Chapter 25

[198]Sanzi.

[199]Machiavelli says he died at Bologna, but this is a mistake. Sanzi tells us he meant to do so, but was persuaded by the Duchess Leonora to prefer her capital.

[200]Vespasiano da Bisticci.

[*201]He died on the same day (September 10) as the Duke. SeeBern. Zambotto,Silva Cronicarum, Bib. Civica di Ferrara, MS. 470, f. 104 v. under Settem. 10, 1482: "The Duke of Urbino, Captain-General of all the army of the league, returning sick, in the ducal chambers of the garden towards our Duke's chapel of Our Lady in the palace with continual fever, died to-day at the sixteenth hour, and I saw him lying dead in his room under a covering of crimson velvet. He was conveyed by his own people to Urbino to be buried." Zambotto is writing in Ferrara, the palace—corte—is the present Palazzo del Municipio, and "our Duke" is the Duke of Ferrara. I am able to publish this note by the kindness of Mr. E.G. Gardner who sent it me. His bookDukes and Poets at Ferrara(Constable, 1904) should be consulted concerning Ferrara.

[202]The following pompous epitaph was written for Roberto:—"Io son colui che venne, vidi, e vinsiL'invitto Duce, e Roma liberai,E lui da gloria, e me da vita spinsi."The chief was I who came, and saw, and beatThe Duke, till then unconquered, freeing Rome.I spilt my life, but spent my foeman's fame.

[202]The following pompous epitaph was written for Roberto:—

[203]Vespasiano's Commentary, Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 941, fol. 50.

[204]Two famous jurisconsults, whose portraits by Raffaele in the Doria Pamfili gallery have preserved their names after their decisions have been forgotten.[*E]

[*E]Bartolo and Baldi are by no means forgotten. They were Perugians, and are often alluded to as notable in theBollettino per l'Umbria, e.g. "un opinione di Bartolo."

[*205]About a mile to the east of Urbino.

[*206]It was Edward IV., not Henry VII., who only came to the throne in 1485, whereas Federigo was invested with the Order at Grottoferrata in 1474. Cf.supra,214.

[*207]He lies now in S. Bernardino, beside Duke Guidobaldo.

[208]Vat. Urb. MSS., No. 489, f. 11. Odasio's oration is No. 1233. The Duke's epitaph will be found in the Appendix to Vol. III. His favour for this church has been already alluded to. It was rewarded, in 1470, by a rescript from the general of the order of Minims, granting all the spiritual privileges of that fraternity to him, his consort, and children, including a right to its peculiar funeral services,—fit guerdon for"A race that nobly, fearlessly,On their hearts' worship poured a wealth of love."

[*209]Cf.L'Arte, ann. IX., fasc. i. (Miscellanea).

[210]Clarus insigni vehitur triumpho,Quem, parem summis ducibus, perhennisFama virtutum celebrat decenterSceptra tenentem.Quemodum rebus tenuit secundis,Conjugis magni decorata rerumLaude gestarum, volitat per oraCuncta virorum.

[210]

[*211]It is to Vasari we owe the statement that Piero was blind in 1458, being then sixty years old (cf.Vasari,Vite, vol. II., p. 500). This appears to be another of Vasari's mistakes. Fra Luca, who records so many facts concerning his master, is silent as to his blindness, while if dates are looked into they will easily disprove the statement. Cf.W.G. Waters,Piero della Francesca(London, 1901), p. 93.

[212]See his catalogue of painters in the Appendix to our second volume.

[213]The Abbé Pungileone, in hisElogio di Giovanni Sanzi, and Padre Marchese, in hisMemorie dei Pittori Domenicani, both adopt, without examination, the identity of the Madonna and Child with the Duke's wife and son. The picture is engraved in Rosini, Plate 93, and in the Brera gallery.

[214]Several important medallions of Federigo are described in our thirtieth chapter, and, in our fifty-third, a statue erected to him in the palace at Urbino by his great-great-grandson, Francesco Maria II.

[*215]For the life of Guidobaldo, seeBaldi,Vita e fatti di Guidobaldo I. di Montefeltro(Milano, 1821);Zaccagnini,La Vita e le opere edite e inedite di B. Baldi(Modena, 1903);Castiglione,Epistola ad Sacratissimum Britanniae Reg. Henricum de Guidobaldo Urb. Duce;Bembo,De Guido Ubaldo Feretrio deque Elisabetta Gonzagia Urbini Ducibus liber(Cod. Vatic. Urbin., 1030), and Ugolini,op. cit., II., lib. VIII. and IX.; see alsoMadiaiCommentari dello Stato di Urbino, inArch. Stor. per le Marche e per l'Umbria, vol. III., pp. 419-464.

[*216]Seesupranote *1,p. 208. There, too, Guidobaldo's names are given as Guido Paolo Ubaldo. As stated here they seem to be right.

[217]See above,p. 207.

[218]Guidobaldo always honoured and enriched Odasio, to whom he gave, for instance, a finepodereon 26 February, 1495 (cf.Arch. Centr. Perg. d'Urbino, p. 275). This eulogy was an ovation and nothing more; it was not the truth, or meant to be the truth. Cf.Ugolini,op. cit., vol. II., p. 151.

[*219]His sister, not his aunt. It was Elisabetta, the third child of Federigo, who married Roberto Malatesta, illegitimate son of Sigismondo. Roberto and Federigo of Urbino died on the same day (cf. Allegretti, ap. Fabr. II., 245, andE.G. Gardner,Dukes and Poets at Ferrara(Constable, 1904), p. 184).

[220]See above,p. 50,note.

[221]These being the insignia of the Pope, Florence, and Siena. SeeDella Valle,Lettere Sanese, II., 47.

[222]"Sistere qui potuit nullo cum fœdere Sixtus,Audito tantum nomine pacis, obiit."MSS. Bib. Magliab.Cl. vii. No. 345.

[222]

[*223]Cf.Ambrogio da Paullo,Cronaca Milanese, 1476-1515.

[224]We have spoken of this above.

[*225]Cf.Pasolini,Caterina Sforza. It was Ludovico and Cecco Orsi who slew Girolamo, with the aid of two soldiers.

[226]The current edition of this anecdote, though somewhat too gross for literal translation, is curiously illustrative of the determined character of its heroine. It is thus recounted by Boccalini, in hisRagguagli di Parnasso:—"Onde i congiurati così vedendosi ingannati, apertamente le protestarono, che in pezzi avanti gli occhi le havrebbono tagliati i suoi Figliuoli, s'ella non consegnava loro la Rocca nelli mani, e ch'ella per quelle horrende minaccie, in tanto non si spaventò punto, che anzi alzatesi le vesti, e loro mostrando le parte vergognose, disse, che de' suoi Figliuoli facessero a voglia loro, che a lei rimaneva la stampa di rifarne degli altri." He represents Caterina as demanding, on the merits of this action, admission into Parnassus, whereupon Apollo decides, after ample discussion, that although "il sempre contenersi entro i termini della modestia, fosse obbligo delle donne private, disse, che le Principesse nate di alto sangue, negli accidenti gravi, che occurrevano loro, erano obbligate mostrar virilità." Bonolli, in his history of Forlì, tells the same story, and Vallery characterises the expedient of the Countess as "noblement impudique, et moins mère que femme de parti." Those who wish to compare the various authorities on this point will find them enumerated by Sismondi, chap. lxxxix. A letter of the conspirators to Lorenzo de' Medici, printed by Roscoe, Appendix, No. 24, tends to clear him of that participation in their crime of which he was suspected.

[227]Urb. MSS. No. 1248. It was compiled after the death of Duke Federigo, and apparently for his son's court.

[*228]Castiglione,Il Cortegiano(Firenze Sansoni, 1894), Lett. Dedic. I., lib. I., iv.; III., ii.; III., xlix. Cf. alsoBembo,Lettere, IV., i., 31.

[229]In the Laurentian Library (Plut. 91. No. 44, f. 57) there is a laboured Latin epithalamium in ninety-six lines, written on this marriage by Marcial de Gathe of Mantua, among his poems which are dedicated to Bernardo Bembo.

[*230]An interesting book has been announced on the medical practice of that day:Tarulli,I medici ed i primordi della scuola medica Perugina.Meanwhile cf.Tarulli,Appunti Storici, inBoll. per l'Umbria, vol. XII., p. 385et seq.According to Petrarch, Astrology and Medicine were different branches of a common charlatanism. Cf.Libri IV., Invectivarum contra medicum quemdam.Heywood,The Ensamples of Fra Filippo, a Study of Mediæval Siena(Siena, 1901), p. 325.Voigt,Il Risorgimento dell'antichità classica(Fir., 1897), vol. I., p. 77et seq.Owen,The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance(London, 1893), p. 119, and cf.Chaucerin thePrologueto theCanterbury Tales. For medical practice in the fourteenth century, seeFiori di Medicina di Maestro Gregorio Medicofisico Del Sec. XIV.(Bologna, Gaetano Romagnuoli, 1865), and cf.Il Lasca, Nov. I.,etX., Cena Prima. Pico della Mirandola was one of the first who entered the lists against these charlatans in his treatise in twelve books,Adversus Astrologos(Venice, 1498).

[*231]Gaspar VeronensisinMuratori,R.I.S., III., pt. II., 1036, speaking of the young Cardinal, says: "Formosus est, laetissimo vultu, aspectuque jocundo, lingua ornata atque melliflua, qui mulieres egregias visas ad se amandum gratior allicit, et mirum in modum concitat, plusquam magnes ferrum; quas tamen intactas di mittere sane putatur."

[232]"Cæsare magna fuit, nunc Roma est maxima, SextusRegnat Alexander; ille vir, iste Deus."

[232]

[*233]All that Dennistoun says of the Borgia must be accepted with care. He takes the Puritan point of view in a country where such a thing as Puritanism has happily seldom existed. Pastor, to whom it seems natural to refer the reader [A History of the Popes] is almost equally censorious though more discerning in his condemnation. He, apparently holding a brief for the Papacy, felt it incumbent upon him to restore the balance of some of his judgments by denouncing Alexander VI. It is strange that the only two sane historians of the Borgia should be Protestants. I gladly refer the reader with every confidence to the work ofCreighton[A History of the Papacy from the Great Schism to the Sack of Rome, vols. IV. and V.] and ofGregorovius[Lucrezia Borgia].

[*234]As for Machiavelli's opinion of Alexander VI., it is the most valuable we could possibly have, but he says little of him, thinking him of small importance beside Cesare. Dennistoun, not content with abusing the Pope himself by taking words out of the context, tries to bring Machiavelli to his way of thinking. This is not easily excused. In chapter xi. ofIl Principe, Machiavelli says: "Di tutti i Pontefici che sono stati mai, mostrò quanto un Papa e con il denaro e con le forze si poteva prevalere." As Creighton says: "The Borgia have become legendary as types of unrestrained wickedness, and it is difficult to judge them fairly without seeming to palliate iniquity.... The exceptional infamy which attaches to Alexander VI. is largely due to the fact that he did not add hypocrisy to his other vices.... Moreover, Alexander VI. was the only man in Italy who clearly knew what he wanted to do and who steadily pursued his purpose" (vol. V., pp. 51-52).

[235]Among numerous conflicting statements, the Duke of Gandia is named Giovanni by Sismondi, inBiog. Universelle,voceBorgia, Cæsar; and Francesco by Despartes,voceAlexander VI. in the same work.

[236]See below,p. 368.

[*237]The Borgia entered as strangers into the cunning but childish game of deception and lying that made up Italian politics. Accepting the principles of the game, as all must who would play at all, they broke through its absurd conventions. It was this that caused them to be so universally hated. Savonarola, extraordinary though his success was, knew that the greatest statesman in Italy saw through his treason and his ambitions. The other politicians were beaten at their own game, and loudly proclaimed that they had been cheated. But, as Creighton reminds us, "Alexander dealt unscrupulously with unscrupulous men, and played for higher stakes than any of them dreamed of." Even his love for his children has been thrown in his face. Would it have been a virtue in him to hate them?

[238]Guicciardini, ch. i.

[239]Opera Latina, III., Eleg. i., p. 95.

[240]Du Peloux, in a despatch addressed to Charles V. in 1529, alluding to the distractions and miseries of Italy, in terms more appropriate to the period now under our review, observes "that there were two races who occasioned all its misfortunes, the Medici and the Sforza, and that it would be well for the world were both of them extirpated."—Lanz Correspondenz.

[*241]TheLanciahad been used in Romagna and the Marche for over half a century, certainly, in 1492. Cf.Edward Hutton,Sigismondo Malatesta, p. 71. Cf.Battaglini,op. cit., vol. II., p. 348.

[242]Of sixteen Vitelli named in thegenealogyfollowing the appendix, all but the first were renowned condottieri.

[243]Ricotti, III., 257. The Swiss were first brought into Italy by Sixtus IV., and fought at Giornico in 1479.

[244]Carteggio d'Artisti, preface to vol. II. Among the other sources to which we have been indebted for these military details, we may mention Machiavelli, Ricotti, and the Relazioni Venete,passim, but especially Promis' edition of Francesco di Giorgio on military institutions, a work of great learning and research, published at Turin in 1841. See below, ch. xxvii.

[245]Refer back top. 189; also top. 248, for a description of the bombards used at the siege of Colle in 1479. The same tendency to overweight artillery seems common to many half-civilised nations. The size of the guns mounted in the Dardanelles is an instance, as well as that of the Scottish Mons Meg; but the most gigantic projectiles yet known have been found among the Burmese, and I believe the Chinese. In modern warfare, field batteries are usually of six, or, at most, nine pounders.

[*246]Ludovico Sforza held dominion in Genoa till 1498, when he was defeated by Louis XII. of France, to whom Genoa was then made over.

[*247]Seenotebelow.

[*248]Ludovico was alarmed at the alliance of Florence and Naples, and tried to meet it with a league between the Pope, Milan, and Venice [cf. Codice, Aragonese, II., 254, etc.] On April 25, 1493, Alexander VI., guarded by an armed escort, celebrated Mass in S. Marco, and after published his league with Venice, Milan, Siena, Mantua, and Ferrara. The Pope's object was the recovery of the possessions of the Holy See. Ferrante saw this, and immediately wrote to Spain speaking of him as a profligate and accusing him of stirring up strife—the one weak point in the Pope's armour. The Spanish ambassador, Don Diego Lopez de Haro, came to Rome to offer the obedience of the Catholic kings, and at once began to plead for the peace of Italy, which was enforced by a hostile demonstration on the part of Naples. Alexander agreed to negotiate. The result was that peace was established. Orsini was allowed to keep the castles he had bought from Cibò on condition that he paid 40,000 ducats to the Pope. Peace with Naples was cemented by the marriage of the Pope's son Jofre and Sancia, a daughter of Alfonso.

[249]Roscoe, in a note to chapter iii. of the recent editions ofLeo X., discusses the conflicting assertions as to the Pope's encouragement of Charles's expedition.

[*250]For all concerning Lucrezia, seeGregorovius,Lucrezia Borgia.

[251]Stephani Infessuri Diarium Romanæ, inMuratori,R.I.S., III., p. ii., p. 1246. He dates the marriage ceremony the 12th of June, 1493.

[252]Gaye,Carteggio, I., p. 326. See a contemporary estimate of the invading army inVIII. of the Appendix.

[253]Our French authorities for this expedition are valuable, including Comines, and André de la Vigne, contemporaries who shared in its hazards. A curious essay by M. de Foncemagne, ascribing to Charles the ambition of a crusader, and pointing at Constantinople as its real destination, will be found in vol. XVII., p. 539 ofMémoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions.

[254]Carteggio, I., p. 213.

[*255]These words are infinitely misleading.

[256]See some details of it inIX. of the Appendix.

[257]See their pedigree, so far as concerns our subject, in thetableat the end of this volume.

[258]Marino Sanuto'sDiary MS. i. 374. From another passage in his annals we learn that a then usual scale of ransom was twenty-five ducats for a man-at-arms, twelve for a light-horseman, and three for a foot-soldier. These Diaries extend to fifty-seven large volumes, from 1495 to 1533. Our various extracts from them were most kindly communicated to us by Mr. Rawdon Brown, who has printed at Venice a very curious digest of their contents, and whose successful diligence in illustrating the secret history of that Republic may well put her own citizens to the blush. They are preserved in Bib. Marciana, MSS. Ital. classe vii. No. 419.

[259]Diary MS. i. 448.

[260]The assertion of most historians, that the pretext was Giovanni's impotency, is contradicted by very curious documents in the suit of divorce. A commission having been issued by the Pontiff, empowering two cardinals to examine into the facts, Lucrezia stated to them that in her twelfth year she had been contracted in marriage, by the words "Will you? I will," to Gaspare, son of Giovanni Francesco da Procida, Count of Aversa, but that subsequently she had been induced [quadam facilitate] to marry Sforza, and live with him above three years; but she offered to prove by her own oath, and by the report ofobstetrices, that this marriage had never been consummated. Giovanni averred himself ready to affirm on oath that nocopulahad ever followed, and he adhibited his consent to the divorce. These steps took place towards the close of the year, and on the 18th of December a bull issued dissolving this ill-fated union. Archiv. Dipl. Urb. at Florence.

[261]Sanuto'sMS. Diary, Bib. Marc., vol. II., 466-71, 489, 495, 587-98. Compare withBurchard,Eccard., II., 2060;Tommasi, I., 223-43. Burchard has no trace of that partiality for Cesare at this period, usually imputed to the Pontiff, but establishes an excessive fondness for his elder brother up to his death. Roscoe rejects the charge against the Cardinal; his German translator credits it.

[*262]They always did; it was a mediæval practice in the case of any trouble or riot: it might seem the merest common sense. But the truth is, that when a crime had been committed the government closed the shops till the culprit was forthcoming.

[263]Sanuto.Yet there are scoffers who sneered at this worthy successor of St. Peter the fisher, netting the river for his bastard son! Burchard apud Raynaldum.

[264]The papal legitimation of this Giovanni di Borgia, then in his third year, dated the kalends of September, 1501, proceeds upon this preamble: "Legittime genitos, ex quorum verisimilibus infantilis ætatis indiciis, spes concipi potest quod, succedentibus annis, se in viros debeant producere virtuosos, quousque progenitorum suorum præclara merita, et ortûs generosa propago decorant, naturæ vitium minime decolorat, quia decus virtutum genituræ maculam abstergit in filiis, et pudicitia morum pudor originis aboletur." He is called a son of Cesare, but in another, and probably secret, brief of the same date, the Pope recognises him, nevertheless, as his own offspring by anunmarriedwoman, this description being also a legal fiction.

[265]Sanuto, Diario MS. i. 539.

[*266]For this expedition, seeMatarazzo,Chronicle of Perugia(Dent), p. 243et seq.

[*267]For the peace, July 6, 1498, seeV. Ansidei,La Pace fra Guidobaldo Duca d'Urbino e il Comune di Perugia, inBoll. per l'Umbria, vol. V., p. 741et seq.

[268]Bembo says 170 pounds of gold.Hist. Venet., IV. Navigero puts the mounted cross-bow-men at 200.Muratori,R.I.S., xxiii. 1214.

[269]Molini Documenti di Storia Italiana, i. 29.

[270]See the curious disclosures of a Venetian ambassador, printed by Ranke,History of the Popes, Appendix, sect. i., No. 3. The exposition, by Machiavelli, of the French policy, and of the persevering pursuit of sovereignty by the Borgia, is interesting and instructive;Il Principe, ch. iii. and vii.

[271]See a more correct statement of this transaction, above, pp.72,90.

[272]British and Foreign Review, No. xxix.

[273]See above,p. 308.

[274]Some interesting particulars of his arrival in France will be found inXI. of the Appendices.

[275]"'Borgia Cæsar eram, factis et nomine Cæsar;Aut nihil aut Cæsar,' dixit: utrumque fuit."The idea was thus repeated by Sannazaro:—"Aut nihil aut Cæsar vult dici Borgia: quid ni?Cum simul et Cæsar possit, et esse nihil."Cæsarornothing, Borgia fain would be;Cæsarandnothing, both in him we see.

[275]

The idea was thus repeated by Sannazaro:—

[*276]This again is overstated. The Pope wanted money to enable Cesare to subdue the Romagna. It is absurd of Dennistoun to ask below whether Cesare "directly participated" in these "unrighteous profits." Sanuto (III., 855) tells us that Duke Valentino visited the old cardinals and asked them to agree to the new nominations that he might be supplied with money for his work in Romagna.

[277]"Vendidit Alexander claves, altaria, Christum;Emerat ille prius, vendere jure potest."

[277]

[*278]Sanuto, III., 878.Burchard, III., 77, who gives the sum obtained from each.

[*279]This is the most absurd attack on Sismondi, who was certainly prejudiced, if at all, against "tyrants." Dennistoun's whole view of Cesare is worthy only of his age. His conscience has blinded his intelligence. How are we to explain the fact that Leonardo and Machiavelli were eager to follow Cesare's fortunes and believed in him if we accept Dennistoun's estimate? Cesare was greatly in advance of his age, which he met with its own weapons.

[280]Yet one of his sonnets, bewailing the abasement of Italy, is so touching and so true, as well as so little known, that we shall introduce it inXII. of our Appendices. It in some degree anticipates the more powerful and popular declamatory rhymes of Filicaja on the same theme, which Byron has embodied inChilde Harold.[*F]

[*F]Without doubt Cesare was welcome in Romagna. Cf.Gregorovius,Lucrezia Borgia, andGuicciardini,Op. Ined., III., 307, who says the inhabitants loved his rule.

[281]Sanuto has preserved a story that his page having fitted him with a tight shoe, he with one kick threw him upon the fire, where he slew him with his hanger, and left his body to be calcined.[*G]

[*G]Dennistoun forgets to mention that Cesare descended on d'Orco suddenly and put him to death.

[282]Burchard tells us that Cesare ordered a masked figure, who had lampooned him at Rome, to be seized, his hand and tongue to be amputated, and publicly exposed during two days. Verily his tastes lay towards melodramatic murder!

[*283]For treaty, seeDumont,Corps Diplomatique, III., 445.

[284]We have spoken of this above.

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