December a masked man — a Nea- politan of the name of Mancioni — who had been go- ing through Rome uttering infamies against him was seized and so dealt with that he should in future neither speak nor write anything in any man’s defa- mation. His tongue was cut out and his right hand chopped off, and the hand, with the tongue attached to its little finger, was hung in sight of all and as a warning from a window of the Church of Holy Cross. - And towards the end of January, whilst Cesare’s fury at that pamphlet out of Germany was still un- appeased, a Venetian was seized in Rome for hav- ing translated from Greek into Latin another libel against the Pope and his son. The Venetian ambassa- dor intervened to save the wretch, but his intervention was vain. The libeller was executed that same night. Costabili — the Ferrara ambassador — who spoke to the Pope on the matter of this execution, reported that His Holiness said that more than once had heTHE LETTER TO SILVIO SAVELLI 301 told the Duke that Rome was a free city, in which an one was at liberty to say or write what he pleased; that of himself, too, much evil was being spoken, but that he paid no heed to it. "The Duke,” proceeded Alexander, “is good- natured, but he has not yet learnt to bear insult.” And he added that, irritated, Cesare had protested that, “However much Rome may be in the habit of speaking and writing, for my own part I shall give these libellers a lesson in good manners.” The lesson he intended was not one they should live to practise.CHAPTER XII LUCREZIA’S THIRD MARRIAGE T about the time that Burchard was making in A his ‘‘Diarium” those entries which reflect so grossly upon the Pope and Lucrezia, Gianluca Pozzi, the ambassador of Ferrara at the Vatican, was writ- ing the following letter to his master, Duke Ercole, Lucrezia’s father-in-law elect: This evening, after supper, I accompanied Messer Ge- rardo Saraceni to visit the Most Illustrious Madonna Lu- crezia in your Excellency’s name and that of the Most II- lustrious Don Alfonso. We entered into a long discussion touching various matters. In truth she showed herself a prudent, discreet, and good-natured lady.! The handsome, athletic Cardinal Ippolito d’ Este, with his brothers Sigismondo and Fernando, had ar- rived in Rome on December 23d with the imposing es- cort that was to accompany their brother Alfonso’s bride back to Ferrara. Cesare was prominent in the welcome given them. Never, perhaps, had he made greater display than on the occasion of his riding out to meet the Ferrarese, accompanied by no fewer than four thousand men-at- arms, and mounted on a great war-horse whose trap- pings of cloth of gold and jewels were estimated at ten thousand ducats. The days and nights that followed, until Lucrezia’s 1 See Gregorovius’s Lucrezia Borgia.LUCREZIA’S THIRD MARRIAGE 303 departure a fortnight later, were days and nights of gaiety and merry-making at the Vatican; in banquets, dancing, the performance of comedies, masques, etc., the time was made to pass as agreeably as might be for the guests from Ferrara, and in all Cesare was con- spicuous, be it for the grace and zest with which he nightly danced, or for the skill and daring which he displayed in the daily joustings and entertainments, and more particularly in the bull-fight that was in- cluded in them. Lucrezia was splendidly endowed, to the extent, it was estimated, of three hundred thousand ducats, made up of one hundred thousand ducats in gold, her jewels and equipage, and the value of the Castles of Pieve and Cento. Her departure from Rome took place on January 6th, and so she passes out of this chronicle, which, after all, has been little concerned with her. Of the honour done her everywhere on that journey to Werrara, the details are given elsewhere, particu- larly in the book devoted to her history and rehabil- itation by Herr Gregorovius. After all, the real Lu- crezia Borgia fills a comparatively small place in the actual history of her House. It is in the fictions con- cerning her family that she is given such unenviable importance, and presented as a Meenad, a poisoner, and worse. In reality she appears to us, during her life in Rome, as a rather childish, naive, and entirely passive figure, important only in so far as she found employment at her father’s or brother’s hands for the advancement of their high ambitions and unscrupu- lous aims. In the popular imagination she lives chiefly as a304 THE BULL RAMPANT terrific poisoner, an appalling artist in venenation. It +s curious that this should be the case, for not even the scandal of her day so much as suggests that she was connected — directly or even indirectly — with a sin- gle case of poisoning. No doubt that popular concep- tion owes its being entirely to Victor Hugo’s drama. Away from Rome and settled in Ferrara from the twenty-second year of her age, to become anon its duchess, her life is well known and admits of no argu- ment. The archives of the State she ruled show us a devout, God-fearing woman, beloved in life, and deeply mourned in death by her husband and her subjects. Not a breath of scandal touches her from the moment that she quits the scandalous environ- ment of the Papal Court. Cesare remained at the Vatican after her departure. His duchess was to have come to Rome in that Eas- ter of 1502, and it had been disposed that the ladies and gentlemen who had accompanied Lucrezia as escort of honour should proceed — after leaving her ‘1 Ferrara — to Lombardy, to do the like office by Charlotte d’Albret. Meeting her there, they were to accompany her to Rome. She was coming with her brother, the Cardinal Amanieu d’Albret, and bringing with her Cesare’s little daughter, Louise de Valen- tinois, now two years of age. But the Duchess fell ill at the last moment, and was unable to undertake the journey, of which Cardinal d’Albret brought word to Rome, where he arrived on February 7th. Ten days later Cesare set out with his father for Piombino, for which purpose six galleons awaited them at Civita Vecchia under the command of Lo-LUCREZIA’S THIRD MARRIAGE 305 dovico Mosca, the captain of the pontifical navy. On these the Pope and his son embarked upon their visit to the scene of the latest addition to Cesare’s ever-growing dominions. They landed at Piombino on February 21st, and made a solemn entrance into the town, the Pope carried in state in the Sedia Gestatoria, under a can- opy, attended by six cardinals and six singers from the Sistine Chapel, whilst Cesare was accompanied by a number of his gentlemen. They abode four days in Piombino, whence they crossed to Elba, for the purpose of disposing for the erection there of two fortresses — a matter most prob- ably entrusted to Leonardo da Vinci, who continued in the ducal train as architect and engineer. On March Ist they took ship to return to Rome; but they were detained at sea for five days by a tempest which seems to have imperilled the vessels. The Pope was on board the captain’s galley with his cardinals-in-waiting and servants, and when these were reduced by the storm and the grave danger of shipwreck to a state of abject terror, the Pope — this old man of seventy-one — sat calm and intrepid, oc- casionally crossing himself and pronouncing the name of Jesus, and encouraging the very sailors by his ex- ample as much as by his words. In Piombino Cesare had left Michele da Corella as his governor. This Corella was a captain of foot, a soldier of fortune, who from the earliest days of Ce- sare’s military career had followed the Duke’s for- tunes — the very man who 1s alleged to have stran- gled Alfonso of Aragon by Cesare’s orders. He 1s generally assumed to have been a Spaniard, and 1s306 THE BULL RAMPANT commonly designated as Michelotto, or Don Miguel; but Alvisi supposes him, from his name of Corella, to have been a Venetian, and he tells us that by his fidelity to Cesare and the implicit manner in which he executed his master’s orders, he earned — as is notorious — considerable hatred. He has been spoken of, indeed, as the 4me damnée of Cesare Borgia; but that is a purely romantic touch akin to that which gave the same designation to Richelieu’s Father Joseph. The Romagna was at this time administered for Cesare Borgia by Ramiro de Lorqua, who, since the previous November, had held the office of governor in addition to that of lieutenant-general in which he had been earlier invested. His power in the Romagna was now absolute, all Cesare’s other officers, even the very treasures, being subject to him. He was a man of some fifty years of age, violent and domineering, feared by all, and the dispenser of a harsh justice which had at least the merit of an impartiality that took no account of persons. Bernardi gives us an instance of the man’s stern, uncompromising, pitiless nature. On January 29, 1502, two malefactors were hanged in Faenza. The rope suspending one of them broke while the fellow was alive, and the people begged for mercy for him at first, then, swayed by pity, resolved to save him in spite of the officers of Justice who demanded his surrender. Preventing his recapture, the mob bore him off to the Church of the Cerviti. The lieutenant of Faenza came to demand the person of the criminal, but he was denied by the Prior, who claimed to extend him sanctuary. te tI i oe RI oe t) hs i } et 5 o tee — aLUCREZIA’S THIRD MARRIAGE 307 But the days of sanctuary were overpast, and the laws of the time held that any church or consecrated place in which a criminal took refuge should ipso facto be deemed unconsecrated by his pursuers, and further, that any ecclesiastic sheltering such a fugitive did so under peril of excommunication from his bishop. This law Ramiro accounted it his duty to enforce when news was carried to him at Imola of what had happened. He came at once to Faenza, and, compelling the Prior by actual force to yield up the man he sheltered, he hanged the wretch, for the second time, from a window of the palace of the Podest4. At the same time he seized several who were alleged to have been ringleaders of the fellow’s rescue from the hands of the officers, and made the citizens of Faenza compromise for the lives of these by payment of a fine of ten thousand ducats, giving them a month in which to find the money. The Faentini sent their envoys to Ramiro to inter- cede with him; but that harsh man refused so much as to grant them audience — which was well for them, for, as a consequence, the Council sent ambassadors to Rome to submit the case to the Pope’s Holiness and to the Duke of Valentinois, together with a petition that the fine should be remitted — a petition that was readily granted. Harsh as it was, however, Ramiro’s rule was salu- tary, its very harshness necessary in a province where lawlessness had become a habit through generations of misgovernment. Under Cesare’s dominion the change already was remarkable. During his two years of ad- ministration — to count from its commencement —308 THE BULL RAMPANT the Romagna was already converted from a seething hell of dissensions, disorders, and crimes — chartered brigandage and murder — into a powerful State, law- abiding and orderly, where human life and personal ossessions found zealous protection, and where those who disturbed the peace met with a justice that was never tempered by mercy. A strong hand was needed there, and the Duke, supreme judge of the tools to do his work, ruled the Romagna and crushed its turbulence by means of the iron hand of Ramiro de Lorqua. It was also under the patronage of Valentinois that the first printing-press of any consequence came to be established in Italy. This was set up at Fano by Girolamo Sancino in 1501, and began the issue of worthy books. One of the earliest works undertaken (says Alvisi) was the printing of the Statutes of Fano for the first time in January of 1502. And it was ap- roved by the Council, civil and ecclesiastical, that Sancino should undertake this printing of the Stat- utes “‘Ad perpetuam memoriam Illmi. Domini nostri Ducis.”’CHAPTER XIII URBINO AND CAMERINO T’ may well be that it was about this time that Cesare, his ambition spreading — as men’s am- bition will spread with being gratified — was consid- ering the consolidation of Central Italy into a king- dom of which he would assume the crown. It was a scheme in the contemplation of which he was encouraged by Vitellozzo Vitelli, who no doubt conceived that in its fulfilment the ruin of Florence would be entailed — which was all that Vitelli cared about. What to Cesare would have been no more than the means, would have been to Vitelli a most satis- factory end. Before, however, going so far, the work of subju- gating the States of the Church was still to be com- pleted. It still remained to bring Urbino, Camerino, and Sinigaglia under the Borgia dominion. For this, no doubt, Cesare was disposing during that Easter of 1502 which he spent in Rome, and during which there were heard from the south the first rumblings of the storm of war whereof ill-starred Naples was once more — for the third time within ten years — to be the scene. The allies of yesterday were become the antagonists of to-day, and France and Spain were ready to fly at each other’s throats over the division of the Neapolitan spoil, as a consequence of a certain vagueness in the terms of the treaty of Granada. The French Viceroy, Louis d’Armagnac,310 THE BULL RAMPANT and the great Spanish captain, Gonzalo de Cordoba, were on the point of coming to blows. Nor was the menace of disturbance confined to Naples. In Florence, too, the torch of war was alight, and if — as he afterwards swore — Cesare Borgia had no hand in kindling it, it 1s at least undeniable that he complacently watched the conflagration, conscious that it would make for the fulfilment of his own ends. Besides, there was still that little matter of the treaty of Forno dei Campi between Cesare and Florence, a treaty which the Signory had never fulfilled and never ‘ntended to fulfil, and Cesare was not the man to for- get how he had been fooled. But for the protection of France which she enjoyed, Florence must long since have been called to account by him, and crushed out of all shape under the weight of his mailed hand. As it was she was to experience the hurt of his passive resentment, and find this rather more than she could bear. Vitellozzo Vitelli, that vindictive firebrand whose original motive in allying himself with Cesare had been, as we know, the hope that the Duke might help him to make Florence expiate his brother’s blood, finding that Cesare withheld the expected help, was bent at last upon dealing, himself, with Florence. He entered into plots with the exiled Piero de’ Medici to restore the latter to his dominion; he set intrigues afoot in Pisa, where his influence was vast, and in Siena, whose tyrant, Pandolfo Petrucci, was ready and willing to forward his designs, and generally made so disturbing a stir in Tuscany that the Signory became gravely alarmed. Cesare certainly took no apparent active part inURBINO AND CAMERINO 311 the affair. He lent Vitelli no aid; but neither did he attempt to restrain him or any other of the Borgia condottier1 who were allied with him. The unrest, spreading and growing sullenly awhile, burst suddenly forth in Arezzo on June 4th, when the cries of “Medici!” and ‘‘Marzocco!”’ rang in its streets, to announce that the city was in arms against the government of Florence. Arezzo followed this up by summoning Vitelli, and the waiting, watchful condottiero was quick to answer the desired call. He entered the town three days later at the head of a small body of foot, and was very shortly afterwards followed by his brother Giulio Vitelli, Bishop of Citta di Castello, with the artillery, and, presently, by Gianpaolo Baglioni with a condotta of horse. A few days later Vitelli was in possession of all the strongholds of the Val di Chiana, and panic-stricken Florence was speeding ambassadors hot-foot to Rome to lay her complaints of these matters before the Pope. Alexander was able to reply that, far from support- ing the belligerents, he had launched a Bull against them, provoked by the poisoning of the Bishop de’ Pazzi. Cesare looked on with the inscrutable calm for which Macchiavelli was presently to find him so remarkable. Aware as he was of the French protec- tion which Florence enjoyed and could invoke, he perceived how vain must ultimately prove Vitelli’s efforts, saw, perhaps, in all this the grave danger of ultimate ruin which Vitelli was incurring. Yet Vitelli’s action served Cesare’s own purposes, and, so that his purposes were served, there were no other consid-312 THE BULL RAMPANT erations likely to weigh with that cold egotist. Let Vitelli be caught in the toils he was spinning, and be choked in them. Meanwhile, Florence was being harrowed, and that was all to Cesare’s satisfaction and advantage. When sufficiently humbled, it might well befall that the Republic should come on her knees to implore his intervention, and his pardon for having flouted him. While matters stood so in Arezzo, Pisa declared spontaneously for Cesare, and sent (on June roth) to offer herself to his dominion and to announce to him that his banner was already flying from her turrets. The growth of Florence’s alarm at this 1s readily conceived. To Cesare it must have been a sore temptation. To accept such a pied-a-terre in Tuscany as was now offered him would have been the first great step towards founding that kingdom of his dreams. An impulsive man had surely gulped the bait. But Ce- sare, boundless in audacity, most swift to determine and to act, was not impulsive. Cold reason, foresight, and culation were the ministers of his adomitanle will. He looked ahead and beyond in the matter of Pisa’s offer, and he perceived the danger that might await him in the acceptance. The time for that was not yet. To take what Pisa offered might entail offending France, and, although Cesare was now in case to dispense with French support, he was in no case to resist her opposition. And so, the matter being considered and deter- mined, Cesare quitted Rome on the 12th and left it for the Pope to give answer to the Pisan envoys in the Consistory of June 14th — that neither His HolinessURBINO AND CAMERINO 313 nor the Duke of Valentinois could assent to the pro- posals which Pisa made. From Rome Cesare travelled swiftly to Spoleto, where his army, some ten thousand strong, was en- camped. He was bent at last upon the conquest of Camerino, and, ever an opportunist, he had seized the moment when Florence, which might have been dis- posed to befriend Varano, Tyrant of Camerino, was over-busy with her own affairs. In addition to the powerful army awaiting him at Spoleto, the Duke had a further two thousand men in the Romagna; a further thousand men held them- selves at his orders between Sinigaglia and Urbino, and Dionigio di Naldo was arming yet another thousand men at Verucchio for his service. To increase this force still further, Cesare issued an edict during his brief sojourn at Spoleto ordering every house in the Romagna to supply him with one man-at-arms. It was whilst here — as he afterwards wrote to the Pope — that news reached him that Guidobaldo da Montefeltre, Duke of Urbino, was arming men and raising funds for the assistance of Camerino. He wrote that he could not at first believe it, but that shortly afterwards — at Foligni — he took a chancel- lor of Camerino who admitted that the hopes of this State were all founded upon Urbino’s assistance. Later, a messenger from Urbino falling into his hands, he discovered that there was a plot afoot to seize the Borgia artillery as it passed through Ugubio, it being known that, as Cesare had no suspicions, the guns would be guarded by only a small force. Of this treachery the Duke strongly expressed his indignation in his letter to the Pope.314 THE BULL RAMPANT Whether the matter was true — or whether Cesare believed it to be true — it is impossible to ascertain with absolute conviction. But it is in the highest degree unlikely that Cesare would have written such a letter to his father solely by way of setting up a pre- text. Had that been his only aim, letters expressing his simulated indignation would have been in better case to serve his ends had they been addressed to others. If Guidobaldo did engage in such an act, amount- ing to a betrayal, he was certainly paid by Cesare in kind and with interest. If the Duke had been short of a pretext for carrying a drawn sword into the dominions of Guidobaldo, he had that pretext now in this act of hostility against himself and the Holy See. First, however, he disposed for the attack upon Camerino. This State, lying on the eastern spurs of the Apennines, midway between Spoleto and Urbino, was ruled by Giulio Cesare Varano, an old war-dog of seventy years of age, ruthless and bloodthirsty, who had gained the throne by murdering his own brother. He was aided in the government of his tyranny by his four sons, Venanzio, Annibale, Pietro, and Gianmaria. Several times already had he been menaced by Cesare Borgia, for he was one of the vicars proscribed for the non-payment of tribute due to the Holy See, and at last his hour was come. Against him Cesare now dispatched an army under the command of Francesco Orsini, Duke of Gravina, and Oliverotto Fufreducci, another murderous, bloody gentleman who had hitherto served the Duke in Vitelli’s con- dotta, and who, by an atrocious act of infamy and brigandage, had made himself Lord of Fermo, whichURBINO AND CAMERINO 315 he pretended — being as sly as he was bloody — to hold as Vicar for the Holy See. This Oliverotto Eufreducci — hereafter known as Oliverotto da Fermo — was a nephew of Giovanni Fogliano, Lord of Fermo. He had returned home to his uncle’s Court in the early part of that year, and was there received with great honour and affection by Fogliano and his other relatives. To celebrate his home-coming, Oliverotto invited his uncle and the principal citizens of Fermo to a banquet, and at table contrived to turn the conversation upon the Pope and the Duke of Valentinois; whereupon, saying that these were matters to be discussed more in private, he rose from table and begged them to withdraw with him into another room. All unsuspecting — what should old Fogliano sus- pect from one so loved and so deeply in his debt? — they followed him to the chamber where he had secretly posted a body of his men-at-arms. There, no sooner had the door closed upon this uncle, and those others who had shown him so much affection, than he gave the signal for the slaughter that had been concerted. His soldiers fell upon those poor, surprised victims of his greed, and made a speedy and bloody end of all. That first and chief step being taken, Oliverotto flung himself on his horse, and, gathering his men-at- arms about him, rode through Fermo on the business of butchering what other relatives and friends of Fogliano might remain. Among these were Raffaele della Rovere and two of his children, one of whom was inhumanly slaughtered in its mother’s lap.316 THE BULL RAMPANT Thereafter Oliverotto confiscated to his own uses the property of those whom he had murdered, and of those who, more fortunate, had contrived to elude his butcher’s hands. He dismissed the existing Council and replaced it by a government of his own. Which done — to shelter himself from the consequences — he sent word to the Pope that he held Fermo as Vicar of the Church. Whilst a portion of his army marched on Camerino, Cesare, armed with his pretext for the overthrow of Guidobaldo, set himself deliberately and by an elab- orate stratagem to the capture of Urbino. The cunning of the scheme is of an unsavoury sort, when considered by the notions that obtain to-day, for the stratagem was no better than an act of base treachery. Yet, lest even in this you should be in danger of judging Cesare Borgia by standards which cannot apply to his age, you will do well to consider that there is no lack of evidence that the fifteenth century applauded the business as a master stroke. Guidobaldo da Montefeltre was a good prince. None in all Italy was more beloved by his people, towards whom he bore himself with a kindly, pater- nal bonhomie. He was a cultured, scholarly man, a patron of the arts, happiest in the splendid library of his Palace of Urbino. It happened unfortunately, that he had no heir, which laid his dominions open to the danger of division amongst the neighbouring ereedy tyrants after his death. To avoid this he had adopted Francesco Maria della Rovere, hereditary Prefect of Sinigaglia, his sister’s child and a nephew of Car- dinal Giuliano della Rovere’s. There was wisdomURBINO AND CAMERINO B17 and foresight in the adoption, considering the favour enjoyed in Rome and in France by the powerful cardinal. From Nocera Cesare sent Guidobaldo a message calculated to allay whatever uneasiness he may have been feeling, and to throw him completely off his guard. The Duke notified him that he was marching upon Camerino — which was at once true and un- true — and begged Guidobaldo to assist him in this enterprise by sending him provisions to Gubbio, which he should reach on the morrow — since he was marching by way of Cagli and Sassoferrato. Further — and obviously with intent that the Duke of Urbino should reduce the forces at his disposal — he desired Guidobaldo to send Vitelli the support of a thousand men, which the latter had earlier solicited, but which Guidobaldo had refused to supply without orders from the Pope. Cesare concluded his letter with pro- testations of brotherly love — the Judas’s kiss which renders him detestable from the modern point of view. It all proved very reassuring to Guidobaldo who set his mind at ease and never bethought him of look- ing to his defences, whilst, from Nocera, Cesare made one of those sudden movements, terrible in their swiftness as the spring of a tiger — enabling him to drive home his claws where least expected. Leaving all baggage behind him, and with provisions for only three days, he brought his troops by forced marches to Cagli, within the Urbino State, and possessed him- self of it almost before the town had come to realize his presence. Not until the citadel, taken entirely by surprise, was in Cesare’s hands did a messenger speed to Guido-318 THE BULL RAMPANT bhaldo with the fearful tidings that the Duke of Valen- tinois was in arms, as an enemy, within the territory. Together with that message came others into the garden of the Zoccolanti monastery — that favourite resort of Guidobaldo’s — where he was indulging his not unusual custom of supping in the cool of that summer evening. They brought him word that, while Valentinois was advancing upon him from the south, a force of a thousand men were marching upon Urbino from Isola di Fano in the east, and twice that number through the passes of Sant’ Angelo and Verucchio in the north — all converging upon his capital. The attack had been shrewdly planned and timed, and if anything can condone the treachery by which Guidobaldo was lulled into his false security, it is the circumstance that this conduct of the affair avoided bloodshed — a circumstance not wholly negligible, and one that was ever a part of Cesare Borgia’s policy, save where punishment had to be inflicted or reprisals taken. Guidobaldo, seeing himself thus beset upon all sides at once, and being all unprepared for resistance, perceived that nothing but flight remained him; and that very night he left Urbino hurriedly, taking with him the boy Francesco Maria, and intending at first to seek shelter in his Castle of San Leo — a fortress that was practically impregnable. But already it was too late. The passes leading thither were by now in the hands of the enemy, as Guidobaldo discovered at dawn. Thereupon, changing his plans, he sent the boy and his few attendants to Bagno, and, himself, disguised as a peasant, took to the hills, despite the gout by which he was tormented. Thus he won toURBINO AND CAMERINO 319 Ravenna, which was fast becoming a home for de- throned princes. Urbino, meanwhile, in no case to resist, sent its castellan to meet Cesare and to make surrender to him — whereof Cesare, in the letter already mentioned, gives news to the Pope, excusing himself for having undertaken this thing without the Pope’s knowledge, but that “‘the treachery employed against me by Guidobaldo was so enormous that | could not suffer ¥e:”” Within a few hours of poor Guidobaldo’s flight, Cesare was housed in Urbino’s splendid palace, whose stupendous library was the marvel of all scholars of that day. Much of this, together with many of the art-treasures collected by the Montefeltri, Cesare began shortly afterwards to transfer to Cesena. In addition to publishing an edict against pillage and violence in the city of Urbino, Cesare made doubly sure that none should take place by sending his soldiers to encamp at Fermignano, retaining near him in Urbino no more than his gentlemen-at-arms. The capital being taken, the remainder of the duchy made ready surrender, all the strongholds announcing their submission to Cesare with the exception of that almost inaccessible Castle of San Leo, which capitu- lated only after a considerable resistance. From Urbino Cesare now entered into communi- cation with the Florentines, and asked that a repre- sentative should be sent to come to an agreement with him. In response to this request, the Republic sent him Bishop Soderini as her ambassador. The latter arrived in Urbino on June 25th and was im-320 THE BULL RAMPANT mediately and very cordially received by the Duke. With him, in the subordinate capacity of secretary, came a lean small-headed, tight-lipped man, with wide-set, intelligent eyes and prominent cheek-bones —one Niccold Macchiavelli, who, in needy circum- stances at present, and comparatively obscure, was destined to immortal fame. Thus did IWaeehiae elli meet Cesare Borgia for the first time, and, for all that we have no records of it, it is not to be doubted that his study of that remarkable man began then in Urbino, to be continued presently, as we shall see, when Macchiavelli returns to him in the quality of an ambassador himself. To Soderini the Duke expounded his just grievance, founded upon the F lorentine’ s non-observance of the treaty of Forno dei Campi; he demanded that a fresh treaty should be drawn up to replace the broken one, and that, for this purpose, Florence should change her government; for in the ruling one, after what had passed, he could repose no faith. He disclaimed all associations with the affair of Vitelli, but frankly de- clared himself glad of it, since it had, no doubt, led Florence to perceive what came of not keeping faith with him. He concluded by assuring Soderini that, with himself for their friend, the iiorentinee need feat no molestation from any one. But he begged that the Republic should declare herself in the matter, since, if she did not care to have him for her friend, ie was, of course, at liberty to make of him her enemy. So impressed was Soderini by the interview that on that same night he wrote to the Signory: This lord is very magnificent and splendid, and so spir- ited in feats of arms that there is nothing so great but thatURBINO AND CAMERINO 321 it must seem small to him. In the pursuit of glory and in the acquisition of dominions he never rests, and he knows neither danger nor fatigue. He moves so swiftly that he ar- rives at a place before it is known that he has set out for it. He knows how to make himself beloved of his soldiers, and he has in his service the best men of Italy. These things ender him victorious and formidable, and to these is yet to be added his perpetual good fortune. He argues [the Flor- entine envoy proceeds] with such sound reason that to dis- pute with him would be a long affair, for his wit and elo- quence never fail him (dello ingegno e della lingua si vale quanto vuole). You are to remember that this panegyric is one of the few surviving impressions of one who came into personal contact with Cesare, and of one, moreover, representing a Government more or less hostile, who would therefore have no reason to draw a favourable portrait of him for that Government's benefit. One single page of such testimony is worth a dozen vol- umes of speculation and inference drawn afterwards by men who never knew him — in many cases by men who never began to know his epoch. The envoy concludes by informing the Signory that he has the Duke’s assurances that the latter has no thought of attempting to deprive Florence of any of her possessions, and that “the object of his cam- paign has not been to tyrannize, but to extirpate tyrants.” Whilst Cesare awaited the Florentines’ reply to their ambassador’s communication, he withdrew to the camp at Fermignano, where he was sought on July 6th by a herald from Louis XII. This messenger came to exhort Cesare to embark upon no enterprise322 THE BULL RAMPANT against the Florentine Republic, because to offend Florence would be to offend the Majesty of France. Simultaneously, however, Florence received messages from the Cardinal d’Amboise, suggesting that they should come to terms with Valentinois by conceding him at least a part of what had been agreed in the treaty of Forno dei Campi. As a consequence, Soderini was able to inform Ce- sare that the Republic was ready to treat with him, but that first he must withdraw Vitelli from Arezzo, and compel him to yield up the captured fortresses. The Duke, not trusting — as he had frankly avowed —a Government which once already had broken faith with him, and perceiving that, if he whistled his war- dogs to heel as requested, he must lose the advantages of his position, refused to take any such steps until the treaty should be concluded. He consented, however, to enforce meanwhile an armistice. But now it happened that news reached Florence of the advance of Louis XII with an army of twenty thousand men, bound for Naples to settle the dispute with Spain. So the Republic — sly and treacherous as any other Italian Government of the Cinquecento — instructed Soderini to temporize with the Duke; to spend the days in amiable, inconclusive interviews and discussions of terms which the Signory did not mean to make. Thus they counted upon gaining time, until the arrival of the French should put an end to the trouble caused by Vitelli, and to the need for any compromise. But Cesare, though forced to submit, was not fooled by Soderini’s smooth, evasive methods. He too — having private sources of information in France —URBINO AND CAMERINO 323 was advised of the French advance and of the immi- nence of danger to himself in consequence of the af- fairs of Florence. And it occasioned him no surprise to see Soderini come on July roth to take his leave of him, advised by the Signory that the French vanguard was at hand, and that, consequently, the negotiations might now with safety be abandoned. To console him, Cesare had news on the morrow of the conquest of Camerino. The septuagenarian Giulio Cesare Varano had op- posed to the Borgia forces a stout resistance, what time he sent his two sons Pietro and Gianmaria to Venice for help. It was in the hope of this solicited assistance that he determined to defend his tyranny, and the war opened by a cavalry skirmish in which Venanzio Varano routed the Borgia horse under the command of the Duke of Gravina. Thereafter, how- ever, the Varani had to endure a siege; and the old story of the Romagna sieges was repeated. Varano had given his subjects too much offence in the past, and it was for his subjects now to call the reckoning. A strong faction, led by a patrician youth of Ca- merino, demanded the surrender of the State, and, upon being resisted, took arms and opened the gates to the troops of Valentinois. The three Varani were taken prisoners. Old Giulio Cesare was shut up in the Castle of Pergola, where he shortly afterwards died — which was not wonderful or unnatural at his time of life, and does not warrant Guicciardini for stating, without authority, that he was strangled. Venanzio and Annibale were imprisoned in the fortress of Cat- tolica.324 THE BULL RAMPANT In connection with this surrender of Camerino, Cesare wrote the following affectionate letter to his sister Lucrezia — who was dangerously ill at Ferrara in consequence of her delivery of a still-born child: Most Illustrious and most Excellent Lady, our very dear Sister, — Confident of the circumstance that there can be no more efficacious and salutary medicine for the indisposi- tion from which you are at present suffering than the an- nouncement of good and happy news, we advise you that at this very moment we have received sure tidings of the cap- ture of Camerino. We beg that you will do honour to this message by an immediate improvement, and inform us of it, because, tormented as we are to know you so ill, nothing, not even this felicitous event, can suffice to afford us pleas- ure. We beg you also kindly to convey the present to the Illustrious Lord Don Alfonso, your husband and our bes loved Brother-in-law, to whom we are not writing to-day.CHAPTER XIV THE REVOLT OF THE CONDOTTIERI HE coincidence of the arrival of the French army with the conquest of Urbino and Camerino and the Tuscan troubles caused one more to be added to that ceaseless stream of rumours that flowed through Italy concerning the Borgias. This time the envy and malice that are ever provoked by success and power gave voice in that rumour to the thing it hoped, and there ensued as pretty a comedy as you shall find in the pages of history. The rumour ran that Louis XII, resentful and mistrustful of the growth of Cesare’s might, which tended to weaken France in Italy and to become a menace to the French dominions, was coming to make an end of him. Instantly Louis’s Court in Milan was thronged by all whom Cesare had offended — and they made up by now a goodly crowd, for a man may not rise so swiftly to such eminence without raising a rich crop of enemies. Meanwhile, however, Valentinois in the Monte- feltre Palace at Urbino remained extremely at ease. He was not the man to be without intelligences. In the train of Louis was Francesco Troche, the Pope’s confidential chamberlain and Cesare’s devoted serv- ant, who, possessed of information, was able to advise Valentinois precisely what were the intentions of the King of France. Gathering from these advices that it was Louis’s wish that the Florentines should not be326 THE BULL RAMPANT molested further, and being naturally anxious not to run counter to the French King’s intentions, Cesare perceived that the time for passivity in the affairs of Florence was at an end, and that the time to take action had arrived. So he dispatched an envoy to Vitelli, ordering his instant evacuation of Arezzo and his withdrawal with his troops from Tuscany, and he backed the command by a threat to compel Vitelli by force of arms, and to punish disobedience by depriving him of his State of Citta di Castello — ‘“‘a matter,’ Cesare informed him, ‘‘ which would be easily accomplished, as the best men of that State have already offered themselves to me.” It was a command which Vitelli had no choice but to obey, not being in sufficient force to oppose the Duke. So on July 29th, with Gianpaolo Baglioni, he relinquished the possession of Arezzo and departed out of Tuscany, as he had been bidden. But so in- censed was he by this intervention between himself and his revenge, and so freely did he express his re- sentment, that it was put about at once that he in- tended to go against Cesare. And that is the first hint of the revolt of the con- dottieri. Having launched that interdict of his, Cesare, on July 25th, in the garb of a knight of Saint John of Jerusalem, and with only four attendants, departed | secretly from Urbino to repair to Milan and King Louis. He paused for fresh horses at Forli on the mor- row, and on the 28th reached Ferrara, where he re- mained for a couple of hours to visit Lucrezia, who was now in convalescence. Ahead of him he dis-THE REVOLT OF THE CONDOTTIERI 327 patched, thence, a courier to Milan to announce his coming, and, accompanied by Alfonso d’Este, re- sumed his journey. Meanw hile, the assembly of Cesare’s enemies had been increasing daily in Milan, whither they repaired to support Louis and to vent nein hatred of Cesare and their grievances against him. There, amongst others, might be seen the Duke of Urbino, Pietro Va- rano (one of the sons of the deposed era of Came- rino), Giovanni Sforza of Pesaro, and Francesco Gon- zaga of Mantua — which latter was ever ready to turn about as the wind blew, and was now loudest in his denunciations of Cesare and eagerly adv ocating the formation of a league against him. oe received the news of Cesare’s approach, and clear, with a nice sense of humour — i ae mater secret until within a few hours of the Duke’s actual arrival. On the morning of August sth, according to Bernardi,' he whispered the information in Trivulzio’s ear — aad W hispered 1 it loudly enough to be overheard by those courtiers who stood nearest. Whatever check their satisfaction at the supposed state of things may have received then, was as noth- ing to their feelings a few hours later when they wit- nessed the greeting that passed between King and Duke. Under their uneasy eyes Louis rode forth to meet his visitor, and gave him a glad and friendly welcome, addressing him as ‘ ‘cousin” and “dear rela- tive,’ and so, no doubt, striking dismay into the Rete of ihoee courtiers, who may well have deemed that perhaps they had expressed themselves too freely. 1 Cronache Forlivese.328 THE BULL RAMPANT Louis, in person, accompanied Valentinois to the apartments prepared for him in the Castle of Milan, and on the morrow gave a banquet and commanded merry-makings in his visitor’s honour. Conceive the feelings of those deposed tyrants and their friends, and the sudden collapse of the hopes which they had imagined the King to be encouraging. They did, of course, the only thing there was to do. They took their leave precipitately and went their ways — all save Gonzaga, whom the King retained that he might make his peace with Cesare, and engage in friendship with him, a friendship consolidated there and then by the benrothal of their infant chil- dren: little Francesco Gonzaga and Louise de Valen- tinois, aged two, the daughter whom Cesare had never beheld and was never to behold. Two factors were at work in the interests of Valen- tinois — the coming war in Naples with the Spaniard, which caused Louis to desire to stand well with the Pope; and the ambition of Louis’s friend and coun- sellor, the Cardinal d’Amboise, to wear the tiara, ich urged this prelate to stand well with Geet himself, since the latter’s influence in the election of a Pope to succeed his father should be paramount with the Sacred College. Therefore, that they might serve their own interests in the end, both King and Cardinal served Cesare’s in the mean time. The Duke of Valentinois’s visit to Milan and the manner of it had served to increase the choler of Vi- telli, who accounted that by this action Cesare had put him in disgrace with the King of France; and Vi- telli cried out bitterly that thus was he repaid for hav-THE REVOLT OF THE CONDOTTIERI 329 ing sought to make Cesare King of Tuscany. In such high dudgeon was the fierce Tyrant of Citta di Cas- tello that he would not go to pay his court to Louis, and was still the more angry to hear of the warm wel- come accorded in Milan to the Cardinal Orsini. In this he read approval of the Orsini for having stood neutral in the Florentine business, and, by inference from that, disapproval of himself. Before accusing Valentinois of treachery to his con- dottieri, before saying that he shifted the blame of the Tuscan affair on to the shoulders of his captains, it would be well to ascertain that there was any blame to shift — that is to say, any blame that must origin- ally have fallen upon Cesare. Certainly he made no effort to restrain Vitelli until the King of France had arrived and he had secret information which caused him to deem it politic to intervene. But of what avail until that moment would any but an armed interven- tion have been with so vindictive and obstinate a man, and what manner of fool would not Cesare have been tohavespent his strength in battle with his own condot- tieri for the purpose of befriending a people who had never shown themselves other than his own enemies? Like the perfect egotist he was, he sat on the fence, and took pleasure in the spectacle of the harassing of his enemies by his friends, prepared to reap any advantages there might be, but equally prepared to avoid any disadvantages. It was not heroic, it was not noble; but it was very human, and extremely Cinquecentist. Cesare was with the King of France in Genoa at the end of August, and remained in his train until Sep-339 THE BULL RAMPANT tember 2d, when finally he took his leave of him. When they heard of his departure from the Court of Louis, his numerous enemies experienced almost as much chagrin as that which had been occasioned them by his going thither. For they had been consol- ing themselves of late with a fresh rumour; and < again they were believ1 ing what it pleased them to believe. Rumours, you perceive, were never wanting where the Borgias were concerned, and it may be that you are beginning to rate these voces populi at their proper value, and to apprehend the worth of many of those that have been embalmed as truths in the abiding records. This latest rumour had it that Louis was purposely keeping Valentinois by him, and intended ultimately to carry him off to France, and so put an end to the disturbances which he was creating in Italy. Whata consolation would not that have been to those Italian princelings to whose undoing he had warred! And can you marvel that they believed and circulated so readily the thing for w hich they hoped so fondly? By your appreciation of this may you measure the fresh disappointment they endured. So mistaken were they, indeed, as it now trans- spired, that Louis had actually, at last, removed his protection from Bologna, under the persuasion of Ce- sare and the Pope. Before the Duke took his depar- ture from the Court of King Louis, the latter entered into a treaty with him in that connection to supply him with three hundred lances: “De bailler au Valen- tinois trois cents lances pour l’aider a conquérir Bologne au nome de |’Eglise, et opprimer les Ursins, Ballons et Vitelozze.”’THE REVOLT OF THE CONDOTTIERI 331 It was a double-dealing age, and Louis’s attitude in this affair sorted well with it. Feeling that he owed Bologna some explanation, he presently sent a singu- larly ‘lame one by Claude de Seyssel. He put it that the Bentivogli personally were none the less under his protection cher they had been hitherto, but that the terms of the protection provided that it was granted exclusively of the rights and authority of the Holy Roman See over Bologna, and that the King could not embroil himself with the Pope. With such a shifty message went M. de Seyssel to make it quite clear to Bentivogli what was his position. And on the heels of it came, on September 2d, a papal brief citing Benti- vogli ated his two sons to appear before the Pontiff within fifteen days for the purpose of considering with His Holiness the matter of the pacification and betes government of Bologna, which for so many years had been so disorderly and turbulent. Thus the Pope’s summons, with a menace that was all too thinly veiled. 3ut Bentivogli was not taken unawares. He was not even astonished. Ever since Cesare’s departure from Rome in the previous spring he had been dis- posing against such a possibility as this — fortifying Bologna, throwing up outworks and erecting bastions beyond the city, and levying and arming men, in all of which he depended largely upon the citizens anal par- ticularly upon the art-guild, which was devoted to the House of Bentivogll. Stronger than the affection for their lord — which, when all is said, was none too great in Bologna — was the deep- Seared hatred of the clergy entertained by the Bolognese. This it was that rallied to Bentivogli332 THE BULL RAMPANT such men as Fileno della Tuate, who actually hated him. But it was a choice of evils with Fileno and many of his kidney. Detesting the ruling house, and resenting the injustices it practised, they detested the priests still more — so much that they would have taken sides with Satan himself against the Pontificals. It was in this spirit that they carried their swords to Bentivoglt. Upon the nobles Bentivogli could not count — less than ever since the cold-blooded murder of the Mares- cotti; but in the burghers’ adherence he deemed him- self secure, and, indeed, on September 17th he had some testimony of it. On that date — the fortnight’s grace expiring — the brief was again read to the Reggimento; but it was impossible to adopt any resolution. The people were in arms, and, with enormous uproar, protested that they would not allow Giovanni Bentivogli or his sons to go to Rome, lest they should be in danger once they had left their own State. Italy was full of rumours at the time of Cesare’s proposed emprise against Bologna, and it was added that he intended, further, to nie himself master of Citta di Castello and Perugia, and thus, by depriving them of their tyrannies, punish Vitelli and Bagliont for their defection. This was the natural result of the terms of Ce- sare’s treaty with France having become known; but the part of it which regarded the Orsini, Vitelli, and Baglioni was purely provisional. Considering that these condottieri were now at odds with Gen they might see fit to consider themselves bound to Benti- vogli by the treaty of Villafontana, signed by VitelliTHE REVOLT OF THE CONDOTTIERI 333 and Orsini on the Duke’s behalf at the time of the capitulation of Castel Bolognese. T hey might choose to di sregard the fact that this treaty h ad alre eady been violated by Bentivogli himself, through the non-fulfil- ment of its terms, aad refuse to proceed against him upon being so bidden by Valentinois. It was for such a contingency as this that provision was made by the clause concerning them in Cesare’s treaty with Louis. The Orsini were still in the Duke’s service, in com- mand of troops levied for him and paid by Hae and considering that with them Cesare had no quarrel, it is by no means clear w hy they should have gone over to the alliance of the condottieri that was now form- ing against the Duke. Join it, howev er, they did. The =v, too, were in the treaty of V illafontana; but that they should consider themselves bound by. it would ha rad they urged it — more in the nature of a pretext than a reason. But they chose a pretext even more slender. They gave out that in Milan Louis XII had told Cardinal Orsini that the Pope’s 1n- tention was to destroy his House. To accept such a statement as true, we should have to believe in a disloyalty and a doub ies dealing on the part of Louis a alt ogether incredible because unut- terably foolish. To what end should he, on the one side, engage to assist Cesare with three hundred lances to “oppress” the Orsini — if necessary, and among others — whilst, on the other, he goes to Or- sini Sith the story w hich they eerie to him? What a mean, treacherous, unkingly hgure must he not cut as a consequence! He may have been — we know, indeed, that he was — no more averse to334 THE BULL RAMPANT double-dealing than any other Cinquecentist; but he was probably as averse to being found out in a mean- ness and made to look contemptible as any double- dealer of our own times. It is a consideration worth digesting. When word of the story put about by the Orsini was carried to the Pope he strenuously denied the imputation, and informed the Venetian ambassador that he had written to complain of this to the King of France, and that, far from such a thing being true, Cesare was so devoted to the Orsini as to be “more Orsini than Borgian.”’ It is further worth considering that the defection of the Orsini was neither immediate nor spontaneous, as must surely have been the case had the story been true. It was the Baglioni and Vitelli only who first met to plot at Todi, to declare that they would not move against their ally of Bologna, and to express the hope that they might bring the Orsini to the same mind. They succeeded so well that the second meet- ing was held at Magione — a place belonging to the powerful Cardinal Orsini, situated near the Baglioni’s stronghold of Perugia. Vitellozzo was carried thither on his bed, so stricken with the morbo gallico — which in Italy was besetting most princes, temporal and ecclesiastical — that he was unable to walk. Gentile and Gianpaolo Baglioni, Cardinal Gian- battista Orsini, Francesco Orsini, Duke of Gravina, Paolo Orsini, the bastard son of the Archbishop of Trani, Pandolfo Petrucci, Lord of Siena, and Hermes Bentivogli were all present. The last-named, prone to the direct methods of murder by which he had rid Bologna of the Marescotti, is said to have declaredTHE REVOLT OF THE CONDOTTIERI 336 that he would kill Cesare Borgia if he but had the op- portunity, whilst Vitelli swore solemnly that within a year he would slay or capture the Duke, or else drive him out of Italy. From this it will be seen that the diet of Magione was no mere defensive alliance, but actually an offen- sive one, with the annihilation of Cesare Borgia for object. They certainly had the power to carry out their res- olutions, for whilst Cesare disposed at that moment of not more than twenty-five hundred foot, three hundred men-at-arms, and the one hundred lances of his Cesarean guard of patricians, the confederates had in arms some nine thousand foot and one thou- sand horse. Conscious of their superior strength, they determined to strike at once, before Cesare should be further supported by the French lances, and to make sure of him by assailing him on every side at once. To this end it was resolved that Bentivogli should in- stantly march upon Imola, where Cesare lay, whilst the others should possess themselves of Urbino and Pesaro simultaneously. They even approached Florence and Venice in the matter, inviting the Republics to come into the league against Valentinois. The Florentines, however, could not trust such ene- mies of their own as Vitelli and the Orsini, nor dared they join in an enterprise which had for scope to make war upon an ally of France; and they sent word to Cesare of their resolve to enter into no schemes against him. The Venetians would gladly have moved to crush a man who had snatched the Romagna from under their336 THE BULL RAMPANT covetous eyes; but in view of the league with France they dared not. What they dared, they did. They wrote to Louis at length of the evils that were befall- ing Italy at the hands of the Duke of Valentinois, and of the dishonour to the French crown which lay for Louis in his alliance with Cesare Borgia. They even went so far —and most treacherously, considering the league — as to allow their famous captain, Barto- lomeo d’ Alviano, to reconduct Guidobaldo to Urbino, as we shall presently see. Had the confederates but kept faith with one an- other Cesare’s knell had soon been tolled. But they were a weak-kneed pack of traitors, irresolute in their hatreds as in their friendships. The Orsini hung back. They urged that they did not trust themselves to at- tack Cesare with men actually in his pay; whilst Ben- tivogli — treacherous by nature to the backbone of him — actually went so far as to attempt to open Se- cret negotiations with Cesare through Ercole d’ Este of Ferrara.CHAPTER XV MACCHIAVELLI’S LEGATION N October 2d news of the revolt of the condot- tier! and the diet of Magione had reached the Vatican and rendered the Pope uneasy. Cesare, how- ever, had been informed of it some time before at Imola, where he was awaiting the French lances that should enable him to raid the Bolognese and drive out the Bentivogli. Where another might have been paralyzed by a defection which left him almost without an army, and would have taken the course of sending envoys to the rebels to attempt to make terms and by conces- sions to patch up a treaty, Cesare, with characteristic courage, assurance, and promptitude of action, flung out officers on every side to levy him fresh troops. His great reputation as a condottiero, the fame of his wealth and his notorious liberality, stood him now in excellent stead. The response to his call was instan- taneous. Soldiers of fortune and mercenaries showed the trust they had in him, and flocked to his standard from every quarter. One of the first to arrive was Gasparo Sanseverino, known as Fracassa, a condot- tiero of great renown, who had been in the pontifical service since the election of Pope Alexander. He was a valuable acquisition to Cesare, who placed him in command of the horse. Another was Lodovico Pico della Mirandola, who brought a small condotta of sixty lances and sixty light horse. Ranieri della Sax338 THE BULL RAMPANT setta rode in at the head of one hundred mounted ar- balesters, and Francesco de Luna with a body of fifty arquebusiers.* Valentinois sent out Raffaele dei Pazzi and Gale- otto Pallavicini, the one into Lombardy to recruit one thousand Gascons, the other to raise a body of Swiss mercenaries. Yet, when all is said, these were but supplementary forces; the main strength of Ce- sare’s new army lay in dhe troops raised in the Ro- magna, which, faithful to him and confident of his power anti success, rallied to him now in the hour of his need. Than his there can be no more eloquent testimony to the quality of his rule. In command of these Romagnuoli troops he placed such Romagnuolt captains as Dionigio di Naldo and Marcantonio da Fano, thereby again affording proof of his wisdom, by giving these soldiers their own compatriots and men with whom they were in sympathy for their leaders. With such speed had he acted, and such was the in- fluence of his name, that already, within a fortnight, by October 14th, he had agecribled an army of up- wards of six thousand men, which his officers were diligently drilling at Imola, whilst daily now were the French lances expected, as rel as the Swiss and Gas- con mercenaries he had sent to levy. It may well be that this gave the confederates pause, and suggested to them that they should recon- sider their position and ask themselves whether the opportunity for crushing Cesare had not slipped by whilst they had stood iaecdeu It was Pandolfo Petrucci who took the first step 1 The arquebus, although it had existed in Italy for nearly a century, was only just coming into general use.MACCHIAVELLI’S LEGATION 339 towards a reconciliation, by sending word to Valen- tinois that 1t was not his intention to take any measures that might displease his excellency. His excellency will no doubt have smiled at that belated assurance from the sparrow to the hawk. Then, a few days later, came news that Giulio Orsini had entered into an agreement with the Pope. This appeared to give the confederacy its death-blow, and Paolo Orsin1 was on the point of setting out to seek Cesare at Imola for the purpose of treating with him — which would definitely have given burial to the revolt — when sud- denly there befell an event which threw the scales the other way. Cesare’s people were carrying out some work in the Castle of San Leo, in the interior of which a new wall was in course of erection. For the purposes of this, ereat baulks of timber were being brought into the castle from the surrounding country. Some peasants, headed by one Brizio, who had been a squire of Guidobaldo’s, availed themselves of the circumstance to capture the castle by a stratagem. Bringing for- ward some great masses of timber and felled trees, they set them down along the drawbridge in such a manner as to prevent its being hoisted. This done, an attack in force was directed against the fortress. The place, whose natural defences rendered it practically impregnable, was but slightly manned; being thus surprised, and unable to raise the bridge, it was power- less to offer any resistance, so that the Montefeltre peasants, having killed every Borgia soldier of the garrison, took possession of it and held it for Duke Guidobaldo. This capture of San Leo was as a spark that fired a ane: - a ne ne =340 THE BULL RAMPANT train. Instantly the hardy hillmen of Urbino were In arms to reconquer Guidobaldo’s duchy for him. Stronghold after stronghold fell into their hands, until they were in Urbino itself. They made short work of the capital’s scanty defenders, flung Cesare’s gover- nor into prison, and fit vally abetined possession of the citadel. It was the news of this that caused the confederates once more to pause. Before declaring themselves, they waited to see what action Venice would pales whilst in the mean time they sought shelter behind a declaration that they were soldiers of the Church and would do nothing against the will of the Pontiff. They were confidently assured that Venice would befriend Guidobaldo, and help him back to his throne now that his own people had done so much towards that end. It remained, however, to be seen whether Venice would at fers same time befriend Pesaro and Rimini. Instantly Cesare Borgia— who was assailed by grave doubts concerning the Venetians — took his measures. He ordered Bartolomeo da Capranica, who was chief in command of his troops in Urbino, to fall back upon Rimini with all his companies, w hilst to Pesaro the Duke dispatched Michele da Corella and Ramiro de Lorqua. It was a busy time of action with the Duke at Imola, and yet, amid all the occupation which this equip- ment of a new army must have given hin, he still found time for diplomatic measures, and, taking ad- vantage of the expressed friendliness of Florence, he had replied by desiring the Signory to send an envoy to confer with him. Florence responded byMACCHIAVELLI’S LEGATION 341 d sending, as her representative, that same Niccold Macchiavelli who had earlier accompanied Soderini on a similar mission to Valentinois, and who had meanwhile been advanced to the dignity of Secretary of State. Macchiavelli has left us, in his dispatches to his Government, the most precious and valuable informa- tion concerning that period of Cesare Borgia’s history during which he was with the Duke on the business of his legation. Not only is it the rare evidence of an eye-witness that Macchiavelli affords us, but the evi- dence, as we have said, of one endowed with singu- lar acumen and an extraordinary gift of psychological analysis. The one clear and certain inference to be drawn, not only from those dispatches, but from the Florentine secretary’s later writings, is that, at close quarters with Cesare Borgia, a critical witness of his methods, he conceived for him a transcending ad- miration which was later to find its fullest expression in his immortal book “The Prince” —a book, re- member, compiled to serve as a guide in govern- ment to Giuliano de’ Medici, the feeble brother of Pope Leo X, a book inspired by Cesare Borgia, who is the model prince held up by Macchiavelli for emula- tion. Does it serve any purpose, in the face of this work from the pen of the acknowledged inventor of state- craft, to describe Cesare’s conquest of the Romagna by opprobrious epithets and sweeping statements of condemnation and censure — statements kept care- fully general, and never permitted to enter into detail which must destroy their own ends and expose their falsehood?342 THE BULL RAMPANT Gregorovius, in this connection, is as full of con- tradictions as any man must be who does not sift out the truth and rigidly follow it in his writings. Con- sider the following scrupulously translated extracts from his ‘“‘Geschichte der Stadt Rom”: (a) Cesare departed from Rome to resume his bloody work in the Romagna. (6)... the frightful deeds performed by Cesare on both sides of the Apennines. He assumes the semblance of an ex- terminating angel, and performs such hellish iniquities that we can only shudder at the contemplation of the evil of which human nature is capable. And now, pray, consider and compare with those the following excerpt from the very next page of that same monumental work: Before him [Cesare] cities trembled; the magistrates prostrated themselves in the dust; sycophantic courtiers praised him to the stars. Yet it is undeniable that his govern- ment was energetic and good; for the first time Romagna en- joyed peace and was rid of her vampires. In the name of Ce- sare justice was administered by Antonio di Monte Sansovino, President of the Ruota of Cesena, 4 man universally beloved. It is almost as if the truth had slipped out unawares, for the first period hardly seems a logical prelude to the second, by which it is largely contradicted. If Cesare’s government was SO good that Romagna knew peace at last and was rid of her vampires, why did cities tremble before him? There 1s, by the way, no evidence of such trepidations in any of the chron- icles of the conquered States, one and all of which hail Cesare as their deliverer. Why, if he was held sn such terror, did city after city — as we have seenMACCHIAVELLI’S LEGATION 343 — spontaneously offer itself to Cesare’s dominion? But to rebut those statements of Gregorovius’s there is scarce the need to pose these questions; sufficiently does Gregorovius himself rebut them. The men who praised Cesare, the historian tells us, were sycophantic courtiers. But where is the wonder of his being praised if his government was as good as Gregorovius admits it to have been? What was un- natural in that praise? What so untruthful as to de- serve to be branded sycophantic? And by what right is an historian to reject as sycophants the writers who praise a man, whilst accepting every word of his de- tractors as the words of inspired evangelists, even when their falsehoods are so transparent as to provoke the derision of the thoughtful and analytic? As L’Espinois points out in his masterly essay in the “Revue des Questions Historiques,” Gregorovius refuses to recognize in Cesare Borgia the Messiah of a united Central Italy, but considers him merely as a high-flying adventurer; whilst Villari, in his “Life and Times of Macchiavelli,” tells you bluntly that Cesare Borgia was neither a statesman nor a soldier, but a brigand-chief. These are mere words; and to utter words is easier than to make them good. ~ High-flying adventurer,” or “‘brigand-chief,” by all means, if it please you. What but a high-flying adventurer was the woodcutter, Muzio Attendolo, founder of the ducal House of Sforza? What but a high-flying adventurer was that Count Henry of Burgundy who founded the kingdom of Portugal? What else was the Norman bastard William, who conquered England? What else the artillery officer,344 THE BULL RAMPANT Napoleon Bonaparte, who became Emperor of the French? What else was the founder of any dynasty but a high-flying adventurer — or a brigand-chief, if the melodramatic term is more captivating to your fancy? These terms are used to belittle Cesare. They achieve no more, however, than to belittle those who pen them; for, even as they are true, the marvel is that the admirable matter in these truths appears to have escaped those authors. What else Gregorovius opines — that Cesare was no Messiah of United Italy — 1s true enough. Cesare was the Messiah of Cesare. The well-being of Italy for its own sake exercised his mind not so much as the well-being of the horse he rode. He wrought for his own aggrandizement — but he wrought wisely; and, whilst the end in view is no more to be censured than the ambition of any man, the means employed are in the highest degree to be commended, since the well- being of the Romagna, which was not an aim, was, nevertheless, an essential and praiseworthy incident. When it can be shown that every other of those conquerors who cut heroic figures in history were purest altruists, it will be time to damn Cesare Borgia for his egotism. What Villari says, for the purpose of adding rhe- torical force to his “brigand-chief” — that Cesare was no statesman and no soldier — is entirely of a piece with the rest of the chapter in which it occurs / — a chapter rich in sweeping inaccuracies concerning Cesare. But it is staggering to find the statement 11 such a place, amid Macchiavelli’s letters on Cesare, 1In his Niccolo Macchiavellt.MACCHIAVELLI’S LEGATION 345 breathing an obvious and profound admiration of the Duke’s talents as a politician and a soldier — an admiration which later is to gO perilously near to Peo To Macchiavelli, Cesare is the incarnation of a hazy ideal, as is abundantly shown in ‘‘The Prince.’ For V ‘lari to reconcile all this with his own views must seem impossible. Impossible it is. Yet Villari achieves it, with an audacity that is almost comical. No — he practically tells you — this Macchiave Ili, who daily saw and spoke with Cesare for two months (and during a critical time, which is when men best reveal their natures), this acute Florentine — the acutest man of his age, perhaps — who studied and analysed Cesare, and sent his Government the results of his analyses, and was inspired by them later to write ‘The Prince” — this man did not know Cesare Borgia. He wrote, not about Cesare himself, but about a creation of his own intellect. That is what Villari pretends. Macchiavelli, the representative of a power unfriendly at heart under the mask of the expedient friendliness, his mind al- ready poisoned by all the rumours current throughout NG aly, comes on this mission to Valentinois. Florence, fearing and hating Valentinois as she does, would doubtless take pleasure in detractory advices. Other ambassadors — particularly those of Venice — pander to their Governments’ wishes in this respect, conscious that there is a sycophancy in slander contrasted with which the ordinary sycophancy of flattery is as water unto wine; they diligently send home every scrap of indecent or scandalous rumour they can pick up in the Roman ante-chambers, however unlikely, uncorrob-346 THE BULL RAMPANT orated, or irrelevant to the business of an ambassa- dor. But Macchiavelli, in Cesare Borgia’s presence, 1s overawed by his greatness, his force and his intellect, and these attributes engage him in his dispatches. These same dispatches are a stumbling-block to all who prefer to tread the beaten, sensational track and to see in Cesare Borgia a villain of melodrama, a monster of crime, brutal, and, consequently, of no intellectual force. But Villari contrives to step more or less neatly over that formidable obstacle, by tell- ing you that Macchiavelli presents to you not really Cesare Borgia, but a creation of his own intellect which he had come to admire. It is a simple, elemen- tary expedient by means of which every piece of his- torical evidence ever penned may be destroyed — in- cluding all that which defames the House of Borgia. Macchiavelli arrived at Imola on the evening of October 7, 1502, and, all travel-stained as he was, repaired straight to the Duke, as if the message with which he was charged was one that would not brook a moment’s delay in its delivery. Actually, however, he had nothing to offer Cesare but the empty ex- pressions of Florence's friendship and the hopes she founded upon Cesare’s reciprocation. The crafty young Florentine — he was thirty-three at the time — was sent to temporize and to avoid committing him- self or his Government. Valentinois listened to the specious compliments, and replied by similar protestations and by reminding Florence how he had curbed the hand of those very condottieri who had now rebelled against him as aMACCHIAVELLI’S LEGATION 347 consequence. He showed himself calm and tranquil at the loss of Urbino, telling Macchiavelli that he “had not forgotten the way to reconquer it,’ when it should suit him. Of the revolted condottieri he contemptuously said that he accounted them fools for not having known how to choose a more favourable moment in which to harm him, and that they would presently find such a fire burning under their feet as would call for more water to quench it than such men as these commanded. Meanwhile, the success of those rustics of Urbino who had risen, and the ease of their victories, had fired others of the territory to follow their example. Fossombrone and Pergola were the next to rebel and to put the Borgia garrisons to the sword; but, in their reckless audacity, they chose their moment ill, for Michele da Corella was at hand with his lances, and, although his orders had been to repair straight to Pesaro, he ventured to depart from them to the extent of turning aside to punish the insurgence of those towns by launching his men-at-arms upon them and subjecting them to an appalling and pitiless sack. When Cesare heard the news of it and the details of the horrors that had been perpetrated, he turned, smiling cruelly, to Macchiavelli, who was with him, and invited him to observe that ‘‘the constellations this year seem unfavourable to rebels.” A battle of wits was engaged between the Floren- tine Secretary of State and the Duke of Valentinois, each mistrustful of the other. In the end Cesare, a little out of patience at so much inconclusiveness,348 THE BULL RAMPANT though outwardly preserving his immutable serenity, sought to come to erips by demanding that Florence should declare plainly whether he was to account her his friend or not. But this was precisely what Mac- chiavelli’s instructions forbade him from declaring. He evaded that he must first write to the Signory, and begged the Duke to tell him what terms he pro- posed should form the treaty. But now it was for the Duke to fence and to avoid in his turn a direct answer, desiring that Florence should open the negotiations and that from her should come the first proposal. He reminded Macchiavelli that Florence would do well to come to a decision before the Orsini sought to patch up a peace with him, since, once that was done, there would be fresh difficulties, owing, of course, to Orsini’s hostility to the existing Florentine Govern- ment. And of such a peace there was now every indication, Paolo Orsini having at last sent Cesare proposals for rejoining him, subject to his abandon- ing the Bologna enterprise (in which, the Orsini ar- sued, they could not bear a hand without breaking faith with Bentivogli) and turning against Florence. Vitelli, at the same time, announced himself ready to return to Cesare’s service, but first he required some “honest security. Well might it have pleased Cesare to oblige the Orsini to the letter, and to give a lesson in straight- dealing to these shuffling Florentine pedlars who sent a nimble-witted Secretary of State to hold him in play with sweet words barren of meaning. But there was always France and her wishes to be considered, and he could not commit himself. So his answer was peremptory and condescending. He told the con-MACCHIAVELLY’S LEGATION 349 federates that, if they desired to show themselves his friends, they could set about reconquering and holding Urbino for him. 5 It looked as if the condottieri agreed: for on Octo- ber 11th Vitelli seized Castel Durante, and on the next day Baglioni was in possession of Cag. In view of this, Cesare ordered the troops which he had withdrawn to advance again upon the city of Urbino and take possession of it. But suddenly, on the 12th, a messenger from Guidobaldo rode into Urbino to announce their Duke’s return within a few days to defend the subjects who had shown them- selves so loyal to him. This, the shifty confederates accounted, must be done with the support of Venice, whence they concluded that Venice must have de- clared war against Valentinois, and again they treach- erously changed sides. The Orsini proceeded to prompt action. Assured of their return to himself, and counting upon their support in Urbino, Cesare had contented himself with sending thither a small force of one hundred lances and two hundred light horse. Upon these fell the Or- sini, and put them to utter rout at Calmazzo, near Fossombrone, capturing Ugo di Moncada, who com- manded one of the companies, but missing Michele da Corella, who contrived to escape to Fossombrone. The conquerors entered Urbino that evening, and, as if to put it on record that they burnt their boats with Valentinois, Paolo Orsini wrote that same night to the Venetian Senate advices of the victory won. Three days later — on October 18th — Guidobaldo, accompanied by his nephews Ottaviano Fregioso and Gianmaria Varano, reéntered his capital amid the350 THE BULL RAMPANT cheers and enthusiasm of his loyal and loving people. Vitelli made haste to place his artillery at Guido- baldo’s disposal for the reduction of Cagli, Pergola, and Fossombrone, which were still held for Valenti- nois, whilst Oliverotto da Fermo went with Gianmaria Varano to attempt the reconquest of Camerino, and Gianpaolo Baglioni repaired to kano, which, however, he did not attempt to enter as an enemy ~~ an idle course, seeing how loyally the town held for Cesare — but as a ducal condottiero. Fired by Orsint’s example, Bentivogli also took the offensive, and began by ordering the canonists of Bologna University to go to the churches and encour- age the people to disregard the excommunications jaunched against the city. He wrote to the King of France to complain that Cesare had broken the treaty of Villafontana by which he had undertaken never again to molest Bologna — naively ignoring the cir- cumstance that he himself had been the first to violate the terms of that same treaty, and that it was precisely upon such erounds that Cesare was threatening him. Thus matters stood, the confederates turning anx- ious eyes towards Venice, and, haply, beginning to wonder whether the Republic was indeed going to move to their support as they had so confidently ex- pected, and realizing perhaps by now their new rash- ness, and the ruin that awaited them should Venice fail them. And fail them Venice did. The Venetians had received a reply from Louis XII to that letter in which they had heaped odium upon the Borgia and shown the King what dishonour to himself dwelt in his alliance with Valentinots. Their criticisms and accusations were ignored in that reply, which resolvedMACCHIAVELLI’S LEGATION 351 itself into nothing more than a threat that “if they opposed themselves to the enterprise of the Church they would be treated by him as enemies,” and of this letter he sent Cesare a copy, as Cesare himself told Macchiavelli. So, whilst Valentinois in Imola was able to breathe more freely, the condottieri in Urbino may well have been overcome with apprehension at their position upon finding themselves left in the lurch by Venice. None was better aware than Pandolfo Petrucci of the folly of their action and of the danger that now im- pended, and he sent his secretary to Valentinois to say that if the Duke would but reassure them on the score of his intentions they would return to him and aid him in recovering what had been lost. Following upon this message came Paolo Orsini himself to Imola on the 2th, disguised as a courier, having first taken the precaution of obtaining a safe- conduct. He left again on the 29th, bearing with him a treaty the terms of which had been agreed between himself and Cesare during that visit. These were that Cesare should engage to protect the States of all his allied condottieri, and they to serve him and the Church in return. A special convention was to follow, to decide the matter of the Bentivogli, which should be resolved by Valentinois, Cardinal Orsini, and Pandolfo Petrucci in consultation, their judgment to be binding upon all. Cesare’s contempt for the Orsini and the rest of the shifty men who formed that confederacy — that ‘diet of bankrupts,” as he had termed it — was ex- pressed plainly enough to Macchiavelli. i “To-day,” said he, ‘Messer Paolo is to visit me,352 THE BULL RAMPANT and to-morrow there will be the Cardinal; and thus they think to befool me, at their pleasure. But I, on my side, am only dallying with them. I listen to all they have to say and bide my own time.” Later, Macchiavelli was to remember those words, which meanwhile afforded him matter for reflection. As Paolo Orsini rode away from Imola, the Duke’s secretary, Gherardi, followed and overtook him to say that Cesare desired to add to the treaty another clause — one relating to the King of France. To this Paolo Orsini refused to consent, but, upon being pressed in the matter by Gherardi, went so far as to promise to submit the clause to the others. On October 30th Cesare published a notice in the Romagna, intimating the return to obedience on the part of his captains. Macchiavelli was mystified by this, and apprehen- sive — as men will be of the things they cannot fathom — of what might be reserved in it for Florence. It was Gherardi who reassured him, laughing in the face of the crafty Florentine, as he informed him that even children should come to smile at such a treaty as this. He added that he had gone after Paolo Orsini to beg the addition of another clause intentionally omitted by the Duke. “Tf they accept that clause,’ concluded Messer Agabito, ‘‘it will open a window; if they refuse it, a door, by which the Duke can issue from the treaty. Macchiavelli’s wonder increased. But the subject of it now was that the condottieri should be hood- winked by a document in such terms, and well may he have bethought him then of those words which Cesare had used to him a few days earlier.CHAPTER XVI RAMIRO DE LORQUA T' really seemed as if the condottieri were deter. mined to make their score as heavy as possible. For even whilst Paolo Orsini had been on his mis- sion of peace to Cesare, and whilst they awaited his return, they had continued actively in arms against the Duke. The Vitelli had aided Guidobaldo to re- conquer his territory, and had killed, in the course of doing so, Bartolomeo da Capranica, Cesare’s most valued captain and Vitelli’s brother-in-arms of yes- terday. The Baglioni were pressing Michele da Corella in Pesaro, but to little purpose; whilst the butcher Oliverotto da Fermo in Camerino — of which he had taken possession with Gianmaria Varano — was slaughtering every Spaniard he could find. On the other side, Corella in Pesaro hanged five men whom he caught practising against the Duke’s Government, and, having taken young Pietro Varano — who was on his way to join his brother in Camerino in view of the revolt there — he had him strangled in the market-place. There is a story that, with life not yet extinct, the poor youth was carried into church by the pitiful crowd. But here a friar, discovering that he still lived, called in the soldiers and bade them finish him. This friar, going later through Cagli, was recognized, set upon by a mob, and torn to pieces —54 THE BULL RAMPANT Co in which, if the rest of the tale be true, he was richly served. Into the theatre of bloodshed came Paolo Orsini from his mission to Valentinois, bringing with him the treaty for signature by the Redotticr. Accustomed as they were to playing fast and loose, they opined that, so far as Urbino was concerned, enough changes of government had they contriv ed there already. Vitelli pointed out the unseemliness of once again de- posing Guidobaldo, whom they had just reseated upon his throne. Besides, he perceived in the treaty the end of his hopes of a descent upon Florence, which was the cause of all his labours. So he rejected it. But Valentinois had already got the Orsini and Pan- dolfo Petrucci on his side, and so the confederacy was divided. Another factor came to befriend the Duke. On November 2d he was visited by Antonio Galeazzo Bentivogli, sent by his father Giovanni to propose a treaty with him — this state of affairs having been brought about by the mediation of Ercole d’ Este. From the negotiations that followed it resulted that, on the 13th, the Orsini had word from Cesare that he had entered into an alliance with the Bentivogli — which definitely removed their main objection to bearing arms with him. It was resigning much on Cesare’s part, but the treaty, after all, was only for two years, and might, of course, be broken before then, as they understood these matters. This treaty was signed at the Vatican on the 23d, between Borgia and Bentivogli, to guar- antee the Sates of both The King of France. the Signory of Florence, and the Duke of Ferrara guar- anteed the alliance.RAMIRO DE LORQUA Inter alia, it was agreed between them that Bologna should supply Cesare with one hundred lances and two hundred light horse for one or two enterprises within the year, fand that the condotta of one hundred lances which Cesare held from Bologna by the last treaty should be continued. The terms of the tre eaty were to be kept utterly secret for the next three months, so that the affairs of Urbino and Camerino should not be prejudiced by their publication. The result was instantaneous. On November 27th Paolo Orsini was back at Imola with the other treaty, which bore now the signatures of all the confederates. Vitelli, finding himself is solated, had swallowed his chagrin | in the matter of F Morenee: and his scruples in the matter of Urbino, ab »andoning the unfortunate Guidobaldo to his fate. This came swiftly. From Imola, Paolo Orsini rode to Fano on the 29th, and ordered his men to advance upon Urbino and seize the city in the Duke of Valentinois’s name, proclaiming a pardon for all rebels who would be submissive. Guidobaldo and the ill-starred Lord of Faenza were the two exceptions in Romagna — the only two who had known how to win the affections of their subjects. For Guidobaldo there was nothing that the men of Urbino would not have done. They rallied to him now, and the women of Valbone — like the ladies of England to save Ccoeur-de-Lion — came with their jewels and trinkets, offermg them that he might have the means to levy troops and resist. But this gentle, kindly Guidobaldo could not subject his coun- try to further ravages of war; and so he determined, in his subjects’ interests as much as in his own, to depart for the second time.THE BULL RAMPANT Early in December the Orsini troops are in his territory , and Paolo, halting them within a few miles of Urbino, sends to beg Guidobalc do’s attendance in his camp. Guidobaldo, crip oles by gout and unable at the time to walk a step, sends Paolo his excuses and begs that he will come to Urbino, where he awaits him. There Guidobaldo makes formal surrender to him, takes leave of his faithful friends, enjoins fidelity to Valentinois and trust in God, and so on Decem- ber 19th he departs into exile, the one pathetic noble figure amid so many ignoble ones. P aolo, taking possession of the. duchy , assumes the title of governor. The Florentines had had their chance of an alliance with Cesare, and had deliberately neglected it. Early in November they had received letters from the King of France urging them to come to an accord with Cesare, and they had made known to the Duke that they desired to reoccupy Pisa and to assure them- selves of Vitelli; but, when he pressed that Florence should give him a condotta, Macchiavelli — following his peo aans not to commit the Republic in any WwW ad answered “‘that his excellency must not be eae acced as other lords, but as a new potentate in Italy, with whom it is more seemly to make an alli- ance or a friendship than to grant him a condotta; and, as alliances are maintained by arms, and that is the only power to compel their observance, the Si- gnory could not perceive what security they would have when three-quarters or three- fifths of their arms would be in the Duke’s hands.”’ Macchiavelli added diplomatically that “he did not say this to impugn the Duke’s good faith, but to show him that princes should be circumspect aa never enter into anythingRAMIRO DE LORQUA that leaves a possibility of their being put at a dis- advantage.” } Cesare answered him calml ly (“senza segno d’alte- razione alcuna’”’) that without a condotta, he didn’t know what to make of a private friends ship whose first principles were denied him. And there the matter hung, for Macchiavelli’s legation had for only aim to ensure the immunity of Tuscany and to safeguard Florentine interests without conceding any advan- tages to eo — as the latter had perceived from ge the firs On December toth Cesare moved from Imola with his entire army, intent now upon the conquest of Sinigaglia, which State Giuliano della Rovere had been unable to save for his nephew, both King and Pope having alike turned deaf ears s upon the excuses he had sought to make for the Prefectress, Giovanna da Montefeltre — the mother of the young prefect — who had aided her brother Guidobaldo in the late war in Urbino. On the morrow Valentinois arrived in Cesena and encamped his army there for Christmas, as in the pre- vious year. The country was beginning to feel the effects of this prolonged vast military occupation, and although the Duke, with intent to relieve the people, had ‘done all that was possible to provision the troops, and had purchased from Venice thirty thou- sand bushels of wheat for the purpose, yet all had been consumed. ‘‘The v ery stones have been eaten: says Macchiavelli. To account for this state of things — and possibly * See the twenty-first letter from Macchiavelli on this legation.358 THE BULL RAMPANT for certain other matters — Messer Ramiro de Lorqua, the Governor-General, was summoned from Pesaro; whilst to avert the threatened famine Cesare ordered that the cereals in the private granaries of Cesena should be sold at reduced prices, and he further pro- ceeded, at heavy expense, to procure grain from with- out. Another, less far-seeing then Valentinois, might have made capital out of Urbino’s late rebellion, and pillaged the country to provide for pressing needs. But that would have been opposed to Cesare’s pol- icy, of fostering the good-will of the people he sub- jected. On December 20th three of the companies of French lances that had been with Cesare took their leave of him and returned to Lombardy, so that Cesare was left with only one company. There appears to be some confusion as to the reasons for this, and it 1s stated by some that those companies were recalled to Milan by the French governor. Macchiavelli, ever in- quisitive and inquiring, questioned one of the French officers in the matter, to be told that the lances were departing because the Duke no longer needed them, the inference being that this was in consequence of the return of the condottieri to their allegiance. But the astute secretary did not at the time account this convincing, arguing that the Duke could not yet be said to be secure, nor could he know for certain how far he might trust Vitelli and the Orsini. Presuma- bly, however, he afterwards obtained more certain in- formation, for he says later that Valentinots himself dismissed the French, and that the dismissal was part of the stratagem he was preparing, and had for ob- ject to reassure Vitelli and the other confederates,RAMIRO DE LORQUA and to throw them off their guard, by causing them to suppose him indifferently supported. The departure of the French did not take place with- out much discussion being provoked, and rumour making extremely busy, whilst it was generally as- sumed that their absence would retard the Sinigaglia conquest. Nevertheless, the Duke calmly pursued his preparations, and proceeded now to send forward his artillery. There was noreal ground upon which to assume that he would adopt any other course. Cesare was now in considerable strength, apart from French lances, and even as these left him he was joined by a thousand Swiss, and another six hundred Romagnuoli from the Val di Lamone. Moreover, as far as the reduction of Sinigaglia was concerned, no resistance was to be expected, for Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere had written enjoining the people to surrender peacefully to the Duke. What matters Cesare may have found in Cesena to justify the arrest of his Governor- General, we do not know to the full with absolute certainty. On De- cember 22d Ramiro de Lorqua, coming from Pesaro in response to his master’s summons, was arrested on his arrival and flung into prison. His examination was to follow. Macchiavelli, reporting the arrest, says: “It is thought he [Cesare] may sacrifice him to the people, who have a very great desire of it.’ Ramiro had made himself detested in Romagna by the ruthlessness of his rule, and a ruthless servant re- flects upon his master, a matter which could nowise suit Borgia. To all who have read “The Prince” it360 THE BULL RAMPANT J will be clear that upon that ground alone — of hav- ing brought Valentinois’s justice into disrepute by the harshness which in Valentinois’s name he practised — Macchiavelli would have approved the execution of Ramiro. He would have accounted it perfectly justifiable that Ramiro should be sacrificed to the people for no better reason than because he had pro- voked their hatred, since this sacrifice made for the Duke’s welfare. He does, as a matter of fact, justify this execution, but upon much fuller prounds than these. Stull, Herd the reasons been no better than are mentioned, he would still have justified it upon those. So much 1s clear. There was, however, more than a matter of sacri- ficing the Governor-General to the hatred of the people. There was, for one thing, the matter of that wheat which had disappeared. Ramiro was charged with having fraudulently sold it to his own dishon- est profit, putting the Duke to the heav y expense of importing fresh supplies for the nourishment of the people. The seriousness of the charge will be appre- ciated when it is considered that, h iad a famine re- sulted from this peculation, grave disorder might have ensued and perhaps even a rebellion against a gov- ernment which could provide no better. The Duke published the news of the Governor's arrest throughout Romagna. He announced his dis- pleasure and regret at the harshnesses and corrupt practices of Ramiro de Lorqua, in spite of the most urgent admonishings that he should refrain from all undue exactions and the threat of grave punishment should he disobey. These frauds, corruption, extor- tion, and rapine practised by the Governor were soRAMIRO DE LORQUA 361 grave, continuous and general, stated the Duke in his manifesto, that “there is no city, country-side, or castle, nor any place in all Romagna, nor officer or minister of the Duke’s, who does not know of these abuses; and, amongst others, the famine of wheat occasioned by the traffic which he held against our express prohibition, sending out such quantities as would abundantly have sufficed for the people and the army.” Fle concludes with assurances of his intention that, in the future, they shall be ruled with justice and integrity, and he urges all who may have charges to prefer against the said Governor to bring them for- ward immediately. It was freely rumoured that the charges against Ramiro by no means ended there, and in Bologna —and from Bologna the truth of such a matter might well transpire, all things considered — it was openly said that Ramiro had been in secret treaty with the Bentivogli, Orsini, and Vitelli, against the Duke of Valentinois: ‘“‘Aveva provixione da Messer Zoane Bentivogli e da Orsini e Vitelozo contro el duca,’ writes Fileno della Tuate, who, it will be borne in mind, was no friend of the Borgia, and would be at no pains to find justification for the Duke’s deeds. But of that secret treaty there was, for the moment, no official mention. Later the rumour of it was to receive the fullest confirmation, and, together with that, we shall give, in the next chapter, the Duke’s ob- vious reasons for having kept the matter secret at first. Matter enough and to spare was there already upon which to dispose of Messer Ramiro de Lorqua and dis- posed of he was, with the most summary justice.362 THE BULL RAMPANT On the morning of December 26th the first folk to be astir in Cesena beheld, in the grey light of that wintry dawn, the body of Ramiro lying headless in the square. It was richly dressed, with all his ornaments upon it, a scarlet cloak about it, and the hands were gloved. On a pike beside the body the black-bearded head was set up to view, and so remained throughout that day, a terrible display of the swift and pitiless justice of the Duke. Macchiavelli wrote: ‘“The reason of his death 1s not properly known” (‘‘non si sa bene la cagione della sua morte”) “beyond the fact that such was the pleasure of the Prince, who shows us that he can make and unmake men according to their deserts.” The “Cronica Civitas Faventie,” the “‘Diarium Cesenate,” and the “‘Cronache Forlivese,”’ all express the people’s extreme satisfaction at the deed, and confirm the charges of brutality against the man which are contained in Cesare’s letter.CHAPTER XVII " THE BEAUTIFUL STRATAGEM” ESARE left Cesena very early on the mornin of December 26th — the morning of Ramiro’s execution — and by the 29th he was at Fano, where he received the envoys who came from Ancona with protestations of loyalty, as well asa messenger from Vitellozzo Vitelli, who brought him news of the sur- render of Sinigaglia. The citadel itself was still being held by Andrea Doria — the same who was after. wards to become so famous in Genoa: this, it was stated, was solely because Doria desired to make surrender to the Duke himself. The Prefectress, Gio- vanna da Montefeltre, had already departed from the city, which she ruled as regent for her eleven-year-old boy, and had gone by sea to Venice. The Duke returned answer to Vitelli that he would be in Sinigaglia himself upon the morrow, and he invited the condottieri to receive him there, since he was decided to possess himself of the citadel at once, whether Doria chose to surrender it peacefully or not; and that, to provide for emergencies, he would bring his artillery with him. Lastly, Vitelli was bidden to prepare quarters within the new town for the troops that would accompany Cesare. To do this it was necessary to dispose the soldiers of Oliverotto da Fermo in the borgo. These were the only troops with the condottieri in Sinigaglia; the remainder of their forces were quartered in the strongholds of364 THE BULL RAMPANT the territory at distances of from five to seven miles of the town. On the last day of that year 1502, Cesare Borgia appeared before Sinigaglia to receive the homage of those men who had used him so treacherously, and whom — with the exception of Paolo Orsini — he now met face to face for the first time since their rebellion. Here were Francesco Orsini, Duke of Gravina, with Paolo and the latter’s son Fabio; here was Oliverotto, the ruffianly Lord of Fermo, who had won his lordship by the cold-blooded murder of his kinsman, and concerning whom a rumour ran in Rome that Cesare had sworn to choke him with his own hands: and here was Vitellozzo Vitelli, the arch- traitor of them all. Gianpaolo Baglioni was absent through illness — a matter less fatal to him than was their health to those who were present — and the Cardinal and Giulio Orsini were in Rome. Were these captains mad to suppose that such a man as Cesare Borgia could so forget the wrong they had done him, and forgive them in this easy fashion, exacting no amends? Were they mad to suppose that, after such proofs as they had given him of what man- ner of faith they kept, he would trust them here- after with their lives to work further mischief against him? (Well might Macchiavelli have marvelled when he beheld the terms of the treaty the Duke had made with them.) Were they mad to imagine that one so crafty as Valentinois would so place himself into their hands — the hands of men who had sworn his ruin and death? Truly, mad they must have been — rendered so by the gods who would destroy them.THE BEAUTIFUL STRATAGEM 366 The tale of that happening — “II Bellissimo In- ganno’’ — is graphically told by the pen of the ad- miring Macchiavelli. To us, judged from our modern standpoint, the affair of Sinigaglia is the last word in treachery and iscariotism. But you are here con- cerned with the standpoint of the Cinquecento, and that standpoint Macchiavelli gives you when he de- scribes this business as a beautiful stratagem. To offer judgment in despite of that is tocommit a fatuity, which too often already has been committed. Here, then, is Macchiavelli’s story of the event: On the morning of December 31st, Cesare’s army, composed of ten thousand foot and three thousand horse,! was drawn up on the banks of the River Metauro — some five miles from Sinigaglia — in ac- cordance with his orders, awaiting his arrival. He came at daybreak, and immediately ordered forward two hundred lances under the command of Don Michele da Corella; he bade the foot to march after these, and himself brought up the rear with the main body of the horse. In Sinigaglia, as we have seen, the condottieri had only the troops of Oliverotto — one thousand foot and one hundred and fifty horse — which had been quartered in the borgo, and were now drawn up in the market-place, Oliverotto at their head, to do honour to the Duke. As the horse under Don Michele gained the little river Misa and the bridge that spanned it, almost directly opposite to the gates of Sinigaglia, their cap- * This is Macchiavelli’s report of the forces; but it appears to be an exaggeration, for, upon leaving Cesena, Cesare does not appear to have commanded more than ten thousand men in all.366 THE BULL RAMPANT tain halted them and drew them up into two files, between which a lane was opened. Through this the foot went forward and straight into the town, and after came Cesare himself, a graceful, youthful figure, resplendent in full armour at the head of his lances. To meet him advanced now the three Orsini and Vitellozzo Vitelli. Macchiavelli tells us of the latter’s uneasiness, of his premonitions of evil, and the fare- wells (all of which Macchiavelli had afterwards heard reported) which he had taken of his family before coming to Sinigaglia. Probably these are no more than the stories that grow up about such men after such an event as that which was about to happen. The condottieri came unarmed, Vitelli mounted on a mule, wearing a cloak with a green lining. In that group he is the only man deserving of any respect 7 * or pity — a victim of his sense of duty to his family, driven to his rebellion and faithlessness to Valentinois by his consuming desire to avenge his brother’s death upon the Florentines. The others were poor creatures, incapable even of keeping faith with one another. Paolo Orsini was actually said to be in secret concert with Valentinois since his mission to him at Imola, and to have accepted heavy bribes from him. Olive- rotto you have seen at work, making a holocaust of his family and friends under the base spur of his cu- pidity; whilst of the absent ones, Pandolfo Petrucci alone was a man of any steadfastness and honesty. The Duke’s reception of them was invested with that gracious friendliness of which none knew the art better than did he, intent upon showing them that the past was forgiven and their offences against himself forgotten. As they turned and rode with him throughTHE BEAUTIFUL STRATAGEM 367 J the gates of Sinigaglia some of the Duke’s gentlemen hemmed them about in the preconcerted manner, lest even now they should be taken with alarm. But it was all done unostentatiously and with every show of friendliness, that no suspicions should be aroused. From the group Cesare had missed Oliverotto, and as they now approached the market-square, where the Tyrant of Fermo sat his horse at the head of his troops, Cesare made a sign with his eyes to Corella, the purport of which was plain to the captain. Corella rode ahead to suggest to Oliverotto that this was no time to have his men under arms and out of their lodgings, and to point out to him that, if they were not dismissed they would be in danger of having their quarters snatched from them by the Duke’s men, from which trouble might arise. To this he added that the Duke was expecting his lordship. Oliverotto, persuaded, gave the order for the dis- missal of his troops, and the Duke, coming up at that moment, called to him. In response he went to greet him, and fell in thereafter with the others who were riding with Valentinois. In amiable conversation with them all, and rid- ing between Vitelli and Francesco Orsini, the Duke passed from the borgo into the town itself, and so to the palace, where the condottieri disposed to take their leave of him. But Cesare was not for parting with them yet; he bade them in with him, and they perforce must accept his invitation. Besides, his mood was so agreeable that surely there could be nought to fear. But scarcely were they inside when his manner changed of a sudden, and at a sign from him they wereemer EE ———————————*—$;——E 368 THE BULL RAMPANT instantly overpowered and arrested by those gentle- men of his own who were of the party and who came to it well schooled in what was to be done. Buonaccorsi compiled his diary carefully from the letters of Macchiavelli to the Ten, in so far as this and other affairs are concerned; and to Buonaccorsi we must now turn for what immediately follows, which is no doubt from Macchiavelli’s second letter of De- cember 31st, 1n which the full details of the affair are given. His first letter no more than briefly states the happening; the second unfortunately is missing; so that the above particulars — and some yet to fol- low — are culled from the relations which he after- wards penned (" Del modo tenuto,” etc.), edited, however, by the help of his dispatches at the time in regard to the causes which led to the affair. Between these and the actual relation there are some minor dis- crepancies. Unquestionably the dispatches are the more reliable, so that, where such discrepancies occur, the version in the dispatches has been preferred. To turn for a moment to Buonaccorsi, he tells us that, as the Florentine envoy (who was, of course, Macchiavelli) following the Duke of Valentinois en- tered the town later, after the arrest of the con- dottieri, and found all uproar and confusion, he re- paired straight to the palace to ascertain the truth. As he approached he met the Duke, riding out in full armour to quell the rioting and restrain his men, who were by now all out of hand and pillaging the city. Cesare, perceiving the secretary, reined in and called him. “This,” he said, “is what | wanted to tell Mon- signor di Volterra [Soderini] when he came to Urbino,THE BEAUTIFUL STRATAGEM 369 but I could not entrust him with the secret. Now that my opportunity has come, I have known very well how to make use of it, and I have done a great service to your masters.” And with that Cesare left him, and, calling his cap- tains about him, rode down into the town to put an end to the horrors that were being perpetrated there. Immediately upon the arrest of the condottieri, Cesare had issued orders to attack the soldiers of Vitelli and Orsini, and to dislodge them from the castles of the territory where they were quartered, and similarly to dislodge Oliverotto’s men and drive them out of Sinigaglia. This had been swiftly ac- complished. But the Duke’s men were not disposed to leave matters at that. Excited by the taste of battle that had been theirs, they returned to wreak their fury upon the town, and they were proceeding to put it to sack, directing particular attention to the wealthy quarter occupied by the Venetian merchants, which is said to have been. plundered by them to the extent of some twenty thousand ducats. They would have made an end of Sinigaglia but for the sudden appearance amongst them of the Duke himself. He rode through the streets, angrily ordering the pillage to cease; and, to show how much he was in earnest, with his own hands he cut down some who were in- solent or slow to obey him. Thus, before dusk, he had restored order and quiet. As for the condottieri, Vitelli and Oliverotto were dealt with that very night. There is a story that Oliverotto, seeing that all was lost, drew a dagger and would have put it through his heart to save himself from dying at the hands of the hangman. If it is true,THE BULL RAMPANT then that was his last show of spirit. He turned craven at the end, and protested tearfully to his judges — for a trial was given them — that the fault of all the wrong wrought against the Duke lay with his brother-in-law, Vitellozzo. More wonderful was it that the grim Vitelli’s courage also should break down at the end, and that he should beg that the Pope be implored to grant him a plenary indulgence and that his answer be awaited. But at dawn — the night having been consumed in their trial — they were placed back to back, and so strangled, and their bodies were taken to the church of the Misericordia Hospital. The Orsini were not dealt with just yet. They were kept prisoners, and Valentinois would go no further until he should have heard from Rome that Giulio Orsini and the powerful Cardinal were also under arrest. To put to death at present the men in his power might be to alarm and so lose the others. On the morrow — January 1, 1503 — the Duke ts- sued dispatches to the Powers of Italy giving his account of the deed. It set forth that the Orsini and their confederates, notwithstanding the pardon accorded them for their first betrayal and revolt, upon learning of the departure of the French lances — and concluding that the Duke was thereby weakened, and left with only a few followers of no account — had plotted a fresh and still greater treachery. Under pretence of assisting him in the taking of Sinigaglia, whither it was known that he was going, they had assembled there in their full strength, but displaying only one-third of it, and concealing the remainder in the castles of the surrounding country. They hadTHE BEAUTIFUL STRATAGEM 371 then agreed with the castellan of Sinigaglia, that on that night they should attack him on every side of the new town, which, being small, could contain, as they knew, but few of his people. This treachery coming to his knowledge, he had been able to forestall it, and, entering Sinigaglia with all his troops, he had seized the traitors and taken the forces of Oliverotto by surprise. He concluded by exhorting all to render thanks unto God that an end was set to the many calamities suffered in Italy in consequence of those malignant ones.} For once Cesare Borgia is heard giving his own side of an affair. But are the particulars of his version true? Who shall say positively? His statement is not by any means contrary to the known facts, although it sets upon them an explanation rather different from that afforded us by Macchiavelli. But it is to be remembered that, after all, Macchiavelli had to fall back upon the inferences which he drew from what he beheld, and that there is no scrap of evidence directly to refute any one of Cesare’s statements. There is even confirmation of the statement that the condottieri conceived him weakened by the departure of the French lances and left with only a few followers of no account. For Macchiavelli himself dwells upon the artifice with which Cesare broke up his forces and disposed of them in comparatively small numbers here and there to the end that his full strength should remain concealed; and he admires the strategy of that proceeding. Certainly the Duke’s narrative tends to increase his * See this letter in the documents appended to Alvisi’s Cesare Borgia, document 76, SSS eee === aTHE BULL RAMPANT justification for acting as he did. But at best it can only increase it, for the actual justification was always there, and by the light of his epoch it 1s difficult to see how he should be blamed. These men had openly sworn to have his life, and from what has been seen of them there is little reason to suppose they would not have kept their word had they but been given the opportunity. In connection with Cesare’s version, it is well to go back for a moment to the execution of Ramiro de Lorqua, and to recall the alleged secret motives that led toit. Macchiavelli himself was not satisfied that all was disclosed, and that the Governor’s harshness and dishonesty had been the sole causes of the jus- tice done upon him. “The reason of his death 1s not properly known,” wrote the Florentine secretary. Another envoy of that day would have filled his dispatches with the rumours that were current, with the matters that were being whispered at street corners. But Macchiavelli’s habit was to disregard rumours as a rule, knowing the danger of heeding them —a circumstance which renders his evidence the most valuable which we possess. It is perhaps permissible to ask: What dark secrets had the torture of the cord drawn from Messer Ra- miro? Had these informed the Duke of the true state of affairs at Sinigaglia, and had the knowledge brought him straight from Cesena to deal with the matter? There is justification for these questions, inasmuch as on January 4th the Pope related to Giustinian1l — for which see his dispatches — that Ramiro de Lorqua, being sentenced to death, stated that he desired to inform the Duke of certain matters, and informed himTHE BEAUTIFUL STRATAGEM 373 that he had concerted with the Orsini to give the lat- ter the territory of Cesena; but that, as this could not now be done, in consequence of Cesare’s treaty with the condottieri, Vitelli had arranged to kill the Duke, in which design he had the concurrence of Oliverotto. They had planned that a crossbowman should shoot the Duke as he rode into Sinigaglia, in consequence of which the Duke took great care of himself and never put off his armour until the affair was over. Vitellozzo, the Pope said, had confessed before he died that all that Ramiro had told the Duke was true, and at the Consistory of January 6th, when the Sacred College begged for the release of the old Cardinal Orsini — who had been taken with the Archbishop of Florence, Giacomo di Santacroce, and Gianbattista da Virginio— the Pope answered by informing the cardinals of this plot against the Duke’s life. These statements by Cesare and his father are per- fectly consistent with each other and with the events. Yet, for want of independent confirmation, they are not to be insisted upon as affording the true version — as, of course, the Pope may have urged what he did as a pretext to justify what was yet to follow. It is readily conceivable that Ramiro, under torture, or in the hope perhaps of saving his life, may have be- trayed the alleged plot to murder Cesare. And it 1s perfectly consistent with Cesare’s character and with his age that he should have entered into a bargain to learn what Ramiro might have to disclose, and then have repudiated it and given him to the executioner. If Cesare, in such circumstances as these, had learnt what was contemplated, he would very naturally have kept silent on the score of it until he had dealt with374 THE BULL RAMPANT the condottieri. To do otherwise might be to fore- warn them. He was, as Macchiavelli says, a secret man, and the more dangerous for his closeness, since he never allowed his intentions to be known. Guicciardini, of course, has called the Sinigaglia affair a villainy (““scelleragine”), whilst Fabio Orsini and a nephew of Vitelli’s who escaped from Sinigaglia and arrived two days later at Perugia, sought to en- gage sympathy by means of an extraordinary tale, so alien to all the facts — apart from their obvious reasons to lie and provoke resentment against Cesare — as not to be worth citing.CHAPTER XVIII THE ZENITH NDREA DORIA did not remain to make for- mal surrender of the citadel of Sinigaglia to the Duke — for which purpose, be it borne in mind, had Cesare been invited, indirectly, to come to Sini- gaglia. He fled during the night that saw Vitelli and Oliverotto writhing their last in the strangler’s hands. And his flight adds confirmation of a kind to the versions of the affair that were afforded the world by Cesare and his father. Andrea Doria, waiting to surrender his trust, had nothing to fear from the Duke, no reason to do anything but remain. Andrea Doria, intriguing against the Duke’s life with the condottieri, finding them seized by the Duke, and inferring that all was discovered, had every reason to fly. The citadel made surrender on that New Year’s morning, when Cesare summoned it to do so, whilst the troops of the Orsini and Vitelli lodged in the castles of the territory, being taken unawares, were speedily routed. So, there being nothing more left to do in Sinigaglia, Cesare once more marshalled his men and set out for Citta di Castello — the Tyranny of the Vitelli, which he found undefended and of which he took possession in the name of the Church. Thence he pushed on towards Perugia, for he had word that Guidobaldo of Urbino, Fabio Orsini, Annibale and Venanzio Varano,376 | THE BULL RAMPANT and Vitelli’s nephew were assembled there under the wing of Gianpaolo Baglioni, who, with a consider- able condotta at his back, was making big talk of measures against the Duke of Romagna and Valen- tinois. In this, Gianpaolo persevered most bravely until he had news that the Duke was as near as Gualdo, when precipitately he fled — leaving his guests to shift for themselves. He had remembered, perhaps, at the last moment how narrow an escape he had had of it at Sinigaglia, and he repaired to Siena to join Pandolfo Petrucci, who had been equally fortunate on that occasion. To meet the advancing and irresistible Duke came ambassadors from Perugia with smooth words of wel- come, the offer of the city, and their thanks for his having delivered them of the tyrants that oppressed them. And there is not the slightest cause to suppose that this was mere sycophancy, for a more bloody, murderous crew than these Baglioni — whose feuds not only with the rival family of the Oddi, but even among themselves, had more than once embrued the walls of that city in the hills —it would be difficult to find in Italy, or anywhere in Europe. The history of the Baglioni, to be read in Matarazzo’s ‘“‘Chronicles of Perugia,” is just a record of slaughter. Under their rule in Perugia human blood seems commonly to have flowed anywhere more freely than in human veins. It is no matter for wonder that the people sent their am- bassador to thank Cesare for having delivered them from the yoke that had oppressed them. Perugia having rendered him her oath of fealty, the Duke left her his secretary, Agabito Gherardi, as his commissioner, whilst sending Vincenzo CalmetaTHEYZENIGE to Fermo — Oliverotto’s tyranny — another State which was very fervent in the thanks it expressed for this deliverance. Scarcely was Cesare gone from Perugia when into the hands of his people fell the person of the Lady Panthasilea Baglioni d’ Alviano — the wife of the fa- mous Venetian condottiero Bartolomeo d’ Alviano and they, aware of the feelings prevailing between their lord and the Government of Venice, bethought them that here was a valuable hostage. So they shut her up in the Castle of Todi, together with her chil- dren and the women who had been with her when she was taken. As in the case of Dorotea Caracciolo, the rumour is instantly put about that it was Cesare who had seized her, that he had taken her to his camp, and that this poor woman had fallen a prey to that lustful mon- ster. So—and in some such words—ran the story, and such a hold did it take upon popular credulity that we see Piero di Bibieno before the Council of Ten, laying a more or less formal charge against the Duke in rather broader terms than are here set down. So much, few of those who have repeated his story omit to tell you. But for some reason, not obviously appar- ent, they do not think it worth while to add that the Doge himself —better informed, it is clear, for he speaks with finality in the matter — reproved the de- lator by denying the rumour and definitely stating that it was not true, as you may read in the “ Diary” of Marino Sanuto. That same diary shows you the husband — a person of great consequence in Venice ~ before the Council, clamouring for the enlargementcasein tate ns AEE ATE TI 378 THE BULL RAMPANT of his lady; yet never once does he mention the name of Valentinois. The Council of Ten sends an envoy to wait upon the Pope; and the Pope expresses his pro- found regret and his esteem for Alviano, and informs the envoy that he is writing to Valentinois to de- mand the lady’s instant release — in fact, he shows the envoy the letter. To that same letter the Duke replied on January agth that he had known nothing of the matter until this communication reached him; that he has since ascertained that the lady was indeed captured and that she has since been detained in the Castle of Todi with all the consideration due to her rank; and that, immediately upon ascertaining this he had com- manded that she should be set at liberty, which was done. And so the Lady Panthasilea returned unharmed to her husband. In Assisi, Cesare received the Florentine ambassa- dor Salviati, who came to congratulate him upon the affair of Sinigaglia and to replace Macchiavelli — the latter having been ordered home again. Congratula- tions, indeed, were addressed to the Duke by all those Powers that had received his official intimation of the event. Amongst these were the felicitations of the beautiful and accomplished Isabella d’ Este, Mar- chioness of Gonzaga — whose relations with him were ever of the friendliest, even when Faenza by its bravery evoked her pity — and with these she sent him, for the coming carnival, a present of a hundred masks of rare variety and singular beauty, because she opined that “after the fatigues he had suffered inTHE ZENITH these glorious enterprises, he would desire to contrive for some recreation.” Here in Assisi, too, he received the Siennese envoys who came to wait upon him, and he demanded that, Out of respect for the King of France, they should drive out Pandolfo Petrucci from Siena. For, to use his own words, “having deprived his enemies of their weapons, he would now deprive them of their brain,” by which he paid Petrucci the compliment of account- ing him the controlling mind of all that had been at- tempted against him. To show the Siennese how much he was in earnest, he left all baggage and stores at Assisi, and, unham- pered, made one of his sudden swoops towards Siena, pausing on January 13th at Castel della Pieve to pub- lish, at last, his treaty with Bentivogli. The latter be- ing now sincere, no doubt out of fear of the conse- quences of further insincerity, at once sent Cesare thirty lances and one hundred arbalesters under the command of Antonio della Volta. It was there in Assisi, on the morning of striking his camp again, that Cesare completed the work that had been begun at Sinigaglia by having Paolo Orsini and the Duke of Gravina strangled. There was no reason to postpone the matter further. He had received word from Rome of the capture of Cardinal Orsini, of Gian- battista da Virginio, of Giacomo di Santacroce, and Rinaldo Orsini, Archbishop of Florence. On January 27th, Pandolfo Petrucci being still in Siena, and Cesare’s patience exhausted, he issued an ultimatum from his camp at Sartiano in which he de- clared that if, within twenty-four hours, Petrucci had not been expelled from the city, he would loose his380 THE BULL RAMPANT J soldiers upon Siena to devastate the territory, and would treat every inhabitant “as a Pandolfo and an enemy. Siena judged it well to bow before that threat, and Cesare, seeing himself obeyed, was free to depart to Rome, whither the Pope had recalled him and where work awaited him. He was required to make an end of the resistance of the barons, a task which had been entrusted to his brother Giuffredo, but which the lat- ter had been unable to carry out. In this matter Cesare and his father are said to have violently disagreed, and it is reported that high words flew between them; for Cesare — who looked ahead and had his own future to consider, which should extend beyond the lifetime of Alexander VI — would not move against Silvio Savelli in Palombara, nor Gian Giordano in Bracciano, alleging, as his rea- son for the latter forbearance, that Gian Giordano, being a knight of Saint Michael like himself, he was inhibited by the terms of that knighthood from levy- ing war upon him. To this he adhered, whilst, how- ever, disposing to lay siege to Ceri, where Giulio and Giovanni Orsini had taken refuge. In the mean time, the Cardinal Gianbattista Orsint had breathed his last in the Castle of Sant’ Angelo. Soderini had written ironically to Florence on Febru- ary 15th: “Cardinal Orsini, in prison, shows signs of frenzy. I leave your Sublimities to conclude, in your wisdom, the judgment that is formed of such an ill- ,» ness. It was not, however, until a week later — on Feb- ruary 22d, — that he succumbed, whereupon the cry of “Poison!”’ grew so loud and general that the PopeTHE ZENITH 381 J ordered the Cardinal’s body to be carried on a bier with the face exposed, that all the world might see its calm and the absence of such stains as were believed usually to accompany venenation. Never theless, the opinion spread that he had been poisoned — and the poisoning of Cardinal Orsini has been included in the long list of the Crimes of the Bor- gias with which we have been entertained. That the rumour should have arisen is not in the least surpris- ing, considering 1 in what bad odour were the Orsini at the Vatican just then, and — be it remembered — what provocation they had given. Although Valen- tinois dubbed Pandolfo Petrucci the “brain” of the conspiracy against him, the real guiding spirit, there can be little doubt, was this Cardinal Orsini, in whose stronghold at Magione the diet had met to plot Valen- tinois’s ruin — the ruin of the Gonfalonier of the Church, and the fresh alienation from the Holy See of the tyrannies which it claimed for its own, and which at great cost had been recovered to it. Against the Pope, considered as a temporal ruler, that was treason 1n the highest degree, and punishable by death; and, assuming that Alexander did cause the death of Cardinal Orsini, the only just censure that could fall upon him for the deed concerns the means employed. Yet even against that it might be urged that thus was the dignity of the purple saved the dis- honouring touch of the hangman’s hands. Some six weeks later — on April toth — died Gio- vanni Michieli, Cardinal of Sant’ Angelo, and Gtus- tiniani, the Venetian ambassador, wrote to his Govern- ment that the Cardinal had been ill for only two days, and that his illness had been attended by violent sick-382 THE BULL RAMPANT ness. This — and the reticence of it — was no doubt intended to arouse the suspicion that the Cardinal had been poisoned. Giustiniani adds that Michieli’s house was stripped that very night by the Pope, who profited thereby to the extent of some one hundred and fifty thousand ducats, besides plate and other valuables; and this was intended to show an indecent eagerness on the Pope’s part to possess himself of that which by the Cardinal’s death he inherited — amounted, indeed, to a motive for the implied crime — whereas, in truth, the measure would be one of wise precaution against the customary danger of pillage by the mob. But in March of the year 1504, after the death of Pope Alexander, under the pontificate of his arch- enemy, Giuliano della Rovere (Julius II), a sub-dea- con, named Asquino de Colloredo, was arrested on a charge of having committed this crime (““interfector bone memorie Gardinalis S. Angeli’’).1. What other suspicions were entertained scene him, what other revelations it was hoped to extract from him, cannot be said; but Asquino was put to the question, to the usual accompaniment of the torture of the cord, and under this he confessed that he had poisoned Cardinal Michieli, constrained to it by Pope Alexander VI and the Duke of Valentinois, against his will and without reward (““verumtamen non voluisse et pecunias non habuisse’’). Upon such evidence as that the accusation of the Pope’s murder of Cardinal Michieli has been definitely established — and it must be admitted that it is, if anything, rather more evidence than 1s usually forth- 1 Burchard’s Diarium, March 6, 1504.THE ZENITH coming of the vampirism and atrocities alleged against him. Before accepting it, however, it is well in the first place to determine precisely what degree of credit such a man as Asquino might be worth when seeking to extenuate a fault admitted under pressure of the torture; and in the second place to consider that the extenuation he offered was the likeliest to gain him the favour of the Della Rovere Pope, whose life’s task — as shall presently be more clearly revealed — was the defamation of the Borgias whom he hated. You will also do well closely to examine the last part of his confession — that he was constrained to it “against his will and without reward.” Would the deed have been so very much against the will of one who went about publishing his hatred of the dead Cardinal by the slanders he emitted? Giustiniani, writing to his Government in the spring of 1503, informs the Council of Ten that it is the Pope’s way to fatten his cardinals before dispos- ing of them — that is to say, enriching them before poisoning them, that he may inherit their possessions. It is a wild and sweeping accusation, dictated by political animus, and it has since grown to proportions more monstrous than the original. You may read usque ad nauseam of the Pope and Cesare’s constant practice of poisoning cardinals who had grown rich, for the purpose of seizing their possessions, and you are very naturally filled with horror at so much and such abominable turpitude. In this matter, assertion — coupled with whorling periods of vituperation — have ever been considered by the accusers all that is required to establish theTHE BULL RAMPANT 384 accusations. It has never, for instance, been con- sidered necessary to cite the names of the cardinals composing that regiment of victims. That, of course, would be to challenge easy refutation of the wholesale charge; and refutation is not desired by those who prefer the sensational manner. The omission may, in part at least, be repaired at last by giving a list of the cardinals who died during the eleven years of the pontificate of Alexander VI. Those deaths, in eleven years, number twenty-one; and the first thing that occurs to the honest investiga- tor is the remarkable fact that this total number of the deaths of cardinals under a pontiff charged with the continuous and systematic poisoning of them 1s actu- ally lower than that of cardinals deceased in any other eleven years of any other pontificate or pontificates. They are: Ardicino della Porta.........In 1493, at Rome Giovanni de’ Conti.......... In 1493, at Rome Domenico della Rovere...... In 1494, at Rome Gonzalo de Mendoza........ In 1495, in Spain Louis André d’Epinay....... In 1495, in France Gian Giacomo Sclafetano. ...In 1496, at Rome Bernardino di Lunati........ In 1497, at Rome Paolo Fregosi.......+.+--e: In 1498, at Rome Gianbattista Savelli......... In 1498, at Rome Giovanni della Grolaye...... In 1499, at Rome Giovanni Borgia.......-+++: In 1500, at Fossombrone Bartolomeo Martini........- In 1500, at Rome John Morton........-+++++> In 1500, in England Battista Zen. ss se ecules crates In 1501, at Rome Juan Lopez... ....++eeeens In 1501, at Rome Gianbattista Ferrari......... In 1502, at Rome Hurtado de Mendoza........ In 1502, in Spain Gianbattista Orsini........-- In 1503, at RomeTHE ZENITH Giovanni Michieli........... In 1503, at Rome Giovanni Borgia (Seniore)....In 1503, at Rome Hederico) Casimitenen sone In 1503, in Poland Now, search as you will, not only such contempo- rary records as diaries, chronicles, and dispatches from ambassadors in Rome during that period of eleven years, but also subsequent writings compiled from them, and you shall find no breath of scandal attach- ing to the death of seventeen of those cardinals, no suggestion that they died other than natural deaths. Four remain: Cardinals Giovanni Borgia (Giuni- ore), Gianbattista Ferrari (Cardinal of Modena), Gianbattista Orsini, and Giovanni Michieli, all of whom the Pope and Cesare have, more or less per- sistently, been accused of poisoning. Giovanni Borgia’s death at Fossombrone has been dealt with at length in its proper place, and it has been shown how utterly malicious and groundless was the accusation. Giovanni Michieli’s is the case that has just been reviewed, and touching which you may form your own conclusions. Gianbattista Orsini’s also has been examined. It rests upon rumour; but even if that rumour be true, it is unfair to consider the deed in any but the light of a political execution. There remains the case of the Cardinal of Modena, a man who had amassed enormous wealth in the most questionable manner, and who was universally execrated. The epigrams upon his death, in the form of epitaphs, dealt most terribly with “his ignominious memory’”’ — as Burchard has it. Of these the Master of Ceremonies collected upwards of a score, which386 THE BULL RAMPANT he gives in his ““Diarium.” Let one suffice here as a fair example of the rest, the one that has it that the earth has the Cardinal’s body, the bull (that is, the Borgia) his wealth, and hell his soul. “Hac Janus Baptista jacet Ferrarius urna, Terra habuit corpus, Bos bona, Styx animam.”’ The only absolutely contemporary suggestion of his having been poisoned again emanates from the pen of that same Giustiniani. He writes to the Ve- netian Senate to announce the Cardinal’s death on July 20th. In his letter he relates how his benefices were immediately distributed, and how the lion’s share fell to the Cardinal’s secretary, Sebastiano Pin- zone, and that it was said (“é fama’) that this man had received them as the price of blood (“in pre- mium sanguinis’’), “since it 1s held, from many evi- dent signs, that the Cardinal died from poison”’ “ex veneno’’). Already on the 11th he had written: “The Car- dinal of Modena lies ill, with little hope of recovery. Poison is suspected” (“‘si dubita di veleno”’). That was penned on the eighth day of the Car- dinal’s sickness, for he was taken ill on the 3d — as Burchard shows. Burchard, further, lays before us the whole course of the illness; tells us how, from the beginning, the Cardinal refused to be bled or to take medicine of any kind, tells us explicitly and positively that the Cardinal was suffering from a tertian fever —so prevalent and deadly in Rome during the months of July and August; he informs us that, on the 11th (the day on which Giustiniani wrote the above-cited dispatch), the fever abated,SSeS ee Se ee THE ZENITH 387 to return on the 16th. He was attended (Burchard continues) by many able physicians, who strove to induce him to take their medicines; but he refused persistently until the following day, when he ac- cepted a small proportion of the doses proposed. On July 20th — after an illness of seventeen days — he finally expired. Those entries in the “Diary” of the Master of Ceremonies constitute an incontrovertible document, an irrefutable testimony against the charges of poison- ing when taken in conjunction with the evidence of fact afforded by the length of the illness. It is true that, under date of November 20, 1504 (under the pontificate of Julius II), there is the follow- ing entry: “Sentence was pronounced in the ‘Ruota’ against Sebastiano Pinzone, apostolic scribe, contu- maciously absent, and he was deprived of all bene- fices and offices in that he had caused the death of the Cardinal of Modena, his patron, who had raised him from the dust.” But not even that can shake the conviction that must leap to every honest mind from the entries in the “Diary” contemporary with the Cardinal’s de- cease. They are too circumstantial and conclusive to be overthrown by this recorded sentence of the Ruota two years later against a man who was not even present to defend himself. Besides, it is necessary to discriminate. Burchard is not stating opinions of his own when he writes “in that he caused the death of the Cardinal of Modena,” etc.; he is simply — and obviously — recording the finding of the Tribunal of the Ruota, without comment. Lastly, it is as well to observe that in this verdict against Pinzone — of a ee eS nn388 THE BULL RAMPANT doubtful justice as it is — there is no mention made of the Borgias. The proceedings instituted against Sebastiano Pin- zone were of a piece with those instituted against Asquino de Colloredo and others yet to be considered; they were set on foot by Giuliano della Rovere — that implacable enemy of the House of Borgia — when he became Pope, for the purpose of heaping ignominy upon the family of his predecessor. But that shall further be considered presently. Another instance of the unceasing growth of Borgia history is afforded in connection with this Sebastiano Pinzone by Dr. Jacob Burckhardt (in “Der Cultur der Renaissance in Italien”) who, in the course of the usual sweeping diatribe against Cesare, mentions “Michele da Corella, his strangler, and Sebastiano Pinzone, his poisoner.” It 1s an amazing statement; for, whilst obviously leaning upon Giustiniani’s dis- patch for the presumption that Pinzone was a poisoner at all, he ignores the statement contained in it that Pinzone was the secretary and favourite of Cardinal Ferrari, nor troubles to ascertain that the man was never in Cesare Borgia’s service at all, nor is ever once mentioned anywhere as connected in any capacity whatever with the Duke. Dr. Burckhardt felt, no doubt, the necessity of linking Pinzone to the Borgias, that the alleged guilt of the former might recoil upon the latter, and so he accomplished it in this facile, irresponsible and grotesque manner — grotesque be- cause the suggestion that Cesare Borgia had so much murder to do in the ordinary course of his affairs as to require the inclusion of a strangler and a poisoner in his personnel, does not belong to serious history:THE ZENITH Now, notwithstanding that the only available evidence is the full and circumstantial account’ in Burchard’s “Diarium” of the Cardinal of Modena’s ‘death of a tertian fever, the German scholar Gre- gorovius does not hesitate to write of this Cardinal’s death: “It is certain that it was due to their [the Borgias’] infallible white powders.” Giovio tells us all about this fabulous white pow- der. Cantarella, he calls it — Cantharides. Why Can- tarella? Possibly because it is a pleasing, melliflu- ous word that will help a sentence hang together smoothly; possibly because the notorious aphrodisiac properties of that drug suggested it to Giovio as just the poison to be kept handy by folk addicted to the pursuits which he and others attribute to the Borgias. Can you surmise a better reason? For observe that Giovio describes the Cantarella for you — a blunder of his which gives the lie to his statement. ‘‘A white powder of a faint and not unpleasing flavour,” says he; and that, as you know, is nothing like cantharides, which is green, intensely acrid, and burning. Yet who cares for such discrepancies? Who will ever question anything that is uttered against a Borgia? “‘Canta- rella — a white powder of a faint and not unpleasing flavour,” answers excellently the steady purpose of supporting a defamation and pandering to the tastes of those who like sensationalism in their reading. Whilst Cesare’s troops were engaged in laying siege to Ceri, and, by engines contrived by Leonardo da Vinci, pressing the defenders so sorely that at the end of a month’s resistance they surrendered with safe-conduct, the hostile and ever-jealous Venetians390 THE BULL RAMPANT in the north were stirring up what trouble they could. Chafing under the restraint of France, they but sought a pretext that should justify them in the eyes of Louis for making war upon Cesare, and when presently envoys came to lay before the Pope the grievance of the Republic at the pillage by Borgian soldiery of the Venetian traders in Sinigaglia, Cesare had no delusions concerning their disposition towards himself. Growing uneasy lest they should make this a rea- son for assailing his frontiers, he sent orders north rec- ommending vigilance and instructing his officers to deal severely with all enemies of his State, whilst he proceeded to complete the provisions for the govern- ment of the Romagna. To replace the Governor- General he appointed four seneschals: Cristoforo della Torre for Forli, Faenza, and Imola; Hieronimo Bonadies for Cesena, Rimini, and Pesaro; Andrea Cossa for Fano, Sinigaglia, Fossombrone, and Pergola; and Pedro Ramires for the Duchy of Urbino. This last was to find a deal of work for his hands; for Urbino was not yet submissive, Majolo and San Leo still holding for Guidobaldo. Ramires began by reducing Majolo, and then pro- ceeded to lay siege to San Leo. But the Castellan — one Lattanzio — encouraged by the assurances given him that the Venetians would render Guidobaldo assistance to reconquer his dominions, resisted stub- bornly, and was not brought to surrender until the end of June, after having held the castle for S1X months. If Venice was jealous and hostile in the north, Florence was scarcely less so in middle Italy —THE ZENITH though perhaps with rather more justification, for Cesare’s growing power and boundless ambition kept the latter Republic in perpetual fear of being absorbed into his dominions — into that kingdom which it was his ultimate aim to found. There can be little doubt that Francesco da Narni, who appeared in Tuscany early in the March of that year, coming from the French Court for the purpose of arranging a league of Florence, Bologna, Siena, and Lucca — the four States more or less under French protection —had been besought by Florence, to the obvious end that these four States, united, might inter-defend themselves against Valentinois. And Florence even went so far as to avail herself of this to the extent of restoring Pandolfo Petrucci to the lordship of Siena — preferring even this avowed enemy to the fearful Valentinois. Thus came about Petrucci’s restoration towards the end of March, despite the fact that the Siennese were divided on the subject of his return. With the single exception of Camerino, where dis- turbances still continued, all was quiet in the States of the Church by that summer of 1503. This desirable state of things had been achieved by Cesare’s wise and liberal government, which also sufficed to ensure its continuance. He had successfully combated the threatened fam- ine by importing grain from Sicily. To Sinigaglia — his latest conquest — he had accorded, as to the other subjected States, the privilege of appointing her own native officials, with, of course, the exception of the Podesta (who never could be a native of any place where he dispensed justice) and the Castellan. In Cesena a liberal justice was being measured out by392 THE BULL RAMPANT the Tribunal of the Ruota, which Cesare had insti- tuted there, equipping it with the best jurisconsults of the Romagna. In Rome he proceeded to a military organization on a new basis, and with a thoroughness never before seen in Italy — or elsewhere, for that matter — but which was thereafter the example all sought to copy. We have seen him issuing an edict that every house in the Romagna should furnish him one man-at-arms to serve him when necessary. The men so levied were under obligation to repair to the market-place of their native town when summoned thither by the ringing of the bells, and it was estimated that this method of conscription would yield him six or seven thousand men, who could be mobilized in a couple of days. He ineeeaded the number of arquebusiers, appreciating the power and value of a weapon which — although invented nearly a century earlier — was still regarded with suspicion. He was also the inventor of the military uniform, putting his soldiers into a livery of his own, and causing his men-at-arms to wear over their armour a smock, quartered red and yellow with the name Cesare lettered on the breast and back, whilst the gentlemen of his guard wore surcoats of his colours in gold brocade and crimson velvet. He continued to levy troops and to arm them, and it is scarcely overstating the case to say that hardly a tyrant of the Romagna would have dared to do so much for fear of the weapons being turned against himself. Cesare knew no such fear. He enjoyed a loyalty from the people he had subjected which was almost unprecedented in Italy. The very officers he placed in command of the troops of his levying were,THE ZENITH for the most part, natives of the Romagna. Is there no inference concerning him to be drawn from that? For every man in his service Cesare ordered a back- and-breast and headpiece of steel, and the armourers’ shops of Brescia rang busily that summer with the clang of metal upon metal, as that defensive armour for Cesare’s troops was being forged. At the same time the foundries were turning out fresh cannon in that season which saw Cesare at the very height and zenith of his power, although he himself may not have accounted that, as yet, “he was further than at the beginning. But the catastrophe that was to hurl him irre- trievably from the eminence to which in three short years he had climbed was approaching with stealthy, relentless foot, and was even now upon him.SLs | aie ee Se BOOK IV THE BULL CADENT “Cesar Borgia che era della gente Per armi e per virtt tenuto un sole, Mancar dovendo andé dove andar sole Phebo, verso la sera, al Occidente.” GiroLamo Casio — Epitaffin' S es iFSS a aa CHAPTER I THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER VI YW YNFORTUNATE Naples was a battle-field once _J more. France and Spain were engaged there in a war whose details belong elsewhere. To the aid of France, which was hard beset and with whose arms things were going none too well, Cesare was summoned to fulfil the obligations under which he was placed by virtue of his treaty with King Louis. Rumours were rife that he was negotiating secretly with Gonzalo de Cordoba, the Great Captain, and the truth of whether or not he was guilty of so base a treachery has never been discovered. These rumours had been abroad since May, and, if not arising out of, they were certainly stimulated by, an edict published by Valentinois concerning the papal chamberlain, Francesco Troche. In this edict Cesare enjoined all subjects of the Holy See to arrest, wherever found, this man who had fled from Rome, and whose flight ~ was concerned with something against the honour of the King of France.” Francesco Troche had been Alexander’s confidentia] chamberlain and secretary; he had been a diligent servant of the House of Borgia, and when in France had acted as a spy for Valentinois, keeping the Duke supplied with valuable information at a critical time, as we have seen. Villari says of him that he was “‘one of the Borgias’308 THE BULL CADENT most trusted assassins.”’ That he has never been so much as alleged to have murdered any one does not signify. He was a servant—a trusted servant —of the Borgias; therefore the title of “assassin” is, 1pso facto, to be bestowed upon him. The flight of a man holding such an intimate position as Troche’s was naturally a subject of much speculation and gossip, but one upon which there was no actual knowledge. Valentinois was ever se- cret. In common with his father — though hardly in so marked a degree, and if we except the case of the scurrilous “Letter to Silvio Savelli” — he showed a contemptuous indifference to public opinion on the whole which is invested almost with a certain great- ness. At least, it is rarely other than with greatness that we find such an indifference associated. It was not for him to take the world into his confidence in matters with which the world was not concerned. Let the scandalmongers draw what inferences they pleased. It was a lofty and dignified procedure, but fraught with peril; and the Borgias have never ceased to pay the price of that excessive dignity of reserve. For tongues must be wagging, and, where knowledge is lacking, speculation will soon usurp its place, and presently be invested with all the authority of “fact.” Out of surmises touching that matter “which concerned the honour of the King of France” grew presently — and contradictorily — the rumour that Troche was gone to betray to France Valentinois’s intention of going over to the Spanish side. A motive was certainly required to account for Troche’s action; but the invention of motives does not appear ever tO have troubled the Cinquecentist.THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER VI 399 It was now said that Troche was enraged at having been omitted from the list of cardinals to be created at the forthcoming Consistory. It is all mystery, even to the end he made; for, whereas some said that, after being seized on board a ship that was bound for Cor- sica, Troche in his despair threw himself overboard and was drowned, others reported that he was brought back to Rome and strangled in a prison in Trastevere. The following questions crave answer: If it was Troche’s design to betray such a treachery of the Borgias against France, what was he doing on board a vessel bound for Corsica a fortnight after his flight from Rome? Would not his proper goal have been the French camp in Naples, which he could have reached in a quarter of that time, and where not only could he have vented his desire for vengeance by be- traying Alexander and Valentinois, but — his errand being as alleged —he could further have found com- plete protection from pursuit? It 1s idle and unprofitable to dwell further upon the end of Francesco Troche. The matter is a complete mystery, and whilst theory is very well as theory, it is dangerous to allow it to fill the place of fact. Troche was drowned or was strangled as a conse- quence of his having fled out of motives that were “against the honour of the King of France.” And straightway the rumour spread of Valentinois’s in- tended treachery, and the rumour was kept alive and swelled by Venice and Florence in pursuit of their never-ceasing policy of discrediting Cesare with King Louis, to the end that they might encompass his ex- pedient ruin. The lie was given to them to no small extent by the400 THE BULL CADENT Pope, when, in the Consistory of July 28th, he an- nounced Cesare’s departure to join the French army in Naples with five hundred horse and two thousand foot assembled for the purpose. For this Cesare made now his preparations, and on the eve of departure he went with his father — on the evening of August 5th — to sup at the villa of Cardi- nal Adriano Corneto, outside Rome. Once before we have seen him supping at a villa of the Suburra on the eve of setting out for Naples, and we know the tragedy that followed — a tragedy which he has been accused of having brought about. Here again, in a villa of the Suburra, at a supper on the eve of setting out for Naples, Death was the unseen guest. They stayed late at the vineyard of Cardinal Cor neto, enjoying the treacherous cool of the evening, breathing the death that was omnipresent in Rome that summer, the pestilential fever which had smitten Cardinal Giovanni Borgia (Seniore) on the 1st of that month, and of which men were dying every day in the most alarming numbers. On the morning of Saturday 12th, Burchard tells us, the Pope felt all, and that evening he was taken with fever. On the 15th, Burchard records that he was bled, thirteen ounces of blood being taken from him. It relieved him somewhat, and, seeking distraction, he bade some of the cardinals to come and sit by his bed and play at cards. Meanwhile, Cesare was also stricken, and in him the fever raged so fierce and violently that he had himself ‘mmersed to the neck in a huge Jar of ice-cold water -— a drastic treatment in consequence of which he came to shed all the skin from his body.THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER VI 401 On the 17th the Pope was much worse, and on the 18th, the end being at hand, he was confessed by the Bishop of Culm, who administered Extreme Unction, and that evening he died. That, beyond all manner of question, is the true story of the passing of Alexander VI, as revealed by the “ Diarium” of Burchard, by the testimony of the physician who attended him, and by the dispatches of the Venetian, Ferrarese, and Florentine ambassadors. At this time of day it is accepted by all serious his- torians, compelled to it by the burden of evidence. The ambassador of Ferrara had written to Duke Ercole, on August 14th, that it was no wonder the Pope and the Duke were ill, as nearly everybody in Rome was ill as a consequence of the bad air (“Per la mala condictione de ere’’). Cardinal Soderini was also stricken with the fever, whilst Corneto was taken ill on the day after that supper-party, and, like Cesare, is said to have shed all the skin of his body before he recovered. Even Villari and Gregorovius, so unrestrained when writing of the Borgias, discard the extraordinary and utterly unwarranted stories of Guicciardini, Giovio, and Bembo, which will presently be considered. Gre- gorovius does this with a reluctance that is almost amusing, and with many a fond, regretful, backward glance — so very apparent in his manner — at the tale of villainy as told by Guicciardini and the others, which the German scholar would have adopted but that he dared not for his credit’s sake. This is not stated on mere assumption. It is obvious to any one who reads Gregorovius’s histories.402 THE BULL CADENT Burchard tells us — as certainly matter for com. ment — that, during his last illness, Alexander never once asked for Cesare nor ever once mentioned the name of Lucrezia. So far as Cesare is concerned, the Pope knew, no doubt, that he was ill and bedridden, for all that the gravity of the Duke’s condition would, probably, have been concealed from him. That he should not have mentioned Lucrezia — nor, we sup- pose, Giuffredo — is remarkable. Did he, with the hand of Death already upon him, reproach himself with this paternity which, however usual and com- monplace in priests of all degrees, was none the less a scandal, and the more scandalous in a measure as the rank of the offender was higher? It may well be that in those last days that sinful, worldly old man be- thought him of the true scope and meaning of Christ’s Vicarship, which he had so wantonly abused and dis- honoured, and considered that to that Judge before whom he was summoned to appear the sins of his predecessors would be no justification or mitigation of his own. It may well be that, grown introspective upon his bed of death, he tardily sought to thrust from his mind the worldly things that had so absorbed it until the spiritual were forgotten, and had given rise to all the scandal concerning him that was spread through Christendom, to the shame and dishonour of the Church whose champion he should have been. Thus may it have come to pass that he summoned none of his children in his last hours, nor suffered their names to cross his lips. When the news of his father’s death was brought to Cesare, the Duke, all fever-racked as he was, more dead than living, considered his position and issuedee THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER VI 403 his orders to Michele da Corella, that most faithful of all his captains, who so richly shared with Cesare the execration of the latter’s enemies. Of tears for his father there is no record, Just as at no time are we allowed to see that stern spirit yielding to emotion, conceiving affection, or working ever for the good of any but himself. Besides, in such an hour as this, the consciousness of the danger in which he stood by virtue of the Pope’s death and his own most inopportune sickness, which disabled him at a time when action was necessary to render his future se- cure, must have concerned him to the exclusion of all else. Meanwhile, however, Rome was quiet, held so in the iron grip of Michele da Corella and the ducal troops. The Pope’s death was being kept secret for the moment, and was not announced to the people until nightfall, by when Corella had carried out his master’s orders, including the seizure of the Pope’s treasure. And Burchard tells us how some of Valentinois’s men entered the Vatican —all the gates of which were held by the ducal troops — and, seizing Cardinal Casanova, they demanded, with a dagger at his throat and a threat to fling his corpse from the windows if he refused them, the Pope’s keys. These the Cardinal surrendered, and Corella possessed himself of plate and jewels to the value of some two hundred thousand ducats, besides two caskets containing about one ened thousand ducats in gold. Thereafter the serv- ants of the palace pomp cra the pillage by ransack- ing the wardrobes and taking all they could find, so that nothing was left in the p< apal apartments but ‘he chairs, a few cushions, and the tapestries of the walls.EI ENO Dit TEI AO IEE 404. THE BULL CADENT Throughout his life Alexander had been the victim of the most ribald calumnies. Stories had ever sprung up and thriven, like ill w ers, about his name and rep- utation. His sins, great and scandalous in themselv es, were swelled by popular rumour, under the spur of malice, to monstrous and eredible proportions. As they h ad exaggerated and lied about the manner of his life, so— with a consistency worthy of better scope — they exaggerated and lied about the manner of his death, and, the age being a credulous one, the stories were such th at writers of more modern and less credulous times dare not insist upon them, lest they should discredit — as they do — what alse has been alleged against ve Thus whe n, in his last delirium, the Pope uttered some such w Aak as: “lam coming; I am coming. It is just. But wait a little,” and when those words were repeated, it was straightway asserted that the Devil was the being he thus addressed in that supreme hour. The story grew in detail, as is inevitable with such matter. He had bargained with the Devil, it was said, for a pontificate of twelve years, and, the time being completed, the Devil was come for him. And presently 3 we have even a description of Messer the Devil as he appeared on that occasion —1n the shape of a baboon. The Marquis Gonzaga of Mantua, in all seriousness, writes to relate this. The chronicler Sanuto, receiv- ing the now popularly current story from another source, in all seriousness gives it place i in his “* Diarii,”’ thus: “The Devil was seen to leap out of the room in the shape of a baboon. And a cardinal ran to seize him, and, having caught him, would have presented himTHE DEATH OF ALEXANDER VI 405 to the Pope; but the Pope said, ‘Let him g0, let him go. It is the Devil,’ and that night he fell ill and died.” 1 That story, transcending the things which this more practical age considers possible, is universally rejected; but it is of vast importance to the historical student; for it is to be borne in mind that it finds a place in the pages of those same “‘ Diarii” upon the authority of which are accepted many defamatory stories without regard for their extreme improbability so long as they are within the bounds of bare possi- bility. After Alexander was dead, it was said that water boiled in his mouth, and that steam issued from it as he lay in Saint Peter’s, and much else of the same sort, which the known laws of physiology compel so many of us very reluctantly to account exaggerations. But, again, remember that the source of these stories is al- ways the same as the source of many other exaggera- tions not in conflict with physiological laws. The circumstances of Alexander’s funeral are in the highest degree scandalous, and reflect the greatest discredit upon his age. On the morrow, as the clergy were chanting the “Libera me, Domine,” in Saint Peter’s, where the body was exposed on a catafalque in full pontificals, a riot occurred, set on foot by the soldiers present for reasons which Burchard — who records the event — does not make clear. 1 “Tl diavolo sarebbe saltato fuori della camera in forma di babuino, et un cardinale corso per piarlo, e preso volendolo presentar al papa, il papa disse lasolo, lasolo ché il diavolo, E poi la notte si amalé e morite.” (Marino Sanuto, Diarii.)406 THE BULL CADENT The clerics fled for shelter to the sacristy, the chants were cut short, and the Pope’s body almost entirely abandoned. But the most scandalous happening occurred twenty-four hours later. The Pope's remains were re- moved to the Chapel of Santa Maria delle Febbre by six bearers who laughed and jested at the expense of the poor corpse, which was in case to provoke the coarse mirth of the lower classes of an age which, set- ting no value upon human life, knew no respect for death. By virtue of the malady that had killed him, of his plethoric habit of body, and of the sweltering August heat, the corpse was decomposing rapidly, so that the face had become almost black and assumed. an aspect grotesquely horrible, fully described by Burchard: “Factus est sicut pannus vel morus nigerrimus, livoris totus plenus, nasus plenus, os amplissimum, lingua duplex in ore, que labia tota implebat, os apertum et adeo horribile quod nemo viderit unquam vel esse tale dixerit.”’ Two carpenters waited in the chapel with the coffin which they had brought; but, either through careless- ness it had been made too narrow and too short, or else the body, owing to its swollen condition, did not readily fit into this receptacle; whereupon, removing the mitre, for which there was no room, they replaced it by a piece of old carpet, and set themselves to force and pound the corpse into the cofin. And this was done “without candle or any light being burned in honour of the dead, and without the presence of any priest or other person to care for the Pope’s remains.” No explanation of this is forthcoming; it was probablyTHE DEATH OF ALEXANDER VI 407 due to the panic earlier occasioned the clergy by the ducal men-at-arms. The story that he had been poisoned was already spreading like a conflagration through Rome, arising out of the appearance of the body, which was such as was popularly associated with venenation. But a Borgia in the réle of a victim was altogether too unusual to be acceptable, and too much opposed to the taste to which the public had been educated; so the story must be edited and modified until suitable for popular consumption. The supper-party at Cardi- nal Corneto’s villa was remembered, and upon that a tale was founded, and trimmed by degrees into plausible shape. Alexander had intended to poison Corneto — so ran this tale — that he might possess himself of the Cardinal’s vast riches; in the main a well-worn story by now. To this end Cesare had bribed a butler to pour wine for the Cardinal from a flask which he en- trusted to him. Exit Cesare. Exit presently the butler, carelessly leaving the poisoned wine upon a buffet. (The drama, you will observe, is perfectly mechanical, full of au- thor’s interventions, and elementary in its “prepara- tions’). Enter the Pope. He thirsts, and calls for wine. A servant hastens; takes up, of course, the poisoned flask in ignorance of its true quality, and pours for his Beatitude. Whilst the Pope drinks, re- enter Cesare, also athirst, and, seating himself, he joins the Pope in the poisoned wine, all unsuspicious and having taken no precautions to mark the flask. Poetic justice is done, and down comes the curtain upon this preposterous tragi-farce.408 THE BULL CADENT Such is the story which Guicciardini and Giovio and a host of other more or less eminent historians have not hesitated to lay before their readers as being the true circumstances of the death of Alexander VI. It is a noteworthy matter that in all that concerns the history of the House of Borgia, and more par- ticularly those incidents in it that are wrapped in mystery, circumstantial elucidation has a habit of proceeding from the same quarters. You will remember, for instance, that the Venetian Paolo Capello (though not in Rome at the time) was one of those who was best informed in the matter of the murder of the Duke of Gandia. And it was Capello again who was possessed of the complete details of the scarcely less mysterious business of Alfonso of Aragon. Another who on the subject of the murder of Gandia ‘“‘had no doubts” — as he him- self expressed 1t — was Pietro Martire d’ Anghiera, in Spain at the time, whence he is alleged to have written to inform Italy of the true circumstances of a case that had happened in Italy. It is again Pietro Martire d’ Anghiera who, on November 10, 1503, writes from Burgos in Spain to inform Rome of the true facts of Alexander’s death — for it is in that letter of his that the tale of the flask of wine, as here set down, finds place for the first time. It is unprofitable to pursue the matter further, since at this time of day even the most reluctant to reject anything that tells against a Borgia have been com- pelled to admit that the burden of evidence is alto- gether too overwhelming in this instance, and that it is proved to the hilt that Alexander died of the tertian fever then ravaging Rome.THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER YI 409 And just as the Pope’s death was the subject of the wildest fictions which have survived until very recent days, so, too, was Cesare’s recovery. Again, it was the same Pietro Martire d’ Anghiera who from Burgos wrote to inform Rome of what was taking place in the privacy of the Duke of Valen- tinois’s apartments in the Vatican. Under his facile and magic pen, the jar of ice-cold water into which Cesare was believed to have been plunged was trans- muted into a mule which was ripped open that the fever-stricken Cesare might be packed into the pul- sating entrails, there to sweat the fever out of him. But so poor and sexless a beast as this seeming in the popular mind inadequate to a man of Cesare’s mettle, it presently improved upon and converted it into a bull — so much more appropriate, too, as being the emblem of his house. Nor does it seem that even then the story has gone farenough. Facile est inventis addere. There comes a French writer with an essay on the Borgias, than which — submitted as sober fact — nothing more amazingly lurid has been written. In this, with a suggestive cleverness entirely Gallic, he causes us to gather an impression of Cesare in the intestinal suda- torium of that eventrated bull, as of one who is at once the hierophant and devotee of a monstrous, foul, and unclean rite of some unspeakable religion — a rite by comparison with which the Black Mass of the Abbé Guibourg becomes a sweet and wholesome business. But hear the man himself: ‘Cet homme de meurtres et d’inceste, incarné dans l’animal des hécatombes et des bestialités antiques en410 THE BULL CADENT évoque les monstrueuses images. Je crois entendre le taureau de Phalaris et le taureau de Pasiphaé ré- pondre, de loin, par d’effrayants mugissements, aux cris humains de ce bucentaure.”’ That is the top note on this subject. Hereafter all must pale to anti-climax.CHAPTER II PIUS III HE fever that racked Cesare Borgia’s body in those days can have been as nothing to the fever that racked his mind, the despair that must ‘have whelmed his soul to see the unexpected — the one con- tingency against which he had not provided — cut- ting the very ground from underneath his feet. As he afterwards expressed himself to Macchiavelli, and as Macchiavelli has left on record, Cesare had thought of everything, had provided for everything that might happen on his father’s death, save that in such a season — when more than ever he should have need for all his strength of body and of mind —he should, himself, be lying at the point of death. Scarce was Alexander’s body cold than the Duke’s enemies began to lift their heads. Already by the 20th of that month — two days after the Pope had breathed his last — the Orsini were in arms and had led a rising, in retort to which Michele da Corella fired their palace on Montegiordano. Venice and Florence bethought them that the pro- tection of France had been expressly for the Church and not for Cesare personally. So the Venetians at once supplied Guidobaldo da Montefeltre with troop¢ wherewith to reconquer his dominions, and by the 24th he was master of San Leo. In the city of Urbino itself Ramires, the Governor, held out as long as pos- sible, then beat a retreat to Cesena, whilst Valenti-412 THE BULL CADENT nois’s partisans in Urbino were mercilessly slaughtered and their houses pillaged. Florence supported the Baglioni in the conquest of Magione from the Borgias, and they aided Giacopo d’ Appiano to repossess himself of Piombino, which had so gladly seen him depart out of it eighteen months ago. From Magione, Gianpaolo Baglioni marches his Florentine troops to Camerino to aid the only remain- ing Varano to regain the tyranny of his fathers. The Vitelli are back in Citta di Castello, carrying a golden calf in triumph through the streets; and so by the end of August, within less than a fortnight, all the append- ages of the Romagna are lost to Cesare, whilst at Ce- sare’s very gates the Orsini men-at-arms are clamour- ing with insistent menace. The Duke’s best friend, in that crisis, was his secre- tary Agabito Gherardi. For it is eminently probable — as Alvisi opines — that it was Gherardi who urged his master to make an alliance with the Colonna, Gherardi himself being related to that powerful fam- ily. The alliance of these old enemies — Colonna and Borgia — was in their common interests, that they might stand against their common enemy, Orsini — the old friends of the Borgias. On August 22d Prospero Colonna came to Rome, and terms were made and cemented, in the usual manner, by a betrothal — that of the little Rodrigo (Lucrezia’s child) — to a daughter of the House of Colonna. On the same day the Sacred College con- firmed Cesare in his office of Captain-General and Gonfalonier of the Church, pending the election of a new Pope.PIUS IIT Meanwhile, sick almost to the point of death, and scarce able to stir hand or foot, so weak in body had he been left by the heroic treatment to which he had submitted, Cesare continued mentally a miracle of energy and self-possession. He issued orders for the fortifying of the Vatican, and summoned from the Romagna two hundred horse and one thousand foot to his aid in Rome, bidding Remolino, who brought these troops, to quarter himself at Orvieto, and there await his further orders. Considering that the Colonna were fighting in Naples under the banner of Gonzalo de Cordoba, it was naturally enough supposed, from Cesare’s alli- ance with the former, that this time he was resolved to go over to the side of Spain. Of this, M. de Trans came to protest to Valentinois on behalf of Louis XII, to be answered by the Duke’s assurances that the alli- ance into which he had entered was strictly confined to the Colonna; that it entailed no treaty with Spain, nor had he entered into any; that his loyalty to the King of France continued unimpaired, and that he was ready to support King Louis with the entire forces at his disposal, whenever His Majesty should require him so to do. In reply, he was assured by the French ambassador and Cardinal Sanseverino of the continued protection of Louis, and that France would aid him to maintain his dominions in Italy and re- conquer any that might have seceded; and of this declaration copies were sent to Florence, Venice, and Bologna on September Ist, as a warning to those Powers not to engage in anything to the hurt of Va- lentinois. Thus sped the time of the novendiali — the nineTHE BULL CADENT 414 days’ obsequies of the dead Pope — which were com- menced on September 4th. As during the Conclave that was immediately to follow it was against the law for armed men to be in Rome, Cesare was desired by the Sacred College to withdraw his troops. He did so on September 2d, and himself went with them. Cardinal Sanseverino and the French ambassador escorted him out of Rome and saw him take the road to Nepi— a weak, fever-ravaged, emaciated man, borne in a litter by a dozen of his halberdiers, his youth, his beauty, his matchless strength of body all sapped from him by the insidious disease which had but grudgingly spared his very life. At Nepi he was awaited by his brother Giuffredo, who had preceded him thither from Rome. A shad- owy personage this Giuffredo, whose unimportant personality is tantalizingly elusive in the pages where mention is made of him. His incontinent wife, Dona Sancia, had gone to Naples under the escort of Pros- ero Colonna, having left the Castle of Sant’ Angelo where for some time she had been confined by order of her father-in-law, the Pope, on account of the disor- ders of her frivolous life. And now the advices of the fresh treaty between Cesare Borgia and the King of France were producing their effect upon Venice and Florence, who were given additional pause by the fierce jealousy of each other, which was second only to their jealousy of the Duke. From Venice — with or without the sanction of his Government — Bartolomeo d Alviano had ridden south into the Romagna with his condotta immedi- ately upon receiving news of the death of Alexander,PIUS III 4 and, finding Pandolfaccio Malatesta at Ravenna, he proceeded to accompany him back to that Rimini which the tyrant had sold to Cesare. Rimini, how- ever, refused to receive him back, and showed fight to the forces under D’ Alviano. So that, for the moment, nothing was accomplished. Whereupon the Republic, which at first had raised a teeble, make-believe protest at the action of her condottiero, now deemed it as wel] to find a pretext for supporting him. So Venice al- leged that a courier of hers had been stripped of a let. ter, and, with such an overwhelming cause as that for hostilities, dispatched reinforcements to D’ Alviano to the end that he might restore Pandolfaccio to a do- minion in which he was abhorred. Further, D’ Alviano was thereafter to proceed to do the like office for Gio- vanni Sforza, who already had taken ship for Pesaro, and who was restored to his lordship on September 3d. Thence, carrying the war into the Romagna itself, D’ Alviano marched upon Cesena. But the Romagna was staunch and loyal to her Duke. The Governor had shut himself up in Cesena with what troops he could muster, including a thousand veterans under the valiant Dionigio di Naldo, and there, standing firm and resolute, he awaited the onslaught of the Venetians. D’ Alviano advanced rapidly ana cruelly, a devasta- tor laying waste the country in his passage, until to check him came suddenly the Borgia troops, which had ventured upon a sally. The Venetians were routed and put to flight. On September 16th the restored tyrants of Rimini, Pesaro, Castello, Perugia, Camerino, Urbino, and Si-416 THE BULL CADENT nigaglia entered into and signed at Perugia a league, whose chiefs were Bartolomeo d’ Alviano and Gian- paolo Baglion, for their common protection. Florence was invited to join the allies. Intimidated, however, by France, not only did the Signory refuse to be included, but — in her usual manner — actu- ally went so far as to advise Cesare Borgia of that re- fusal and to offer him her services and help. On the same date the Sacred College assembled in Rome, at the Mass of the Holy Spirit, to beseech the grace of inspiration in the election of the new Pontitt. The part usually played by the divine afflatus in these matters was so fully understood and appreciated that the Venetian ambassador received instructions from the Republic’ to order the Venetian cardinals to vote for Giuliano della Rovere, whilst the King of France sent a letter — in his own hand — to the Sacred Col- lege desiring it to elect his friend the Cardinal d’Am- boise, and Spain, at the same time, sought to influence the election of Carvayal. The chances of the last-named do not appear ever to have amounted to very much. The three best supported candidates were Della Rovere, D’Amboise, and Ascanio Sforza— who made his reappearance in Rome, released from his French prison at last, in time to attend this Conclave. None of these three factions was strong enough to ensure the election of its own candidate, but any two were strong enough to prevent the election of the can- didate of the third. Wherefore it happened that, as a result of so much jealousy and competition, recourse was had to temporizing by electing the oldest and 1 See Sanuto’s Diarit.PIUS III 417 feeblest cardinal in the College. Thus there should presently be another election, and meantime the can- didates would improve the time by making their ar- rangements and canvassing their supporters so as to control the votes of the College at that future Con- clave. Therefore Francesco Piccolomini, Cardinal of Siena (nephew of Pius II), a feeble octogenarian, tor- mented by an ulcer, which, in conjunction with an in- competent physician, was to cut his life even shorter than they hoped, was placed upon the throne of Saint Peter, and assumed with the Pontificate the name of Pius III. The new Pope was entirely favourable to Cesare Borgia, and confirmed him in all his offices, signifying his displeasure to Venice at her attempt upon the Ro- magna, and issuing briefs to the allied tyrants com- manding them to desist from their opposition to the will of the Holy See. Cesare returned to Rome, still weak on his legs and ghastly to behold, and on October 6th he received in Saint Peter’s his confirmation as Captain-General and Gonfalonier of the Church. The Venetians had meanwhile been checked by a letter from Louis from lending further assistance to the allies. The latter, however, continued their hos- tilities in spite of that. They had captured Sinigaglia, and now they made an attempt on Fano and Fermo, but were repulsed in both places by Cesare’s loyal sub- ‘ects. At the same time the Ordelafi — who in the old days had been deposed from the Tyranny of Forlt to make room for the Riarii — deemed the opportu- nity a good one to attempt to regain their lordship; but their attempt, too, was frustrated.418 THE BULL CADENT Cesare sat impotent in Rome, no doubt vexed by his own inaction. He cannot have lacked the will to go to the Romagna to support the subjects who shaw ed him such loy alty; but he lacked the means. Owing to the French and ‘Spanish dispute in Naples, his army had practically melted away. The terms of his treaty with Louis compelled him to send the bulk of it to the camp at Garigliano to support the French, who were in trouble. The force that Remolino had quartered at Orvieto to await the Duke’s orders he had been unable to retain there. Growing uneasy at their position, and finding it impossible either to ad- vance or to retreat, being threatened on the one side by the Baglioni andion the other by the Orsini, these troops had steadily deserted; whilst most of ean S Spanish captains and their followers had gone to the aid of their compatriots under Gonzalo de Cordoba in response to that captain’s summons to every Spaniard in the peninsula. Thus did it come about that Cesare had no rein- forcements to afford his Romagna subjects. His com- missioners in the north did what was possible to re- pair the damage effected by the allies, and they sent Dionigio di Naldo with six hundred of his foot, and, further, a condotta of two hundred horse, against Rimini. This was captured by them in one day and almost without resistance, Pandolfaccio flying for his life to Pesaro. Next the allies, by attempting to avenge the rout they had suffered at Cesena, afforded the ducal troops an opportunity of scoring another victory. They pre- pared a second attack against Cesare’s capital, and with an army of considerable strength they advancedPIUS III to the very walls of the stronghold, laying the aque- duct in ruins and dismantling what other buildings they found in their way. But in Cesena the gallant Pedro Ramires lay in wait for them. Issuing to meet them, he not only put them to flight and drove them for shelter into the fortress of Montebello, but laid siege to them there and broke them utterly, with a loss, as was reputed, of some three hundred men in slain alone. The news of this came to cheer Valentinois, who, moreover, could now depend upon the Pope and France. Further, and in view of that same protection, the Orsini were already treating with him for a recon- ciliation, despite the fact that the Orsini blood was scarce dry upon his hands. But he had a resolute, sly, and desperate enemy in Venice, and on October toth there arrived in Rome Bartolomeo d’Alviano and Gianpaolo Baglioni, who repaired to the Venetian ambassador and informed him that they were come in quest of the person of Valentinois, intending his death. To achieve their ends they united themselves to the Orsini, who were now in arms in Rome, their at- tempted reconciliation with Cesare having aborted. Valentinois’s peril became imminent, and from the Vatican he withdrew for shelter to the Castle of Sant’ Angelo, going by way of the underground passage built by his father. Thither he summoned Michele da Corella, who was at Rocca Soriana with his foot, and Taddeo della Volpe (a valiant captain and a great fighter, who had already lost an eye in Cesare’s service) and Baldas- sare Scipione, who were in the Neapolitan territory with their men-at-arms. He was gathering his sinews420 THE BULL CADENT for a spring, when suddenly the entire face of affairs was altered and all plans were checked by the death of Pius III on October 18th, after a reign of tw enty-six days. Once more there was an end to Cesare’s credit. No man might say what the future held in store. Gius- tiniani, indeed, wrote to his Government that Cesare was ous to ithe aw to France, and that he had besought a safe-conduct of the Orsini — which report is as true as many another communication from the same Venetian pen, ever re ady to write what it hoped might be true; and it is flatly contradicted by the better-informed Macchiavelli, who was w riting at the same time: “The Duke is in Sant’ Angelo, and is more hopeful than ever of accomplishing great things, presupposing a Pope according to the wishes of hig friends.”’ But the Romagna was stirred once more to the tur- bulence from which it had scarcely settled. Forli and Rimini were lost almost at once, the Ordelaffi suc- ceeding in capturing the former in this their second attempt, whilst Pandolfaccio once more sat in his palace at Rimini, having cut his way to it through a sturdy resistance. Against Imola Bentivogli dis- patched a force of two thousand foot; but this was beaten off. The authority of France appeared to have lost its weight, and in vain did Cardinal d’Amboise thunder threats in the name of his friend King Louis, and send envoys to Florence, Venice, Bologna, and Ur- bino, to complain of the injuries that were being done to the Duke of Valentinois.CHAPTER: Ill JULIUS 11 JULIANO DELLA ROVERE, Cardinal of San Pietro in Vincoli, had much in his character that was reminiscent of his terrible uncle, Sixtus IV. Like that uncle of his, he had many failings highly un- becoming a Gasca — laic or ecclecinenie — which no one has attempted to screen; and, incidentally, he cultivated morality in his private life and observed his priestly vows of chastity as little as did any other churchman of his day. For you may see him, through the eyes of Paride de Grassi,! unable one Good Bade to remove his shoes for the adoration of the cross in consequence of his foot’s affliction — ex morbo gal- lico. But with one great and splendid virtue was he endowed in the eyes of the enemies of the House of Borgia — contemporary, and subsequent down to our times — a most profound, unchristian, and morda- cious hatred of all Borgias. Roderigo Borgia h ad defeated him in the Conclave of 1492, and for ‘twelv e years had kept him out of the coveted Pontificate. You have seen how he found ex- pression for his furious jealousy at his rival’s success. You have seen him endeavouring to his utmost to ac- complish the deposition of the Borgia Pope, wielding to that end the lever of simony and seeking a fulcrum for it, first in the King of France and later in Ferdi- nand and Isabella; but failing hopelessly in both in- 1 Burchard’s successor in the office of Master of Ceremonies.422 THE BULL CADENT stances. You have seen him, when he realized the failure of an attempt which had made Rome too dan- serous for him and compelled him to remain in exile, suddenly veering round to fawn and flatter and win the friendship of one whom his enmity could not touch. This man who, as Julius II, was presently to suc- ceed Pius III, has been accounted a shining light of virtue amid the dark turpitude of the Church in the Renaissance. A Jack-o’-lanthorn, perhaps, shining with the incandescence of decay. Surely no more than that. Dr. Jacob Burckhardt, in that able work of his to which reference already has been made, follows the well-worn path of unrestrained invective against the Borgias, giving to the usual empty assertions the place which should be held by evidence and argu- ment. Like his predecessors along that path, he causes Giuliano della Rovere to shine heroically by contrast —a foil to throw into greater relief the blackness of Alexander. But he carries assertion rather further than do others when he says of Cardinal della Rovere that ‘“‘He ascended the steps of Saint Peter’s Chair without simony and amid general ap- plause, and with him ceased, at all events, the undis- guised traffic in the highest offices of the Church.” Other writers in plenty have suggested this, but none has quite so plainly and resoundingly thrown down the gauntlet, which we will make bold to lift. That Dr. Burckhardt wrote in other than good faith is not to be imputed. It must therefore follow that an entry in the “ Diarium” of the Ceerimoniarius under date of October 29, 1503, escaped him utterlyJULIUS Tl 423 in the course of his researches. For the “ Diarium” in- forms us that on that day, in the Apostolic Palace, Giuliano della Rovere, Cardinal of San Pietro in Vin- coli, concluded the terms of an agreement with the Duke of Valentinois and the latter’s following of Spanish cardinals, by which he undertook that, in consideration of his receiving the votes of these Span- ish cardinals and being elected Pope, he would con- firm Cesare in his office of Gonfalonier and Captain- General, and would preserve him in the dominion of the Romagna. And, in consideration of that under- taking, the Spanish cardinals, on their side, promised to give him their suftrages. Here are the precise words in which Burchard re- cords the transaction: Eadem die, 29 Octobris, Rmus. D. S. Petri ad Vincula venit in palatio apostolico cum duce Valentino et cardinali- bus suis Hispanis et concluserunt capitula eorum per que, inter alia, cardinalis S. Petri ad Vincula, postquam esset papa, crearet confalonierium Ecclesie generalem ducem ac ei faveret et in statibus suis (relinqueret) et vice versa dux pape; et promiserunt omnes cardinalis Hispani dare votum pro Cardinali S. Petri ad Vincula ad papatum. If that does not entail simony and sacrilege, then such things do not exist at all. More, you shall hunt in vain for any accusation so authoritative, formal, and complete, regarding the simony practised by Alexander VI on his election. And this same Julius, moreover, was the Pope who later was to launch his famous Bull “de Simoniaca Electione,” to add an- other stain to the besmirched escutcheon of the Borgia Pontiff. His conciliation of Cesare and his obtaining, thus,424 THE BULL CADENT the support of the Spanish cardinals, who, being Alex- ander’s creatures, were now Cesare’s very faithful servants, ensured the election of Della Rovere; for, whilst those cardinals’ votes did not suffice to place him in Saint Peter’s Chair, they would abundantly have sufficed to keep him out of it had Cesare so desired. In coming to terms with Cardinal della Rovere, Cesare made the first great mistake of his career, took the first step towards ruin. He should have known better than to have trusted such a man. He should have remembered the ancient bitter rancour; should have recognized, in the amity of later times, the amity of the self- seeker, and mistrusted it. But Della Ro- vere had acquired a reputation for honesty and for be- ing a man of his word. How far he deserved it you may judge from what is presently to follow. He had acquired it, however; and Cesare, to his undoing, was misled by this. He may, to some extent, have entntad upon the fact that, of Cardinal della Rovere’s bastard children, only a a telice della Rovere — survived Raffaele, the last of his bastard boys, had died a year ago. Ths Cesare may have concluded that the Cardinal, having no sons whose fortunes he must advance, w aula lack temptation to break faith with him. From all this it resulted that, at the Conclave of November Ist, Giuliano della Rovere was elected Pope, and took the name of Julius II; whilst Valenti- nois, confident now that his future was assured, left the @rcule of Sant’ Angelo to take up his residence at the Vatican, in the Belvedere, with forty gentlemen constituting his suite.JULIUS 1 426 On November 3d, Julius II issued briefs to the Ro- magna, ordering obedience to Cesare, with whom he was now in daily and friendliest intercourse. In the Romagna, meanwhile, the disturbances had not only continued, but they had taken a fresh turn. Venice, having reseated Malatesta on his throne, now vented at last the covetousness she had ever, herself, manifested of that dominion, and sent a force to drive him out again and conquer Rimini for the Republic. Florence, in a spasm of jealous anger at this, in- quired was the Pope to become the chaplain of Ven- ice, and dispatched Macchiavelli to bear the tale of these doings to Julius. Under so much perpetual strife the strength of the Romagna was gradually crumbling, and Cesare, angry with Florence for never going beyond lip- service, expressed that anger to Macchiavelli, inform- ing the ambassador that the Signory could have saved the Romagna for him with a hundred men-at- arms. The Duke sent for Giustiniani, the ambassador of Venice, who, however, excused: himself and did not go. This within a week of the new Pope’s election, showing already how men discerned what was in store for Valentinois. Giustiniani wrote to his Government that he had not gone lest his going should give the Duke importance in the eyes of others.’ The pettt- ness and meanness of the man, revealed in that dis- patch, will enable you to attach to Giustiniani the label that belongs to him. 1 “Per non dar materia ad altri che fazino un po di lui mazor estimazion di quel che fanno quando lo vedessero in parte alcuna favorito.” (Guusti- niani, Dispatch of November 6, 1503.)THE BULL CADENT To cheer Valentinois in those days of depression came news that his subjects of Imola had successfully resisted an attack on the part of the Venetians. So stimulated was he that he prepared at once to go, himself, into the Romagna, and obtained from the Pope, from D’ Arabowes aed from Soderini, letters to Florence desiring the Signory to afford him safe- conduct through Tuscany for himself and his army. The Pope expressed himself, in his letter, that he would count such safe-conduct as a great favour to himself, and urged the granting of it out of his “love for Cesare,”’ owing to the latter’s ‘great virtues and shining merits.” ! Yet on the morrow of dispatching that brief, this man, who was accounted honest, straightforward, and imbued with a love of truth, in- formed Giustiniani — or else Giustiniani lied in his dispatches — that he understood that the Venetians were assailing the Romagna, not out of enmity to the Church, but to punish the demerits of Cesare, and he made it plain to Giustiniani that, if he complained of the conduct of the Venetians, it was on his own be- half and not on Cesare’s, as his aim was to preserve the Romagna, not for the Duke, but for the Church. With the aim we have no quarrel. It was laudable enough in a Pontiff. But it foreshadows Cesare’s ruin, in spite of the love-protesting letter to Florence, in spite of the bargain struck by virtue of which Julius had obtained the Pontificate. Whether the Pope went further in his treachery, whether, having 1 “Tn quo nobis rem gratissimam facietis ducis enim ipsum propter ejus insignes virtutes et preclara merita precipuo affectur et caritate precipua complectimur.” (Archivio di Stato, Firenze. See Alvisi, Doct. 96.)JULIUS II 427 dispatched that brief to Florence, he sent other com- munications to the Signory, is not ascertainable; but the suspicion of some such secret action is inspired by what ensued. On November 13th Cesare was ready to leave Rome; but no safe-conduct had arrived. Out of all patience at this, he begged the Pope that the captain of the pontifical navy should prepare him five galleons at Ostia, by which he could take his foot to “Genoa, and thence proceed into the Romagna by way of Ferrara. Macchiavelli, at the same time, was frenziedly i1m- portuning Florence to grant the Duke the desired safe- conduct lest in despair Cesare should make a treaty with Venice — “or with. the Devil’? — and should go to Pisa, employing all his money, strength, and 1n- fluence to vent his wrath upon the Signory. But the Signory knew more, perhaps, than Aid Macchiavelli, for no attention was paid to his urgent advice. On the tgth Cesare left Rome to set out for Genoa by way of Ostia, and his departure threw Giustinian1 into such alarm that he wrote expressing a fear that the Duke would now escape. But there was no occasion for this pp On the very day of Cesare’s departure Julius sent fresh briefs to the Romagna, different, indeed, from those of November 3d. The mask was now stripped off, and he freely expressed his disapproval of Alex- ander’s having conferred the vicarship of the Ro- magna upon Cesare Borgia, exhorting all to rally to ke banner of the Church, under whose protection he intended to keep them. Events followed quickly upon that. Two days later428 THE BULL CADENT news reached the Pope that the Venetians had cap- tured Kaenza, whereupon he sent a messenger after Valentinois to suggest to the latter that he should surrender Forli and the other fiefs into pontifical hands. With this Cesare refused to comply, and, as a result, he was detained by the captain of the navy, in obedience to the instructions from Julius. At the same time the Pope broke the last link of the treaty with Cesare by appointing a new Governor of the Romagna in the person of Giovanni Sacchi, Bishop of Ragusa. He commanded the latter to take possession of the Romagna in the name of the Church, and he issued another brief — the third within three weeks — de- manding the State’s obedience to the new Governor. On November 26th, Remolino, who had been at Ostia with Cesare, came to Rome, and, throwing him- self at the feet of the Pontiff, begged for mercy for his lord, whom he now accounted lost. He promised Julius that Cesare should give him the countersigns of the strongholds, together with security for their surrender. This being all that the Pope could desire, he issued orders that Cesare be brought back to Rome, and in Consistory advised the Sacred College — by way, no doubt, of exculpating himself to men who knew that he was refusing to pay the price at which he had bought the Papacy — that the Vene- tians in the Romagna were not moving against the Church, but against Cesare himself — wherefore he had demanded of Cesare the surrender of the towns he held, that thus there might be an end to the war. It was specious — which is the best that can be said for it. As for putting an end to the war, the papal briefJULIUS II 429 was far, indeed, from achieving any such object, as was instantly plain from its reception in the Ro- magna, which persisted in loyalty to Cesare despite the very Pope himself. When that brief was read in Cesena, a wild tumult ensued, and the people ran through the streets clamouring angrily for their Duke. It was clear what short work must have been made of such men as the Ordelaffi and the Malatesta had Cesare gone north. But Cesare was fast at the Vatt- can, treated by the Pope with all outward friendli- ness and consideration, but virtually a prisoner none the less. Julius continued to press for the surrender of the Romagna strongholds, which Remolino had promised in his master’s name; but Cesare per- sisted obstinately to refuse, until the news reached him that Michele da Corella and Della Volpe, who had gone north with seven hundred horse to support his Romagnuoli, had been cut to pieces in Tuscany by the army of Gianpaolo Baglioni. Cesare bore his burning grievance to the Pope. The Pope sympathized with him most deeply; then went to write a letter to the Florentines to thank them for what had befallen and to beg them to send him Michele da Corella under a strong escort — that re- doubtable captain having been taken prisoner together with Della Volpe. Corella was known to be fully in the Duke’s con- fidence, and there were rumours that he was accused of many things perpetrated on the Duke's behalf. Julius, bent now on Cesare’s ruin, desired to possess himself of this man in the hope of being able to put him upon his trial under charges which should reflect discredit upon Cesare.430 THE BULL CADENT At last the Duke realized that he was betrayed, and that all was lost, and so he submitted to the inevi- table, and gave the Pope the countersigns he craved. With these Julius at once dispatched an envoy into the Romagna, and, knowing the temper of Cesare’s captains, he insisted that this envoy should be ac- companied by Piero d’ Orvieto, as Cesare’s own com-~ missioner, to demand that surrender. But the intrepid Pedro Ramires, who held Cesena, knowing the true facts of the case, and conceiving how his Duke had been constrained, instead of mak- ing ready to yield, proceeded farthest to fortify for resistance. When the commissioners appeared before his gates he ordered the admission of Piero d’ Orvieto. That done, he declared that he desired to see his Duke at liberty before he would surrender the citadel which he held for him, and, taking D’Orvieto, he hanged him from the battlements as a traitor an! a bad servant who did a thing which the Duke, had he been at liberty, would never have had him do. Moncalieri, the papal envoy, returned to Rome with the news, and this so inflamed the Pope that the Cardinals Lodovico Borgia and Francesco Remolino, together with other Borgia partisans, instantly fled from Rome, where they no longer accounted them- selves safe, and sought refuge with Gonzalo de Cor- doba in the Spanish camp at Naples, imploring his protection at the same time for Cesare. The Pope’s anger first vented itself in the confisca- tion of the Duke of Valentinois’s property wherever possible, to satisfy the claims of the Riarii (the Pope’s nephews) who demanded an indemnity of fifty thou- sand ducats, of Guidobaldo, who demanded two hun-JULIUS II 431 dred thousand ducats, and of the Florentine Repub- lic, which claimed the same. The Duke’s ruin was by now — within six weeks of the election of Julius II —an accomplished fact; and many were those who chose to fall with him rather than abandon him in his extremity. They afford a spectacle of honour and loyalty that was exceedingly rare in the Italy of the Renaissance; clinging to their Duke, even when the last ray of hope was quenched, they lightened for him the tedium of those last days at the Vatican during which he was no better than a prisoner of state. Suddenly came news of Gonzalo de Cordoba’s splendid victory at Garigliano — a victory which defi- nitely broke the French and gave the throne of Naples to Spain. Naturally this set Spanish influence once more, and mightily, in the ascendant, and the Spanish cardinals, together with the ambassador of Spain, came to exert with the Pope an influence sud- denly grown weighty. As a consequence, Cesare, escorted by Carvajal, Cardinal of Santa Croce, was permitted to depart to Ostia, whence he was to take ship for France. Least- ways, such was the understanding upon which he left the Vatican. But the Pope was not minded, even now, to part with him so easily, and his instructions to Carvajal were that at Ostia he should await further orders before sailing. But on December 26th, news reaching the Spanish Cardinal that the Romagna fortresses — persuaded that Cesare had been liberated — had finally surren- dered, Carvajal took it upon himself to allow Cesare to depart, upon receiving from him a written under- taking never to bear arms against Pope Julius II.432 THE BULL CADENT So the Duke of Valentinois at last regained his freedom. Whether, in repairing straight to Naples, as he did, he put a preconceived plan into execution, or whether, even now, he mistrusted his enlargement, and thought thus to make himself secure, cannot be ascertained. But straight to Gonzalo de Cordoba’s Spanish camp he went, equipped with a safe-conduct from the Great Captain, obtained for Cesare by Cardinal Remolino. There he found a court of friends already awaiting him, among whom were his brother Giuffredo and the Cardinal Lodovico Borgia, and he received from Gonzalo a very cordial welcome. Spain was considering the invasion of Tuscany with the ultimate object of assailing Milan and driv- ing the French out of the peninsula altogether. Piero de’ Medici — killed at Garigliano — had no doubt been serving Spain with some such end in view as the conquest of Florence, and, though Piero was dead, there was no reason why the plan should be aban- doned; rather, all the more reason to carry it forward, since now Spain would more directly profit by it. Bartolomeo d’ Alviano was to have commanded the army destined for that campaign; but Cesare, by vir- tue of his friends and influence in Pisa, Siena, and Piombino, was so preferable a captain for such an ex- pedition that Gonzalo gave him charge of it within a few days of his arrival at the Spanish camp. To Cesare this would have been the thin end of a mighty edge. Here was a chance to begin all over again, and, beginning thus, backed by Spanish arms, there was no saying how far he might have gone. Meanwhile, what a beginning! To avenge himselfJULIUS I] 433 thus upon that Florentine Republic which, under the rotection of France, had dared at every turn to flout him and had been the instrument of his ultimate ruin! Sweet to him would have been the poetic jus- tice he would have administered — as sweet to him as it would have been terrible to Florence, upon which he would have descended like another scourge of God. Briskly and with high-running hopes he set about his preparations during that spring of 1504 what time the Pope’s Holiness in Rome was seeking to Justify his treachery by heaping odium upon the Borgias. Thus he thought to show that if he had broken faith, he had broken faith with knaves deserving none. It was in pursuit of this that Michele da Corella was now pressed with questions, which, however, yielded nothing, and that Asquino de Colloredo (the some- time servant of Cardinal Michaeli) was tortured into confessing that he had poisoned his master at the instigation of Alexander and Cesare — as has been seen — which confession Pope Julius was very quick to publish. But in Naples, it may well be that Cesare cared nought for these matters, busy and hopeful as he was just then. He dispatched Baldassare da Scipione to Rome to enlist what lances he could find, and Scipione put it about that his lord would soon be re- turning to his own and giving his enemies something to think about. And then, suddenly, out of clearest heavens, fell a thunderbolt to shiver this last hope. On the night of May 26th, as Cesare was leaving Gonzalo’s quarters, where he had supped, an officer434 THE BULL CADENT stepped forward to demand his sword. He was under arrest. Julius II had outmanceuvred him. He had written to Spain setting forth what was his agreement with Valentinois in the matter of the Romagna. The earlier agreement, which was the price of the Ponti- ficate, had, of course, been conveniently effaced from the pontifical memory. He addressed passionate com- plaints to Ferdinand and Isabella that Gonzalo de Cordoba and Cardinal Carvajal between them were affording Valentinois the means to break that agree- ment, and to undertake matters that were hostile to the Holy See. And Ferdinand and Isabella had put it upon Gonzalo de Cordoba, that most honourable and gallant captain, to do this thing in gross violation of his safe-conduct and plighted word to Valentinois. It was a deed under the shame of which the Great Captain confessedly laboured to the end of his days, as his memory has laboured under it ever since. For great captains are not afforded the immunity enjoyed by priests and popes jointly with other wearers of the petticoat from the consequences of falsehood and violated trust. Fierce and bitter were Valentinois’s reproaches of the Great Captain for this treachery — as fierce and bitter as they were unavailing. On August 20, 1504, Cesare Borgia took ship for Spain — a prisoner bound for a Spanish dungeon. Thus, at the early age of twenty-nine, he passed from Italy and the deeds that well might have filled a lifetime. Conspicuous amid those he left behind him who re- mained loyal to their Duke was Baldassare Scipt-JULIUS II 436 one, who published throughout Christendom a cartel, wherein he challenged to trial by combat any Span- tard who dared deny that the Duke of Valenti- nois had been detained a prisoner in Naples in spite of the safe-conduct granted him in the name of Ferdinand and Isabella, “with great shame and in- famy to their crown.” } This challenge was never taken up. Amongst other loyal ones was that fine soldier of for- tune, Taddeo della Volpe, who, in his Florentine prison, refused all offers to enter the service of the Signory until he had learnt that his lord was gone from Italy. Fracassa and Mirafuente had held Forli until they received guarantees for Cesare’s safety (after he had left Ostia to repair to the Spanish camp). They then rode out, with the honours of war, lance on thigh. Dionigio di Naldo, that hardy captain of foot, entered the service of Venice; but to the end he wore the device of his dear lord, and imposed the same upon all who served under his banner. Don Michele da Corella was liberated by Julius II after an interrogatory which can have revealed noth- ing defamatory to Cesare or his father; as it 1s un- thinkable that a Pope who did all that man could do to ruin the House of Borgia and to befoul its memory, should have preserved silence touching any such rev- elations as were hoped for when Corella was put to torture. That most faithful of all Cesare’s oficers — and sharer of the odium that has been heaped upon Cesare’s name — entered the service of the Signory of Florence. 1 Quoted by Alvisi, on the authority of a letter of Luigi da Porto, March 16, 1510, in Lettere Storiche.CHAPTER 1V ATROPOS AIN were the exertions put forth by the Spanish cardinals to obtain Cesare’s enlargement, and vainer still the efforts of his sister Lucrezia, who wrote letter after letter to Francesco Gonzaga of Mantua — now Gonfalonier of the Church, and a man of 1n- fluence at the Vatican — imploring him to use his interest with the Pope to the same end. Julius II remained unmoved, fearing the power of Cesare Borgia, and resolved that he should trouble Italy no more. On the score of that, no blame at- taches to the Pope. The States which Borgia had conquered in the name of the Church should remain adherent to the Church. Upon that Julius was re- solved, and the resolve was highly laudable. He would have no duke who controlled such a following as did Cesare, using those States as stepping-stones to reater dominions in which, no doubt, he would later have absorbed them, alienating them, so, from the Holy See. In all this Julius II was most fully justified. The odious matter in his conduct, however, is the treach- ery it entailed, following as it did upon the under- taking by virtue of which he gained the tiara. For some months after his arrival in Spain, Cesare was confined in the prison of Chinchilla, whence — as a result, it is said, of an attempt on his part to throw the governor bodily over the battlements — he wasATROPOS 437 removed to the fortress of Medina del Campo, and kept well guarded by orders of the Pope. Rumours that he had been liberated by the King of Spain overran the Romagna more than once, and set the country in a ferment, even reaching the Vatican and shaking the stout-hearted Julius into alarm. One chance of regaining his ancient might, and wreaking a sweet and terrific vengeance upon his be- trayers came very close to him, but passed him by. This chance occurred in 1505, when — Queen Isa- bella being dead — King Ferdinand discovered that Gonzalo de Cordoba was playing him false in Naples. The Spanish King conceived a plan — according to the chronicles of Zurita — to employ Cesare as a flail for the punishment of the Great Captain. He proposed to liberate the Duke, set him at the head of an army, and loose him upon Naples, trusting to the formidable alliance of Cesare’s military talents with his hatred of Gonzalo — who had betrayed him — to work the will of his Catholic Majesty. Unfortunately for Cesare, there were difficulties. Ferdinand’s power was no longer absolute in Castile now that Isabella was dead. He sought to overcome these difficulties; but the process was a slow one, and in the course of it, spurred also by increased proofs of his lieutenant’s perfidy, Ferdinand lost patience, and determined — the case having grown urgent — to go to Naples in person to deal with Gonzalo. Plainly, Cesare’s good fortune, which once had been proverbial, had now utterly deserted him. He had received news of what was afoot, and his hopes had run high once more, only to suffer cruel frustration when he learnt that Ferdinand had sailed,438 THE BULL CADENT ) himself, for Naples. In his despair the Duke roused himself to a last effort to win his freedom. His treatment in prison was fairly liberal, such as is usually measured out to state prisoners of coneideeal tion. He was allowed his own chaplain and several attendants, and, whilst closely guarded and confined to the Homenaje Tower of the fortress, yet he was not oppressively restrained. He was Seenied certain privileges and liberties; he enjoyed the faculty of cor- responding with the outer w orld, and even of receiv- ing visits. Amongst his visitors was the Count of Benavente — a powerful lord of the neighbourhood, who, coming under the spell of Cesare’s “fascination, eeame so attached to him, and so resolved to do his will and effect his liberation, that — says Zurita — he was prepared even to go the length of accomplishing it by force of arms should no other w ay present itself.’ Another w ay, however, did present itself, and Benavente and he Duke Herehed a plot of evasion in which they had the collaboration of the chaplain and a servant of the governor’s, named Garcia. One September night a Bord was let down from the crenels of the tower, and by this the Duke was to descend from his window to the castle ditch, where Benavente’s men awaited him. Garcia was to go with him since, naturally, it would not be safe for the servant to remain behind, and Garcia now let himself down that rope, hand over hand, from the terrible height of the Duke’s window. It was only when he had reached the end of it that he discovered that the rope was not long enough, and that below him there 1Sanuto confirms Zurita, in the main, by letters received by the Venetian Senate.ATROPOS 439 was still a chasm that might well have appalled even desperate men. To return was impossible. The Duke above was growing impatient. Garcia loosed his hold, and dropped the remainder of the distance, breaking both his legs in the fall. Groaning, he lay there in the ditch, whilst hand over hand now came the agile, athletic Duke, unconscious of his predecessor’s fate, and of what awaited him at the end. He reached it, and was dangling there, perhaps undecided whether or not to take that daring leap, when suddenly his doubts were resolved for him. His evasion was already dis- covered. The castle was in alarm, and some one above him cut the rope and precipitated him into the ditch. Benavente’s men — we do not know how many of them were at hand —ran to him instantly. They found him seriously injured, and that he, too, had broken bones is beyond doubt. They lifted him up, and bore him with all speed to the horses. They contrived, somehow, to mount him upon one, and, holding him in the saddle, they rode off as fast as was possible in the circumstances. There was no time to go back for the unfortunate Garcia. The castle was all astir by now to stop the fugitives, and to have returned would have been to suffer capture themselves as well as the Duke, without availing the servant. So poor Garcia was left to his fate. He was found by the governor where he had fallen, and he was im- mediately put to death. If the people of Medina organized a pursuit it availed them nothing, for Cesare was carried safely to Benavente’s stronghold at Villalon.440 THE BULL CADENT There he lay for some five or six weeks to recover from the hurts he had taken in escaping, and to allow his hands — the bones of which were broken — to become whole again. At last, being in the main re- covered, though with hands still bandaged, he set out with two attendants and made for Santander. Thence they took ship to Castro Urdiales, Cesare aiming now at reaching the Kingdom of Navarre and the protec- tion of his brother-in-law the King. At the inn at Santander, where, weary and fam- ished, they sat down to dine after one of the grooms had made arrangements for a boat, they had a near es- cape of capture. The alcalde, hearing of the presence of these strangers, and his suspicions being aroused by the recklessly high price they had agreed to pay the owner of the vessel which they had engaged, came to examine them. But they had a tale ready that they were wheat-merchants in great haste to reach Bernico, that a cargo of wheat awaited them there, and that they would suffer great loss by delay. The tale was smooth enough to satisfy the alcalde, and they were allowed to depart. They reached Castro Urdiales safely, but were delayed there for two days, owing to the total lack of horses; and they were forced, in the end, to proceed upon mules obtained from a neigh- bouring convent. On these they rode to Durango, where they procured two fresh mules and a horse, and so, after further similar vicissitudes, they arrived at Pampeluna on December 3, 1506, and Cesare startled the Court of his brother-in-law, King Jean of Navarre, by suddenly appearing in it — “like the Devil.” The news of his evasion had already spread toATROPOS 44I Italy and set it in a ferment, inspiring actual fear at the Vatican. The Romagna was encouraged by it to break out into open and armed insurrection against the harsh rule of Julius II — who seems to have been rendered positively vindictive towards the Romagnu- oli by their fidelity to Valentinois. Thus had the Ro- magna fallen again into the old state of insufferable oppression from which Cesare had once delivered it. The hopes of the Romagnuoli rose in a measure, as the alarm spread among the enemies of Cesare — for Florence and Venice shared now the anxiety of the Vatican. Zurita, commenting upon this state of things, pays Cesare the following compliment, which the facts confirm as just: “The Duke was such that his very presence was enough to set all Italy agog; and he was greatly beloved, not only by men of war, but also by many people of Tuscany and of the States of the Church.” Cesare’s wife — Charlotte d’Albret — whom he had not seen since that September of 1499, was at Bourges at the Court of her friend, the saintly, repudiated first wife of Louis XII. It is to be supposed that she would be advised of her husband’s presence at her brother’s Court; but there is no information on this score, nor do we know that they ever met. Within four days of reaching Pampeluna, Cesare dispatched his secretary Federico into Italy to bear the news of his escape to his sister Lucrezia at Ferrara, and a letter to Francesco Gonzaga, of Mantua, which was little more than one of introduction, the more important matters to be conveyed to Gonzaga going, no doubt, by word of mouth. Federico was arrested at442 THE BULL CADENT Bologna by order of Julius II, after he had discharged his mission. France was now Cesare’s only hope, and he wrote to Louis begging his royal leave to come to take his rank as a prince of that country, and to serve her. You may justly have opined, long since, that the story here set down is one never-ending record of treacheries and betrayals. But you will find little to surpass the one to come. The behaviour of Louis at this juncture is contemptible beyond words, obeying as it does the maxim of that age, which had it that no inconvenient engagement should be observed if there was opportunity for breaking it. Following this detestable maxim, Louis XII had actually gone the length of never paying to Charlotte d’Albret the dot of one hundred thousand livres Tournois, to which he bad engaged himself by written contract. When Cesare, in prison at Medina and 1n straits for money, had solicited payment through his brother-in-law of Navarre, his claim had been con- temptuously disregarded. But there was worse to follow. Louis now answered Cesare’s request for leave to come to France by a let- ter (quoted in full by M. Yriarte from the “Archives des Basses Pyrénées’’) in which his Very Christian Majesty announces that the Duchy of Valentinois and the County of Dyois have been restored to the crown of France, as also the lordship of Issoudun. And then follows the pretext, of whose basely paltry quality you shall judge for yourselves. It runs: After the decease of the late Pope Alexander, when our people and our army were seeking the recovery of the Kingdom of Naples, he [Cesare] went over to the side ofATROPOS 443 our enemies, serving, favouring, and assisting them at arms and otherwise against ourselves and our said people and army, which resulted to us in great and irrecoverable loss. The climax is in the deliberate falsehood contained in the closing words. Cesare, who had served France at her call —in spite of what was rumoured of his intentions — as long as he had a man-at-arms to follow him, had gone to Naples only in the hour of his extreme need. True, he had gone to offer himself to Spain as a condottiero when naught else was left to him; but he took no army with him — he went alone, a servant, not an ally, as that false letter pre- tends. He had never come to draw his sword against France, and certainly no) loss had been suffered by France in consequence of any action of his. Louis’s army was definitely routed at Garigliano, with Ce- sare’s troops fighting in its ranks. But Pope Alexander was dead; Cesare’s might in Italy was dissipated; his credit gone. There lay no profit for Louis in keeping faith with him; there lay some profit in breaking it. And so this King did not scruple to stain his honour with base and vulgar lies to minister to his cupidity, and to set them down above his seal and signature to shame him through centuries still in the womb of Time. Cesare Borgia, landless, without right to any title, he that had held so many, betrayed and abandoned on every side, had now nothing to offer in the world’s market but his stout sword and his glad courage. These went to the first bidder for them, who happened to be his brother-in-law King Jean. Navarre at the time was being snarled and quar-444 THE BULL CADENT relled over by France and Spain, both menacing its independence, each pretending to claims upon it which do not, 1n themselves, concern us. In addition, the country itself was torn by two factions — the Beaumontes and the Agramontes — and it was entrusted to Cesare to restore Navarre to peace and unity at home before — proceeding with the aid upon which he depended from the Emperor Maxi- milian — to deal with the enemies beyond her frontiers. The Castle of Viana was being held by Louis de Beaumont — chief of the faction that bore his name —in rebellion against his King. To reduce it and compel Beaumont to obedience went Cesare as Cap- tain-General of Navarre, early in February of 1507. He commanded a considerable force, some ten thou- sand strong, and with this and his cannon he laid siege to the citadel. The natural strength of the place was such as might have defied any attempt to reduce it by force; but victuals were running low, and there was every like- lihood of its being speedily starved into surrender. To avoid this, Beaumont conceived the daring plan of attempting to send in supplies from Mendavia. The attempt being made secretly, by night and un- der a strong escort, was entirely successful; but, in retreating, the Beaumontese were surprised in the dawn of that February morning by a troop of rein- forcements coming to Cesare’s camp. These, at sight of the rebels, immediately gave the alarm. The most hopeless confusion ensued in the town, where it was at once imagined that a surprise attack was being made upon the Royalists, and that they had to do with the entire rebel army.ATROPOS 445 Cesare, being aroused by the din and the blare of trumpets calling men to arms, sprang for his weapons, armed himself in haste, flung himself on a horse, and, without pausing so much as to issue a command to his waiting men-at-arms, rode headlong down the street to the Puerta del Sol. Under the archway of the gate his horse stumbled and came down with him. With an oath, Cesare wrenched the animal to its feet again, gave it the spur, and was away ata mad, furious gallop in pursuit of the retreating Beaumont rear-guard. The citizens, crowding to the walls of Viana, watched that last reckless ride of his with amazed, uncomprehending eyes. The peeping sun caught his glittering armour as he sped, so that of a sudden he must have seemed to them a thing of fire — meteoric, as had been his whole life’s trajectory which was now swiftly dipping to its nadir. Whether he was frenzied with the lust of battle, riding in the reckless manner that was his wont, con- fident that his men followed, yet too self-centred to ascertain, or whether — as seems more likely — it was simply that his horse had bolted with him, will never be known until all things are known. Suddenly he was upon the rear-guard of the fleeing rebels. His sword flashed up and down; again and again they may have caught the gleam of it from Viana’s walls, as he smote the foe. Irresistible as a thunderbolt, he clove himself a way through those Beaumontese. He was alone once more, a flying, daz- zling figure of light, away beyond that rear-guard which he left scathed and disordered by his furious passage. Still his mad career continued, and he bore down upon the main body of the escort.446 THE BULL CADENT Beaumont sat his horse to watch, in such amaze- ment as you may conceive, the wild approach of this unknown rider. Seeing him unsupported, some of the Count’s men detached themselves to return and meet this single foe and oblige him with the death he so obviously appeared to seek. They hedged him about — we do not know their number — and, engaging him, they drew him from the road and down into the hollow space of a ravine. And so, in the thirty-second year of his age, and in all the glory of his matchless strength, his soul pos- sessed of the lust of combat, sword in hand, warding off the attack that rains upon him, and dealing death about him, he meets his end. From the walls of Viana his resplendent armour renders him still dis- cernible, until, like a sun to its setting, he passes below the rim of that ravine, and is lost to the watchers’ view. Death awaited him amid the shadows of that hol- low place. Unhorsed by now, he fought with no concern for the odds against him, and did sore execution upon his assailants, until a sword found an opening in his suard to combine with a gap in his armour and so drove home. That blade had found, maybe, his lungs. Still he swung his sword, swaying now upon his loos- ening knees. His mouth was full of blood. It was erowing dark. His hands began to fail him. He reeled like a drunkard, sapped of strength, and then the end came quickly. Blows unwarded showered upon him now. He crashed down in all the glory of his rich armour, which those brigand-soldiers already coveted. AndATROPOS 447 thus he died — mercifully, maybe happily, for he had no time in which to taste the bitterness of death — that awful draught which he had forced upon so many. Within a few moments of his falling, this man who had been a living force, whose word had carried law from the Campagna to the Bolognese, was so much naked, blood-smeared carrion — for those human vultures stripped him to the skin; his very shirt must they have. And there, a stark, livid corpse, of no more account than any dog that died last Saturday, they left Cesare Borgia of France, Duke of Romagna and Valentinois, Prince of Andria and Venafri, and Lord of a dozen Tyrannies. The body was found there anon by those who so tardily rode after their leader, and his dismayed troopers bore those poor remains to Viana. The King, arriving there that very day, horror-stricken at the news and sight that awaited him, ordered Cesare a magnificent funeral, and so he was laid to rest be- fore the High Altar of Sainte Marie de Viane. To rest? May the soul of him rest at least, for men — Christian men — have refused to vouchsafe that privilege to his poor ashes. Nearly two hundred years later — at the close of the seventeenth century, a priest of God and a bishop, one who preached a gospel of love and mercy so in- finite that he dared believe by its lights no man to have been damned, came to disturb the dust of Ce- sare Borgia. This Bishop of Calahorra — lineal de- scendant in soul of that Pharisee who exalted him- self in God’s House, thrilled with titillations of self-THE BULLE, CADENT 448 righteous horror at the desecrating presence of the base publican — found his pietist’s eyes offended by the slab that marked Cesare Borgia’s resting-place.} The pious, Christian Bishop had read of this man — perhaps that life of him published by the apos- tate Gregorio Leti under the pen-name of Tommaso Tommasi, which had lately seen the light — and he ordered the tomb’s removal from that holy place. Thus it befell that the ashes of Cesare Borgia were scattered and lost. Charlotte d’Albret was bereft of her one friend, Queen Jeanne, in that same year of Cesare’s death. The Duchess of Valentinois withdrew to La Motte- Feuilly, and for the seven years remaining of her life was never seen other than in mourning; her very house was equipped with sombre, funereal furniture, and so maintained until her end, which supports the view that she had conceived affection and respect for the husband of whom she had seen so little. 1 It bore the following legend: AQUI YACE EN POCA TIERRA AL QUE TODO LE TEMIA EL QUE LA PAZ Y LA GUERRA EN LA SUA MANO TENIA. OH TU QUE VAS A BUSCAR COSAS DIGNAS DE LOAR SI TU LOAS LO MAS DIGNO AQUI PARE TU CAMINO NO CURES DE MAS ANDAR — which, more or less literally, may be Englished as follows: “Here in a little earth, lies one whom all men feared; one whose hands dispensed both peace and war. Oh, you that go in search of things deserving praise, if you would praise the worthiest, then let your journey end here, nor trouble to go farther.”’ATROPOS 449 On March 14, 1514, that poor lady passed from a life which appears to have offered her few joys. Louise de Valentinois — a handsome damsel of the age of fourteen — remained for three years under the tutelage of the Duchess of Angouléme — the mother of King Francis I— to whom Charlotte d’Albret had entrusted her child. Louise married, at the age of seventeen, Louis de la Trémouille, Prince de Tal- mont and Vicomte de Thouars. She maintained some correspondence with her aunt, Lucrezia Borgia, whom she had never seen, and ever signed herself “Louise de Valentinois.” At the age of thirty — Trémouille having been killed at Pavia — she married, in second nuptials, Philippe de Bourbon-Busset. Lucrezia died in 1519, one year after her mother, Vanozza de’ Catanei, with whom she corresponded to the end. REQUIESCANT! THE ENDThY SieActon, Lord, on election of Alex- ander VI, 48, ¢1. Alberini, Giulio, in Cesare Borgia’s train, 158. Albret, Alain d’ (Duke de Guyenne), 165, 166. Albret, Amanieu d’, son of Alain d’ Albret, cardinal’s shat demanded for, 167; receives cardinal’s hat, 230; goes to Rome, 304. Albret, Charlotte d’, negotiations for her hand, 165-67; marries Cesare Borgia, 167-69; appointed by Cesare Borgia his administra- tor in Dauphiny, 189; illness of, 304; at Bourges, 441; her mourn- ing and death, 448, 449. Albret, Gabriel d’, son of Alain d’Albret, 167. Albret, Jean d’ (King of Navarre), brother of Charlotte, wife of Cesare Borgia, 165, 166; Cesare Borgia takes refuge with, 440; creates Cesare Borgia his Cap- tain-General, 443; buries Cesare Borgia, 447. Alexander VI, Pope (see Cardinal Roderigo Borgia), his election, 36, 37; extravagant statements re- garding, 37-41; character of the man and his pontificate, 38-41; the type of his class, 40; recep- tion of his election by Italian powers, 41-46; his election gained by simony, 46-53; benefices con- ferred by, 49; puts down lawless- ness, §4; Improves legislation, $43 crowned, 54; procession attend- ing coronation of, 54, 55; called INDEX “the Bull,” 55; the two chief aims of, $7; protests against sale of Cervetri and Anguillara, 59; prepares defence against Ferrante and Rovere, 62; negotiates with Naples, 62, 63; breaks off ne- gotiations, 63; grants America to Spain, 64; makes peace with Naples, 73, 74; refuses to disgrace Ascanio Sforza, 743 overlooks Cardinal della Rov rere’s defection, 74; refuses to see French am- bassador, 74; creates twelve new cardinals, 74; recklessly accused of unseemly conduct, 80; builds the Borgia Tower, 80; picture of, in the Borgia Tower, 80, 81; re- fuses investiture to Charles VIII, 82; dismisses French ambassador, 83; his volte-face, 85, 86; appeals of Bajazet, go; makes treaty with Charles VIII, 91; accused of poisoning Djem, 93-97; leaves Rome, 99; at Perugia, 99; visits Colomba da Rieti, 102, 103; his attitude toward the supernatural, 103, 104; his attitude toward the supernatural misunderstood, 104; his tolerance a source of calumny, 104, 105; considered as a church- man, 10s; invents the missionary, 106; prosecutes heretics of Bo- hemia and the “Picards” and “Vaudois,” 106; proceeds against the Lombard demoniacs, 106; invents the Index : Expurgatori ius, - his devotion to the Blessed Virgin, 107, 150; revives ringing of Angelus Bell, 107, 150; af-452 forded means of breaking power of Roman barons, 109; issues Bull against the Orsini and d’ Alviano, 109; Duke of Gandia said to have brought woman from Spain for, 110; appeals to Gonzalo de or! doba, 112; in the murder of Gan- dia, 119; distress of, 120, 121, 127; orders search for murderer to cease, 122; Savonarola and Della Rovere condole with, on death of Gandia, 127, 14I- 433 broken- hearted, 140; proposes investiture of Cesare Borgia in the Duchy of Valentinois, 151; consents to Cesare Borgia’s deposition of the purple, 154; attaches patricians to hin iself. 158; his pride in Cesare Borgia, 159; enters into alliance with France and Venice, 167; pro- poses reform of the Church, 141, 143; Bull of, against traffic in indulgences, 143, 144; welcomes Cesare Borgia to Rome, 146; plans marriage for Cesare Borgia, 147; appoints commission to ex- amine Louis XII’s claim to be divorced, 149; proclaims inten- tions concerning Romagna, 171; concerning his nepotism, 172; aims at the reconsolidation of the States of the Church, 172, 173; his chief aim to found a powerful State for his son, 173; his Bull against the Vicars, 1733 plot to poison him, 175-773 his joy at Cesare Borgi a’s_ return from France, 201, 202; creates Cesare Borgia Vicar of Imola and Forlt, 204; makes Cesare Borgia Gon- falonier, 205; appoints Cesare Borgia Captain-General of the pontifical forces, 205; confers honour of the Golden Rose on INDEX 205, 207; in cere- mony of investiture, 205-07; re- quests French troops for Cesare Borgia, 208; in the jubilee, 209; disapproves of lavishness of Ce- Cesare Borgia, sare Borgia’s Court, 210; in mur- der of Biselli, 218-21; reconcilia- tion of, with Venice, 227; raises funds for Cesare Borgia’s army, 229, 230; his “sale of twelve cardi- nals’ hats,” 229-32; concerning his sale of indule gences, 232; threatens Bentivogli ‘with excommunica- tion, 247; his table habits most sparing, 251; complains to France of Bentivogli, 253; thanks Benti- vogli for assistance given Cesare Borgia, 254; accusation against him concerning Manfredi, 268; recalls Cesare Borgia to Rome, 273; commands Cesare Borgia to withdraw from Tuscany, 276; sends ships for reduction of Piombino, 279; consents to erec- tion of new convent in Faenza, 281; publishes Bull against Fede- rigo of Naples, 282; blesses troops, 283; publishes Bull against the Savelli and Colonna, 289; pub- lishes Bull concerning Roderigo and Giovanni Borgia, 289; his distribution of confiscated fiefs a gross act of nepotism, 289, 2903 mystery concerning his Bulls re- garding Giovanni Borgia, 290, 291; issues Bull of confirmation to the House of Este, 291; and the sup- per of the courtesans, 293-95; and the affair of the stallions, 296; in the Letter to Silvio Savellt, 298, 300; his attitude toward slander, 300, 301; sets out for Piombino, 304; at Piombino, 305; in storm at sea, 305; issues Bull againstbelligerents at Florence, 311; summons Bentivogli to Rome, 331; denies story put about by the Orsini, 334; hears of revolt of condottiert, 337; proclaims con- fessions of Ramiro de Lorqua, 373; accuses the Orsini in Consistory, 373; orders release of Panthasilea d’ Alviano, 378; dis- agrees with Cesare Borgia, 380; accused of poisoning Cardinal Orsini, 380, 381; accused of poisoning Giovanni Michiel, 381, 382; examination of charges of poisoning, 383-89; announces in Consistory Cesare Borgia’s de- parture to join French army, 400; sups at Cardinal Corneto’s, 400; taken ill, 400; his death, 4o1; stories concerning his death, 4o1- 05; scandalous circumstances of his obsequies, 405-07; rumour that he died of posion, 407. Alfonso of Aragon (Duke of Biselli), marries Lucrezia Borgia, 147, 213; in attendance upon Cesare Borgia, 201; assaulted, 213; death, 214; criticism of accounts of his murder, 214-26. Alfonso of Aragon (King of Naples), rescues Valla, 16; crowned, 83; flight and abdication of, 92. Allégre, Yves d’, commands French lances under Cesare Borgia, 179; receives surrender of Forlim- popoli, 192; returns to Forli, 196; "79 Hinad Countess Sforza-Riario left .in charge of, 197; goes to Milan, 197; returns to Cesare Borgia, 227; at Modena, 253; with Manenti, 256; goes to Rome, 280; at Capua, 286 n. Almeida, Fernando d’, (Bishop of Ceuta), 149, 151; Cesare Borgia INDEX 453 charged with causing his death, 164. Almerici, on flight of Duke of Gandia, I14. Altamura, Prince of, son of Fer- rante, comes to lay father’s homage at feet of Pope, 60; en- tertained by Giuliano della Ro- vere, 61; again sent to conciliate the Pope, 73. Alviano, Bartolomeo d’, Alexander VI issues Bull against, 109; in Bracciano, I11; suspected of murder of Gandia, 123; recon- ducts Guidobaldo da Monte- feltre to Urbino, 336; demands his wife’s release, 377; invades the Romagna, 414, 415; routed, 415; goes to Rome, 419; and Span- ish campaign in Tuscany, 432. Alviano, Panthasilea Baglioni d’, the case of, 377, 378; chief of league of restored tyrants, 416. Alvisi, on Corella, 306; on printing, 308; on alliance of Cesare Borgia and Colonna, 412; reference to, 435 7. Amboise, Georges d’, becomes cardinal, 152, 157; welcomes Cesare Borgia to Chinon, 162; sends messages to Florence, 322; ambition to wear the tiara, 3283 election to Papacy desired by Louis XII, 416; threatens Cesare Borgia’s enemies, 420; requests safe-conduct through Tuscany for Cesare Borgia, 426. America, discovery of, 64; granted to Spain by Alexander VI, 64,106. Ammanati, Giacopo, escapade of, 12, 13; on luxury of Cardinal Riario, 17. Angelus Bell, Alexander VI revives ringing of, 107, 150.454 Anghiera, Pietro Martire d’, criti- cism of, concerning the murder of Gandia, 130, 408; on the death of Alexander VI, 408; on Cesare Borgia’s recovery, 409. Angouléme, Duchess of, 449. Anguillara, sale of, §9, 73. Anne of Brittany, marriage to Louis XII, 152, 157, 165; concerning the dispensation for her marriage, 163, 164. Appiano, Giacomo d’, Tyrant of Piombino, 278; deposed by Cesare Borgia, 279; restored by Florence, 412. Aquila, Serafino Cimino da, pat- ronized by Cesare Borgia, 210. Aragon, the end of the House of, 280-88, Aragona, Princess Maria d’, 28. Aretino, I14. Arignano, Domenico d’, and Cesare Borgia’s birth, 20, 21 7., 79. Armagnac, Louis d’ (French Vice- roy), and Gonzalo de Cor- doba, 309. Attendolo, Mazio, founder of the House of Sforza, 343. Aubigny, d’, Captain-General of the French army, 99; withdraws to France, 109; leaves Rome, 279, 283. Aubusson, d’, Grand Master of Rhodes, 88, 89. Auton, Jean d’, on Cesare Borgia’s valour, 284; on sack of Capua, 285. Baglioni, Gianpaolo, aids the Or- sini, III; joins Cesare Borgia, 228; supports Vitelli, 311; leaves Arezzo with Vitelli, 326; in Diet of Magione, 334; seizes Cagli, 349; goes to Fano, 350; absent from INDEX Sinigaglia, 364; at Perugia, 376; flight of, 376; supported by Flor- ence, 412; chief of league of re- stored tyrants, 416; goes to Rome, 419; routs Corella and Della Volpe, 429. Baglioni, Gentile, in Diet of Ma- gione, 334. Baglioni, Morgante, condotta of lances under, 283. Baglioni, the, their record a record of slaughter, 376. Bagnolo, Treaty of (1484), 28. Bajazet, Sultan, his allowance for Prince Djem’s safe custody, 89; seeks Prince Djem’s death, 99, 97. Baldassare, dealer in antiques, 211, 212. Baldassare, Gianbattista, taken in security, 237. Bande Nere, Giovanni delle, son of Countess Sforza-Riario, 182. Barbo, Pietro. See Paul II. Barons, Roman, war on, IOg-II. Basche, Peron de, envoy of France, 74, 83. Bastards, excluded from the purple, 20; social position of, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, 69-71. Beaumont, Louis de, head of faction in Navarre, 444. “Beautiful Happening, The,” 365- 74: Bembo, on the affair of Dorotea Caracciolo, 258; on death of Alexander VI, 401. Benavente, Count of, rescues Cesare Borgia from prison, 438, 439- Benfaremo, in the affair of Dorotea Caracciolo, 257. Bentivogli, Antonio Galeazzo, en- voy of his father, Giovanni Benti- vogli, 354+Bentivogli, Ercole, raises troops for Cesare Borgia, 179; in garrison at Forli, 198; repurchases forfeited French protection, 208; quells riot at Cesena, 234; marches on Pesaro, 238; receives surrender of Pesaro, 239. Bentivogli, Giovanni (Lord of Bologna), 235; cannot help Gio. vanni Sforza, 239; assists Man- fredi, 246; threatened with ex- communication, 247; Pope com- plains of, to King of France, 253; withdraws from Faenza, 253; his danger, 253; compromises with Cesare Borgia, 254; alarmed by Cesare Borgia’s advance, 270; treats with Cesare Borgia, 271; seizes four members of House of Marescotti, 272; loses French protection, 330, 331; summoned to Rome, 331; not taken una- wares, 331; gets adherents, 331, 332; takes the offensive, 350; complains that Cesare Borgia has broken treaty of Villafontana, 350; enters into alliance with Cesare Borgia, 354; treaty with, published, 379; attacks Imola, 420. Bentivogli, Hermes, murders the Marescotti, 272; in Diet of Ma- gione, 334. Bentivogli, Violante, wife of Pan- dolfo Malatesta, 235. Bernardi, Andrea, on the death of the Bishop of Ceuta, 164; on the attempt to poison the Pope, 176; on the carnage in the castle of Forli, 192; on the rule of Mi- chele da Corella in Forli, 251; on Ramiro de Lorqua, 306; on Ce- sare Borgia’s coming to Milan, 327 INDEX 455 Bibieno, Piero di, in the case of Panthasilea d’ Alviano, 377. Bigordi, Domenico (I! Ghirlan- dajo), adorns the Sistine Chapel, 28. Biselli, Duke of. See Alfonso of Aragon. Boccaccio, Gianandrea, letter of, to Duke of Ferrara, 23; letter on the nuptials of Lucrezia Borgia, 67-69; his pen-portrait of Ce- sare Borgia, 69. Bohemia, heretics of, 106. Bologna, loses French protection, 330; Louis XII sends explana- tion to, 331; better government for, 331; fortified, 331; clergy hated in, 331; to supply Cesare Borgia with troops, 355. Bonadies, Hieronimo, seneschal of Cesena, Rimini, and Pesaro, 390. Bonoli, on the death of the Bishop of Ceuta, 164. Borgia, Angela, married to Fran- cesco della Rovere, 177. Borgia, Cesare, 6; birth, 20-22, 79, 80; Bulls of Sixtus IV to, 21, 24, 25, 29, 79; evidence as regards his age, 22-26; benefices of, 29; student at Perugia and Pisa, 32, 56; appointed prothonotary of the Church and preconized Bishop of Pampeluna, 32; at Spoleto, 56; letter of, to Piero de’ Medici, 56, 57; made Bishop of Valencia, 58; not at Lucrezia Borgia’s marriage to Giovanni Sforza, 69; pen-portrait of, by Gianandrea Boccaccio, 69; the bastardy of, 70; created cardinal, 74; only minor ecclesiastical orders received by, 79; made governor of Orvieto, 81; waits upon Charles VIII, 88; hostage of Charles VIII, 88, 91;456 escapes, 92; returns to Rome and later to the Vatican, 92; ac- companies Alexander VI on visit to Colomba da Rieti, 102, 103; welcomes Duke of Gandia to Rome, 109; concerned in flight of Giovanni Sforza, 114; new hon- ours to be conferred on, 115; pen- portrait of, 115; legate a Jatere, 116; at Vannozza’s supper, 117; accused of murder of Gandia, 123; the charge against, examined: 124-39; administers estates of Gandia’s son, 144; receives lord- Pa of Benevento, 144; sets out for Naples, 145; returns to Rome, 146; his marriage to Carlotta of Aragon proposed, 147; created Duke of Valentinois, 151-53; re- nounces purple, 153, 154; pre- pares to visit France, 157; his de- parture, 158; entertained by Della Rovere, 159; arrives at Chinon, 160-62; welcomed by Louis XII, 162; repulsed by Carlotta of Aragon, 162; accused of selling dispensation for marriage of Anne of Brittany, 163; accused of causing the death of the Bishop of Ceuta, 164; marries Char- lotte d’Albret, 165-69; receives honour from France, 167; leaves France, 169; enters Milan with the King of France, 170, 171; signs himself “Cesare Borgia of France,” 171; his task in the Romagna, 173; served by Della Rovere, 177; takes the field, 177, 179, 180; at Rome, 181; blessed as “‘minister of divine justice,” 183, 184; enters Imola, 184; obtains citadel of Imola, 185; enter- tained at Faenza by Manfredi, 186; marches on Forli, 186; enters INDEX Forli, 187; besieges the citadel, 188; narrow escape of, 188, 189; reduces the citadel, 189-91; treats Countess Sforza-Riario with re- spect, I91; restores order in Forli, 192; prepares to invade Pesaro, 193; accused of poisoning Cardinal Giovanni Borgia, 193-95; quells meeting of Swiss, 196; starts for peetoh 196; deprived of French forces, 197; returns to Rome, ac- companied by Countess Sforza- Riario, 198; his triumphal entry, 200-02; reception by his father, 202; the festivities in honour of, 203; his sword of honour, 203; his device “Aut Cesar, aut nihil,” 203; created Vicar of Imola aad Forli, 204; made Gonfalonier, 205; appointed Captain-General of the pontifical forces, 205; re- ceives honour of the Golden Rose, 205, 207; in ceremony of in- vestiture, 205-07; appoints a lieutenant-general, 207; in the Papal Jubilee, 209, 210; in bull- fight, 210; his Court, 2103 his portrait painted by Pier di Lo- renzo, 210; buys Michelangelo’s “Cupid,” 212; his edict after assault upon Biselli, 213, 216; accused of murdering Biselli, 217; consideration of accusation against, 217-25; his motives, 224, 225; makes treaty with Louis XII, 226; honoured by Venice, 226, 27;makes promises to Venetians, 27; raises fresh army, 227-29; Cesena begs for him as Lord, 234; appointed Lord Vicar of Cesena, 234; leaves Rome, 234; wreaks revenge on Fossate, 234; at De- ruta, 235; at Fano, 239; enters Pesaro, 240; receives Collenuccio L =with honour, 241; his discipline, 242; pen-picture of, by Justolo, 242; leaves Pesaro, 243; enters Rimini, 243; his administration, 243; consumed by desire for power, 244; his method of attach- ing subjects to himself, 244; marches on Faenza, 245; Benti- vogli schemes against him, 246; demands surrender of Faenza, 247; bombards Faenza, 248; has narrow escape, 249; goes into winter quarters, 249; offers terms of surrender, 249; at Forli, 250; goes to Cesena, 250; in Cesena, 250-53; his table habits not sparing, 251; compromises with Bentivogli, 254; at Imola, 254; accused of abducting Dorotea Caracciolo, 255; denies imputa- tion, 256; critical examination of charge against, 258-61; his at- titude toward women, 260, 261; resumes attack on Faenza, 64; entertains proposals of sur- render, 264; his forbearance, 265; his policy with conquered states, 265; accords gracious wel- come to Astorre Manfredi and his brother, 266; takes Astorre Man- fredi and his brother to Rome, 267; accusation against him con- cerning Manfredi, 268, 269; 1n- vades the Bolognese territory, 70; makes treaty with Benti- vogli, 271; and murder of the Ma- rescotti, 272; demolishes Castel Bolognese, 272, 273; recalled to Rome, 273; enters Tuscany, 274; gives audience to Florentine en- voys, 275; makes treaty with Florence, 277; Leonardo da Vinci taken into his service, 2 moves against Piombino, 262— INDEX 457 returns to Rome; 279, 280; his titles, aR os administration of Faenza, 281; knows how to choose his Se evante 281; Lord of Fano, 282; supports French, 283; issues edict, 283; defeats Colonna: S forces, 284; in sack of Capua, 5-87; enters Naples, 288; back in Rome, 289; and the Infanti Romano, 290; and the supper of the courtesans, 293-95; in the Letter to Stiloio Savellt, 298; his anger at libellers, 300, 301; wel- comes the Estes, 302; conspicuous in the Vatican festivities, 303; sets out for Piombino, 304; at Piombino, 305; us rule in the Romagna, nee) 308; patronizes printing, 308; cons ser consolida- tion of Central Italy into a king- dom, 309; neutral as regards Vi- telli’s plots, 310-12; Pisa declares for, 312; declines offer of Pisa, 312, 313; attacks Camerino, 313, 314; strategy against Urbino, 316-19; seizes Cagli, 317; enters Urbino, 319; his arrangements in Urbino, 319; receives Soderini, 319, 320; his first meeting with Macchiavelli, 320; interview with Soderini, 320; Soderini’s judg- ment of, 320, 321; receives secret information from France, 322, 323; writes to Lucrezia Borgia, 324; orders Vitelli to evacuate Arezzo, 326; goes to Louis XII, 26; received by Louis XII, 327; his conduct toward his condotttert, 329; at Genoa, 329; rumours concerning, 330; makes treaty with Louis XII, 330; and the defection of the Orsini 2B910Q4. and the Diet of Magione, 3345 3355 informed of revolt of condottert,337; levies fresh troops, 337, 338; soldiers of fortune and mercena- ries flock to his standard, 337, 338; Petrucci seeks reconciliation with, 38, 339; treats with Riorence: 40; admired by Macchiavelli, 41, 345, 346; Gregorovius’s crit- icism of his conquest of the Ro- magna, 341-44; Villari’s criticism of, 343-46; receives Macchiavelli, 346; his reply to Macchiavelli, 347; accounts the condottiert fools, 347; engages in battle of wits with Macchiavelli, 347, 348; makes treaty with Paolo Orsini, 351, 352; his contempt for the condotttert, 351; publishes notice in Romagna, 352; enters into alli- ance with Bentivogli, 354; presses for Florentine condotta, 356; his answer to Macchiavelli’s reply to request, 357; prepares to conquer Sinigaglia, 357, 359; moves to Cesena, 357; summons Ramiro de Lorqua to Cesena, 358; loses French lances, 358; arrests De Lorqua, arrest of De Lorqua, 359 puts De Lorqua to death, 362; sets out for Sinigaglia, 363; He answer to envoy of Vitelli, 363; receives homage of captains before Sini- gaglia, enters Sinigaglia, 366; his attitude toward the con- dottiert, 366, 367; arrests captains, 367, 368; his words to Mac- ehiavellt: 368; quells rioting, 368, 369; puts Vv itelli and Bufreducci to death, 370; his own the affair of Sinigaglia, alleged plot to murder, 372-74; criticized for the affair of Sini- gaglia, 374; seizes Citta di Cas- tello, 375; Perugia surrenders to, is é "CD G 360; 364; 370-725 INDEX 359; publishes news of account of 376; Fermo surrenders to, 377; slanders against him in connection with Panthasilea d’ Alviano, 377, 378; congratulated on the affair of Sinigaglia, 378; receives Sien- nese envoys, 379; demands expul- sion of Petrucci, 379; in Assisi, 379; puts Paolo. and Francesco Orsini to death, 379; compels Siena to expel Petrucci, 380; dis- agrees with father, 380; in death of Giovanni Michieli, 382; exam- ination of charges of poisoning, 383-89; takes measures against Venetian hostility, 390; appoints seneschals, 390; his wise and lib- eral government, 391; his military organization, 392, 393; loyalty of people to, 392; summoned to as- sistance of France, 397; rumours of secret negotiations with De Cordoba, 397; 399; his edict against Troche, 397; contemp- tuously indifferent to public opin- ion, 398; prepares to join French army, 400; sups at Cardinal Corneto’s, 400; dangerously ill, 400; takes measures on death of his father, 402, 403; concerned in poison rumours, 407; stories of his recovery, 409, 410; his enemies rise against him, 411, 412; makes alliance with Colonna. 412; con- firmed as Captain-General and Gonfalonier, 412; continues to issue orders, 413; continued sup- port of Louis XII, 413; withdraws from Rome, 414; at Nepi, 414; confirmed in offices by Pius III, 417; his powerlessness, 418; with- draws to Castle of Sant’ Angelo, 419; Summons captains, 419; at the death of Pius II, 420; his bargain with Giuliano dellaRovere, 423, 424; takes up resi- dence at Vatican, 424; angry at Venice, 425; Serids for Giusti- niani, 425; prepares to go into the Romagna, 426; his ruin fore- shadowed, 426; leaves Rome, 427; detained by order of the Pope, 428; Romagna remains loyal to, 429; a prisoner at the INDEX Vatican, 429; realizes that he 1S | betrayed, 430; gives countersigns, 430; his ruin, 430, 431; Rome, 431; goes to Naples, 4325 prepares for Spanish campaign against Milan and the French, 432, 433; arrested, 434; sent to Spain, 434; a prisoner in Spain, 436-38; failure of Ferdinand’s plan to use him against De Cor- doba, 437; rescued by the Count | of Benavente, 438, 439; at San- tander, 440; reaches Navarre, 440; sends messenger to ereaia Borgia and Francesco Gonzaga, 441; appeals to Louis XII, 442; his appeal to Louis XII rejected, 442, 443; Captain-General of Navarre, 444; killed, 444-47; his tomb, 447, 448; his ashes scat- tered, 448. Borgia, Francesco (Archbishop of Cosenza), accompanies remains of Biselli, 215. Borgia, Saint Francis 146. Borgia, Giovanni (second Duke of des "2' 7.: Gandia), birth, 22; evidence as regards his age, pase succeeds to Duchy of Gandia, 32; recalled to Rome, 109; feceives ‘povernor- ship of Viterbo and Patrimony of Saint Peter, 109; said to have brought woman from Spain for his father, 110; created Gonfalonier leaves | | | | | Borgia, Borgia, Borgia, Borgia, 459 of the Church and Captain- General of the pontifical troops, IIO; routed, I11; receives Gon- zalo de Cordoba with honour in Rome, 112; created Duke of Benevento, 115; given lordships of Terracina and Pontecorvo, 115; at ete S supper, 117; murdered, —20; suspicions as to his aes 121-32; probable motives of murder of, 133-36; certain evidence connected with murder of, 136-39. Borgia, Giovanni (third Duke of Gandia), 144. Cardinal Giovanni (Se- niore)! smitten with fever, 400. Giovanni (Giuniore, Car- dinal of Santa Maria), crowns Alfonso of Naples, 83; announces purpose of Pope, I71; gives surety for Cesare Borgia, 178; arrives at Imola, 185; his death, 193-95, 385. Giovanni (Cardinal of Monreale), at Vannozza’s supper, 117; receives Cesare Borgia, 200. Borgia, Giovanni ([nfanti Rom iano). created Duke of Nepi and Pa- lestrina, 289; mystery concerning parentage of, 290. Girolama, Orsino, 158. marries Fabio Borgia, Giuffredo, son of Roderigo Borgia, 28; takes up residence at Orsini Palace, 31; in Rome, 56; proposals for marriage with Lucrezia of Aragon, 63; betrothed to Sancia of Aragon, 73, 84; in pontifical army, 108; at Van- nozza’s supper, 117; suspected of murder of Gandia, 122; in at- tendance on Cesare Borgia, 201; unable to end resistance of460 barons, 380; at Naples, 432. are Isabella, daughter of second Duke of Gandia: 144, Borgia, Cardinal Lodovico, flight from Rome, 430; at Naples, 432. Borgia, Lucrezia, birth, 22; as re- gards the year of her birth, 243 marriage contract of, takes up residence at Orsini Palace, 31; in Rome, 32, 56; be- trothed to Giovanni Sforza, 62; marries Giovanni Sforza, 64, 65; her character basely calumniated, 65; celebration of her nuptials, 66; the bastardy of, 70; her grievance against her husband, 113; warns Giovanni Sforza, 114; withdraws to Convent of San Sisto, 114; divorced, 133; accusation of in- cest against, 133; marries Biselli, 147, 213; bears a son, 201, 213; in murder of Biselli, 216; at Nepi, 234; betrothed to Alfonso d’ Este, 289; her dowry, 303; letter from Ferrarese ambassador connected with her marriage, 292; festivities on her betrothal, 292; and the supper of the cour- at Nepi, 4143 23; 245 291, tesans, 293-95; and the affair of the stallions, 296; in the Letter to Silvio Savelli, 298, 299; leaves Rome, 303; the real and the ficti- tious, 303; at Ferrara, of Cesare Borgia to, gerously ill, 324; seeks to obtain 24; dan- Cesare Borgia’s release, 436; death, 449. Borgia, Cardinal Roderigo, made Cardinal-Deacon of San Niccolé, 4; pen- portraits of, 4: eharcieel| ization of, $3; a great force for good or ill, 5; at the death of Ca- lixtus, 7; at the election of Pius IT, INDEX 7, 8; letter of Pius II to, 8-10; the question of his morals, 10-14; son and daughter born to, 14; public acknowledgment of his children, 14; his mistress, 14; per- forms ceremony of coronation for Sixtus IV, 14; becomes Bishop of Albano, 14; under the ponti- ficate of Sixtus IV, 19; his in- fluence on election of Sixtus IV to pontificate, I9; and paternity of Cesare Borgia, 20-22, 79, 80; palace of, 21; and Giorgio della Croce, 21, 22; administrator of Cesare Borgia’s benefices, 25; in the last years of Sixtus IV’s reign, 28; papal Bulls to, 29; stupendous wealth of, 29, 30; re- lations with Vannozza come to end, 31; makes Giulia Farnese his mistress, 31; obtains Duchy of Gandia For Pedro Luis, 32; elected Pope, 36, 37. See Alexander VI. Borgia d’ Aragona, Roderigo, Lu- crezia’s son, 201, 213; at Nepi, 234; created Duke of Sermoneta, 289; betrothed, 412. Borgia Tower, the, 31, 80. Borgias, the, secret poison of the, 93, 199, 389; falsehoods concern- 304; letter | ing, 44, 163 Borja, Alonso de. See Calixtus III. | Borja, Francisca, 3. Borja, a ANCcisco de, son of Calixtus III, 1 Borja, Girolante de, daughter of Roderigo Borgia, 14; marries Giovanni Andrea Cesarini, 29; death, 209. Borja, ra Domingo de, 3. Borja, Juana de, mother of Ro- derigo Borgia, 4. Borja, Luis Juan, cousin of Ro- derigo Borgia and Cardinal-Presbyter of Santi Quattro Coro- nati, 7. Borja, Pedro Luis de Lanzol y; brother of Roderigo Borgia, 6; invested with temporal power by Calixtus III, 6; flight and death, 7: Borja, Pedro Luis de (first Duke of Gandia), son of Roderigo Borgia, 14; death, 28; obtains Duchy through father’s wealth and in- fluence, 32. Botticelli. See Filipeppi. Bourbon-Busset, Philippe de, sec- ond husband of Louise de Va- lentinois, 449. Bracci (ambassador of Florence), on murder of Gandia, 122. Bramante, patronized by Cesare Borgia, 210. Brantéme, his relation of Cesare Borgia’s entry into Chinon, 160. Brizio, peasant, helps capture Cas- tle of San Leo, 339. ~ Bull,” the, 55. Buonaccorsi, on the affair of Sini- gaglia, 368. Buonarroti, Michelangelo, adorns the Sistine Chapel, 28 .; patron- ized by Cesare Borgia, 210; his INDEX 461 regarding murderer, 132; on traf- fic in indulgences, 144; on re- ception of Cesare Borgia by his father, 202; on ceremony of inves- titure, 206; on death of Alfonso of Aragon, 214-16, 219, 222, 223: on death of Astorre Manfredi, 267; on Cesare Borgia in Rome, 280; on sack of Capua, 285; on the parentage of Giovanni Borgia (Infanti Romano), 291; on the supper of the courtesans, 293-95; on Carnival masks, 295; on the affair of the stallions, 296; and the Letter to Silvio Savelli, 297-3003 on illness of Gianbattista Ferrari, 385, 386; on last illness and death of Alexander VI, 400-03; on the obsequies of Alexander VI, 405, 406; on the bargain between Ce- sare Borgia and Giuliano della Rovere, 423. Burckhardt, Dr. Jacob, on assault on Alfonso of Aragon, 12, 13; on simony of Sixtus IV, 16, 17; on the death of Gianbattista Ferrari, 388, 389; on Julius ITI, 422, _ Calabria, Duke of, 58, 93. Calahorra, Bishop of, 447. leap into fame, 211, 212; “Cu- pid” of, 211, 212; his nose broken by Torrigiani, 229. Burchard, Joannes (Master of Ceremonies), his Diarium quoted on birth of Cesare Borgia, 24, 25; his Diarium does not touch on election of Alexander VI, 50, 51; on death of Djem, 9s; silent on woman brought by Gandia from Spain, IIo; mentions Giovanni Sforza, 112; on murder of Gan- dia, 119, 137; on death of Pedro Caldes, 128; silent on suspicions Caldes, Pedro, the story of his death, 128. Calixtus III, Pope, rise of, 3, 4; a nepotist, 4, 6, 7; Rome overrun by Spaniards under, 6; death, 6; son of, 12, Calmeta, joins Cesare Borgia’s army, 228; sent to Fermo, 376. Camerino, attacked, 313, 314; conquest of, 323. Canale, Carlo, second husband of Vannozza Catanel, 30. Cantarella, the poison of the Borgias, 389. See Borgias.462 Capello, Francesco (Florentine am- Cesare bassador), on ae Boer Bisel; 209; on murder of Biselli, 224: a source of circumstantial ev ide nce, 408 ~ Capello, Paolo, on murder of Gandia, 123; criticism of, con- cerning murder of Gandia, 127- 29; on murder of Eisen 215; his “‘Relazione,”’ 216, 221, criticism of, concerning ait of Alfonso of Aragon, 210-26. Capranica, Bartolomeo da, in Cesare Borgia’s train, 158, 228; or- dered to Rimini, 340; killed, 353. Capua, taken and sacked, 283-87. Capuan chronicles, 287. Caracciolo, Dorotea, abduction of, 254, 2553 her husband, her husband Caracciolo, Gianbattista, his wife abducted, 254, 255; petitions Senate, 257; his wife restored to him, 2¢8. Caraffa, Cardinal Cliniers; at elec- tion of Alexander VI, 36, 37; on commission to reform the Church, I4l. Cardinals, 383-89. Cardinals’ hats, sale of, 229-33. Carlotta of Aragon, desired as wife for Cesare Borgia, 147; repulses suit of Cesare Borgia, 162. Carvajal, Bernardino, his election to Papacy desired by Spain, 416; escorts Cesare Borgia from Rome, 431. Casanatense Codices, the, 51. Casanova, Cardinal, 403. Castagnini, Castellan of Faenza, 257-60; returns to 9 ¢2 5 am Us charges of poisoning, treason of, 248. INDEX reluctant to return to) 270; demolished, 272, demanded, AA te ) Castel San Pietro, in hands of Vi- telli’s men-at-arms, 270, Castiglione, Baldassare, Z/7 Corli- giano, 168: on Cesare Borgia, 168, 171. Catanei, Giovanna de’ (Vannozza), mistress of Roderigo Borgia, 14, 19g; as to her origin, 19, 20; her husband, 21, 79; bears Cesare, Giovanni, and Lucrezia Borgia, 22; inscription on her tomb, 2¢ bears Giuffredo Borgia, 28; death of husband, 30; marries Carlo Canale, 30; her worldly condition, 30; her relations with Roderigo Borgia come to end, 31; the sup- per in her vineyard, 117; death, ae 449- Cavalieri, ambassador of Modena in Ree a7: Cellini, Benv enuto, AS pen-portrait of Torrigiani, 228, 2209. Centelles, Juan Ghetin de, mar- riage contract with Lucrezia Borgia, 24. Cerbone, 274. Ceri, surrenders to Cesare Borgia, 389. Cervetri, sale of, 59, 73. Cervia, Podesta of, his evidence in the abduction of Dorotea Carac- ciolo, 255, 257. Cesarini, Giovanni Andrea, husband of Girolama de Borja, 29; death, 29. Cesena, begs for Cesare Borgia as Lord, 234; Cesare Borgia ap- pointed Lord Vicar of, 234; Cesare Borgia in, 250-53. Ceuta, Bishop of. See Almeida. Charles VIII (King of France), his Castel its surrender Bolognese, claim on Naples, 71, 72; LodovicoIN Sforza seeks to make him a cat’s- paw, 71, 72; assumes title of King of Sicily, 82; crosses the Alps, 84; manifesto of, 85; enters Rome, 86; his army, 86, 87; portrait of, 87; waited upon by Cesare Borgia, 88; his demands, 88, 90; makes treaty with the Pope, 91; makes solemn act of veneration to the Pope, 91; leaves Rome for con- quest of Naples, 91; Spain’s ulti- matum to, 91; enters Naples, 93; learns of league formed against him, 98; returns to Rome, 99; at Fornovo, 99, 100; returns to France, 100; death, 148. Chronicles, Capuan, 287; of Pelle- grini, 287; on the death of De Lorqua, 362; of Zurita, 437, 438, 441. Church, the, the two services of Sixtus IV to, 28; under Innocent VIII, 33; aim of Alexander VI to reéstablish the power of, 57; re- form in, proposed by Alexander VI, 141, 143; the reconsolidation of the States of, Alexander VI’s aim, 172, 173, 204. Cibo, Francesco, bastard of In- nocent VIII, 34; marries Mad- DEX as a language, 241; received with honour by Cesare Borgia, 241; quoted on Cesare Borgia, 241, 2445 death, 241. Colloredo, Asquino de, his evidence regarding the death of Giovanni Michieli, 382; tortured, 433: Colombo, Cristoforo, America, 64. Colonna, Fabrizio, with Gandia, 111; defends Capua, 283, 284; taken captive, 287; ransomed, 288; takes his sword to Gonzalo de Cordoba, 288. Colonna, Cardinal Giovanni, at election of Alexander VI, 36; benefice conferred upon, by Alexander VI, 49; supports French ambassador, 83. Colonna, Prospero, aids pontifical forces, 112; with King of Naples, discovers 283; ransomed, 288; takes his sword to Gonzalo de Cordoba, 288; makes alliance with Cesare Borgia, 412. ; Colonna, the, in arms against the Orsini, 33. Commines, 93, 148. * . e > Condottieri, Cesare Borgia’s conduct toward, 329; clause concerning, in dalena de’ Medici, 34; a poor- spirited fellow, 34; sells fiefs of Cervetri and Anguillara, 59; the bastardy of, 70; his luxuriously licentious life, 232. Cibo, Giovanni Battista. See In- nocent VIII. Cibo, Cardinal Lorenzo, at election of Alexander VI, 36. Clergy, corrupt state of, in fifteenth century, 10-13; celibacy of, 13. Collenuccio, Pandolfo, at Pesaro, treaty between Louis XII and Cesare Borgia, 333; joined by the Orsini, 333, 334; in Diet of Magione, 334, 335; weak-kneed, 336; news of revolt of, reaches Pope, 337; attempt reconciliation, 339; hesitate, 340; Cesare Borgia’s contempt for, 347, 351; in Ur- bino, 349-51; treaty of Cesare Borgia and Orsini concerning, 351; treaty submitted to, 354; ign treaty, 355; at Sinigaglia, Sl 239; envoy from Duke of Fer- fara, 240, 241; his use of Italian OOS AS Constantine, Donation of, 16,464 Cardinal Giovanni dei, at 26. Conti, election of Alexander VI, 36 Cordoba, Gonzalo de, the Great Captain, lands in Calabria, 108; besieges Ostia, 112; makes trium- phal entry into Rome, 112; lands in Calabria, 283; Prospero and Fabrizio Colonna take their swords to, 288; and Louis d’ Ar- magnac, 310; rumours of secret negotiations with Cesare Borgia, 397; issues summons to Span- iards in Italy, 418; Cardinals Lo- dovico Borgia and Francesco Remolino take refuge with, 430; his victory at Garigliano, 431 Cesare Borgia takes refuge with, 432; arrests Cesare Borgia, 434; his perfidy toward Ferdinand, 437. Corella, Michele da, in murder of Biselli , 220; Gece Borgia’s lieu- tenant in Forli, 250; governor of Piombino, 305; well-hated, 306; ordered to Pesaro, 340; sacks Fossombrone and Pergola, 347; routed at Calmazzo, 349; pressed by the Baglioni, 353; strangles Pietro Varano, 353; at Sinigaglia, 365; in the affair of Sinigaglia, 367; Cesare Borgia issues orders to, on death of Alexander VI, 403; holds Rome, 403; seizes Pope’s treasures, 403; fires Mon- tegiordano, 411; summoned by Cesare Borgia, 419; defeated, 429; taken prisoner, 429; ex- amined, 4333 liberated, 435; en- ters service of Florence, 435. Corio, Bernardino, on death of Djem, 94. Corneto, Cardinal Adriano, the supper at his villa, 400; taken ill, 401; poison rumours ponnected INDEX Cossa, Andrea, seneschal of Fano and other places, 390. Costa, Cardinal Giorgio, at election of Alexander VI, 36, 37; on com- mission to reform the Church, 141, Costabili, letter of, 292; ambassador of Ferrara, 300. Coste, Hilarion de, on the Court of Anne of Brittany, 166. Cotignola, Galeazzo Sforza di, half- brother of Giovanni Sforza, in command of citadel of Pesaro, 239. Courtesans, taxed by Sixtus IV, 11 Crescenzi, Gianpietro de, his “Il Nobile Romano,” 71. Croce, Giorgio della, Vannozza Catanel, 21, 22 30. Croce, Pietro Santa, Borgia’s train, 158. husband of ; death, in Cesare Decis, Filippo, lecturer on law, 32. “Diario Cesenate,” the, 252. Dijon, Bailie of, commands foot un- der Cesare Borgia, 179; mutinies, 195; claims Countess Sforza- Riario, 195; quelled by Cesare Borgia, 196. Djem, Prince, his story, 88-90; death, 93; alleged poisoning of, 93-97- Doria, Andrea, holds citadel of Sinigaglia, 363; flight of, 375. Dyois, county of, 151-53. Enriquez, Maria (Duchess of Gan- dia), 109. Ercolani, Lodovico, 187. Espinois, Henri de |’, referred to, 105, 125; on Gregorovius, 343- Este, Alfonso d’, betrothed to Lu- with his supper, 407. crezia Borgia, 289; letter fromFerrarese ambassador on_ his marriage, 292; accompanies Ce- | sare Borgia to Milan, 327. ste, Ercole d’, sends Collenuccio as envoy to Cesare Borgia, 240; bargains for Lucrezia Borgia’s dowry, 291; mediates between Cesare Borgia and Bentivogli, 354+ Este, Fernando d’, 302. Este, Ippolito d’, 114; arrives in Rome, 302. Este, Isabella d’, presented with “Cupid” by Cesare Borgia, 212; sends felicitations to Cesare Bor- gia, 378. Este, Sigismondo d’, 302. Este, House of, Bull of confirmation issued to, 291. Estouteville, Cardinal d’, 7, IIS. Eufreducci, Oliverotto (Lord of Kermo), attacks Camerino, 314; butchery of, 315, 316, 353, 366; attempts reconquest of Camerino, 350; troops of, in Sinigaglia, 363, 365; gives homage to Cesare Bor- gia at Sinigaglia, 364; his cupidity, 366; arrested, 367, 368; strangled, 369, 370; in alleged plot against Cesare Borgia’s life, 373. Fabroni, 57. Faenza, Cesare Borgia proceeds against, 245; held by Astorre Manfredi, 245; Count Guido Torella, envoy to, 246; bom- barded, 248; blockaded, 249; con- stantly harassed, 252; attack on, resumed, 262-64; surrendered, 264-66; Cesare Borgia’s admin- istration of, 281. Faenza, Lord of, 355. Fano, Cesare Borgia, Lord of, 282; , Statutes of, 308. INDEX 465 Fano, Marcantonio da, in com- mand of Romagnuoli troops, 338. Farnese, Alessandro, raised to the purple, 31, 74; his by-name Car- dinal della Gonella, 75; dis- possessed of governorship of Viterbo, 109; not suspected of murder of Gandia, 132 n. Farnese, Giulia (Giulia La Bella), becomes mistress of Roderigo Borgia, 31; model for the Ma- donna, 31, 80; model for statue of Truth, 31. Farnese, Isabella, 75. Farnese, House of, 75. Federico, secretary of Cesare Borgia, sent into Italy, 441. Federigo of Aragon (King of Naples), succeeds his brother Al- fonso, 92, 116; crowned, 145; un- willing to wed his daughter to Cesare Borgia, 147, 148; resents French King’s assumption of title, 148; approaches the Pope with alternative proposals, 165; sends physician to Biselli, 214; Pope issues Bull against, 282; resists the French, 283; deposed, 288. Feo, Giacomo, murdered, 182. Ferdinand II, reénters his capital, 108, 109; death, 116. Ferdinand and Isabella, appeal to Pope, 64; make ultimatum to Charles VIII, 91; assist allies against France, 108; notify Pope of treaty with France, 282; order arrest of Cesare Borgia, 434; Ferdinand’s purpose of using Cesare Borgia, 437. Fermo, surrenders to Cesare Borgia, "7 377: ws Ferno, Michele, his description of the Coronation procession of Alexander VI, 54, 55.Ferrante of Aragon (King of Naples), his reception of the news of Alexander VI’s election, 41-44; character of, 42; befriends Gian Galeazzo Sforza, 59; advances money for purchase of Cerve- tri and Anguillara, 59; protests friendship for the Pope, 60; rage of, at being outwitted by Pope, 63; letter of, to his ambassador at Court of Spain, 63; tries to concil- iate the Pope, 73; France de- clares war against him, 82; dies of apoplexy, 82. Ferrara, Duke of, letter of Gianan- drea Boccaccio to, 23; letter of Gerardo Saraceni to, 23; Giacomo Trotti writes to, 46; enters Milan with King of France, 171; guaran- tees alliance of Cesare Borgia and Bentivogli, 354. Ferrari, Gianbattista (Cardinal of Modena), 293, 300; his death, 385; the question of the poisoning of, examined, 385-89. Filipeppi, Alessandro (Botticelli), adorns the Sistine Chapel, 28. Flaminio, pedagogue, 184. Forence, Signory of, Sixtus IV wars with, 26, 27; tries to save Forli, 174; grants passage to Cesare Borgia, 275; sends envoys to Cesare Borgia, 275; flings her ar- tillery into the Arno, 276; makes treaty with Cesare Borgia, 277; delays in fulfilling terms of treaty, 277; plots against, 310; uprising in, 311; complains of Vitelli, 311; refuses to plot against Cesare Borgia, 335; sends Macchiavelli to confer with Cesare Borgia, 341; guarantees treaty between Cesare Borgia and Bentivogli, 354; jealous hostility of, 390, INDEX 391; restores Petrucci, 391; sup- ports the enemies of Cesare Borgia, 412; checked by France, 414; refuses to join league of tyrannies, 416; sends Macchiavelli to Rome, 425; claims of, 431. Flores, Antonio, shelters Cesare Borgia, go. Florido, Bartolomeo (Bishop of Cosenza), punished, 143, 144. Fogliano, Giovanni (Lord of Ferno) murdered by Oliverotto Eufre- ducci, 315. Foix, Comte de, 165. Fonseca, Antonio da, ambassador of Spain, gI. Forli, in danger, 174, 175; de- fended by Countess Sforza-Riario, 182; entered by Cesare Borgia, 186, 187; citadel of, besieged, 188; citadel of, reduced, 189-91; pillage of citadel of, I91, 192; Cesare Borgia restores order in, 192; Swiss mutinous in, 195, 196; pleads for Cesare Borgia as Lord, 204; Cesare Borgia created Vicar of Imola and, 204; considerately treated by Cesare Borgia, 250. Forno dei Campi, treaty of, 277, 310, 320, 322. Fornovo, battle of, 99. Fossati, Cesare Borgia wreaks re- venge on, 234. Fossombrone, rebels, 347. Fracassa. See Sanseverino, Gasparo. Francoise de Bretagne, mother of Charlotte d’Albret, 166. Fregioso, Ottaviano, nephew of Montefeltre, 349. Fregosi, Cardinal Paolo, at election of Alexander VI, 36. “French disease, the,” 100, 158. care of Galieno, physician inAlfonso of Aragon, 221. Gandia, Duke of. See Borgia, Gio- vanni, and Borja, Pedro Luis de. Garcia, in escape of Cesare Borgia from prison, 438, 439. Garigliano, De Cordoba’s victory at, 431. Gasparino of Verona, his pen- portrait of Roderigo Borgia, 4. Gerardo, Cardinal Maffeo, at elec- tion of Alexander VI, 36. Gherardi, Agabito, Cesare Borgia’s secretary, 158; sent into Ro- magna, 282; sent after Paolo Or- Sini, 352; reassures Macchiavelli, 352; commissioner of Cesare Bor- gia at Perugia, 376; urges Cesare Borgia to make alliance with Colonna, 412. Ghirlandajo, Il. See Bigordi. Giacomino, Giovanni Sforza’s chamberlain, 114. Giacopo, goes with troops to as- sistance of Giovanni Sforza, 237; leaves Pesaro with Giovanni Sforza, 239. Giordano, Gian, Cesare Borgia will not move against, 380. Giorgio, boatman of the Schiavoni, his evidence in murder of Gandia, 118, II9. Giovio, Paolo, his pen-picture of Charles VIII’s entry into Rome, 86; on death of Djem, 94; on death of Cardinal Giovanni Sforza, 194; on death of Rinuccio da Marciano, 287; on the poison of the Borgias, 389; on death of Alexander VI, 401, 408. Giustiniani, on death of Astorre Manfredi and his brother, 267; Pope’sstatement to, relative to De Lorqua, 372; 0n death of Giovanni 214, 215, INDEX Michieli, 381, 382; on the poison- ing of cardinals by Alexander VI, 383-88; summoned by Cesare Borgia, but fails to go, 425; learns true intentions of Julius II, 426; alarmed, 427. Gonfalonier, Cesare Borgia created, 205; ceremony of investiture, Gonzaga, Francesco (Marquis of Mantua), 30; at Fornovo, Ioo; in Calabria, 108; enters Milan with King of France, 171; attitude toward Giovanni Sforza, 237-393 at Milan, 327, 328; on the death of Alexander VI, 404; betrothed to Louise de Valentinois, 328; Cesare Borgia sends letter to, 441. Grammante, deserter from Faenza, 264. Granada, treaty of, 282, 309. Granata, F., on sack of Capua, 287. Grassi, Paride de (Master of Cere- monies), on Giuliano della Ro- vere, 42I. Gregorovius, Ferdinand, on Van- nozza Catanei, 19; as regards the respective ages of Cesare and Giovanni Borgia, 22-25; on For- novo, 100; on murder of Gandia, 124-26, 136, 146; his authorities examined, 126-32; on murder of Alfonso of Aragon, 221, 222, 2243 on the Infanti Romano, 290; on the Letter to Silvio Savelli, 293, 297; 0n the supper of the courte- sans, 294, 295; his criticism of Cesare Borgia’s conquest of the Romagna, 341-44; on the death of Gianbattista Ferrara, 389; on death of Alexander VI, 401. Guerra, Monaldo da, 112.468 Guicciardini, on birth of Cesare Borgia, 20; on election of Alexan- der VI, 41-44, 47, 49, 50; an enemy of the Papacy, 44, 45; his account of appeal of Cesare Borgia to Piero de’ Medici, 56, $7; on Lodovico Sforza’s by- name II Moro, 58 7.; on death of Djem, 94; criticism off concern- ing murder of Gandia, 131; on death of Astorre Manfredi, 26 called liar by Voltaire, 26 on murder of the Marescotti, 27 on sack of Capua, 285-87; death of Giulio Varano, 323; on the affair of Sinigaglia, 374; on death of Alexander VI, 401, 408. Guidobaldo, Duke. See Monte- feltre. 269; Henry of Burgundy, founder of Kingdom of Portugal, 343. Henry VII of England, Torrigiant’s tomb of, 229. Henry VIII of England, 134. Hugo, Victor, 304. Hungary, King of, wishes to re- pudiate his wife Leonora, 61. Imola, Ottaviano Sforza-Riario sent to, 183; entered by Cesare Borgia, 184, 185; Cardinal Giovanni Bor- gia arrives at, 185; pleads for Ce- sare Borgia as Lord, 204; Cesare Borgia created Vicar of, 204. Index Expurgatorius, invented by Alexander VI, 107. Indulgences, traffic in, under In- nocent VIII, 34; Bull against traffic in, 143, 144; concerning sale of, by Alexander VI, 232, 233. Infessura, on birth of Cesare Borgia, 20, 79; on death of Innocent VIII, 35, 36; his Diarium, 51; on acts INDEX of Alexander VI, 54; on nuptials of Lucrezia Borgia, 66-68. Innocent VIII, Pope (Giovanni Battista Cibo), edict against concubinage of the clergy under, 1; bastards of, 12; elected Pope, 33; scandalous reign of, 33, 343 the Church under, 33; acknowl- edges his children, 34; death, 35; obsequies of, 36; simony of, 47; epilogue to his rule, 54; the ar- chetype of indulgence- seller, 232. Isabella of Arapon, 58. Jubilee, Papal, 202, 209. Julius II, Pope (see Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere), his elec- tion, 424; orders obedience to Cesare Borgia, 425; requests safe- custody through Tuscany for Ce- sare Borgia, 426; reveals his true intentions, 426, 427; demands surrender of the Romagna, 428, 429; orders that Cesare Borgia be brought to Rome, 428; angry at loyalty of Romagna, 430; permits Cesare Borgia to leave Rome, 431; seeks to justify himself, 433; secures arrest of Cesare Borgia, 434; his purpose laudable, but his method odious, 436; alarmed at rumours of Cesare Borgia’s escape, 437; vindictive toward the Romagnuoli, 441. Justolo, patronized by Cesare Borgia, 210; joins Cesare Borgia’s army, 228; describes Cesare Borgia, 242. Lanzol, Jofré de, father of Roderigo Borgia, 4. Lattanzio, Castellan of San Leo, 390. Le Feron, on Cesare Borgia’s mar- riage, 168.INDEX 469 Leti, Gregorio, his Life of Cesare Borgia, 448. “Letter to Silvio Savelli,” 293, 297- 301. Lombard demoniacs, 106. Lorenzo, Pier di, paints portrait of Cesare Borgia, 210. Lorqua, Ramiro de, Cesare Borgia’s Master of the Household, 157; governor of Forli, 192; sent to greet Collenuccio, 241; at Rimini, 243; ordered to demolish Castel Bolognese, 273; Romagna ad- ministered by, 306-08; instance of his harshness, 306, 307; ordered to Pesaro, 340; summoned to Cesena, 358; arrested, 359; mo- tives leading to his execution, 360, 361, 372; beheaded, 362; con- fessions of, 372-74. Louis XII (King of France), claims Duchy of Milan, 148; applies to Pope for dissolution of his mar- riage, 149; creates Cesare Borgia Duke of Valentinois, 152, 153; his marriage to Anne of Brit- tany, 152, 157, 163-65; sends escort for Cesare Borgia, 157; welcomes Cesare Borgia, 162; sug- gests bride to Cesare Borgia, 165; prepares to invade Milan, 169; at Lyons, 170; enters Milan, 171; equips Cesare Borgia for the Romagna campaign, 179; leaves Milan, 179; sends fresh army against Milan, 208; considers con- quest of Naples, 208; makes treaty with Cesare Borgia, 226; sends embassy to Bentivogli, 253; his advice to Bentivogli, 253; notifies Pope of treaty with Spain, 282; urges marriage of Este and Lucre- zia Borgia, 291; sends messenger to Cesare Borgia, 321; advances toward Florence on way to Naples, 322; at Milan, 326, 327; receives Cesare Borgia, 327; warm wel- come to Cardinal Orsini, 329; at Genoa, 329; makes treaty with Cesare Borgia, 330; sends expla- nation to Bologna, 331; Venice complains of Cesare Borgia to, 336; threatens the Venetians, 350, 351; guarantees alliance of Cesare Borgia and Bentivogli, 354; urges Florentines to come to accord with Cesare Borgia, 356; continues support of Cesare Borgia, 413; desires election of Amboise to Papacy, 416; his treachery toward Cesare Borgia, 441; refuses Cesare Borgia’s appeal for help, 442, 443. Lucrezia of Aragon, proposals for marriage with Giuffredo Borgia, 63. Luna, Cardinal de, papal legate, 110. Luna, Francesco de, joins Cesare Borgia, 338. Macchiavelli, on the extravagance of Cardinal Riario, 17, 18; criticism of, concerning murder of Gandia, 129; concerning the dispensa- tion for the marriage of Anne of Brittany, 163, 164; charges Cesare Borgia with death of Almeida, 164; on Countess Sforza- Riario, 182; admires Cesare Borgia’s discipline, 229; The Prince quoted, 244, 266; criticizes Florentine policy, 276; on Cesare Borgia’s calmness, 311; his first meeting with Cesare Borgia, 320; sent as envoy to Cesare Borgia, 341; his admiration of Cesare Borgia, 341, 345, 3463— / O arrives at Imola, 346; received by Cesare Borgia, engages in battle of wits with Cesare Bor- Gia, 347, 348; listens to Cesare Borgia’s contempt for the con- dottieri, 351; reply to Cesare ae request for Florentine condotta, 356; only aim of his legation, ° 367 on con- dition of troops, 357; on reason for withdrawal of French lances from Cesare Borgia’s command, 358; on the arrest of De Lorqua, 359, 360; on the death of De ees 362, 372; on the ie Sinigaglia, 368, 37 ordered Rome: 346; od 395, 366, ) 373; 745 | on Bee Borgia’s provisions for Alexander | VI’s death, 411; sent to Rome, 425; Cesare Borgia expresses an- ger with Florence to, 425; impor- tunes Florence in behalf of Cesare Borgia, 427 Magione, Diet of, 334, 335. Maino, Giasone, his pen-portrait of Roderigo Borgia, 4. Malatesta, Pandolfo, Lord of Ri- mini, 235; capitulates, 236; goes to Ravenna, 237; allowed by Ce- sare Borgia to live, 266; restored by Venice, 415, 425. Malatesta, Roberto, 235. Malvazzi, joins Cesare Borgia, 228. Mancini, Gianbattista, in Cesare Borgia’s train, 158. Mancioni, mutilated for libel, 300. Manenti, V enetian envoy to Gesare Borgia, 255, 256. Manfredi, Astorre, tyrant of Faenza, 175; entertains Cesare Borgia, 186; holds Faenza, 245; assisted by Bentivogli, 246, 247; proposes surrender, 264; waits upon Cesare mystified, 352; his air of | INDEX Borgia, 266; 2673 imprisoned, death, ale Seat concerning his death, 269. Manfredi, ine 246. Manfredi, Gianevangelista, in de- fence of Faenza, 248; waits on Cesare Borgia, 266; imprisoned, 267; death, 267; accusation con- cerning his death, 268, 269. Manfredi (ambassador of Ferrara), 45; on murder of Gandia, 123; on Cesare Borgia’s mission to France, 164. Marciano, Pietro da, put to death by Vitelli, 271. Marciano, Count Rinuccio da, defends Capua, 283; death, 287. Marescotti, four members of Eionee of, seized by Bentivogli, 271, 272; murdered: Maria, Galeazzo, 18, Mariano, Mario di, gia’s train, 158. Matarazzo, Francesco, on Colomba da Rieti, 100-02; criticism of, concerning murder of Gandia, 129, 130; and the Letter to Silvio Savelli, 297; the history of the Baglionr according to, 376. Medici, Cardinal Giovanni de’, at election of Alexander VI, 36. 2715 a oe 272. in Cesare Bor- Medici, Giovanni di Pierfrancesco de’, 182. Medici, Giuliano de’ (son of Lo- renzo), death, es approaches Cesare Borgia, 274; “The Prince” written as guide ee 341. Medici, Lorenzo de’, comes to as- sistance of Citta di Castello, 26; his daughter Maddalena marries Francesco Cibo, 34. Medici, Maddalena Francesco Cibo, 34. Medici, Piero de’, letter of Cesare de’, marriesBorgia to, 56, §7; refused audience by Cesare Borgia, 274; plots with Vitellozzo Vitelli, 310; killed at Garigliano, 432. Medici, the, friendly to the Borgias, 45. Michieli, Giovanni (Cardinal of Sant’ Angelo), at election of Alexander VI, 36; death, 381, 382. Mirafuente, Gonsalvo de, in garrison at Forli, 198; loyalty of, 435. Mirandola, Antonio Pico della, perquisition in his house, 138. Mirandola, Lodovico Pico della, joins Cesare Borgia, 337. Missionary, invented by Alexander VI, 106. Modena, Cardinal of. See Ferrari, Gianbattista. Moncada, Ugo di, captured, 349. Moncalieri, papal envoy, 430. Monsignane, Evangelista da, in Forli, 191, 192. Montefeltre, Franceso Maria da, son of Guidobaldo da Montefeltre, 318. Montefeltre, Giovanna da, Prefect- ress of Sinigaglia, 357; leaves Sinigaglia, 363. Montefeltre, Guidobaldo da (Duke of Urbino), enters service of the Church, 110; made prisoner, 111; assists Camerino, 313, 314; his character, 316; adopts Francesco Maria della Rovere, 316; his flight from Urbino, 318; recon- ducted to Urbino, 336; Castle of San Leo captured for, 339; enters Urbino, 349; leaves Urbino for the second time, 355, 356; at Perugia, 375; supplied with troops by Venetians, 411; seizes San Leo, 411; claims of, 430. INDEX 471 Montferrat, Duke of, enters Milan with the King of France, 171. Montpensier, Viceroy of Naples, 99; retires to Pozzuoli, 109. Mosca, Lodovico, Captain of the papal navy, 279, 305. Naldo, Dionigio di, defender of Imola, 184; surrenders, 185; his good faith questioned, 185; with Cesare Borgia, 247; in command of Romagnuoli troops, 338; at Cesena, 415; recaptures Rimini, 418; enters service of Venice, 435. Naples, Cesare takes the field in support of French against, 283; fall of, 287, 288. Napoleon Bonaparte, 344. Narni, Francesco da, in Florence, 391. Narni, Lucia di, 103. Navarre, Cesare Borgia arrives in, 440; factions in, 444; Cesare Borgia as Captain-General of, 444. Nomaglie, Count Luffo, 187. Oliverotto da Fermo. See Eufre- ducci. Olivieri (Bishop of Isernia), Cesare Borgia’s Lieutenant-General of the Romagna, 207; receives ca- pitulation of Rimini, 236. Ordelafh, the, 417, 420. Orsini, Adriana (née de Mila), 31. Orsini, Carlo (bastard of Gentile Virginio), routs papal forces, III. Orsini, Fabio (son of Paolo), mar- ries Girolama Borgia, 158; gives homage to Cesare Borgia at Sinigaglia, 364; receives Cesare Borgia, 365; escapes to Perugia, 374; at Perugia, 375. Orsini, Francesco (Duke of Gra-472 vina), attacks Camerino, 314; routed, 323; in Diet of Magione, 334; gives homage to Cesare Borgia at Sinigaglia, 364; receives Cesare Borgia, 366; arrested, 368; imprisoned, 370; in alleged plot against Cesare Borgia’s life, 373; strangled, 379. Orsini, Gentile Virginio, purchases Cervetri and Anguillara, 59, 733 Alexander VI issues Bull against, 109. Orsini, Cardinal Gianbattista, warmly welcomed by Louis XII, 329; in Diet of Magione, 334; absent from Sinigaglia, 364; cap- tured, 379; death, 380, 381, Orsini, Gianbattista da SVircinio. captured, 373, 379- Orsini, Giangiordano (son of Gentile Virginio), Alexander VI issues Bull against, 109; in Cesare Borgia’s train, 158. Orsini, Cardinal Giovanni, at elec- tion of Alexander VI, 36; bene- 385. fices conferred upon, by Alex- ander VI, 49; at Ceri, 380. Orsini, Giulio (the Cardinal’s brother), enters into agreement with the Pope, 339; absent from Sinigaglia, 364; at Ceri, 380. Orsini, Lodovico, 31. Orsini, Orso, 31. Orsini, Paolo (bastard of Giangior- dano), Alexander VI issues Bull Bea 109; joins Cesare Borgia, 28; envoy to Bologna, 271; im- abe Cesare Borgia to matcn through Florentine territory, 274, 275; on point of treating alps Cesare Borgia, 3393 proposes reconciliation with Cesare Borgia, 348; advises Venetian Senate of victory, 349; makes treaty with INDEX Cesare Borgia, 351, 352; brings treaty to condottiert, 354; takes signed treaty to Cesare Borgia, 3553 orders Urbino to be seized, $5; becomes governor of Urbino, 6. gives homage to Cesare Borgia at Sinigaglia, 364; receives _ Cesare Borgia, 365; reputed treachery of, 366; arrested, 368; imprisoned, 370; in alleged plot against na Borgia’s life, 373; strangled, Orsini, Rinaldo (Archbishop of Florence), captured, 379. Orsini, the, drive the Spaniards from Rome, 6; in arms against the Co- lonna, 33; campaign against, 10g- 11; suspected of murder of Gan- dia, 123; alliance of, with the Pope, 158; join the condottiert, 333, 334; hang back, 336; fall upon Cesare Borgia’s detach- ment, 349; rise against Cesare Borgia, 411; treat for reconcili- ation, 419. Orvieto, 81. Orvieto, Piero d’, commissioner of Cesare Borgia, 430; hanged, 430. Ossuna documents, 24. Pallavicini, Galeotto, levies troops for Cesare Borgia, 338. Pallavicino, Cardinal Antoniotto, at election of Alexander VI, 36; on commission to reform the Church, 141. Panvinio, Onofrio, on death of Djem, 96; criticism of, on mur- der of Gandia, 131. Papacy, the, at the time of Alex- ander VI, 39, 40. Pasi, representative Borgia, 281. Paul II, Pope (Pietro Barbo), of CesarePaul III, Pope. See Farnese, Ales- sandro. Pazzi, Raffaele dei, levies troops for Cesare Borgia, 338. Pazzi conspiracy, the, 26. Pellegrini, chronicle of, 287. Pergola, rebels, 347. Perugia, surrenders Borgia, 376. Perugino, I]. See Vannuccio. Peruzzi, adorns the Borgia Tower, 80, Pesaro, fall of, 237-393 Borgia’s entry into, 240. Petrucci, Pandolfo, Tyrant of Siena, 310; in Diet of Magione, 334; seeks reconciliation with Cesare Borgia, 338, 339; again seeks re- conciliation, 351; a man of stead- fastness and honesty, 366; Ba- glioni joins, 376; threatened by Cesare Borgia, 379; expelled from Siena, 380; restored, 391; flees, 418; again at Rimini, 420. “Picards,” the, 106. Piccolomini, Enea Silvio Bartolomeo to Cesare Cesare de’, Cardinal of Siena. See Pius II. Piccolomini, Cardinal Francesco, 36, 54, 141; elected Pope, 417. See Pius III. Pinturicchio, adorns the Borgia Tower, 31, 80; patronized by Cesare Borgia, 210. Pinzone, Sebastiano, sentenced for poisoning the Cardinal of Mo- dena, 386; the proceedings against him considered, 388. Piombino, taken by Cesare Borgia’s army, 279. Pisa, declares for Cesare Borgia, 312. Pius II, Pope (Enea Silvio Bartolo- meo de’ Piccolomini), 7, 8, 13; his INDEX 473 letter to Roderigo Borgia, 8-10; Bull of, 11; in his youth, 12; on celibacy and marriage of the clergy, 13; special reason for his admonition of Roderigo Borgia, 13, 14; succeeded by Paul II, 14. Pius III, Pope (see Francesco Pic- colomini), his election, 417; sup- ports Cesare Borgia, 417; death, 420. Podesta, the, customarily fetched from a neighbouring town or State, 192. Poison of the Borgias, 93, 199, 389- Pompilio, dedication of his Sy/ladica on the Art of Prosody, 32. Porcaro, Stefano, 15. Porta, Cardinal Ardicino della, at election of Alexander VI, 36. Porta, Guglielmo della, 31. Porzio, Girolamo, his pen-portrait of Roderigo Borgia, 4; on the election of Alexander VI, 50. Pozzi, Gianluca (ambassador of Ferrara at the Vatican), letter to Ercole d’ Este, 302. Printing-press, Alexander VI’s at- titude toward misuse of, 107; first of consequence in Italy, 308. Pudendagra, the, 100, 158, 260. Ramires, Diego, in the affair of Dorotea Caracciolo, 259, 260. Ramires, Pedro, seneschal of Ur- bino, 390; obtains Majolo and San Leo, 390; flight from Urbino, 411; routs the allies, 419; his loyalty to Cesare Borgia, 430. Raynaldus, 143. Remolino, Francesco, befriended by Cesare Borgia, 57; sum- moned to Rome, 413; unable to retain forces at Orvieto, 418; goesto Rome, 428; pleads for Cesare Borgia, 428; flight from Rome, 430; obtains Spanish safe-conduct for Cesare Borgia, 432. Riarii, the, abandoned by their subjects, 183; claims of, 430. Riario, Girolamo, “nephew” (son) of Sixtus IV, 12, 17; marries Caterina Sforza, 18; possesses himself of Castle of Sant’ Angelo, 33; the bastardy of, 70; murder of, 182. Riario, Paolo, 190. Riario, Piero, “nephew” (son) of Sixtus IV, 12, 17; aggrandize- ment of, 17; his luxury, 17, 18; plans to become Pope, 18; death, 18, Riario, Cardinal Raffaele, at elec- tion of Alexander VI, 36; bene- fices conferred upon, by Alex- ander VI, 49; on commission to reform the Church, 141; flees from Rome, 177. Riario, Scipione, 190. Rieti, Colomba da, her miracles, 100-02; visited by Alexander VI, 102, 103. Rimini, Malatesta Lord of, 235; capitulates, 236; Cesare Borgia in, 243; envoys sent to Cesare Borgia by, 280. Romagna, Cesare Borgia’s rule in, 307, 308; again turbulent, 420; strength of, crumbling, 425; re- mains loyal to Cesare Borgia, 429; fortress finally surrenders, 431; encouraged by news of Cesare Borgia’s escape, 441. Romagna tyrannies, Pope’s purpose regarding, 171, 231; misgovern- ment of, 172; Bull against, 173; restored, 411-15; league of, 415. Roman barons, 1og-I1. INDEX Rome, at the death of Sixtus IV, 333 under Innocent VIII, 34, 35. Rovere, Cardinal Domenico della, at election of Alexander VI, 36. Rovere, Felici della, daughter ot Giuliano della Rovere, 424. Rovere, Francesco della Rovere, marries Angela Borgia, 177. Rovere, Francesco Maria della, adopted by Montefeltre, 316. See Sixtus IV. Rovere, Giovanni della (Prefect of Sinigaglia), intercepts letter from Bajazet, go. Rovere, Cardinal Girolamo della, at election of Alexander VI, 36. Rovere, Cardinal Giuliano della, raised to the purple, 19; attacks Citta di Castello, 26; at election of Alexander VI, 36, 37; schemes to depose Alexander VI, 61; in rebellion at Ostia, 61; supports Ferrante, 62; Pope overlooks his defection, 74; supports French ambassador, 83; flees to Ostia and then to France, 83; lays Bajazet’s letter before Charles VIII, 90; dubs Alexander VI a Moor and a Jew, 105; aids the Orsini, 111; Ostia held for, 112; condoles with Alexander VI on death of Gandia, 127, I4I, 143; welcomes Cesare Borgia to France, 159; praises Cesare Borgia, 162; his reconciliation with Alexander VI, 177; helps equip Cesare Borgia, 177, 1783 moved by self-interest, 178, 1793 unable to save Sinigaglia for his nephew, 357; enjoins surrender of Sinigaglia, 359; institutes pro- ceedings against Colloredo and Pinzone, 383, 388; his election to Papacy sought by Venice, 416;character of, 421, 422; endowed with hatred of the Borgias, 421; Burckhardt on, 422; his bargain with Cesare Borgia, 423, 424; simony of, 423; elected Pope, 424. See Julius II. Rovere, Raffaele della, murdered Oliverotto Eufreducci, 315; bas- tard son of Giuliano della Ro- vere, 424, Sacchi, Giovanni (Bishop of Ra- gusa), 428. Sacco, Francesco del, aids Cesare Borgia’s escape from Velletri, 92. Sacred College, the, composition of, 36; at election of Alexander VI, 36. Sagredo, on death of Djem, 94. Saint-Chamans, Regnault de, 167. Salviati, Florentine ambassador to Cesare Borgia, 378. San Leo, Castle of, captured, 339. Sanazzaro, criticism of, concerning murder of Gandia, 126, 127; follows Federigo of Aragon into exile, 288. Sancia of Aragon, betrothed to Giuffredo Borgia, 73, 84; loose morals of, 108; her relations with Gandia, 122, 130; in murder of Biselli, 219, 220; goes to Naples, 414. Sancino, Girolamo, first printing- press of consequence in Italy set up by, 308. Sangiorgio, Cardinal Gianantonio, I4I. Sanguigna, Domenico, in Cesare Borgia’s train, 158. Sanseverino, Cardinal Francesco, at election of Alexander VI, 36; benefices conferred upon, INDEX 475 French ambassador, 83; assures Cesare Borgia of French support, 413; escorts Cesare Borgia, 414. Sanseverino, Gasparo (Fracassa), a Pontifical condottiero, 49; joins Cesare Borgia, 337; loyalty of, 435. Sansovino, Antonio di Monte, ad- ministers justice in Cesena, 342. Sant’ Arcangelo, Castle of, demol- ished, 273. Santacroce, Giacomo di (Arch- bishop of Florence), 373; cap- tured, 379. Santacroce, Pietro di, in Cesare Borgia’s train, 158. Sanuto, Marino, on death of Djem, 96; on woman said to have been brought by Gandia from Spain, 109; on the murder of Gandia, 120, 121, 123; on death of Pedro Caldes, 128; criticism of, concern- ing murder of Gandia, 130; on Ce- sare Borgia’s entry into Chinon, 160; on Countess Sforza-Riario, 182; on abuses committed at Forli, 187; on death of Cardinal Giovanni Sforza, 194; on Cesare Borgia’s return from France, 200; and death of Alfonso of Aragon, 216, 218; on the abduction of Dorotea Caracciolo, 255, 257-59; on the case of Panthasilea d’ Alviano, 377; on the death of Alexander VI, 404, 405; on Cesare Borgia in Spain, 438 7. Saraceni, Gerardo, letter of, to Duke of Ferrara, 23. Sarenon, Sieur de, sent to bring Ce- sare Borgia to French Court, 157. Sassetta, Ranieri della, joins Cesare . ) Borgia, 3375 338. / Savonarola, Girolamo, denounces by Alexander VI, 49; supports Alexander VI, 105; condoles with476 Alexander VI on death of Gandia, 127, 141-43. Savelli, Cardinal Giovanni Battista, at election of Alexander VI, 36; benefice conferred upon, by Alexander VI, 49; supports French ambassador, 83. Savelli, Onorio, 249. Savelli, Silvio, Cesare Borgia will not move against, 380. Savoy, Prince of, enters Milan with the King of France, 171. Scipione, Baldassare, summoned by Cesare Borgia, 419; sent to Rome, 433; his challenge to Spain, 435. Sclafetani, Cardinal Giovanni Gia- como, at election of Alexander VI, 36. Segovia, Cardinal of, 120, 121. Seyssel, Claude de, envoy of Louis XII, 331. Sforza, Alessandro, brother of Countess Sforza-Riario, at Forli, 186, Igo. Sforza, Cardinal Ascanio Maria, at election of Alexander VI, 36, 45; benefices conferred upon, by Alexander VI, 49; the question of his “ bargain” with Alexander VI, 49, 50; hated by Giuliano della Rovere, 62; Pope refuses to dis- grace, 74; supports French am- bassador, 83; suspected of murder of Gandia, 121; leaves Rome, 167; candidate for Papacy, 412. Sforza, Francesco, son of Gian Galeazzo, 84, 85. Sforza, Galeazzo, father of Count- ess Sforza-Riario, 181; surren- ders Pesaro, 239. Sforza, Gian Galeazzo (Duke of Milan), 58; son born to, 59; ap- peals to King Ferrante of Naples, $9; death, 84; obsequies of, 84, INDEX 85; brother of Countess Sforza- Riario, 181, 182. Sforza, Giovanni (Tyrant of Pe- saro), Lucrezia Borgia betrothed to, 62; marries Lucrezia Borgia, 64, 65; celebration of his nuptials, 66; the bastardy of, 70; in ponti- fical army, 108; conspicuous in Rome, 112, 113; his flight, 113, 114; suspected of murder of Gan- dia, 121; accused of murder by Matarazzo, 130; divorced from Lucrezia, 133; makes accusations against Lucrezia, 134; seeks pro- tection of Venice, 174; prepares for flight from Pesaro, 197; seeks help, 237; character of, 238; flees from Pesaro, 239; at Bologna, 239; appeals for help, 239; poet exiled by, 240; murders Col- lenuccio, 241; at Milan, 327; re- turns to Pesaro, 416. Sforza, Lodovico, uncle of Countess Sforza-Riario, 182. Sforza, Lodovico Maria (II Moro), Regent of Milan, 58; explanation of his by-name Il Moro, 58 2.; schemes against Naples, 59, 60, 72; type of the ideal of Mac- chiavelli, 60; makes overtures to Alexander VI, 62; seeks to make cat’s-paw of France, 71, 72; re- ceives Charles VIII, 84; at Pavia with Charles VIII, 84; elected Duke of Milan, 85; intrigues against Charles, 98; attacks French navy at Genoa, 99; makes terms with Charles VIII, 108; resents French King’s assumption of title, 148; discovers league against himself, 167; his flight, 170; raises an army, 197; drives French out of Milan, 207; his capture and death, 208.Sforza-Riario, his collection of an- tiques, 211, 212. Sforza-Riario, Caterina, marries Girolamo Riario, 18; the bastardy of, 70; attempts to poison Alex- ander VI, 175-77; administrator of Imola and Forli, 182; her life of horrors, 181, 182; answers Pope's Bull, 182; defends Forli, 183, 186- 88; treachery of, 189; defeated and captured, 199, 191; treated with respect by Cesare Borgia, 191; claimed by Bailie of Dijon, 195; surrendered by Bailie of Dijon, 196; leaves Forli with Cesare Borgia, 196, 1973 left in charge of Allégre, 197; goes a captive to Rome, 198, 201; at Castle of Sant’ Angelo, 198; re- leased, 198, 267; death, 198, 1993 conduct of Cesare Borgia toward, after surrender of Faenza, 266. Sforza-Riario, Ottaviano, Cateri- na’s son, 183; sent to Imola, 183; sent to Florence, 186. INDEX Siena, 379, 380. Simony, rampant in fifteenth cen- tury, 47; wherein it consists, 483 and the “sale of cardinals’ hats,” 229-31; in connection with indul- gence-selling, 232, 233- Sinigaglia, Cesare Borgia prepares to conquer, 357; Della Rovere enjoins surrender of, 359; sut- render of, 363; homage rendered Cesare Borgia by captains at, 364; the affair of, 365-74; sur- render of citadel, 375. Sistine Chapel, added to the Vatican by Sixtus IV, 28. Sixtus IV, Pope (Francesco Maria della Rovere), courtesans taxed by, 11; his “nephews, ’’ 12, 17, 18; 477 Paul II, 14; coronation of, 14; his pontificate vigorous and scan- dalous, 15; simony of, 16, 17, 47; wars with Florence, 18; obtains pontificate through in- fluence of Roderigo Borgia, 193 Bulls to Cesare Borgia, 21, 24, 25, 79; his ambition plunges the whole of Italy into war, 26; inspires Pazzi conspiracy, 26; wars with Florence, 26, 27; excommunicates Venetians, 27; dies from rage, 28, 33; his two services to the Church, 28: Bulls to Roderigo Borgia, 29. Slander, conspicuousness an incen- tive to, 40. Soderini, Bishop, ambassador of Florence to Cesare Borgia, 319, 320; interview with Cesare Bor- gia, 320; his judgment of Cesare a af Borgia, 320; 321; visited by French messenger, 321; instructed to temporize with Cesare Borgia, 322; breaks off negotiations with Cesare Borgia, 323; on Cardinal Orsini in prison, 380; stricken with fever, 401; requests safe- custody through Tuscany for Cesare Borgia, 426. Spain, America eranted to, by Alexander VI, 64, 106; her ulti- matum to Charles VIII, 91; in- fluence of, increases, 431; con- siders invasion of Tuscany, 432. Spaniards, overrun Rome under Calixtus ITI, 6. Sperulo, patronized by Cesare Borgia, 210; joins Cesare Borgia’s army, 228. Swiss, in Forli, 195. Tiberti, Achille, levies troops for 999° become mutinous, his mistress, 14, 19; succeeds Cesare Borgia, 1795 demandssurrender of Imola, 184; demands | surrender of Forli, 187; levies condotta for Cesare Borgia, 228; killed, 264. Tommasi, Tommaso. See Leti. Tommasso, errand of, to poison the Pope, 175, 176. Torella, Gaspare, Cesare Borgia’s physician, 158; his treatise on pudendagra, 158, 260. Torella, Count Guido, Bentivogli’s envoy to Faenza, 246. Tornielli, Nicolo, 187. Torre, Cristoforo della, seneschal of Forli and other places, 390. Torrigiani, Pietro, joins Cesare Borgia’s army, his tomb of Henry VII of England, 229; breaks nose of Michelangelo, 229. Trani, Bishop of, lieutenant of Cesare Borgia at Cesena, 250. Trans, de (French ambassador), at Imola with Manenti, 256. Trémouille, La, defeats Lodovico Sforza, 208. Trémouille, Louis de la, husband of Louise de Valentinois, 449; death, 449. Trivulzio, Giangiacomo, in com- mand of French army, 169; ruler of Milan, 179; begs for return of French troops, 197; ribald jest of, 198; at Milan, 327. Troche, Francesco, Cesare Borgia’s agent, 325, 397; Cesare Borgia’s edict against, 397; flight of, 397, 398; rumours concerning, 398, 399; mystery of his death, 399. Trotti, Giacomo, French ambassa- dor in Milan, 46, 47. Tuate, Fileno della, rallies to Ben- tivogli, 332; charges against De Lorqua, 361. 228; ae ee J) INDEX Urbino, strategy of Cesare Borgia against, 316-19; surrendered to Cesare Borgia, 319; recaptured, 340; Montefeltre enters, 349; the Orsini enter, 349; Montefeltre leaves, 355, 356; Orsini governor of, 356. Urbino, Duchess of, 254. Urbino, Duke of, 256, 257, 327. | Valentinois, county of, 151-53. Valentinois, Louise de, daughter of Cesare Borgia, 304; betrothed, 328; her marriages, 449. Valla, Lorenzo, attacks pontifical authority, 15, 16; his indictment of simony, 47. Valois, Jeanne de, divorced, 150. Valori, Ferrarese ambassador in Rome, 37; on the election of Alexander VI, 50, 52. Vannuccio, Pietro (Il Perugino), adorns the Sistine Chapel, 28; decorates the Borgia Tower, 80. Varano, Annibale, son of Giulio Varano, 314; imprisoned, 3233 at Perugia, 375. Varano, Gianmaria, son of Giulio Varano, 314; sent to Venice, 3233 with Montefeltre, 349; attempts reconquest of Camerino, 350. Varano, Giulio Cesare, Tyrant of Camerino, 313, 314; attacked by Cesare Borgia’s army, 314; Op- poses stout resistance, 323; taken prisoner, 323; death, 323. Varano, Pietro, son of Giulio Va- rano, 314; sent to Venice, 3233 at Milan, 327; strangled, 353. Varano, Venanzio, son of Giulio Varano, 314; defeats Gravina’s horse, 323; imprisoned, 323; 149, Tyrannies. See Romana. Perugia, 375-Varchi, Benedetto, his explariation of Lodovico Sforza’s by-name Il Moro, 58 7. Vasari, lie of, regarding Alexander VI, 80, 81; and Cesare Borgia’s portrait, 210. Vatican, Sistine Chapel added to, 28. “Vaudois,” the, 106. Venice, Republic of, excommuni- cated, 27; refuses help to Giovanni Sforza, 174; protects Rimini and Faenza, 208; makes proposal to Louis XII, 208; withdraws pro- tection from Rimini and Faenza, 226; to confer honours upon Cesare Borgia, 226, 227; sends Manenti to Cesare Borgia, 255; action in the case of Panthasilea d’ Alviano, 377, 378; complains to Louis XII of Cesare Borgia, 336; threatened by Louis XII, 350, 351; jealous hostility of, 389, 390; aids Montefeltre, 411; desires election of Giuliano della Rovere to Papacy, 416; checked by France, 414, 417; séizes Rimini, 425. Vera, Giovanni, preceptor of Cesare Borgia, 32; bearer of letter from Cesare Borgia to Piero de’ Medici, 57; papal legate, 281. Viana, 444-46. Villafontana, treaty of, 332, 333, 350. Villari, Pasquale, his characteriza- tion of Roderigo Borgia, 5; his stricture on Alexander VI, 38, 41; criticism of Cesare Borgia, 343- 46; on Alexander’s death, 4o1. Villeneuve, Louis de, French am- bassador to Rome, 153. Villiers, Cardinal de, 210. INDEX 479 Cesare Borgia, 210; joins Cesare Borgia’s army, 229; in Cesare Borgia’s service, 278, 305, 389. Visconti, Valentina, 148. Vitelli, Giulio, brother of Vitellozzo, Ki0¢ Vitelli, Paolo, 181. Vitelli, Vitellozzo, aids Orsini, 111; joins Cesare Borgia, 181; com- mands artillery, 227; advances on Faenza, 247; in Castel San Pietro, 270; puts to death Pietro da Marciano, 271; implores Cesare Borgia to go into Tuscany, 274, 275; sent to Pisa, 278; accused of causing Rinuccio da Marciano’s wounds to be poisoned, 287; encourages Cesare Borgia in his plans for a kingdom of Central Italy, 309; plots against Florence, 310; enters Arezzo, 311; his action suits Cesare Borgia’s purposes, 311; ordered by Cesare Borgia to evacuate Arezzo, 326; leaves Arezzo and Tuscany, 326; his anger, 328, 329; in Diet of Ma- gione, 334; swears to slay or cap- ture Cesare Borgia, 335; suggests reconciliation with Cesare Borgia, 348; seizes Castel Durante, 349; supports Montefeltre, 350, 353; rejects treaty, 354; abandons Montefeltre, 355; announces sur- render of Sinigaglia, 363; gives homage to Cesare Borgia at Sinigaglia, 364; receives Cesare Borgia, 366; arrested, 367, 368; strangled, 369, 370; in alleged plot against Cesare Borgia’s life, 373. Vitelli, the, restored to Citta di Castello, 412. Volpe, Taddeo della, summoned by Cesare Borgia, 419; defeated, Vinci, Leonardo da, patronized by 429; loyal to Cesare Borgia, 435.Volta, Antonio della, sent to Cesare Borgia with troops, 379. Voltaire, calls Guicciardini aliar,269. Volterra, on Roderigo Borgia’s wealth, 30; on Roderigo Borgia himself, 30. Volterrano, adorns the Borgia Tower, 80. William of Normandy, conqueror of England, 343. Ximenes, Cardinal, approves Cesare Borgia’s renunciation of the purple, 153, 154. INDEX Yriarte, Charles, on the election of Alexander VI, 50-52; on the nuptials of Lucrezia Borgia, 68; on the device “Aut Cesar, aut nihil,” 203; on Giovanni Sforza, 238; on sack of Capua, 286; letter of Louis XII rejecting Cesare Borgia’s appeal for help, 442. Zeno, Cardinal Battista, at election of Alexander VI, 36. Zorzi, ambassador of Council of Ten, 98. 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