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 been given 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 made these a pretext for
receiving what was deemed an honourable pension.
[Footnote 271: See a more correct statement of this transaction,
above, pp. 72, 90.]
"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 his foe, 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
"A sick wretch,
Who finds no rest upon her down, but oft
Shifting her side, short respite seeks from pain."--_Purg._ VI.
[Footnote 272: _British and Foreign Review_, No. xxix.]
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
Giovanni _delle 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 to Duke 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.
[Footnote 273: See above, p. 308.]
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.
[Footnote 274: Some interesting particulars of his arrival in France
will be found in XI. of the Appendices.]
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:--
"Cæsar in deeds as name would Borgia be,
A CÆSAR or a CIPHER,--both was he!"[275]
[Footnote 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."
Cæsar _or_ nothing, Borgia fain would be;
Cæsar _and_ nothing, both in him we see.]
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 over
Europe, 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]
"The keys, the altar, and his God he sold;
'Twas well! their price he first had paid in gold."[277]
[Footnote *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.]
[Footnote 277:
"Vendidit Alexander claves, altaria, Christum;
Emerat ille prius, vendere jure potest."]
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 from the same
authority, that his cautious guests declined partaking of the splendid
banquet laid out to tempt them, observing that _omnia preciosa cara
sunt_, and excusing their scruples by a desire of avoiding popular
gossip.
[Footnote *278: SANUTO, III., 878. BURCHARD, III., 77, who gives the
sum obtained from each.]
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 of his 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 the people: 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 the _Biographie 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]
[Footnote *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.]
[Footnote 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 in XII. 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 in _Childe
Harold_.[*F]]
[Footnote *F: Without doubt Cesare was welcome in Romagna. Cf.
GREGOROVIUS, _Lucrezia Borgia_, and GUICCIARDINI, _Op. Ined._, III.,
307, who says the inhabitants loved his rule.]
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]
[Footnote 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]]
[Footnote 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!]
[Footnote *G: Dennistoun forgets to mention that Cesare descended on
d'Orco suddenly and put him to death.]
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 intestine struggles 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 the hollowness 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.
[Footnote *283: For treaty, see DUMONT, _Corps Diplomatique_, III.,
445.]
The calculation of the Borgia was, that, in the general scramble
consequent upon the French invasion, their selfish 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 were enjoined 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.
[Footnote 284: We have spoken of this above.]
[Footnote 285: See ALBERI, _Relazioni Venete_, series II., vol. III.,
Capello.]
[Footnote *286: Cf. BURCHARD, III., 162. "Hurrah," cried the people,
"for the Duchess of Ferrara! Hurrah for Pope Alexander VI.!" when the
news was brought to Rome that the contract was signed. Lucrezia, in
splendid attire, rode to offer thanks at S. Maria del Popolo. Four
bishops and three hundred horse accompanied her.]
[Footnote *287: Cf. GREGOROVIUS, _Lucrezia Borgia_, p. 189 _et seq._
The wedding was celebrated on 30th December in the Cappella Paolina
before the Pope, who sat on his throne attended by thirteen cardinals
and the foreign ambassadors. The Emperor was not represented.]
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 but
a 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 and _savia_ (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]
[Footnote 288: Sanuto says 753 mouths, 426 horses, with 234 mules. See
details in Mr. RAWDON BROWN'S _Ragguagli_, II., p. 192.]
[Footnote 289: Diarii di M. Sanuto, xxvii. f. 320. The reader is again
referred to Roscoe's dissertation on the character of Lucrezia, for
views which this letter tends to support. In Sanuto we find a very
elaborate report of the marriage festivities which celebrated her
arrival at Ferrara in 1502, and in which the Duchess of Urbino bore a
distinguished part. It is perhaps the most graphic description of a
cinque-cento pageant that has come down to us, and will be found in
XIII. of the Appendices.]
* NOTE.--The following account of the state of the Romagna
before Cesare's conquest cannot be ignored, and must be
accepted as accurate; cf. MACHIAVELLI, _Discorsi_, III., 29:
"La Romagna, innanzi che in quella fussero spenti da Papa
Alessandro VI. quelli signori che la comandavano, era uno
esempio d'ogni scelleratissima vita, perchè quivi si vedeva
per ogni leggiera cagione seguire uccisioni e rapine
grandissime. Il che nasceva dalla tristizia di quei
principi, non dalla natura trista degli uomini, come loro
dicevano. Perchè sendo quelli principi poveri, e volendo
vivere da ricchi, erano sforzati volgersi a molte rapine, e
quelle per varj modi usare; e intra l'altre disoneste vie
che e' tenevano, facevano leggi e proibivano alcuna azione;
dipoi erano i primi che davano cagione della inosservanza di
esse, nè mai punivano gl'inosservanti, etc." Cesare ruled
well, introducing many reforms, and, avoiding excessive
taxes, established some sort of security both for life and
for property.