Cesare BorgiaAndersonCESARE BORGIA AS THE EMPERORDetail from the fresco of the Disputa of S. Catherine in the Appartamento Borgia in the Vatican
Cesare Borgia
Anderson
CESARE BORGIA AS THE EMPEROR
Detail from the fresco of the Disputa of S. Catherine in the Appartamento Borgia in the Vatican
Although the Duke of Gandia's morals will bear no examination, he was a general favourite in Rome. To a people fond of pageantry the taste of his family for splendour was naturally grateful, and he, alone, of the race, mingled neither tyranny nor cruelty with his magnificence. The bargeman of the Ripetta had manifested neither surprise nor curiosity regarding an incident which he stated to be of frequent occurrence at that spot; but when the victim was ascertained, the whole city was moved; the tradespeople closed their shops,[*262]and all retired panic-stricken to their homes. The few stragglers who crossed the bridge near to which the mutilated body had been found, started at the cry of many sorrowing voices which issued from St. Angelo, and one deep-toned note of woe, which rose above the wailing, was imputed to the Pontiff, "lamenting him who was his right eye, the hope and glory of his house." His grief and horror were indeed overwhelming: we are assured that he swallowed nothing from Wednesday till Saturday, and passed three successive nights without an hour of sleep. On the 19th he held a consistory, to receive the condolence of the cardinals and foreign ministers, whom he addressed to the following purpose[263]:—
"The Duke of Gandia is dead, and his death has been to us the greatest affliction: a more grievous trial we could not have met with, for we loved him mightily, and we no longer value our popedom nor anything; nay, had we seven popedoms, we should give them all to recover the Duke's life. It is rather a visitation from God, sent, perhaps, for some sin of ours, than that he should have merited a death so dreadful. It being unknown bywhom he was murdered and thrown into the Tiber, rumour has ascribed the assassination to the Lord of Pesaro, which we are certain is untrue; no more can it have been done by the Prince of Squillace, brother of the Duke; and we are even satisfied as to the Duke of Urbino: may God forgive who ever it was! We have, however, determined no longer to apply to anything, nor take any charge of the papacy, nor of life itself, nor any thought for the Church; but in order to regulate it and our mode of life, and for the due correction of our own person, we mean to commit these to six of you, most reverend cardinals our brethren, along with two judges of the Rota; and in order that all benefices may be bestowed by merit, apart from any other consideration, they shall be decided by a majority of you cardinals." After naming this executive council, and hearing a justification of Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, volunteered in his absence by the Spanish ambassador, the Pope continued:—"God forbid that we should entertain such a fancy, for never could we credit that his Lordship would do us the smallest injury, least of all an outrage such as this; for we have regarded him as a brother, and have on every occasion placed ourselves at the disposal of himself and of the Duke his brother: assuredly we harbour not the trace of such an idea, and when he comes to us he will be welcome."
It was, indeed, high time that the scandals brought upon the Church by the enormities of her head should terminate. Alexander had for some time been openly living with a sister of Cardinal Farnese, wife of Monoculo Orsini, who was known as Giulia Bella; and who, after appearing prominently by his side on all public and solemn occasions, had lately borne him a son.[264]But evennow he realised the scriptural proverb of "the dog turned to his own vomit again, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire." The remorse and repentance he had avowed, in full consistory, with sobs and tears, were quickly forgotten; the public reforms he had promised were repudiated; the administrative council he had formally nominated was never assembled nor installed. Nepotism and intrigue again became his policy, debauchery his pastime. Those who charge the Cardinal Valentino with his brother's murder, may point to the exclamation, "I know who did it," which was said to have escaped from their father in the first outbreak of his grief; and it has been by some connected with the alleged institution of Giovanni, their next brother, to the titles and inheritance of the Duke of Gandia, passing over the suspected fratricide. This, however, is an entirely erroneous assumption, as there not only appears no brother of the Duke of Gandia bearing his honours, but the invaluable diary of Sanuto expressly mentions an investiture of the Neapolitan fiefs obtained for hissonwithin a few weeks of his death.[265]The Pontiff's displeasure with Cesare, from whatever cause originating, was transient as his personal reformation. His schemes of aggrandisement could not be pursued without the co-operation of him who, alone of his children, was as ambitious and as unscrupulous as himself, and the close of the year brought Valentino an addition to his already enormous plurality of benefices, upon the death of the Cardinal of Parma.
Valentino had endeavoured, by the imposing splendour of his legation to Naples, and by scattering immoderate largesses, to dazzle, and if possible blind, men to the Cain-brand that was upon him. But when he developed a new scheme of aggrandisement, by proffering to a daughter of Federigo a hand which his unscrupulous father was ready to liberate from priestly vows, the King and the Princess alike recoiled from an offer tainted by sacrilege and fratricide. We have seen that a similar refusal by Ferdinand I. was a principal cause for Charles VIII. being invited into Italy. Unwarned by that result of a wretched policy, the Pontiff prepared to repeat it in circumstances still more fatal to the Peninsula. Cesare Borgia returned from his legation on the 5th of September, and was received with every mark of honour and favour by his father, who appeared to have dismissed the Duke of Gandia's very existence from his mind. The pontifical court was once more a scene of alternate dissipation and crime, and the Cardinal of Valencia was the moving spirit of both. In December, Lucrezia's divorce was pronounced, and her dowry of 31,000 ducats returned; next August she became wife of Alfonso Duke of Bisceglia, with an augmented provision of 40,000 ducats, he being then seventeen years of age.
In the following summer, the Duke of Urbino was induced to unite with the Prefect della Rovere in an expedition against Perugia, for the purpose of restoring the Oddi, who, as heads of the Ghibellines, had been expelled from thence by their rivals, the Guelphic Baglioni.[*266]But from this enterprise the Pope speedily recalled him by a remonstrance, which with wonted devotion he hastened to obey, stipulating, however, for indemnity of the expenses he had incurred, amounting to 5000 scudi. About the same time he lost his relation and counsellor Ottaviano Ubaldini, Count of Mercatello, who died at an advanced age.
The services of Guidobaldo were speedily required inanother quarter; and by one of those sudden changes, not unusual to soldiers of fortune, he found himself comrade of his late opponents, the Orsini and Baglioni.[*267]The occasion was the recommencement of the Pisan war, when the fickle usurper of Milan joined the Florentines in their attempts to reduce that city to its former obedience; a combination which, arousing the jealousy of Venice, induced her to adopt the cause of Pisa. Pietro de' Medici and his brother Giuliano availed themselves of this opportunity to make another effort for their re-establishment in that capital. They offered to support an invasion of Tuscany, with all the aid which their own credit and the Orsini influence could bring into the field; and the maritime republic, accepting the proposal, took into their pay, besides the Baglioni of Perugia, the Duke of Urbino with two hundred men-at-arms, and a hundred light horse, for which they allowed him 20,000 scudi a year.[268]Having gained over one of the Malatesta, owner of a small fief in the passes above Sarsina, the confederates sent forward Bartolomeo d'Alviano, who, penetrating the mountain paths about Camaldoli, entered Tuscany and seized Bibbiena, in the upper Val d'Arno, ere the Florentines were aware of the incursion. Guidobaldo followed with a strong body of men, and, finding the season vigorous, went into winter quarters in that and the adjoining towns. The enemy was led by Paulo Vitelli, whose judicious arrangements and great activity, having closed all the defiles around them, kept them in a state of siege during the winter, cutting off their supplies, surprising their posts, and tempting their men to desertion, until they were reduced to great straits. The Duke's health, already broken by frequent gouty attacks, suffered sadly from the severeclimate of these mountain sites, and the privations of an ill-supplied commissariat. The critical position of his army aggravated his malady by preying upon his spirits, and his applications for a physician were coldly refused by his assailants. At length, in the middle of February, their general, Vitelli, on his own responsibility, granted him free passage home to Urbino, an act of charity afterwards severely visited upon his head by the authorities of Florence. Disgusted by the losses of a campaign fruitlessly protracted by disinclination of the respective commanders to risk their reputation in an engagement, the Venetians recalled the reinforcements which they had sent under Nicolò di Petigliano, and abandoned the cause of Pisan independence for that wider field of ambition which the schemes of Louis XII. were developing.
The Cardinal della Rovere, who, during nearly all the pontificate of Alexander, provided for his safety by absence from Rome, had shared the hardships of the Bibbiena campaign, and escaped from them with Guidobaldo. Whilst thus thrown together they seem to have planned an arrangement which opened a new era for Urbino. Feeling that in himself must terminate the male investiture of his states, and dreading that by his early decease they might lapse to a Pope who would joyfully endow with them one of his odious progeny, the Duke willingly listened to a suggestion of the Cardinal, that he should adopt their mutual nephew Francesco Maria della Rovere, son of the Prefect of Sinigaglia, then a promising boy of eight years old. At first they thought of concealing this design from Alexander, but Guidobaldo, aware that without his sanction it could not be matured, and trusting to the hold which his services and dutiful obedience ought to have given him in that quarter, soon proposed it for his approval. The successor of St. Peter, anticipating the modern discovery that words are given toconceal thoughts, professed great satisfaction with the plan, and hinted at bestowing the hand of his niece Angela Borgia upon the presumptive heir of Urbino. A brief interval removed the flimsy veil, and proved that the Pontiff was ready to anticipate the lapse of that dukedom, without awaiting his vassal's death.
The great convulsions impending over Italy require another general glance at the new combinations which the politics of Southern Europe had assumed. Charles VIII. died of apoplexy on the 7th of April, 1498, and was succeeded by his second cousin, Louis XII., first of the Orleans branch of Valois. Though a prince of narrow views and somewhat feeble character, he became the instrument of unprecedented misfortunes to Italy. In him were centred the Angevine claims upon Naples which his predecessor had asserted; and likewise such pretensions upon the Milanese as vested in the heir of line of the Visconti, through his grandmother Valentina, sister of the last Duke. Upon these grounds he at once assumed the style of King of Naples and Jerusalem, and Duke of Milan, and avowed his intention of rendering the latter at least of these titles effectual. Federigo of Aragon and Ludovico Sforza trembled at the impending danger; but, with unaccountable blindness, the other powers strove who should be foremost to offer their alliance to the invader. The Venetians hailed the certain punishment of a tyrannical usurper, who had aided in thwarting them in their recent attempts to maintain the independence of Pisa. They and the princes of Romagna and La Marca remembered how little their several interests had suffered from the expedition of Charles. Florence conceived that the return of the French was the surest guarantee of their democratic independence against the re-establishment of the Medici. The Pope, as usual, had in view ulterior and private ends. His late indignation against his son, the Cardinal, had, with unaccountable revulsion, been succeeded by an increased fondness. The latter reminded him that the years passed since his elevation to the tiara had brought no fulfilment of those schemes of aggrandisement which their mutual ambition had nourished. His recent domestic catastrophe perhaps warned the father how much might be dared by a disappointed son. Every consideration urged upon both the necessity of a great effort to obtain for Cesare a sovereign principality; and conscious that this scheme would have the best chance of success at a moment of general confusion, they resolved to effect it through the instrumentality of a new French invasion, if no readier means offered for their purpose.
Louis XII. had set his mind upon divorcing his queen, Jeanne, the daughter of Louis XI., in order to marry Anne of Bretagne, widow of his predecessor, for which purpose papal dispensations were required, and for these he was a suppliant. The Borgia seized the golden moment to pledge him to their views. Cesare had been created a Cardinal in 1494, by means of suborned oaths, that he was the lawful son of a Roman citizen, for illegitimacy was a bar to that dignity. On the pretext that ecclesiastical orders had been unwillingly conferred upon him, his father, on the 17th of September, annulled them in full consistory, and accepted a renunciation of his cardinal's hat. Next day he appeared in a rich military costume of the latest French fashion, and forthwith took shipping for Marseilles, on a special embassy to the French court, where he arrived about the 18th of October. The following letter of recommendation which he bore is preserved in the Bibliothèque du Roi, and being to all intents a private missive, written and addressed by the Pope's own hand, possesses a very different interest from ordinary papal brieves.
"To our well-beloved son in Christ, the most Christian King of the French;"I.H.S. Maria."Pope Alexander VI., with his own hand."Health and the apostolic benediction to our most dear son in Christ. Anxious in all respects to accomplish your and our own desires, we destine to your Majesty our heart, that is, our favourite son, Duke Valentino, who is prized by us beyond aught else, as a signal and most estimable token of our affection towards your Highness, to whom no further commendation of him is required; and we only ask that you will so treat him, who is thus commissioned to your royal person, as that all may, for our satisfaction, perceive that in his mission he has been in every respect most acceptable to your Majesty. Given at St. Peter's, Rome, the 28th of September." [1498.][269]
"To our well-beloved son in Christ, the most Christian King of the French;
"I.H.S. Maria.
"Pope Alexander VI., with his own hand.
"Health and the apostolic benediction to our most dear son in Christ. Anxious in all respects to accomplish your and our own desires, we destine to your Majesty our heart, that is, our favourite son, Duke Valentino, who is prized by us beyond aught else, as a signal and most estimable token of our affection towards your Highness, to whom no further commendation of him is required; and we only ask that you will so treat him, who is thus commissioned to your royal person, as that all may, for our satisfaction, perceive that in his mission he has been in every respect most acceptable to your Majesty. Given at St. Peter's, Rome, the 28th of September." [1498.][269]
This mission was ostensibly to present Louis with his divorce; but the Duke, in fact, carried also a dispensation for his union with Queen Anne, which had been secretly granted, and which he thus held, ready to deliver it as soon as he should gain the royal consent to certain conditions for his own aggrandisement, the prize then in distant perspective being nothing less than the sceptre of Naples.[270]
Relieved from a character and garb but ill-adapted to his temperament and habits, Cesare Borgia at once assumed the bearing and pomp of sovereignty to which his gradually extending ambition now aspired. All Rome had been busied in preparing his outfit, which is stated by Sanuto at 100,000 ducats; and the magnificence of hisfollowing may be estimated from the assertion that his chargers were shod with silver, or, as some say, with gold. An account of his presentation at the French court will be found in theAppendix X., with details of splendour befitting lavish tastes. His reception was suited to such pretensions, and Louis, well appreciating his disposition, prefaced all negotiation by presenting him with a dukedom, a pension of 20,000 francs, and a similar sum in name of yearly pay for himself and a hundred lances. As he had been styled Cardinal Valentino, from Valencia in Spain, he now became Duke Valentino, from Valence in Dauphiny.
But the intrigues of the Borgia had not entirely abandoned the hope of an alliance for Cesare with a princess of Naples, notwithstanding the cold reception which such a proposal had met with on his recent legation at her father's court. Carlotta, daughter of Federigo, by his first wife, a princess of Savoy, was resident in France, and they hoped to sell the Pope's sanction to the French King's designs upon Milan, for the influence of Louis in favour of her marriage to the Duke Valentino, with the sovereignty of Tarento as her dowry. This project was, however, finally abandoned, on receiving from the lady a scornful refusal to soil her hand by uniting it with an apostate priest, the son of a priest, a blood-thirsty fratricide, as base in character as in birth. This result was not a little pleasing to Louis, who, with a view to his ulterior designs upon Naples, was much more content that the Duke should be the insulted suitor than the son-in-law of Federigo. Meanwhile the finesse of Cesare had nearly overreached itself. Keeping back the dispensation until he had effected his own objects, he endeavoured to attach conditions to its delivery; but Louis, informed by the Bishop of Cette, who was Nuncio at his court, that it had already issued on the 20th of October, and that its non-publication could not prevent its validity, prepared tocelebrate his marriage without delay. The Duke hastened to remedy his mistake with a good grace, by delivering the dispensation, and presenting a cardinal's hat to George d'Amboise, the French King's favourite minister; but with a vengeance that knew no pity, he had poison administered to the tell-tale Bishop.
Lying nearest the common danger, Ludovico il Moro was the most energetic, as well as the most interested, in preparing for defence. Again he proposed a general league for the exclusion of ultra-montane invasion, and attempted to gain the Pope's adherence to it by a secret engagement, that the great states should, at his dictation, make common cause against any or all of the princely feudatories of the Church, and by money or the sword should establish Cesare Borgia in some sovereignty. This offer being addressed to the Pontiff's leading passion, it was entertained with apparent favour, in order to keep his decision open to the last, as well as meanwhile to divert Sforza from maturing an effectual resistance to Louis, whose alliance, as the most powerful, seemed on the whole most eligible, and from whom it might be easy for his Holiness to obtain the very advantages which Ludovico's proposal offered.
Whilst the policy of Italy remained thus in suspense, Duke Valentino became more and more united to the interests of France. Profiting by the pique which his recent disappointment occasioned, Louis persuaded him in the beginning of May to marry Charlotte d'Albret, sister of Jean, King of Navarre, adding 80,000 francs to her dowry of 30,000; and at the same time decorated him with the order of St. Michael, then the most distinguished in Christendom. The Pope presented him with 200,000 scudi, and celebrated the event by extravagant festivities. Having thus seemingly secured Alexander, the French King bribed the Venetians to aid him in conquering the Milanese, by promising them a slice ofits territory, and in August sent his army across the Alps. It would lead us too far from our proper theme to trace the invasion of Italy which followed these complicated intrigues. The French incursion into Lombardy was crowned with entire success, and within three weeks Ludovico, driven from the capital which he had usurped, retired with his treasure to Inspruck.
After recruiting the hardships of Bibbiena, from which however his constitution never recovered, the Duke of Urbino paid a visit to Venice, which is thus graphically told by Marino Sanuto in his amusing diary.
"On the 2nd of June luncheon was prepared for the Duke of Urbino's coming; and when it was over, the Doge with the ambassadors and senators went in the Bucentaur to meet Duke Guido, as far as San Antonio, and there awaited him; and there were five gig-boats [paraschelmi] prepared as usual for us sages of the orders, ornamented with the armorial bearings of each. And presently the Duke arrived from Chioggia, with Giorgio Pisani, the Podestà, and some gentlemen who had been sent to meet him. He is twenty-eight years of age, a handsome man, dressed in black after the French fashion, as were all his attendants, on account of the death of his uncle [cousin] Ottavio de' Ubaldini, who long had governed both the state and the Duke. And being brought into the Bucentaur with great rejoicings, he came by the Cana l' Grande to the Marquis of Ferrara's house, which had been made ready for him, and the Doge accompanied him to his chamber. He remained [eleven] days in this city, with a numerous suite, and thirty-five ducats a day were assigned for his expenses." According to the estimate of this chronicler, a ducat was then worth four English shillings, so that, making allowance for the depreciated value of money, the sum set apart for the Duke's daily maintenance may have exceeded 70l.He received at the same time the compliment of citizenship, and his serviceswere retained for the Republic with two hundred men-at-arms, and 27,000 ducats of pay. It does not, however, appear that he was called into action during the rapid campaign by which Louis possessed himself of Milan, being probably then disabled by gout: indeed, he seems to have suffered from it even on his visit to Venice, as his not having danced at a ball given in his honour is specially noted by Sanuto, and it was provided in his engagement of service that his contingent should be led by an approved commander. During this year he testified his good will for the Signory, by sending them from his wide forests forty head of bucks, does, kids, wild-boar, and other game, borne by forty men.
The condition of Romagna—Cesare Borgia overruns and seizes upon it—The spirit of his government—Naples invaded by Louis, and handed over to Spain—Lucrezia Borgia’s fourth marriage.
The condition of Romagna—Cesare Borgia overruns and seizes upon it—The spirit of his government—Naples invaded by Louis, and handed over to Spain—Lucrezia Borgia’s fourth marriage.
THE French conquests in Lombardy having been achieved, Valentino now urged Louis to perform certain secret stipulations which had for their object his establishment in Romagna and La Marca as a sovereign prince. The scene of our narrative must, therefore, for a time be laid in that country; and it may be well, though thereby incurring some repetition, to lay before the reader a brief sketch of its then condition, as given by Sismondi.
"Whilst even in the Campagna of Rome the Pope's authority was barely acknowledged, and whilst in the very streets of his capital he was forced to arm alternately against the Colonna and the Orsini, the more distant provinces had still more completely shaken off his sway. In some towns, republican forms of government were continued: Ancona, Assisi, Spoleto, Terni, and Narni had either avoided or broken the yoke of domestic tyranny, but their internal factions and petty wars kept them in feeble obscurity. Other towns had become subject to pontifical vicars, who asserted a complete independence, burdened with but the promise of an annual tribute which they never paid. Nearly the whole Marca was divided between the families of Varana and Fogliano. Giulio di Varana was then the seigneur of Camerino; Giovanni di Fogliano, who soon after was cruelly murdered by his nephew Oliverotto, ruled in Fermo. Sinigaglia had beengiven in fief by Sixtus IV. in 1471, to his nephew Giovanni della Rovere, the titular Prefect of Rome, who was likewise son-in-law and heir presumptive to the Duke of Urbino. That highland district which extended from La Marca to Tuscany, and included the duchy of Urbino, the county of Montefeltro, and the lordship of Gubbio, was under the sway of Guidobaldo, the last and distinguished representative of the Feltrian race: the warlike qualities of its people and the lettered elegance of its court were nowhere surpassed in Italy. On the western frontier of this duchy the vale of the Tiber was occupied by two petty principalities, those of Giovanni Paulo Baglioni of Perugia, and of Vitellozzo Vitelli of Città di Castello: both of these chiefs were soldiers by trade, and the latter had conferred importance on his state by great military talents shared with his four brothers, as well as by the high state of discipline to which he had brought his vassals.
"Towards Romagna lay Pesaro, wrested in 1445 from the Malatesta by Francesco Sforza, and erected by him into a little sovereignty for a younger branch of his family.[271]It was then held by Giovanni Sforza, who in 1497 had been divorced from Lucrezia Borgia, daughter of the Pope. The next domain was Rimini, sadly fallen from the ascendency to which Pandolfo III. and his brother Carlo Malatesta had raised it in the preceding century. It had been, since 1482, in the hands of Pandolfo IV., natural son of Roberto Malatesta and son-in-law of Giovanni Bentivoglio of Bologna, whose debaucheries and cruelty had gained for him a bad notoriety. He had accepted the protection of Venice, which, anxious to secure an influence along the Adriatic coast, offered her pay to all the chiefs of this province, heeding little whether they led in person the levies which they thus became bound to maintain at her disposal, or only madethese a pretext for receiving what was deemed an honourable pension.
"Westward of Rimini, Cesena formed part of the ecclesiastical state, having been seized from a branch of the Malatesta. Forlì, the ancient heritage of the Ordelaffi, had passed in 1480 to Girolamo Riario, nephew of Sixtus IV., who in 1473 had also been invested by his uncle with the lordship of Imola. These two seigneuries, separated by that of Faenza, had been held since 1488 by the youthful Ottaviano Riario, under tutelage of his mother, the undaunted Caterina Sforza, natural daughter of Duke Galeazzo of Milan. By her second [third] marriage with Giovanni, a cadet of the Medici, she had a son who became famous in the wars of Italy: and though her husband had died in 1498, she remained faithful to the interests of Florence, which took the young Ottaviano into her pay, as a guarantee of her protection.
"Between the two last-mentioned principalities, Faenza extended up the valley of the Lamone, as far as the Tuscan frontier. To this, as a point of attacking the Florentine republic, the Venetians attached great importance. Constituting themselves guardians of Astorre Manfredi its chief, then in his seventeenth year, they had appeased the struggle between him and his illegitimate brother Ottaviano, and had made themselves all but masters of Faenza and the passes of the Lamone. They had also seized Ravenna and Cervia from the families of Polenta and Malatesta. The rich and powerful city of Bologna had, since 1462, been absolutely ruled by Giovanni Bentivoglio. But of all the church feudatories, Duke Ercole d'Este was the most distant and the most independent; his family had for several centuries held Ferrara of the apostolic chamber, and the possession of the imperial fiefs of Modena and Reggio elevated his pretensions above the level of other pontifical vicars.
"The courts of so many petty sovereigns gave to Romagna a character of elegance and wealth. All their capitals had churches, tasteful palaces, and libraries; and each court strove to render itself not less distinguished for mental refinement. Among the pensioned attendants of each prince were numbered poets, philosophers, and men of letters; and the rivalry of these little states was most assuredly beneficial to the progress of literature, even whilst it generally tended to demean the character of the learned. But it is the nature of absolutism to promote costly vices: the flatterers who surround the most petty sovereign extol his munificence as a virtue, and he can seldom moderate his desires more than if he ruled a great empire. Hence it happened that the princes of Romagna found their revenues unequal to the sums they required for defence, for vanity, and for pleasures. They were ever seeking some pretext for extorting from their subjects a portion of their property, and they eked out the inadequate returns of taxation by fines and confiscations.
"There are certain descriptions of crime which seem peculiar to those families who, occupying a position of social isolation, have never learned the common feelings of humanity, and do not consider themselves subject to the ordinary code of morals. The princely races of Romagna had in fact given to their subjects frequent examples of parricide, poisoning, and treachery of every sort. The higher noblesse, too, deemed vengeful cruelty a proof of independence; and even in the villages hereditary hatred was cherished by the leaders of contending factions, and gratified by savage atrocities. Numerous bands of cut-throats were ever ready to be employed in aggression or defence; and enmities were seldom satisfied so long as one of any age or sex survived of the detested house. We are assured that when Arcimboldo, Archbishop of Milan and Cardinal of Santa Prassede, went as legate to Perugia and Umbria, he found there a gentleman who, after smashing against a wall the heads of the children of hisfoe, and strangling their mother who was pregnant, nailed to the door a surviving infant in trophy of his revenge, just as a gamekeeper would hang up the birds and beasts of prey which he had killed; nor was this outrage regarded by the neighbours as anything remarkable!"
Those who accompany our narrative of the Dukes of Urbino will, we trust, admit that this sweeping denunciation had its exceptions. The well known and never concealed prejudices of its able and eloquent author exempt us from the necessity of cautioning the reader against implicit credence in the view which here and in other passages he endeavours to establish, that Cesare Borgia's usurpations were hailed by the people of Romagna as a welcome relief from the perpetual oppressions of their domestic tyrants. Of extortion and confiscations I have discovered but few instances under these princes. Their personal vices were common to the age, and prevailed from the representatives of St. Peter, through all ranks and under all governments. It is unnecessary now to discuss how far the security and welfare of the masses were most promoted under such despotisms, or amid the ever restless anarchy of democracies like Florence, "whose whole history was one intermittent fever of insurrection; where each man's own arm was his best, often his sole, law and protection; where the magistrate of to-day might be the exile or martyr of to-morrow";[272]and whose convulsions are compared by her own Dante to those of
Duke Valentino now assumed the life of a condottiere, in order to raise troops for his enterprise. His winning manners,—for none could better mask the nature of a hyæna under the manners of a dove,—his gallant bearing—for he was handsome, frank, and daring,—his prodigal pay and specious professions,—all contributed to gather around him many warrior chieftains with their respective followings, devoted to his person, and ready to promote whatever views his ambition might prompt. To such adherents Louis added a brigade, for which he had no longer immediate need, consisting of three hundred French lances, under Ives d'Allègre, and four thousand Swiss mercenaries, commanded by the Bailli of Dijon. At the head of this little army Borgia marched upon Imola, and there united it with the papal troops to the number, in all, of fifteen thousand men.
The same force of character by which we have already seen Caterina Riario Sforza prevail over the faction which murdered her first husband,[273]had enabled her to maintain her son Ottaviano's authority in Imola and Forlì during his long minority. She had given her hand to the brave and handsome Giacomo Fea, who at that crisis saved her cause by his defence of the citadel of Forlì, and in 1496 had been again widowed by a base cabal of disaffected nobles, who suffered at her hand a retribution resembling that endured by the Orsi in 1488. In 1497 she celebrated her third nuptials with Giovanni de' Medici, envoy from Florence at the court of her son. He was second cousin of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and died in the following year, leaving by her an only child, well known in Italian history as Giovannidelle bande nere, whose brief but glorious career of arms we shall see cut short at the fight of Borgoforte, in 1527, and whose son was the Grand Duke Cosimo I. Ottaviano Riario was now in his twenty-first year, and seconded his mother's stout resistance by placing garrisons and supplies in Imola, Forlì, and his minor strongholds. But she vainly attempted to impart her own spirit to her dastardly or dissatisfied subjects. On the last day of 1499 the gates of Imola were opened toDuke Valentino, and the castle surrendered after a feeble defence. Sending her son and her treasure into Tuscany, Caterina once more entered the citadel of Forlì, which, after a bombardment of several days, was lost by treachery. The Countess was carried to Rome, but after a short imprisonment was permitted to retire to Florence, where she dedicated the eight remaining years of her chequered life to the education of her younger children, to charity and spiritual meditation, and to the austerities of an almost monastic discipline.
After this success, Cesare Borgia hastened to Rome to advise with his father as to their next step; but his progress was interrupted by the sudden recall of the French troops in his service. Ludovico Sforza so well employed the money he had carried into the Tyrol, and the support which he received from the Emperor Maximilian, that early in February he marched into Lombardy at the head of an army of Swiss, before whom the garrison of Milan retired, leaving him once more in possession of his capital and most of his original territory, where he was welcomed with general joy. But the reaction of his fortunes was momentary. Louis quickly repaired to Lombardy with reinforcements, and the combat which would have decided his fate was anticipated by the desertion of his Swiss mercenaries, who went over in a body to the French. Ludovico was carried to France, where he remained, during ten years, prisoner in a gloomy dungeon or cage at the Castle of Loches, and died on being released.[274]His talents and address aggravated his crimes; his treachery to his nephew and faithlessness to his allies lost him the goodwill of all; he was the earliest victim of those barbarian inroads which he first brought upon Italy, and which led to the annihilation of her independence.
The interval of the Milanese rising had been spent by Cesare in Rome, where the solemnities of the jubilee year were disturbed by extravagant demonstrations of public joy, provided by his father and himself in honour of his recent successes. Among these was a triumph, after those of the Roman emperors, where he inscribed upon his banners,aut Cæsar aut nullus, an insolent motto, which he frequently used, but which was thus pungently parodied on his death:—
On the 2nd of April he received from his father the royal distinction of the golden rose, along with the dignities of gonfaloniere and captain-general of the Church, each of which gave occasion for pompous ceremonials of surpassing magnificence, wherein the velvet and brocade liveries of his numberless followers dazzled even the Roman populace. Among his attendants Burchard mentions a thousand Gascon and Scotch infantry [Guascones et Scottenses?], whose unsteady straggling, "caring nought for our arrangements," sadly disconcerted this master of ceremonies.
To supply the vast sums which were unceasingly absorbed in these and similar displays of vanity and selfish profusion by the Borgia, as well as in their ceaseless wars, every device was called into requisition. Besides seizing upon a large portion of the pious gifts brought by pilgrims of the jubilee year to the metropolis of Christianity, the Pope had recourse, for the first time, on a great scale, to the sale of dispensations. Notices were circulated overEurope, that payment of stated sums, by such as found personal performance of the pilgrimage inconvenient or disagreeable, would ensure to them all the benefits of a visit to the prescribed jubilee stations at Rome. Simony had become the rule, not the exception. Every office in church and state was bestowed on the highest bidder by the greedy Pontiff, who himself had purchased the tiara.[*276]
Having learned the value of this source of wealth, he hesitated not to turn it to new account by a series of crimes unequalled in the annals of iniquity. Finding that the course of nature did not afford vacancies as rapidly as his finances required new supplies, he refined upon the practice of an age "profuse in poisons," and had frequent recourse to the chalice. From time to time cardinals and other high dignitaries were thus disposed of, often from revenge, but oftener for lucre. Now, too, the tax of a tenth was imposed on the clergy, and a twentieth on the Jews, to continue for three years, on the delusive pretext of a Turkish war. How far these unrighteous profits were directly participated by Cesare Borgia may been seen from the diary of Sanuto:—"The twelve new cardinals, after their creation [Sept. 28], went to the Duke, offering their services, and dined there, and balanced their accounts, and swore fealty to him, so that for this creation he has touched about 120,000 ducats."[*278]The dinner was, however, but an empty form of hospitality, for we learn fromthe same authority, that his cautious guests declined partaking of the splendid banquet laid out to tempt them, observing thatomnia preciosa cara sunt, and excusing their scruples by a desire of avoiding popular gossip.
The readiness with which Valentino had suspended his own plans to repair the reverses of Louis in Lombardy, obtained him from the latter a more hearty support. The French troops were sent back to serve under his banner, and their monarch having declared his intention of treating the opponents of Borgia as his personal enemies, the latter hastened again to Romagna, and took possession of Pesaro. Its lord, Giovanni Sforza, had flattered himself that the storm would pass him by unharmed. He was under the avowed protection of Venice, and had been son-in-law of the Pope. But the Signory were not unwilling to close their eyes to an insult which it would have been impolitic to avenge, and Lucrezia's divorce had alienated her late husband from the sympathies as well as from the family circle of the Borgia. Warned by the fate of the Riarii, and perceiving that the friendly dispositions of his relation Guidobaldo were of no avail against such a combination of adverse circumstances, Giovanni had, in the beginning of the year, fled by sea to Venice, and offered his state to that republic, a proposal which was coldly declined by the prudent Signory, who regarded it as a fatal gift. He, however, found shelter in their sea-borne city, where he quickly consoled himself by marrying a daughter of Matteo Tiapolo.
On the 27th of October, Borgia entered Pesaro, with an imposing display of luxurious military equipments. His men-at-arms wore his sumptuous livery of red and yellow over richly wrought cuirasses, and their belts were studded with seven serpents' heads. He then proceeded to Rimini, where Pandolfo and Carlo, natural sons of Roberto Malatesta, fled to avoid at once the perils ofhis invasion and the seditions of subjects wearied by their senseless tyranny. At Faenza, which he reached on the 20th of November, he met with a check, and winter forced him to postpone operations. Astorre Manfredi, its sovereign, though but a boy of eighteen, was endeared to his subjects, who rallied in his defence; and it was not until the 22nd of April that, overcome by numbers, he closed the hopeless struggle by an honourable capitulation. He was allowed to retain his private revenues, but being sent to Rome with his natural brother, they were both strangled by order of Alexander, and their bodies thrown into the Tiber. Romagna, thus wrested from its lawful feudatories, was erected into a dukedom for Cesare, consent of the consistory being gained by means of that new creation of cardinals to which we have just alluded; and it was at this time, Sanuto tells us, that ten ducats were given in the Roman betting circles to receive a hundred when the upstart should be king of that province.
Regarding the manner in which the Duke governed the state he had thus acquired, we find the following passage in Sismondi: "This man, distinguished for so many crimes, was not destitute of countervailing qualities. Brave, eloquent, dexterous; lavish of favours, but ever careful of his finances; zealous in maintaining justice throughout his states; he knew how, by good government, to promote their rapid prosperity, and to endear himself alike to his subjects and to his soldiery, whilst dreaded and detested by neighbouring princes and nations. His early conquests in Romagna, having had time to taste the advantages of his rule, remained faithful to him on the death of Alexander, while his more recent acquisitions returned to the obedience of their hereditary lords. Though cruel and perfidious in his policy, he was enlightened as to what best ensured the happiness of thepeople: his dealings with them were marked by scrupulous impartiality, and the public security was inviolably preserved. Under his administration factious violence had been restrained, authorised robberies had ceased, talent had met with enlightened encouragement, military merit had been promoted, men of letters had been enriched by ecclesiastical preferment. In a word, his state had prospered, and no inhabitant could anticipate without fear a restoration of the old dynasties."
Such is the judgment of an historian who saw in these dynasties but the supplanters of democracies, in his eyes the only pure, virtuous, and popular forms of government. So blinded is he in this one-sided view that, imitating Machiavelli, he becomes an apologist of the Borgia, whose policy left no other results than the general breaking down of these princely families; a fact apparently atoning, in his estimation, as in that of his Florentine prototype, for crimes exceeding in a few years the accumulated enormities which during centuries had sprung from the unbridled passions of the petty sovereigns whom he decries. But, when removed from the influence of this prepossession, he admits, in theBiographie Universelle, that "Valentino systematised crime, carrying impudence and perfidy beyond all previous bounds. Many princes have shed more blood, have exacted more savage vengeance, have ordered punishments of greater atrocity, but no name is tainted by fouler infamy. Even his ferocity was an egotistic calculation, sacrificing everything for his own interests, recognising neither morals, religion, nor sentiment except as instruments for his purpose, to be crushed when they became inconvenient." Revolting as are the vices which these pages connect with Alexander and his family, only such are here introduced as belong to the thread of our narrative. Were it our object to bring the character of these monsters fully into view, the catalogue and its loathsome details must have been greatly extended: indeed, of the many gross outrages upon female honour and domestic peace with which history charges Cesare, a considerable proportion are attributed to his stay in his own capital of Cesena. To bring home these charges would be far more easy than to discover coeval authority for Sismondi's commendations.[*279]We are, however, told by a contemporary poet, Marcello Filosseno, that Romagna bore witness to the justice and clemency of the god-like Borgia, whom all nations far and near invited to rule over them, and willingly hailed as their master. The inflated terms of this compliment are surely sufficient contradiction of its truth; and its now forgotten author, aspiring to be the Petrarch of the modern Lucrezia, was naturally the slavering adulator of her kindred.[280]
On such a point the prosaic diary of Sanuto affords better evidence. Whilst passing the spring at Imola, the Duke of Romagna frequently occupied his mornings with bull-baiting, and generally spent the nights in dancing, masques, and varied dissipation. "No redress is obtained; force supersedes justice; the troops quarter at their own pleasure; whilst all cry out for vengeance on the Duke; for they plunder everything, to say nothing of the matrons and their daughters, of whom possession has been long since taken." As to the administration of his government, the facts stated by Machiavelli, and admitted by Sismondi, are these. The numerous and violent revolutions which had recently convulsed his new state left behind them their necessary consequences. Law and justice, public order and personal security, were alike prostrated; the country was in the hands of banditti, or military adventurers. To put an end to such misrule was the interest of the new sovereign, and he set about it in a characteristic manner. Selecting Ramirez d'Orco, the most savage and blood-thirsty of his captains,[281]he left him to govern the country with unlimited authority, and to clear it summarily of every suspected individual. As the benefits of order restored by such sanguinary means might be questioned even by those who had gained them, Borgia promptly disconnected himself from the instrument when the reformation was complete. At the close of 1502, there was one morning displayed in their piazza, to the appalled inhabitants of Cesena, the racked and dismembered corpse of their tyrannical viceroy, with a knife on one side, and a reeking block on the other; and this doom the Pope justified to the Venetian envoy on pretext of his treasonable intrigues with the confederates of La Magione.[282]
Of all the evil passions of men, the lust of power most grows by indulgence. His craving for sovereignty at length gratified, the Duke Valentino panted for new conquests. His advance upon Bologna was suddenly arrested by a notice from Louis of that city being under French protection. The opportunity had not yet arrived for attacking the Duke of Urbino, the cherished general of the Venetians, the scrupulously obedient vassal of the Church. The four Tuscan republics, exhausted by long intestinestruggles and civil commotions, seemed an easy prey; and the exiled Medici, ever prompt to close with any offer against their native city, afforded the excuse for an inroad upon Florence by the Mugello, with the secret intention of appropriating it to himself. His schemes of selfish aggrandisement were, however, again reluctantly suspended, at the call of an ally with whose support he could not dispense. Louis was now marching upon Naples, and thither also Cesare directed his steps. But, ever prompt to plunder for his own gain, or the gratification of his troops, he on the route seized upon Piombino, the little fief of the Appiani, and, on the 3rd of September, sacked its capital. This he retained as a footing for further conquests, and consoled himself for foregoing his designs upon the Florentines, by accepting, in guerdon of his forbearance, a nominal rank in their service, with 36,000 zecchins of pay.
After establishing his sway in the Milanese, the French King proceeded to the conquest of Naples. The league remained in force by which all the Peninsular powers were brought to afford a voluntary or constrained approbation of this enterprise; and, since the ruin of Ludovico Sforza, Federigo had no ally. Of all the smaller feudatories, the Colonna alone adhered to his falling cause, and the Pope availed himself of this pretext to break down their strength and appropriate their great estates, as he had already done those of their rivals the Orsini. Duke Guidobaldo adopted the only prudent policy left in his option, and obtained the nominal protection of Louis by sending fifty lances to co-operate with his Neapolitan expedition. On its results we cannot linger. The French King halted in Rome for a few days, whilst Alexander, on the 28th of June, declared Federigo deprived of his crown. The latter had turned towards Ferdinand of Spain, hoping that policy would combine with family ties to procure from him support in this exigency; but he was doomed to experience thehollowness of such hopes. A treaty, signed on the 11th of November, 1500, was produced, by which his kingdom had been secretly partitioned between Louis and Ferdinand; the northern portion, with the capital, was assigned to the former, and the southern, with the dukedom of Calabria, became an appanage of the Spanish monarchy, the maritime cities of Monopoli, Otranto, Brindisi, and Trani being reserved for the Venetians.[*283]At Capua alone were the French arms resisted, and after a short siege that city was delivered over to the worst horrors of a sack, Duke Valentino reserving for himself forty of the most beautiful maidens of the place. The King of the Two Sicilies, seeing his cause desperate, abdicated a short-lived sovereignty, which in happier circumstances he might have usefully and honourably wielded. He was permitted to retire to France, as titular Duke of Anjou, with a pension of 30,000 ducats, and died there in 1504. But he lived long enough to see his dominions pass from his conqueror, and the French driven from Lower Italy by the Spaniards. His last public act was to reconcile these powers, who, on plundering him of his dominions, had quarrelled over the spoil. After struggles protracted during two years, and brightened by the last blaze of expiring chivalry, Gonsalvo, the Great Captain, established over Naples the Spanish monarchy, which during the next two centuries swayed that fine country with an iron rod, the wounds whereof still rankle in its vitals. Thus was firmly planted in the Peninsula an influence which quickly overshadowed, and eventually crushed, her nationality, and which, even when finally withdrawn, left upon her intellectual powers and material prosperity a malignant blight that continues to spread its poison.
The calculation of the Borgia was, that, in the general scramble consequent upon the French invasion, theirselfish schemes might be readily promoted.[284]Besides investing Cesare with the best portion of Romagna, and erecting Nepi with many of the Colonna estates into a dukedom for Giovanni, another natural son born after his elevation to the tiara, Alexander had pursued his ambitious views for his too favourite daughter Lucrezia, and after marrying her to Don Alfonso, Duke of Bisceglia, in 1498, had endowed her with the sovereign duchy of Spoleto. But the French alliance subsequently superseded his original design of basing the grandeur of his house upon the Aragon dynasty of Naples; and, prompt to free himself from the trammels of a falling cause, he was suspected of sanctioning the assassination of his son-in-law the Duke, in July, 1500, by the paid cut-throats of Cesare, whose blows not proving fatal, the unhappy prince was strangled in bed a few weeks later. The Venetian report, lately quoted from Ranke,[285]tends, however, to acquit his Holiness of this enormity, which was consummated by the bow-string of his son's agent Michelotto; indeed it represents Lucrezia as affectionately tending the invalid, and, with his sister the Princess of Squillace, cooking his food as a security against the potions of her remorseless brother, whose remark that "what failed at dinner might be managed at supper," was a pregnant hint of his sinister designs. At all events, this outrage seems to have deeply disgusted Lucrezia, but, after a brief interval, she reappeared at the court of her father, who, on quitting his capital several times during 1501, left the executive in her hands, exhibiting the novel scandal of the papacy under petticoat government. In the following year she willingly lent herself to the fourth nuptials which he had arranged for her.[*286]Once more the states of the Church wereenjoined to celebrate her marriage with festivities worthy of royalty, the bridegroom being Alfonso, heir to the dukedom of Ferrara, who, by this discreditable connection, earned the towns of Cento and Pieve, with a dowry of 100,000 ducats, and the protection of the Borgia. The ceremony was performed by the Pontiff in person, who presented his daughter with jewels to the value of 100,000 scudi. Comedies, bull-fights, and illuminations were exhibited over all Rome in her honour, this lavish expenditure being defrayed out of sums raised by the indiscriminate sale of benefices, and indulgences for the pretended Turkish crusade. Of these revels, as described by Burchard, it is quite impossible to stain our pages with any account; their disgusting impurities would have disgraced the orgies of a brothel.[*287]The dukedom of Sermoneta was about the same time erected out of the Gaetani estates for her infant son Roderigo, born in November, 1499, during her marriage with the Duke of Bisceglia, but of doubted paternity: she having soon after lost the favour of her brother Cesare, which had brought upon her much scandal, this fief was seized by him, on the paltry excuse that being a woman she could not maintain possession of it.
In the following January, the bride set out for her new capital, and the Pope wrote desiring that the Duchess of Urbino should attend her to Ferrara. Considering how lately Lucrezia had been wife of her brother-in-law Giovanni Sforza, this was an honour she would gladly have dispensed with, but the habitual deference shown by Guidobaldo to the wishes of his Holiness prevented her declining what was expressed as a compliment, though subsequent events soon showed that it was buta cloak to ulterior projects of a very difficult character. The Duchess of Ferrara arrived at Urbino on the 18th of January, 1502, with the extravagant accompaniment of two thousand attendants and a hundred and fifty horses, who were all entertained by the Duke in Gubbio, Cagli, and Urbino, at an expense of about 8000 ducats.[288]Escorted by her hosts, she next day proceeded to Pesaro, visiting as a passing guest the city which had lately owned her as its mistress. For the second time she entered it a bride, greeted by bell-chimes and bonfires, and met by a hundred children bearing olive-branches. But their wands of peace mingled strangely with the gorgeous liveries of her brother, who in right of the sword, held the state of him who had on the former occasion been her husband. Even when at the height of her dissolute career, she was characterised by a contemporary as liberal andsavia(which may either mean learned or discreet); and to her taste and patronage, rather than to Duke Alfonso, is ascribed the literary tone which graced the court of Ferrara. As years wore on she is represented as having purified her thoughts, and, weaning them from earthly gauds and sensual joys, to have concentrated them on devotional contemplations. Her death took place in child-bed on the 24th of June, 1519, and the following letter of condolence from the Doge of Venice to her husband indicates the regard which she had gained in that capital:—
"We have this morning heard with great concern the death of your most illustrious consort, to whom, on account of the excellent qualities possessed by her Ladyship, we ever have extended our affection and entire goodwill, knowing them to be fully reciprocated by her. With the paternal love which we bear to you and her, we condole with your Excellency as if we had lost a daughter of our own. Yet our grief is somewhat mitigated, knowing it to be a dispensation of nature which none can escape, and remembering the past religious life of her Excellency. And so we implore your Lordship that, in this so distressing event, you will have recourse to your usual and natural prudence for the alleviation of your grief, submitting to the will of our Lord God, in which we ought all to acquiesce."[289]