BOOK IV

A FLICKER FROM THE EMBERS 336

APPENDICES 363

List of Illustrations

_Alexander P.P. VI_ (_from a Portrait in the Vatican

Library_) _Frontispiece_

_To face page_

_Calixtus P.P. III_ 18

_Alfonso of Aragon_ 40

_Fridericus IV, Emperor_ 62

_Alexander P.P. VI_ 90

_Charles VIII of France_ 120

_Fra Girolamo Savonarola_ 152

_Lucrezia Borgia, Duchess of Ferrara_ 182

_Julius P.P. II_ 264

_Saint Francis Borgia_ 324

CHRONICLES OF THE

HOUSE OF BORGIA

“A FIRE, THAT IS KINDLED, BEGINS WITH SMOKE AND HISSING, WHILE IT LAYS

HOLD ON THE FAGGOTS; BURSTS INTO A ROARING BLAZE, WITH RAGING TONGUES

OF FLAME, DEVOURING ALL IN REACH, SPANGLED WITH SPARKS THAT DIE;

SETTLES INTO THE STEADY GENIAL GLARE, THE BRILLIANT LIGHT, THAT MEN

CALL FIRE; BURNS AWAY TO SLOWLY EXPIRING ASHES; SAVE WHERE SMOULDERING

EMBERS FLICKER, AND NURSE THE GLOW, UNTIL PROPITIOUS BREEZES BLOW IT

INTO LIFE AGAIN.”

=Book the First=

The Kindling of the Fire

“_A fire, that is kindled, begins with smoke and hissing, while it lays

hold on the faggots_”

In the year 1455 of Restored Salvation, Christendom was in a parlous

way. The Muslim Infidel swarmed from the dark Orient, sworn to plant the

Crescent on the ruin of the Cross. In resisting encroachment, King

Wladislaw of Hungary and the Apostolic Legate, the Most Illustrious[1]

Lord Giuliano Cesarini, Cardinal-Bishop of Tusculum, a Roman of Rome,

and scion of a most splendid family,[2] had laid down life at the Battle

of Varna. After three and fifty days of siege, Constantinople fell to

the Great Turk, the Sultàn Muhammed II. Ioannes Palaiologos, “King and

Autocrat of the Romans,” was dead; and his successor Konstantinos

Dragases XIII, the last Christian Emperor of the East, was slain in

defence of his capital. By the fall of the great Byzantine Empire, the

bulwarks of Christendom were broken down; the Infidel was raiding on her

borders. Alone, with no ally, Jan Hunniades desperately defended

Hungary’s frontier. The Powers of Europe occupied themselves with less

important matters.

At this time, Rome was the eye, and the brain, of the world; and Rome

had seen and realised all that was portended.

During many years, since the first signs of Muslim activity, fugitives

from Byzantium descended upon Italian shores. The glory of Greece had

gone to Imperial Rome. The grandeur of Imperial Rome had returned to

Byzantium. And now the glory and grandeur of Byzantium was going to

Christian Rome. When danger menaced, when the day of stress began to

dawn, scholars and cunning artificers, experts skilful in all knowledge,

fled westward to the open arms of Italy with their treasures of work.

Italy welcomed all who could enlarge, illuminate, her transcendent

genius; learning and culture and skill found with her not exile but a

home, and a market for wares. Scholarship became the fashion. “Literary

taste was the regulative principle.” It was the Age of Acquisition.

“Tuscan is hardly known to all Italians, but Latin is spread far and

wide throughout the world”; said Filelfo. But to know Greek was the real

test of a gentleman of that day; and Greek scholars were Italy’s most

honoured guests. Not content with the codices and classics of antiquity

that these brought with them, Italian princes and patricians sent

embassies to falling Byzantium, to search for manuscripts, inscriptions,

or carven gems, and bronze, and marble. Greek intaglii and camei graced

the finger-rings, the ouches, collars, caps, of Venetian senators, of

the lords of Florence, of the sovereigns of the Regno,[3] of the barons

and cardinals and popes of Rome. “They had made the discovery that the

body of a man is a miracle of beauty, each limb a divine wonder, each

muscle a joy as great as sight of stars or flowers.” Messer Filippo

Brunelleschi, who truly said that his figure of Christ was a crucified

contadino, erected the marvellous dome of Florence. For the Lord

Eugenius P.P. IV, Messer Antonio Filarete carved the Rapes of Leda and

Ganumedes on the great bronze gates of St. Peter’s. Messer Lorenzo

Ghiberti modelled the marvellous doors of the Baptistery. Messer Simone

Fiorentino (detto Donatello) placed, on the north wall of Orsanmichele,

his superb St. George in marble; and cast in bronze for Duke Cosmo the

nitid David of the Bargello. Tommaso di Ser Giovanni degli Scheggia,

called Masaccio (great hulking Tom), painted St. Peter and St. Paul

raising the dead, with the skill which he learned from Tommaso di

Cristoforo Fini, called Masolino (pretty little Tom). Paolo Doni,

nicknamed Uccello (Bird), put birds into his pictures according to his

wont. The Blessed Giovangelico da Fiesole filled triptychs with his

visions of the angelic hierarchy. Fra Filippo Lippi painted the St.

Gabriel Archangel with the argus-eyed wings in an admirable

Annunciation. Petrarch and Boccaccio hunted convents, abbeys, and

museums, of Byzantium for codices. Messer Poggio Bracciolini discovered

manuscripts of Lucretius Carus, of Vitruvius, of Quinctillian, and

Cicero’s Oration _For Caecina_. “No severity of winter cold, no snow, no

length of journey, no roughness of road, prevented him from bringing the

monuments of antiquity to light,” says Francesco Barbaro. Nor did he

hesitate to steal, when theft seemed necessary to secure a precious

codex. Three pupils of Manuel Chrysoloras won renown beyond all

competitors in the distinguished race: Giovanni Aurispa collected no

fewer than two hundred and thirty eight valuable manuscripts of

antiquity; Guarino da Verona and Francesco Filelfo came back laden from

Byzantium.

Drunk with the joy of the new learning, Italy failed to perceive the

true inwardness of her acquisitions. She was blind to the peril which

they most surely portended.

But Rome saw. And, during many years, Rome had lifted up her voice and

cried aloud that Italy enjoyed these accessions to her treasure only

because Byzantium was no longer a safe repository for them. During many

decades, Rome proclaimed the danger implied by the advance of the Muslim

Infidel. But Christendom lent deaf ears, and compared Rome to Kassandra.

Then Immortal Rome was lulled into a kind of apathy: her voice was heard

less frequently, speaking in feebler, in less insistent tone. And,

gradually, the potent spell of the Renascence mastered Rome; and, in the

reign of the Lord Nicholas P.P. V.[4] she fell a victim to the

fashionable delirium. Churches and palaces were planned, and builded,

and decorated. Manuscripts were collected, collated, copied. Libraries

and colleges were formed. Culture, at last, and for once, was supreme;

and the phenomenon of needy genius was unknown. It was an age when the

demand for learning, and for the fine arts, exceeded the supply.

Then, Rome knew that the beautiful may be purchased at too dear a price;

that its essential evanescence needs the safeguard of virtue and of

heroism, of honour and of arms; precisely as woman needs the protection

of man. Rome perceived that the irruption of the Muslim Infidel was a

menace to civilisation, and she cried on Christendom to resist the flood

of barbarism now outpoured.

Hungary, alone of all the Occidental Powers, responded; but then Hungary

was actually in the Muslim clutch.

England, lately torn by Jack Cade’s rebellion, was entering upon a

conflict bloodier than any American Civil War or Boer Revolt. The reign

of King Henry VI. Plantagenet, gentlest saint that ever wore an earthly

diadem, drew near its close: from those pale prayer-raised hands—holy

hands that had lifted to Christ’s Vicar a petition for the canonisation

of England’s Hero, King Ælfred the Great[5]—the sceptre was about to

fall. Trumpets were sounding from Northumberland to Kent. The clean air

of Yorkshire wolds sang with the hissing of cloth-yard shafts, with the

clang of steel of lance on shield. England was an armed camp; and the

War of the Roses was begun.

Germany and Austria, under the rule of the Holy Roman Emperor, “Caesar

Semper Augustus” Friedrich IV (The Pacific), seethed with

politico-religious discontent. Under the guise of a desire for reform,

political and personal ambitions strove. Caesar Friedrich IV held the

reins of government but loosely. Excellent as a figure-head, ornamental

as an emperor, he had not his empire in the grip of a _mailed fist_. The

symbol A.E.I.O.U. (AUSTRIAE EST IMPERATOR ORBIS UNIVERSI—ALLE ERDE IST

OESTERREICHS UNTERTHAN), which he had invented for his motto,

represented his desire, but not his potentiality. Personal

aggrandisement employed the feudal sovereigns of the empire: their

suzerain’s influence was no check upon them.

Italy, then, deserved the designation given to it in modern times by

Metternich; it was not a nation, but a geographical expression. In the

north were the Republics of Venice, Genoa, Florence, and their smaller

imitators; with the royal duchies of Savoja, Milan, and Ferrara. Across

the country, from Rome and the Mediterranean, to the Mark of Ancona and

the Adriatic, in a north-easterly direction, stretched the Papal States.

The east and south, with Sicily, Sardinia, and the Islands, were called

The Regno; and were ruled from Naples by kings of the House of Aragon.

And dotted all over the land were small semi-independent cities and

territories, held as feudal fiefs by local noble houses, whose barons

bore the harmless title of Tyrant, and exercised absolute lordship

within their little states, _e.g._, the Manfredi, Tyrants of Faenza; the

Malatesta, Tyrants of Rimini; the Sforza, Tyrants of Pesaro,

Chotignuola, Santafiora, Imola and Forli; etc.

France, having burned her greatest glory, The Maid of Orleans, was

recovering from victories by which, from 1434 to 1450, she had deprived

England of all French territory save Calais. Her feeble dastard King

Charles VII. was dead; and Louis XI., a gentleman of pleasure and piety,

occupied her throne.

Spain, united, after centuries of strife among her divers kingdoms and

antagonistic races, by the marriage of King Don Hernando of Aragon to

Queen Doña Isabella of Castile, was preparing for an era of colonial

expansion.

Portugal was consolidating African discoveries and acquisitions.

Norway and Sweden, after brief separation, once more were united under

the sceptre of Denmark; and were learning the lessons of peace.

And then, in Rome, in 1455, on the 24th of March, being Monday in

Passion-week, the Lord Nicholas P.P. V was dead: and, with His death,

the tide of the Italian Renascence stayed.

* * * * *

The College of Cardinals assumed the government of Rome and of the

Universal Church, while the Conclave for the election of the Successor

of St. Peter was assembling. During nine days the Novendialia, the

quaint ceremonies connected with the obsequies of a Pope, were

celebrated. On Good Friday, the 4th of April, after the Adoration of the

Cross, the Mass of the Presanctified, and the Exposition of the Vernicle

(or True Image of our Divine Redeemer, vulgarly known as The Veronica),

had been performed in the Vatican Basilica, the cardinals were immured;

the doors and windows of the Vatican were bricked up; Pandolfo, Prince

Savelli, Hereditary Marshal of the Holy Roman Church, entered upon the

guardianship of the Conclave; and the election was begun.

The College of Cardinals consisted then of twenty members. Of these,

only fifteen assisted at the Conclave of 1455. In the fifteenth century,

a journey across Europe, from some distant see, occupied a longer time

than the eleven days which should elapse between a Pope’s death and the

enclosure of the Conclave. Of these fifteen cardinals present, seven

were Italians, four Spaniards, two Frenchmen, two Byzantines. As usual

they were divided into factions; but, strange to say, the division was

not one of nationality. The ancient and interminable feud between the

great Roman baronial houses of Colonna and Orsini, penetrated even here.

Not temporal policy of the Holy See, not differences of pious opinions,

but simply rivalry of clan, governed this election.

The Most Illustrious Lord Prospero Colonna, Cardinal-Archdeacon of San

Giorgio _in Velum Aureum_, creature (_creatura_) of the Lord Martin P.P.

III, undoubtedly would have been elected had the Lord Nicholas P.P. V

died at the beginning instead of at the end of a long illness: for,

according to the dispatch of Nicholas of Pontremoli, Orator of Duke

Francesco Sforza-Visconti of Milan, dated the first of April, 1455, he

was then the favourite. Herr Ludwig Pastor, whose valuable history of

the Popes is also the latest, most unaccountably urges that the great

age of Cardinal Colonna prevented his election. But the accurate

Ciacconi raises him to the purple with Cardinal Capranica at the Lord

Martin P.P. III’s fourth creation in 1426, he being then still a youth

(“_adhuc iuvenis_”); the publication of his elevation being delayed till

the fifth consistory of the 8th of November 1430. Supposing him to have

been of the age of twenty-one years in 1426—a very liberal assumption in

an age when boys became cardinals at thirteen, benedicks at puberty, and

fathers at fifteen—he only would have reached the age of fifty in 1455.

The disability of senility may therefore be dismissed. In default of

Cardinal Prospero, the Most Illustrious Lord Domenico Capranica,

Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Croce _in Gerusalemme_,

Cardinal-Penitentiary, Bishop of Fermo, and himself a Roman noble of the

Ghibelline party, was put forward by the House of Colonna as their

second candidate.

On the other side, the wealthy business-like Roman Guelf, the Lord

Latino Orsini di Bari, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Giovanni e

San Paolo _in Monte Celio_, represented the interests of the House of

Orsini: who offered, as an alternative for the suffrages of the Sacred

College, the Venetian Lord Pietro Barbo, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title

of San Marco, and Bishop of Vicenza.

The first three scrutinies produced no result; and the cardinals

conferred regarding the merits of the candidates, and of the causes that

they represented. Much was said on behalf of Cardinal Capranica. He was

“Romano di Roma,” his character stood above reproach, his breeding was

polite and high. But Cardinal Orsini and his faction, though unable to

bring in their own nominee the Cardinal of Venice, were strong enough to

out-manœuver the candidate of Colonna: and the electors found themselves

at a deadlock.

In this emergency, the College, sought, and found, a neutral; a partizan

neither of Colonna nor of Orsini. There were two Byzantine cardinals;

the one, the Lord Ioannes Bessarione, Cardinal-Bishop of Tusculum, Monk

of the Religion[6] of St. Basil, Archbishop of Trebizond; the other, the

Lord Isidoro of Thessalonika, Cardinal-Bishop of Sabina, Monk of the

Religion of St. Basil, Archbishop of Ruthenia. Of these two, Cardinal

Bessarione had many recommendations. He was a convert from the Greek

Schism; he had been a pupil of Gemisthos Plethon at Constantinople; no

one was of higher repute in Christian piety, more admirable in doctrine,

more ornate in generous manners. (Ciacconi II. 906.) He had no enemy in

the Conclave. At a juncture, like the present, the election of a

Byzantine Pontiff, who naturally sympathised with the hapless

Byzantines, would have secured for Christendom a champion against the

triumphant Muslim Infidel. When night closed the Conclave’s

deliberations, it appeared certain that Cardinal Bessarione would ascend

the Throne of St. Peter on the morrow; indeed his brother-cardinals

asked favours of him, as though he were already in possession of the

Keys. Had he condescended to canvass the other fourteen electors, or to

make the slightest exertion on his own behalf, his election would have

been secure.

But, in the morning of that Easter Monday, the French Archbishop of

Avignon, the Lord Alain Coëtivy Britto, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title

of Santa Prassede, created a diversion against Cardinal Bessarione.

“Shall we Latins,” he protested, “shall we Latins go to Greece for the

Head of the Latin Church? My Lord of Trebizond has not been among us

long enough to shave off his beard[7]; he is a mere neophyte, a newcomer

to Italy and to the Holy Roman Church, and shall we set him over us?”

All day long the cardinals debated; but no election was achieved. Night

came, bringing no solution of the difficulty.

On the 8th of April a compromise was suggested. It was resolved to

postpone the contest, by electing an old man whose life was almost at an

end. Therefore a cardinal was chosen, whose age, in the course of

nature, would cause a new election in the near future; whose colourless

character neither would alter nor interfere with the traditional policy

of the papacy; who during a long life had eschewed pomp and vain glory;

whose profound learning, wisdom, and moderation had won for him his high

place; whose reputation was blameless; whose political capacity was

high; who was the intimate of the friend and neighbour of Holy Church,

Don Alonso de Aragona, King of Naples; lastly, one who, being of the

Spanish race, was the hereditary foe of Islam, and pre-eminently

qualified to defend Christendom from the Muslim Infidel. The aforesaid

Cardinal of Avignon, and the Lord Ludovico Scarampi dell’ Arena

Mezzaruota, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Lorenzo _in Damaso_,

exerted all their influence to this end; and, after a new scrutiny, the

Cardinal-Dean, the Lord Giorgio Flisco de Savignana, Cardinal-Bishop of

Ostia and Velletri, made proclamation of election,

“I announce to you great joy. We have for a Pope the Lord Alonso de

Borja, Bishop of Valencia, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santi

Quattro Coronati, Who wills to be called Calixtus the Third.”[8]

* * * * *

The Spanish House of Borja claims to originate in King Don Ramiro

Sanchez de Aragona, A.D. 1035.

Until the time of Don Pedro, Count of Aybar and Lord of Borja, who died

in 1152, the family was confined to Spain. Then, according to valid

authorities, the Junior Branch, in the person of Don Ricardo de Borja,

migrated to the kingdom of Naples and the Two Sicilies, and took service

there. This Don Ricardo is named in a document of donation in the reign

of the Lord Lucius P.P. III, 1181–1185 (Ricchi); which should go to

prove that the Junior Branch was naturalised in Italy. Its lineal

descendants undoubtedly are living there at the beginning of the

twentieth century; the latest recorded being Don Alessandro Borgia, who

was born at Milan in 1897. For purposes of clear arrangement, the

history of this Junior Branch may be relegated to later pages; the main

interest lies in descendants of Don Ximenes Garcia de Borja, the eldest

son of the aforesaid Don Pedro, and founder of the Senior Branch; which,

though transplanted to Italy in the middle of the fifteenth century, and

flourishing there for some generations, must always be regarded as

Spanish and not Italian.

There is record of a son of Don Ximenes Garcia de Borja in 1244, called

Gonzales Gil: his son, Don Raymon de Borja, was the father of Don Juan

Domingo de Borja, Lord of La Torre de Canals in the city of Xativa in

Valencia. By his wife, Doña Francisca, this Don Juan Domingo had at

least two daughters and a son—Juana, Caterina, and Alonso.

Doña Juana married Don Jofre de Lançol; Doña Caterina married Don Juan

de Mila, Baron of Mazalanes; a third daughter, whose name is missing,

also married; and the offspring of these three became later of extreme

importance.

The son, Alonso, was born on St. Sylvester’s Eve, 1378, the year of the

opening of the Great Schism, at Xativa, and baptized in the church of

St. Mary in that city. He himself has told us this, in two Bulls dated

1457.[9] His youth was spent at the University of Lerida, where he

specialised in jurisprudence for the degree of Doctor in Civil and Canon

Law, and obtained a professorship and Holy Order. While he was a young

priest (1398–1408) he chanced to assist at a sermon preached by the

great Dominican Vincent Ferrer in a mission at Valencia. At the close of

his discourse, the friar singled out from the crowd Don Alonso de Borja,

to whom he addressed this remarkable prediction: “My son, you one day

will be called to be the ornament of your house and of your country. You

will be invested with the highest dignity that can fall to the lot of

man. After my death, I shall be the object of your special honour.

Endeavour to persevere in a life of virtue.” Don Alonso was impressed by

this saying, for he repeated it to St. John Capistran in 1449, and he

tenaciously waited for the fulfilment. After His election to the papacy,

He performed the solemn canonisation of St. Vincent Ferrer on the

twenty-ninth of June, 1455.

Don Alonso proceeded from his University professorship to a canonry in

the cathedral of Lerida, which was conferred upon him by his countryman

Don Pedro de Luna, the Pseudopontiff Benedict XIII. Later, he entered

the arena of politics as secretary to King Don Alonso I (The

Magnanimous) of Naples and the Two Sicilies; and, here, his diplomatic

skill and legal training raised him to the unofficial but important post

of confidential counsellor to the Majesty of the Regno. Now that he was

domiciled in Italy his fortunes moved swiftly. In 1429 he won the

gratitude of the Lord Martin P.P. III (or V) by winning for His Holiness

the support of Spain, and by negotiating the renunciation of the Spanish

Pseudopontiff, Don Gil Muñoz, who called himself Clement VIII.

These days of the Great Schism, when the Roman Pontiffs had much ado to

hold Their Own against irregularly elected pseudopontiffs, must have

been utterly horrible. A reigning sovereign is uneasy when pretenders

to, or usurpers of, his crown appear. Republican France farcically

banishes men whose nobler forefathers represented other forms of

government. England sometimes wakes prodigally to spend blood and

treasure in support of her suzerainty. If secular powers, then, strive,

struggle for their life; and, in the struggle, cause distress, how many

times more distressing must have been the rivalry of the Great Schism,

when the prize at stake was the Headship of Christendom. This

consideration will make it easy to understand how great an obligation

the Lord Martin P.P. III lay under to the skilful canon, who actually

persuaded His rival peaceably to renounce his claim to the triple crown,

terminating the thirty-eighth schism of the Holy Roman Church. As a

reward, Canon Alonso de Borja received the bishopric of Valencia, his

native diocese; and, after his consecration, he continued to be useful

to King Don Alonso de Aragona, by re-organising the government of the

Regno, and by supervising the education of the King’s Bastard and

subsequent successor, Don Ferrando.

* * * * *

The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were not more filled with

improbable situations than the twentieth. The situations were different,

that is all. The situation of bastards was quite curious, and must be

realised by any one who desires intelligently to understand the time. To

this intelligent understanding Ludovico Romano’s theories will lend aid.

He argues that it is false to say that bastards are infamous and

incapable of honours. To the infamous is denied the dignity of Decurion

(command of ten men). But bastards may become Decuriones. Therefore

bastards are neither infamous nor incapable of honour. Giampietro de

Crescenzi Romani, in _Il Nobile Romano_, states the case thus: Plebeians

are not eligible to the Decurionate. Bastards are eligible to the

Decurionate. Therefore, bastards are not plebeians, but nobles if born

of noble stock. Bastards are capable of nobility, of secular and civil

dignity; for Ishmael was not hunted from his father’s house on account

of his bastardy, but on account of his insolence. It is not necessary to

quote Crescenzi’s argument as to the bastards of King David, from whom

descends the Son of David, Son of Abraham, according to the Scripture,

and Whom the Fathers of the Church acclaim as One of royal generation;

nor to give more of his catalogue of noble bastards than Theodoric, King

of the Goths of Italy and of Spain, the Emperor Charlemagne, Roberto and

Pandolfo Malatesta, Tyrants of Rimini, Giovanni Sforza, Tyrant of

Pesaro, William (called The Conqueror), Duke of Normandy and King of

England. He continues to say that nature does not distinguish between

bastards and legitimates; that the former are called natural children

because they are true children of nature. Neither does grace

distinguish; and, as bastards are capable of temporal nobility, so also

they are capable of spiritual, as witness St. Bridget of Ireland, and

other natural children of signal grace and distinguished virtue.

Further, he holds that the sons, of bastards who lose nobility by

rebellion, are not infamous; and recover nobility on their father’s

death; that infamy of any kind is washed-out by baptism: and that the

Pope can free from subsequently contracted infamy by His dispensation.

He distinguishes between bastards only legitimated by princes or the

emperor, who are ineligible to ecclesiastical benefices; and bastards

legitimated only by the Pope, who cannot succeed to the fiefs of other

princes. He concludes that bastardy purges itself at the latest in the

fourth generation.

In the twentieth century, an inheritance devolves from the holder to

“the heirs male of his body lawfully begotten”; in the fifteenth, the

proviso “lawfully begotten” did not invariably obtain. A bastard,

legitimated and recognised by his father, was as valid and capable as

the son of a lawful marriage. The sin of the father and mother was a sin

personal to them, and none the less a Sin: but it was not allowed to

affect their innocent children. The Lord Pius P.P. II, on his way to the

Congress of Mantua in 1459, was met on the frontier of Ferrara by eight

bastards of the royal House of Este, including the delicious Borso,

reigning duke, and two bastards of his highness’s bastard brother and

predecessor Duke Leonello. These matters should be understood; for a

large proportion of the personages in this history were of illegitimate

birth, and under no disability of any kind thereby.

* * * * *

King Don Alonso I de Aragona did not feel safe with the crown of the

Regno which he wore. The House of Anjou claimed it. Madame Marguerite

d’Anjou, daughter of the poet-king Réné, had ceded or sold her rights to

the Christian King Louis XI of France, whose claim was supported by the

Lord Martin P.P. III. The Magnanimous King Don Alonso I threatened to

espouse the cause and benefit by the aid of the Pseudopontiff (called

Clement VIII); and so the materials for a devastating conflagration were

brought together. But the diplomacy of Bishop Alonso de Borja was

repeated here. Once again, by negotiating the peaceful disappearance of

a pseudopontiff, he earned the gratitude of the Pope; and the Lord

Martin P.P. III, Who owed so much to Bishop Alonso, was easily persuaded

to look favourably also upon Bishop Alonso’s royal master. Unfortunately

the Pope died, and His Successor, the Lord Eugenius P.P. IV had a

prejudice for the French claim, which resulted in a renewal of the

quarrel in 1439. But a third time the difficulties of the Roman Pontiff

were turned to account by Bishop Alonso. When the schismatic Synod of

Basilea, to gain some private ends, futilely pronounced a sentence of

excommunication and deposition upon the Lord Eugenius P.P. IV, and

elected the ambitious Duke Amadeo of Savoja as Pseudopontiff with the

name Felix V, all Christendom expected that King Don Alonso, who was a

very crafty potentate, would be only too happy to make common cause with

the rival of that Pope who would not confirm his crown to him. But all

Christendom was disappointed. King Don Alonso’s secretary ably manœuvred

in his accustomed manner. First, Bishop Alonso de Borja in his proper

person refused to attend that schismatic Synod of Basilea; and, by this

act, became persona gratissima at the Vatican. Second, the King of

Naples instructed his Orators (ambassadors) to play with Pontiff and

pseudopontiff, to find out which would meet him with a satisfactory

concession. Third, Don Francesco Sforza-Visconti, Duke of Milan, began

to harass the Lord Eugenius P.P. IV. And, then, the Pope agreed to

receive an embassage from the King of Naples, and to hear his cause

pleaded by Bishop Alonso de Borja.

This was the cause of King Don Alonso. A bastard of the House of Aragon,

he had been adopted by Queen Doña Juana of Naples, who lacked a lineal

heir, in 1420. He was acknowledged by the people as sovereign of the

Regno, and was actually in possession of the crown.

The Christian King Louis XI. also claimed to have been adopted by Queen

Doña Juana: but he never had been acknowledged, nor ever had possessed

the crown.

Then there was the matter of King Don Alonso’s bastard, Don Ferrando.

The childless Queen believed him to be the son of Doña Margarita de

Hijar, one of her ladies; and, in jealous rage, she smothered her.

Whereupon the King banished his wife to Aragon, and legitimated Don

Ferrando as his heir.

Let it be recognised that, in the fifteenth century, Popes acted, and

were expected to act, in the letter, as well as in the spirit, of the

momentous words which are said by the cardinal-archdeacon to all of Them

at Their coronation, _Receive this tiara adorned with three crowns, and

know Thyself to be the Ruler of the World, the Father of princes and of

kings, and the Earthly Vicar of Jesus Christ our Saviour_. The twentieth

century is apt to conceive of the Pope as an uninteresting, far-away,

semi-diplomatic species of clergyman, nourishing pretensions of utter

insignificance. It will be well to remember that once upon a time the

Pope was a Power, Who saw nothing figurative, metaphorical, or

extravagant in the exordium just quoted, Who was not by any means a

négligeable quantity in the world’s affairs, and Who literally had the

unquestioned right of making or unmaking princes and kings or even

emperors.

Here was a case in point. King Don Alonso was a crowned king; but he

perfectly was aware that he was powerless to keep his crown, much less

to secure the succession for the offspring of his illicit love, unless

he could gain the confirmation, the licence, of the Roman Pontiff—in

technical phrase, a sovereign found it to be indispensable that he

should be able to add to his style of King By The Grace Of God, _And By

The Favour Of The Apostolic See_.

Hence the embassage to the Lord Eugenius P.P. IV, headed by Bishop

Alonso de Borja, to whose incessant labour and exquisite mastery of

affairs was due the treaty, ratified in 1444, by which the Pope’s

Holiness of the one part confirmed the crown of Naples, the Two

Sicilies, and Jerusalem, to King Don Alonso I. de Aragona, and licensed

the legitimation of Don Ferrando; while the King’s Majesty of the other

part agreed to defend the Lord Eugenius P.P. IV against His enemies, and

especially against Duke Francesco Sforza-Visconti of Milan.

As a reward for his skill in the rôle of peacemaker, Bishop Alonso de

Borja was raised to the purple on the second of May 1444, as

Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santi Quattro Coronati with curial

rank; and so King Don Alonso, the Magnanimous, lost his most trusted

counsellor. The Bishop’s bastard, Don Francisco de Borja, who will

appear later in this history, had been born at Savina, in Valencia, in

1441.

* * * * *

The Cardinal of Valencia at the Court of Rome gained the reputation of

being inaccessible to flattery, incapable of party-feeling, impregnable

in integrity, inconspicuous in morals, inexhaustible in capacity for

business and in knowledge of canon-law. In 1446, the Lord Eugenius P.P.

IV restored the Hospital of the Confraternity of Santo Spirito, in the

Region of Borgc, to something of its pristine glory; and He undertook to

contribute a yearly sum whereby its usefulness among the poor and needy

might be maintained. The pontifical example of practical Christian

charity set a fashion for the cardinals of the curia. The quaint Bull

containing the subscribers’ names is signed by

_I, Eugenius, The Bishop of the Catholic Church_,

and by nine cardinals, of whom the last is

_I, the Cardinal of Valencia, Presbyter of the Title of Santi Quattro

Coronati_.

Cardinal de Borja assisted at the election of the succeeding Pontiff,

the Lord Nicholas P.P. V; at Whose death, in 1455, the prediction of St.

Vincent Ferrer was fulfilled.

* * * * *

At the time of His elevation to the Supreme Pontificate, the Lord

Calixtus P.P. III was a feeble old man of the age of seventy-seven

years. His duties, as Governor of the Bastard of Naples, as Bishop of

Valencia, as Orator of King to Pope, as Plenipotentiary between Pope and

King, as Counsellor of King, as Cardinal-Counsellor of Pope, and his

ceaseless studies in jurisprudence and canon-law, had worn away the

bodily strength of him—the perishable thin scabbard that hid steel

indomitable and keen.

[Illustration: _Calixtus P.P. III._]

Outside the Vatican very diverse opinions were entertained of Him. His

long connection with King Don Alonso I. caused anxiety, suspicion, and

jealousy, among the Powers of Italy. They were always disgusted, those

Powers, to find the Pope on easy terms with a temporal sovereign, with

one of themselves; and the Magnanimous King Don Alonso was the next-door

neighbour, so to speak, of the Lord Calixtus P.P. III. Such a

combination inevitably inspired distrust. The fear was expressed that

Naples, through his former secretary, would rule the Holy See—and

Christendom. The official despatches of the Orators of Florence, Genoa,

and Venice, hypocritically displayed the greatest satisfaction: but

their private letters were in a diametrically opposing strain. A great

grievance was made of the fact that the new Pope was a Spaniard and a

foreigner. Some thought that a handful of discontented cardinals should

leave Rome, set up a pseudopontiff in another city, and inaugurate a

Fortieth Schism. Oh, people knew one another to be properly cantankerous

in the fifteenth century! But Rome considered the Lord Calixtus P.P. III

a just and right-minded man. The Procurator-General of the Order of

Teutonic Knights wrote to the Grand Master on the third of May 1455:

“The new Pope is an old man, of honourable and virtuous life, and of

excellent repute.” Messer Bartolomeo Michele, a Sienese, wrote to his

native city, exhorting the Sienesi to send the most splendid possible

embassage to congratulate the Pope, selecting for the same only eminent

and worthy men, inasmuch as that the Lord Calixtus P.P. III was

excessively learned and clear-sighted: “He is a man of great sanctity

and learning, a friend and adherent of King Don Alonso. He has always

shown Himself well-disposed to our city, and by nature He is peaceable

and kindly.” But the best appreciation of all is given by St. Antonino,

that gentle, brave Archbishop of Florence, whose quality all the world

admires and loves. He wrote to Messer Giovanni of Orvieto, the 24th of

April 1455.

“The election of the Lord Calixtus P.P. III at first gave little

satisfaction to the Italians. Inprimis, he was Valencian or Catalan;

and they feared lest He should transfer the Papal Court to another

country. Also, they feared lest He should entrust to Catalans the

fortresses of Holy Church, which, only after many difficulties, could

be recovered. But now they are reassured by more mature reflection,

and by the reputation that He bears for goodness, penetration, and

impartiality. And, also, I have seen His solemn promise that He will

devote all His powers against the Turks and for the conquest of

Constantinople. It is not to be believed or said that He is attached

to one nation more than another, but rather that, as a just and

prudent man, He will give to every one his due. Meanwhile, let us

always think well of the Holy Father, and judge His actions more

favourably than those of any other human being. And let us not be

frightened by every little shock. Christ guides the Barque of Peter,

which, therefore, can never sink.”

That letter contains a concise summary of the situation, written with

the benevolent simplicity of a dignified fine gentleman, and with the

unerring sapience of a saint.

* * * * *

The Pope is the Bishop of Rome. The insignia of His office are the

Fisherman’s Ring, the Triple Crown, the Triple Cross, and the

Keys. At His election by the Conclave, He receives the Ring.

Afterwards the insignia are conferred, with the Pallium that He

wears at all times in sign of universal jurisdiction, at His

coronation by the Cardinal-Archdeacon in the Collegiate-Basilica

of St. Peter-by-the-Vatican. But yet another ceremony awaits

performance. As Bishop of Rome, He must take formal possession of,

and be enthroned in, the cathedral of His diocese, either in

person or by proxy. That cathedral is not St. Peter’s: but St.

John’s _in Laterano_, which, consequently, bears on its façade the

magniloquent title

MOTHER AND MISTRESS OF ALL CHURCHES IN THE CITY AND IN THE WORLD

It is the most important church in Christendom.

* * * * *

The Lord Calixtus P.P. III was elected on the eighth of April 1455. On

the twentieth He was crowned as “Ruler of the World, Father of princes

and of kings, and Earthly Vicar of Jesus Christ our Saviour”; and the

same day He made a triumphal progress through the city to take

possession of the Lateran. In the porch of that cathedral there is a low

marble throne, called Sedes Stercoraria, on which the Pope sits to

receive the homage of the Lateran Chapter while cantors chant the anthem

“He raiseth-up the poor out of the dust:

“and lifteth the needy out of the dung-hill.

“That He may set him with princes:

“even with the princes of His people.

(Ps. cxiii. 7, 8).

“_Suscitans a terra inopem:

“et de stercore erigens pauperem._

“_Ut collocet eum cum principibus:

“cum principibus populi Sui._

(Vulgate, Ps. cxii. 6, 7).

It has been seen that the Lord Calixtus P.P. III was not unnaturally

popular. It will be readily admitted that the Roman baronial houses of

Colonna and Orsini would have been more than human had they not felt

some mortification at the failure of their conclavial manœuvres to

secure the Papacy for one of themselves. Still, the thing was done. A

Catalan—the Romans of the fifteenth century called all Spaniards

Catalans—a Catalan indubitably had been elected; but He was old, He was

feeble, He might be influenced, He might be amenable to intimidation, to

a show of force. It is so easy for the twentieth century, with its jaded

physique and sophisticated brain, and the magnificent perspective of

half a thousand years, to read the motives which actuated the physically

strong and intellectually simple fifteenth, when the world—the dust

which makes man’s flesh—was five centuries younger and fresher; when

colour was vivid; light, a blaze; virtue and vice, extreme; passion,

primitive and ardent; life, violent; youth, intense, supreme; and

sententious pettifogging respectable mediocrity, senile and debile, of

no importance whatever.

So, while the Lord Calixtus P.P. III was at the Lateran, the barons of

Rome took action. A slight quarrel arising in the crowd between one of

the Orsini and a retainer of Anguillara (hereditary foes of Orsini)

provided a pretext. Instantly shouts ascended, and men of arms coursed

through the city roaring _Orso, Orso_ (Bear, Bear—war-cry of Orsini,

alluding to their badge). From every dark and narrow alley of the

Regions of Campo Marzo and Ponte, from the Albergo dell Orso (Bear Inn)

by the Torre di Nona, from the castellated fortress which Orsini had

made of Pompey’s Theatre, came the clang of arms, with the rush of

hurrying feet of desperate brigands, adherents and mercenaries of

Orsini; and Don Napoleone Orsini was at the head of three thousand men.

Outside the cathedral, the hum of a maddened mob swelled into a raucous

roar as of bears hungry for hot blood, when Count Averso of Anguillara

fled into the Lateran Basilica, seeking sanctuary in the very presence

of Christ’s Vicar; and, above the roar, the voice of Orsini pierced the

holy portals of the Prince of Peace, penetrated to the ears of Pope

Calixtus throned as Bishop of Rome among His canons in the centre of the

apse, launching a hideous threat to storm and sack the Lateran unless

the body of Anguillara were given to him as meat for his three thousand

bears. There was a movement in the ermine and scarlet college that stood

near the papal throne, and Cardinal Latino Orsini di Bari hurried down

the nave to confer with his turbulent brother, Don Napoleone. Though

disappointed that he had failed to win the Triregno[10] for himself,

this cardinal appears to have had some feeling of decency as to what was

due to Holy Church. As a churchman he felt bound to stand by his order;

although as an Orsini he would have preferred a different state of

affairs. Still, the object of the riot had been attained, the Lord

Calixtus P.P III had received an object-lesson poignant and pregnant to

an ultimate degree, concerning the kind of kakodaimons that He would

have to quell, the species of subject that He was called to rule. No

doubt these were the arguments used to his brother by the cardinal. It

was not the writhing mangled body of the Eel (Anguillara) that the Bear

(Orsini) craved. That was the merest subterfuge. But to humiliate the

Holiness of the Pope at the very moment of His exaltation from Sedes

Stercoraria to Lateran Throne, to terrify Him into malleability, into

subjugation to Orsini’s will—that—that had been done, and well done.

Surely an aged man, so near His grave as was the Lord Calixtus P.P. III,

would wish to purchase peace with any sacrifice, now that once it had

been shown to Him what kind of devildom environed His very throne-steps.

Don Napoleone Orsini allowed himself to take this view. He withdrew his

myrmidons. The riot was over. Presently the Pope was riding on His

crimson-caparisoned palfrey towards the Vatican, through a peaceful city

kneeling at the roadside for Apostolic Benediction.

* * * * *

The fashion which foreigners affect in writing of Italy makes one

laugh—and weep.

They drawl of a dreamland of subtle sweetness and softest light, of

delicate fantasy, of neutral hue; peopled by shades from faded frescoes

æsthetically tinctured, academic, conventional, conformant to the canons

of that unspeakably abominable dilution which the twentieth century

calls Art; and mitigated only by a leavening of organ-grinders and

fortune-telling paroquets.

They must be blind, these foreigners—blind, physically and

mentally—blind, as those who will not see.

Italy is, and always has been, a land of raw reality, of glittering

light, of pure primary colour, of nature naked and not ashamed, of

perfectly transparent souls, of rapidest versatility, clearest mystery,

ultimate simplicity, steel, and brains, and blood.

Else she had made no mark, no singular distinguished mark, in history.

Has she made no mark?

Ah—what a mark she has made!

* * * * *

The greatest historian of this period, perhaps the most alert and agile

writer of any period, Enea Silvio Bartolomeo de’ Piccolhuomini (who

afterwards became Pope with the title of the Lord Pius P.P. II), says of

the Lord Calixtus P.P. III, that His attention to the duties of His

office was amazing; that His patience at audiences was astounding; that

He Himself dictated the Apostolic Briefs and Bulls written to kings and

princes, nor trusted them to the official scribes; that jurisprudence

was His recreation; that He was as familiar with canon-law as though He

were still professor at the University of Lerida.

Two problems confronted Him at the beginning of His reign: the

Renascence of Learning, and the Infidel in Christendom. His predecessor

had been a man of words. The Lord Calixtus P.P. III was a man of

strenuous deeds. His attitude to Letters and Art was in strong contrast

to that of the Lord Nicholas P.P. V. This “withered canonist,” as a wit

styled Him, was not in sympathy with Culture. Wholly occupied in matters

ecclesiastical and political, He had nor time nor means nor inclination

to patronise the fashionable scholarship of His day. His vogue was

strictly practical.

One of the secrets of the success of the Holy Catholic Apostolic and

Roman Church is her catholicity. All sorts and conditions of men can,

and do, live within her boundaries. The Lord Nicholas P.P. V had been a

Maecenas of Letters and the Arts. In His reign scholars, scribes, and

artificers had found their golden age. The Lord Calixtus P.P. III

entirely employed Himself in the defence of Christendom, and the clients

of His predecessor were conscious of the change. Literature and the fine

arts have one very sorry effect upon their professors. Intellectual

culture avidly pursued makes its devotees show pitifully by the side of

the manly men who deal with realities and verities, with life and death,

the sailors, soldiers, adventurers, and empire-builders. Letters and the

Arts cultivate the baser parts of man—meanness, jealousy, conceit. The

touchy nature of the writers and artists of 1455 led to violent

denunciations of the Spanish Pope. Messer Francesco Filelfo’s letter

(102) to the Cardinal of Trebizond shows how men of letters hated Him.

Another writer charged Him with destroying the Vatican library. Bishop

Vespasiano da Bisticci, of Vicenza, says:

“When Pope Calixtus began His reign, and saw so many excellent books,

five hundred of them resplendent in bindings of crimson velvet with

clasps of silver, He wondered greatly (it should be remembered that

printing was not invented), for the old canonist only was used to

books written on linen (?) and stitched together. Instead of

commending the wisdom of His predecessor, He cried, on entering the

library, _See now where the treasure of God’s Church has gone_. Soon

He began to disperse the Greek books. He gave several hundred to the

Cardinal of Ruthenia. As this latter was in his dotage, the volumes

fell into his servants’ hands. Things which had been bought for golden

florins[11] were sold for a few pence. Many Latin books came to

Barcelona: some through the Bishop of Vich, powerful Datary of the

Pope; some as gifts to Catalan nobles.

Calumny (which, by the bye, ranks as mortal sin in modern catechisms,)

appears to be habitual to the faithful. In this particular the fifteenth

century meets the twentieth on common ground. To speak truth in a

paradox, the proximate occasion of the sin of calumny is hatred of sin.

Roman Catholics, like Bishop Vespasiano, are, from their conception,

imbued and saturated with the idea of the hideousness of sin, not of its

stupidity and unprofitableness. It is their bogey, their forbidden

fruit, the covert strictly preserved and labelled Trespassers will be

prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the Law. Consequently, Roman

Catholic human nature is violently fascinated by the bogey; has

singularly well informed itself of the nature, colour, shape, condition,

and location, of the forbidden fruit; has minutely investigated every

inch of ground and every blade of grass, and every bird and bush in the

strictly preserved covert, simply and solely in order that it may avoid

poaching, sampling the forbidden fruit, or becoming a prey for the

bogey. When one has the duty of avoiding a thing, it is well to know

what the thing is which one must avoid; but it is quite easy to know

more than enough. All this intimate realisation of the hideousness of

sin, this systematic cataloguing of its divisions and sub-divisions,

with elaborate excursions along its divers ramifications, certainly

inspires a loathing of the intensest kind. It also has another effect.

It induces an exaggerated consciousness of virtue. When human nature

knows, and is able to describe, with a wealth of detail ordinarily

inaccessible, the horrible things which it does not do, it becomes

“puffed up,” in the words of St. Paul. This condition of “unctuous

rectitude,” inspired entirely by a horror of sin, is a proximate

occasion of the sin of calumny. Roman Catholic human nature, not

unconscious of its own integrity, when confronted by an antipathetic

personality, instantly conceives of the latter as a sinner. I am

right—you disagree with me—therefore you are wrong—is the absurd

syllogism or logical process which it uses. And, drawing upon its

copious catalogues of sins, on the principle that he who offends in the

least is guilty of all, Roman Catholic human nature will proceed to shew

how exceedingly sinful it is possible for an enemy to be. The said

enemy, or perhaps a mere opponent, incontinently finds himself accused

of breaking the Ten Commandments of God, the various Precepts of the

Church; of committing the Seven Deadly Sins—Pride, Covetousness, Lust,

Anger, Gluttony, Envy, Sloth; the Six Sins against the Holy

Ghost—Presumption of God’s Mercy, Despair, Impugning the Known Truth,

Envy at another’s Spiritual Good, Obstinacy in Sin, Final Impenitence;

the Four Sins Crying to Heaven for Vengeance—Wilful Murder, Sin of the

Cities of the Plain, Oppression of the Poor, Defrauding Labourers of

their Wages; or, if he has not achieved the guilt of these in his proper

person, at least he has been an accomplice of some other sinner, in the

Nine Ways by which a Man may be Accessory to Another’s Sin—_i.e._, by

counsel, command, consent, provocation, by praise or flattery, by

concealment, by partaking, by silence, by defence of the ill which is

done. That is, (in the twentieth century when Catholics are ruled by a

Press ostentatiously Fenian and Anglophobe, and was, in the fifteenth

century when Catholics were also human, but not vulgar or

sophisticated), the predicament of anybody, Pope or peasant, who incurs,

or incurred, the disesteem of, or who makes, or made, himself unpleasant

to a brother in the Faith. By hints, inferences, insinuations,

ill-motives assigned, and a hundred ingenious methods, rarely by defined

accusations, the sin of calumny is, and was, committed, absolutely and

utterly because the calumniator so hates sin as to have no difficulty in

persuading himself that the man who flouts him must be a sinner. For be

it noted, that all the calumnies that bespatter the House of Borgia, all

the “liability to disesteem,” which through five centuries has been

their portion, and has made their very name a synonym of Turpitude, all

these have a Roman Catholic origin. Roman Catholics are the primal

calumniators who have muddied, and do muddy, God’s Vicegerents, the Lord

Calixtus P.P. III, and His nephew the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, with every

species of ordure, with ascriptions of every crime known to casuistry

(the science of cases of conscience), including those which are

unspeakable except in an appendix veiled in a learned language _quo

minus erubescamus_. Bishop Vespasiano da Bisticci of Vicenza was a Roman

Catholic; Messer Stefano Infessura, Monsignor Hans Burchard, Messer

Francesco Guicciardini, Bishop Paolo Giovio of Nocera, Messer Giangiovio

Pontano, Sannazar “The Christian Vergil,” Messer Benedetto Varchi—they

were all Roman Catholics who inaugurated the campaign of calumny against

the Supreme Pontiffs of the House of Borgia. In dealing with calumny,

the difficulty is to obtain definite evidence of a definite charge which

is intrinsically false and, at the same time, derogatory to the person

against whom it is laid. This difficulty is one that continually

confronts the investigator. Prelates, priests, princes, penmen,

sometimes because they had a grievance, sometimes confessedly wilfully,

sometimes by way of wanton babble, habitually launched against their

enemies or superiors accusations of depravity the most loathsome, of

crime the most odious. What they said by word of mouth cannot surely be

known Until The Books Are Opened. What they wrote in pasquinades, in

diaries, in official despatches, in official chronicles, or for the mere

æsthetic pleasure of recording a salacious gibe in curial Tuscan or in

golden Latin—these remain. A few of the more important icily will be

discussed here. The student of history knows no more refreshing

recreation than that of nailing liars, like vermin, to the wall.

The statement of Bishop Vespasiano da Bisticci of Vicenza, quoted above,

is a fair example of the less fœtid species of calumny: it only amounts

to an accusation of “philistinism.” However, it at once may be described

as being both stupid and improbable. With regard to the naif surprize,

said to have been shown by the Lord Calixtus P.P. III, on seeing “so

many excellent books,” is it likely that, as Bishop Alonso de Borja,

Ambassador Plenipotentiary and Confidential Counsellor of the Majesty of

Naples, he never had seen fine things before? Is it likely that Cardinal

Alonso de Borja, eleven years cardinal of the curia residing in the

Court of Rome, had never seen splendid books before? Of what kind then

were the missals and pontificals which, as bishop, he would have used in

his daily mass? Is it likely that Cardinal Alonso de Borja—one of the

actual electors of the Lord Nicholas P.P. V, constantly at His side from

beginning to end of His reign, if not assistant to, at least cognizant

of, His every action—had never seen, had never touched, handled, tasted,

those identical five hundred books, bound in crimson velvet with clasps

of silver, with which that august Pontiff enriched the Vatican library.

The assumption is ridiculous, absurd.

The calumny that the Lord Calixtus P.P. III gave books to the Bishop of

Vich in the manner of a Vandal arose in this way. The Lord Cosimo de

Monserrato, Bishop of Vich from 1460 to 1471, was ordered by His

Holiness to compile a catalogue of the books in the Vatican library, on

the sixteenth of April 1455, four days before His coronation. A copy of

this catalogue was brought to Vich by this same Lord Cosimo on his

appointment to the bishopric five years later. It was most likely made

by one of the Vatican scribes,[12] and it contains numerous marginal

notes in the bishop’s handwriting. From these notes, a precise list of

the number of books actually given away by the Lord Calixtus P.P. III

may be obtained. They were five—not “several hundred”—of no great value,

and—duplicates. Two of these, a copy of the Epistles of St. Augustine,

annotated by Nicholas of Lira, and a Book on the Truth of the Catholic

Faith, were presented to the Pope’s late patron, King Don Alonso de

Aragona of Naples, the Two Sicilies, and Jerusalem. The note against

them in the catalogue is _S.D.N. dedit hunc domino regi Arag._ (“Our

Holy Lord gave this to the lord king of Aragon.”) Now, if He only gave

two books to His old friend and former employer who (as may be judged

from the fact that he employed the renowned Messeri Lorenzo Valla and

Giangiovio Pontano as his secretaries) had a very pretty taste for

letters, who was a reigning sovereign, and an extremely serviceable and

powerful ally of the Holy See, is He likely to have given “several

hundred” to the Cardinal of Ruthenia and Catalan nobles? Finally, the

heathen Cardinal Platina, who wrote his History of the Popes in the

reign of the Lord Xystus[13] P.P. IV (the third in succession from the

Lord Calixtus P.P. III,) expressly mentions the magnificence of the

library of the Lord Nicholas P.P. V, which, certainly, he could not have

known if it had been destroyed in the manner described by the lying

Bishop Vespasiano da Bisticci of Vicenza.

One “philistine” act may be admitted on behalf of the Lord Calixtus P.P.

III. He sold the silver from the bindings of those books. He sacrificed

them for the crusade in defence of Christendom. He also sold all the

Vatican plate. He insisted that the salt-cellar of His Own table should

be of earthenware, not gold; and, indeed, He even offered His tiara in

pledge for the same admirable object. He was blamed.

The Lord Calixtus P.P. III was by no means the enemy of letters. He made

havoc among the decadents, the affected literary poseurs who infested

the Borgian as well as the Victorian Era; but He cherished genius, and

to scholars of distinction He was a generous patron. The diverting case

of Messer Lorenzo Valla will serve for an example. This notable, being

one of the secretaries of King Don Alonso I, was well-known to the

Holiness of the Pope. He was erudite beyond most of his contemporaries,

of a daring temperament, and impatient of bad scholarship, falsehood,

and superstition. In 1440 he indited a merciless exposure of the

monstrous fiction now known as the Forged Decretals and Donation of

Constantine, upon which, in perfect good faith, the temporal dominions

of the Papacy then were held. Also, he attacked the leaden Latin of the

Vulgate, and lauded the Golden Latin of Vergil and Cicero, or the Silver

Latin of Tacitus. The twentieth century—which knows the Latin of the

Roman Mass to be the low Latin of Roman plebeians of the first five

centuries, from the age of the Lord St. Peter P.P. to that of His

successor the Lord St. Gelasius P.P., Whose “Prayer for Peace” is the

latest known addition to the canon—will not find Messer Lorenzo Valla to

have been guilty of any very shocking crime herein. But the clergy of

Naples considered him in the light of a menace to the Christian

Palladium, and mentioned him to the Inquisition. When he was brought

before them, the Inquisitors invited him formally to assent to a

profession of faith, which was neither the Apostles’ nor the Nicene

Creed, nor the Creed of St. Athanasius, but one which they had drawn up

to suit the fancied needs of his case. The situation was the historical

parallel of one which sullied the dying years of the last century.

Messer Lorenzo knew too much; took an impish delight in saying what he

knew; he was a nuisance, a disturbing influence. To the proposition of

the Inquisition he opposed a firm refusal; he would not sign their

specimen of a creed. The circumstances now were becoming strained. But

the Inquisitors of the fifteenth century had more serpentine wisdom than

those of the nineteenth. They did not proceed at once to an abrupt and

tactless excommunication, exacerbating to all parties. They tried

another line. Would Messer Lorenzo Valla have the courtesy, then, to

propound his own creed, that his judges might examine whether it were

heretical or no? The reply of Messer Lorenzo was delicious. “I believe,”

he said, “I believe what Holy Mother Church believes. She _knows_

nothing. But—I _believe_ what she _believes_.” Just at this stage the

king sent a mandate to the Inquisitors of Naples, bidding them to leave

his Majesty’s secretary alone; and the process ended here. But when the

news of the case travelled to Rome, the Lord Nicholas P.P. V, admiring

the wit and learning of Messer Lorenzo Valla, being amused, perhaps, at

the way in which he had taken the wind out of the sail of the wily

Inquisitors, invited the distinguished scholar to His Court, where He

named him Apostolic scribe, with magnificent appointments. On the death

of that Pontiff, Messer Lorenzo’s sometime colleague, the Lord Calixtus

P.P. III made him Pontifical Secretary, and dignified him with several

canonries including one at St. John _in Laterano_, the cathedral-church

of Rome. So fifteenth century tact and mental limberness made a friend,

where nineteenth century arrogant stupidity made a host of scornful

foes.

* * * * *

The first year of the pontificate of the Lord Calixtus P.P. III was

occupied by audiences granted to Orators offering the homage of the

Powers, and by preparations for the Crusade.

Germany deserved and enjoyed high consideration, because the ruler of

Germany held the title of _Romanorum Imperator Caesar Semper Augustus

Mundi Totius Dominus Universis Principibus et Populis Semper

Venerandus_; and an understanding between Pope and Emperor, a friendship

between Peter and Caesar, was desirable for the peace and prosperity of

Christendom. This friendship, however, was subject to frequent breaches.

Both Papacy and Empire were exceedingly tenacious of their dignity,

willing to consider themselves aggrieved, or their rights in danger of

encroachment. Each, in fact, was a power of dimensions so gigantic that

intermittent paroxysms of megalomania were the order of the day. The

violence of these attacks was allayed, from time to time, by cooling

lotions in the shape of concessions. There had been a serious relapse

not many years before, which temporarily had been retrieved by a treaty,

known as the Concordat of the Lord Eugenius P.P. IV.

At the beginning of His reign, while waiting for the formal homage of

The Pacific Caesar Friedrich IV, the Lord Calixtus P.P. III observed the

terms of this Concordat. When the news of His election in April reached

Germany, a Diet of the Empire was held at Neustadt to appoint

Orators,[14] and to consider the chances of squeezing fresh concessions.

“Now is the time to vindicate our liberty, for hitherto we have only

been the handmaid of Holy Church,” said Jacob of Trier; and Caesar

Friedrich IV privately grieved that the Papacy gave him little support

in his difficulties with turbulent sub-sovereigns and subjects. The

celebrated Lord Enea Silvio Bartolomeo de’ Piccolhuomini, Bishop of

Siena, poured oil upon the troubled waters of the Diet. He had lived

many years in Germany, as poet-laureate, orator to Utter Britain[15]

(Scotland), novelist, historian, and confidential secretary to Caesar;

and he knew his Germany. He deservedly was trusted both by Church and

State. He soothed Caesar, saying that the mob was always inconstant,

dangerous, and that a ruler did a vain thing when he tried to please. He

soothed the Diet, saying that the interests of Papacy and Empire were

identical, and that from a new Pope new favours might be gained. The

Diet named Bishop Enea Silvio, with the jurist Hans Hagenbach, as

orators who were to offer to the Lord Calixtus P.P. III the obedience of

the Holy Roman Empire, and to lay before Him the grievances of Caesar.

The Lord Calixtus P.P. III was more independent of Germany than His two

predecessors had been; and in a position to command, not compromise. The

Lord Eugenius P. P. IV, being in need of temporal support, had purchased

Germany’s obedience by secret concessions and promises of money. The

Lord Nicholas P.P. V was privy to these arrangements, and, feeling bound

by them, had paid His share; but there was a matter of twenty-five

thousand ducats yet unpaid. The Lord Calixtus P.P. III had taken no part

in these negotiations. During His cardinalate, He had had ample

opportunities of reckoning up Caesar Friedrich IV as a feeble, feckless

old simpleton, devoid of moral backbone, whom no concessions ever could

stiffen into any semblance of imperial capacity. The Pope’s Holiness

felt that He could do quite well without the Emperor’s Augustitude.

Therefore, when Caesar’s Orators arrived in Rome, on the tenth of August

1455, and prayed for a private audience, (at which, as the custom was,

they would try to squeeze the Holy Father, making the proffer of their

sovereign’s homage dependent upon the Pope’s willingness to oblige), the

Lord Calixtus P.P. III refused to entertain requests until after the

obedience of Germany should have been received.

The Orators were confounded, so they said, by this demand; but, as loyal

sons of Holy Mother Church, (Bishop Enea Silvio was the spokesman), and

that scandal might be avoided, they would give way. Before a public

consistory of cardinals, they presented to the Pope the homage of

Caesar, in an elaborate oration containing no mention of unpleasant

topics, such as the imperial demands and the Concordat of the Lord

Eugenius P.P. IV, but mainly consisting of a string of formal

compliments to the Supreme Pontiff, and declamations against the Muslim

Infidel. (Pii II. Orationes I, 336.)

After this the Orators could not insist upon the Rights of Caesar. On

his behalf, they might only approach the strenuous Pope as suppliants

appealing to His clemency, as children begging a father’s favour. They

had cut the ground from under their own feet; and, as Bishop Enea Silvio

knew quite well, that was precisely what had been intended. The Lord

Calixtus P.P. III disclaimed any obligation of paying His predecessor’s

debts, having other uses for five and twenty thousand ducats; and the

question of Caesar’s rights to nominate to bishoprics, and to have a

share of the tithe about to be raised for the Crusade, should be

considered in due season, said the Pope to the Orators.

* * * * *

Meanwhile the Eternal City was engaged in making ready for war.

Immediately after His coronation, the Lord Calixtus P.P. III privately

proclaimed the Crusade. In August, He made the same proclamation in

public consistory, and read the following vow: “We, Calixtus the

Pontiff, swear to God Almighty, the Holy and Undivided Trinity, that We

relentlessly will follow the Turks, the enemies of the Name of Christ,

with war, with maledictions, with interdicts, with execrations, and

indeed with every means in Our power.” (Ciacconi II., 981.) This oath in

holograph, was constantly before the Pope’s eyes during His pontificate,

and was found hanging on the wall by His bedside as an ornament of His

chamber when at length He died.

The infirmities of age chained the Pontiff to His room: recreation was

to Him a thing unknown, for the business of the Crusade consumed His

energies. His firm and unrelenting will, set upon this single aim, would

brook no control, no influence. He knew Himself to be the “Ruler of the

World,” and He shut His mouth down fast against all opposition. To the

quarrelsome sovereigns of Christendom He envoyed ablegates charged to

reconcile all differences, to urge the setting aside of private

squabbles, of petty ambitions, in favour of the greater necessity,

resistance to and annihilation of the Muslim Infidel. Through every

Christian country He sent Apostolic Missionaries, curial bishops and

prelates, friars and monks renowned for eloquence, to preach the sacred

duty of fighting against the enemies of the Christian Faith. On every

Christian country He imposed tax of a tithe to meet the cost of the

Crusade. Archbishop St. Antonino of Florence nobly seconded His efforts,

raising the standard of St. George’s rose-red cross, and preaching like

a new St. Bernard. The buildings, with which the preceding Pontiff had

begun to adorn the city, were stopped, and the swarms of workmen

dismissed. The revenues of the Papal States were applied to the

construction of a fleet of swift galleys for the harrying of the Turk.

Daily the Holy Father descended to St. Peter’s with His Own hands to fix

the cross on the breasts of recruits enlisting. The papal jewels were

pawned, and their price added to the war-chest. The Pope’s Holiness

trusted much in Duke Philip of Burgundy: He tried to persuade the

Magnanimous King Don Alonso de Aragona to take the cross.

In the east of Europe, the black cloud of the Muslim Infidel advanced

continually. Skanderbeg, a chieftain of romantic past, renowned for

military deeds, opposed them. The fame of his achievements is the one

brightness in the holy war. His army, composed of divers races naturally

antagonistic, only was welded together by the magic of success or of his

personal influence. Such a bond is but a weak one. A cause, that rests

upon a single man, will stand no strain. Presently his Albanians

revolted, at a moment when the Infidel pressed him hard. Defeated, he

withdrew to mountain fastnesses; and sent couriers to Rome with an

appeal for reinforcement. The Lord Calixtus P.P. III replied with money,

wherewith Skanderbeg bought the allegiance of his disaffected troops and

retrieved his position. But on the heels of triumph came fresh disaster.

To avenge some slight, his own nephew made cause against him, persuaded

the Albanians to fresh revolt, and deserted with them to the Infidel.

* * * * *

In the nature of human things, every man, in every rank of life, must

submit to some affliction of mind or body. Has any one ever troubled to

inquire what may be the special affliction proper to the Pope? It is

loneliness—utter loneliness—loneliness in a crowd. The Pope cannot have

a friend; for friendship postulates equality: and who is the equal of

the Pope? The cardinals who surround Him are of the faction that opposed

His election, or of the faction that claims favour in return for

support. He, Who sits upon the Throne of Peter, looks down from that

pinnacle upon the peoples, the nations, and the tongues, in His heart

knowing them to be enemies or suitors. What wonder then that, though His

spirit indeed be willing, His humanity shall crave human sympathy!

This consideration is offered to explain the nepotism of the Popes of

the Renascence. They surrounded Themselves with men of Their own

families; men bound to Them by ties of blood and kinship. Being

generally of mature age themselves, They chose Their young relations;

and upon these They conferred the rank which qualified them to enter the

inner circle of the curia. This action appears to have been dictated by

the natural desire of human man for offspring. Certainly a Pope can

always create cardinals, who are to Him as spiritual sons; but to create

cardinals of those who already are of one’s own family is a thing

nearer, a more intimate relation. So the human heart of the Pope would

become rejuvenate, would renew its strength, would gratify its natural

longing for an entourage of creatures in which it might place confidence

and trust. For the cardinal-nephews, loathed by all other cardinals,

owing everything to the Pope, would be bound to Him and to His interest

as by chains of iron. The system is proved to be liable to abuse. That

is the corollary of all human systems. It is indefensible; but it is

explicable; and the foregoing is an attempt only in the direction of

explanation.

On the twentieth of February 1456, at the beginning of the second year

of His reign, the Lord Calixtus P.P. III proclaimed to a stormy

consistory the creation of three cardinals, two being His Own nephews,

and one the son of the heir to the crown of Portugal. Let it be remarked

that He did nothing for His son, Don Francisco de Borja, now a charming

and eligible young man of fifteen years.

The Sacred College murmured and objected: but, in this matter the will

of the Pope is law. The new creatures were:—

(α) Don Luis Juan de Mila y Borja, of the age of twenty years,

celebrated for vigorous physical beauty. He was son of Doña Caterina de

Borja (sister of the Pope’s Holiness) by her husband Don Juan de Mila,

Baron of Mazalanes. To him the Pontiff gave the scarlet hat, which He

had relinquished on His election to the papacy, that of

Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santi Quattro Coronati.

(β) Don Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja, of the age of twenty-five years,

distinguished by that marvellous Spanish courtliness and magnificence of

person which was the theme of admiration until he died. He was son of

Doña Juana de Borja, (sister of the Pope’s Holiness,) by her husband Don

Jofre de Lançol. To him the Pontiff gave the scarlet hat of

Cardinal-Deacon of San Niccolo _in Carcere Tulliano_.

(γ) Don Jayme de Portugal, Archbishop of Lisbon and son of the Infante

Don Pedro de Portugal. To him the Pontiff gave the scarlet hat of

Cardinal-Deacon of Sant’ Eustachio. There appear to have been reasons of

state for the elevation of this young man; and it was usual for the

reigning Houses of Europe to have one of their junior scions in the

Sacred College. The Cardinal of Portugal lived a retired and saint-like

life, distinguished for his modesty and maiden purity. He died in 1459

at the age of five and twenty years; and his tomb, by Messer Antonio

Rossellino, in Samminiato al Monte at Florence, one of the most

exquisite monuments of the Renascence, bears the touching epitaph:

“Regia stirps Jacobus nomen Lusitana propago,

“Insignis forma, summa pudicitia,

“Cardineus titulus, morum nitor, optima vita,

“Iste fuere mihi: mors iuuenem rapuit;

“Ne se pollueret, maluit iste mori.

Bishop Enea Silvio Bartolomeo de’ Piccolhuomini says of these creatures

in his commentaries, “All are young, but of an excellent nature.” The

only concession that the Pope would make to the objecting cardinals, was

the postponement of the ceremonial conferring of insignia until the

ensuing September; when many of the malcontents vented vain spleen by

quitting Rome.

* * * * *

This was a year of strife. The peace of central Italy was disturbed by

the bandit Niccolo Piccinino, a bastard of Visconti; who, believing the

country to be about to be denuded of armed men, saw an opportunity for

self aggrandisement. He collected mercenaries, and marched against

Siena, a small republic, very loyal to the Holy See, which, in this age

of culture, had destroyed the lovely Aphrodite of Lusippos in its dread

of paganism, and consecrated itself to Madonna under the title “Sena

Ciuitas Virginis.” Meeting the Papal and Milanese forces which were

concentrating for the Crusade, but quite ready for a little incidental

fighting on the way, Piccinino withdrew to the mountains. King Don

Alonso of the Regno, as usual, was playing a double part. It did not

suit him to show conspicuous friendship for the Pope’s allies, lest the

Lord Calixtus P.P. III should become independent. Stipulations were made

favourable to Piccinino; and, their appeal to Naples having failed, the

Sienesi were forced into a disgraceful peace with the brigand.

Sultàn Muhammed extended his conquests to Servia, and prepared to devour

Hungary, launching one hundred and fifty thousand infidels against

Belgrade. Fra Jan Capistran’s eloquence and pious zeal roused the

Magyars to consciousness of the imminent peril; Cardinal Bernardino

Caravajal, the ablegate, inspired their patriotism with his wisdom and

devotion; and Jan Hunniades, the Vaivod of Hungary, resolved to resist

invasion. Confidence in princes was, as always, vain. The

terror-stricken King Wladislaw fled with his court and his guardian,

Count de Cilly, from Buda to Venice; and along the valley of the Danube

poured the locust-swarms of Infidels to invest Belgrade. The Vaivod Jan

Hunniades raised an army at his own expense; whence came the means, the

men, is still unknown, for most important documents connected with the

siege of Belgrade yet attend discovery: but there was a Magyar army,

commanded by Jan Hunniades, ministered to by Fra Jan Capistran, which

advanced to relieve Belgrade; and the ablegate, Fra Bernardino

Caravajal, remained behind at Buda, by the Vaivod’s request, to collect

and forward reinforcements. On the fourteenth day of siege the Magyars

collided with the Infidels. Already the walls of Belgrade sorely were

shaken: but the arrival of the Vaivod, breaking the Muslim line and

winning a complete victory, put courage into the hearts of the

beleaguered. In three months time, once more the Muslim concentrated,

and on the twenty-first of July the city suffered a second storm. Jan

Hunniades and Fra Jan Capistran, from one of the towers, directed the

defence. At a crisis in the fray, the heroic friar rushed, like a second

Joshua, through the Christian host, waving the crucifix and a banner

with the sacred monogram invented by San Bernardino of Siena. Behind him

came the Vaivod with aid. Through breaches in the walls many times the

Infidels streamed in, and always the stream was dammed and driven back.

Fra Jan Capistran himself led a squadron of Magyar huszars[16] who put

to flight the fierce janissaries of Islam. And, at last, the day was

won; and the air resounded with the Most Holy Name shouted by victorious

Crusaders, while Sultàn Muhammed, wounded, was retreating in confusion

with the remnant of his conquered army. Belgrade was relieved.

When the news reached Rome, the Holiness of the Pope was lying sick,

heart-worn, heart-sore, gazing from His window at the galleys building

in shipwrights’ yards on Ripa Grande. The relief of a beleaguered city,

even as late as the last century when decorous indifference was the

fashionable pose, used to cause deliriously human demonstrations. Men

were quite as human in the fifteenth as in the nineteenth century, less

compound, and much more simple. Belgrade was relieved, and there was joy

in Christendom.

* * * * *

In May the Lord Ludovico Scarampi dell’ Arena Mezzarota, Archbishop of

Florence, Patriarch of Aquileia, Ablegate to the Regno,

Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Lorenzo _in Damaso_, was

appointed Admiral of the Pontifical Fleet. Under the Lord Eugenius P.P.

IV, as Commander-in-Chief of the Pontifical Army, he had used Rome at

his will. Dismissed from office by the Lord Nicholas P.P. V, he had

devoted himself to luxurious living, and gained the nickname of _the

Lord Lucullus_. His haggard but voluptuous profile makes it probable

that he deserved the name. Seeing the Lord Calixtus P.P. III to be an

old and feeble man, who conceivably might afford him new preferment and

a fresh field for his insatiable ambition, he had come to Rome to offer

his service to the Holy Father. But the stalwart cardinal-nephews, the

Lord Luis Juan de Mila y Borja, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santi

Quattro Coronati, and the Lord Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja,

Cardinal-Deacon of San Niccolo _in Carcere Tulliano_, distrusted the

professions of Cardinal Scarampi. Suspecting his bonafides, they

mentioned their suspicions to their August Uncle, with the result that

he was forbidden to approach the Vatican. Not to be beaten, Cardinal

Scarampi discovered a fervent zeal for the Crusade. There could be no

surer way into the Pope’s favour. His Holiness considered that this

prelate might devote his enormous fortune to the war-fund; and He lost

no time in receiving him in audience, and naming him Pontifical Admiral.

The Cardinal-Nephews urged the advisability of flying him with a string;

and therefore his authority was restricted. A man of his fashion and

quality could have put in a fine dignified time ashore. But that would

not have suited the Cardinal-Nephews; and the Lord Calixtus P.P. III

perceived no signs of the unbuckling of the Cardinal-Admiral’s pouches.

So they gave him banquets, and his sailing-orders. A fleet of transports

left the Tiber with five thousand troops aboard: but the

Cardinal-Admiral stayed in Rome to assure the Pope’s Holiness that these

were insufficient for any practical purposes; and that a fleet of thirty

galleys was absolutely necessary.

Then the strenuous Pontiff remembered that King Don Alonso had promised

to provide Him with such a fleet; and it gently and firmly was intimated

to the Cardinal-Admiral that he might go to Naples and collect the same:

if he failed to go, he had the alternative of facing a judicial inquiry

into his doings as generalissimo under the Lord Eugenius P.P. IV.

Thereon the Cardinal-Admiral scoured away hot-foot for Naples; where he

found that King Don Alonso the Magnanimous had belied his promises,

having sent the ships to settle a little private dispute in which his

Majesty was engaged with the Republic of Genoa. This was bad news for

the Pope: but it did not alter His determination by the breadth of a

single hair. He was quite well-used to the vagaries and magnanimities of

the King of Naples, whom He had known for more than forty years. He was

equally well-resolved to use the services which the Cardinal-Admiral had

volunteered. Men had thought Him to be a feeble old man who could be

influenced with ease. They found out their mistake. We are accustomed to

think of youth as fiery and headstrong: but what can bend the will of

fiery headstrong age? His Holiness sent imperative commands to the

Cardinal-Admiral that he must make the best of the ships in hand, and

sail for the Ægean Sea, where at least he could help the Crusade by

creating a diversion among the islands that the Infidels owned there.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Alfonso of Aragon_]

Fresh troubles were at hand in Hungary. Round Belgrade, the putrefying

carcases of the Muslim thousands envenomed the air. The rudiments of

antiseptic sanitation were unknown. Those who have had to do with Boers,

or Cubans, or Filipinos will know the unspeakable horror that this

implies. Pest decimated the Christian army. Plague swept away the Magyar

host, that Infidels in vain had tried to overcome. When they told him

that his end was near, that Viaticum was approaching to be his strength

on that dark road which man must tread alone, the noble Vaivod Jan

Hunniades, said: “It is not fitting that our Lord should visit his

servant”; and, rising from his death-bed, he dragged himself to the

nearest altar, where, after confession and communion, in the priest’s

hands he fell and yielded up his great and splendid soul, the eleventh

of August 1456. On the twenty-third of October Fra Jan Capistrano also

died.

From Rome came the voice of the Pope strenuously appealing to the

Powers. His ablegates preached in every country. The common people heard

Him gladly, and responded to His call: but the nobles lent deaf ears.

Upper Germany and Nürnberg equipped battalions of crusaders, which were

increased by contingents from England and France.

In November the faineant young King Wladislaw returned to Hungary, and

visited the field of Belgrade. Since the death of Jan Hunniades the

Count de Cilly had made himself of supreme authority over his royal

ward. Belgrade still was mourning the mighty Vaivod; and the nobles

under Wladislaw Corvinus, Hunniades’s son, resenting the insolent

assumptions and cowardice of De Cilly, slew him there. The young king

concealed his wrath, and persuaded the sons of Jan Hunniades to follow

him to Buda. All unsuspicious of that treachery of which cowards are

capable they obeyed, and, on arrival in the capital, the Majesty of

Hungary had them seized, and Wladislaw Corvinus Hunniades publicly

beheaded as a traitor. Hungary was now in woeful plight. Deprived by axe

and pest of those strong leaders who had merited her trust, her king a

venomous child, her throne with no legitimate heir, she waited, in fear

and trembling, to hear again the Infidel thundering at her gate. All

discipline was at an end; the Magyar huszars were disbanded, and

returned to their homes.

* * * * *

In Germany, the question of the Magyar Succession was regarded as

confusion worse confounded; and the Electors of the Empire considered

the time a suitable one for reapplying the screw to feeble needy Caesar

Friedrich IV, their suzerain.

They invited him to preside at a Diet at Nürnberg, on St. Andrew’s Day,

1456; and, indeed, their conduct throughout was thoroughly Caledonian.

Their ostensible object was the projection of a new crusade; and they

announced an intention of acting independently if Caesar should refuse

to come. In reality they meant to pit Pope against Emperor, and Emperor

against Pope; so that, in the confusion, they might gratify their

private ambitions by snatching concessions from one or other of those

Powers. By pretending to desire a new crusade they would gain pontifical

favour. By taking independent action they would arouse imperial ire. The

Pope might be trusted to grant them what they called Ecclesiastical

Reform in return for their alliance to His plans against the Infidel.

Caesar might be trusted to concede extension of their political power,

in return for their allegiance to him as suzerain. In either case they

stood to win something.

Caesar promptly forbade the assembling of the Diet at Nürnberg. His

command was slighted; the Diet sat, and was attended by a Papal

Ablegate. Purely political discussions ensued; and the Diet adjourned

before reaching any conclusion. Then the Elector Albrecht of Brandenberg

found it worth his while to form a strong Caesarian party; and the

Electors of the papal faction were left in a minority. The cry for

Church Reform was raised. The Papacy was threatened with what it was

supposed to dread more than a General Council—viz., a Pragmatic

Sanction,[17] _i.e._, a definite assertion of Imperial Supremacy. The

Electors kept their proceedings secret, and little news was allowed to

reach Rome, where the curia was determined to resist in any case.

The cry for Church Reform is a popular one. The expression of desire for

the cultivation and consummation of the Christian Ideal invariably wins

sympathy. It is, perhaps, a little unfortunate that the soi-disant

reformers of the fifteenth century attached to the word Reform a baser

meaning than that which it bears in the twentieth.

Rome had her champion ready in the Lord Enea Silvio Bartolomeo de

Piccolhuomini, Bishop of Siena, to whom she entrusted the task of her

defence; and that he might be well-armed with all authority, the Pope’s

Holiness created him Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Sabina.

“No cardinal ever entered the college with greater difficulty than I;

rust had so spread over the hinges (_cardines_, specimen of fifteenth

century pun) that the door could not turn and open. Calixtus used

battering rams and every kind of instrument to force it,” said the new

Cardinal of Siena to the Lord Giovanni Castelleone, Bishop and Cardinal

of Pavia. (Pii II. Ep. 195) The Sacred College had not forgiven the Lord

Calixtus P.P. III for the creation of the Cardinal-Nephews; and its

policy was to oppose God’s Vicegerent and all His works. This new

creature, too, was credited with liberal proclivities; and the

conservatism of the Italian cardinals was up in arms. The Cardinal of

Siena had been so long a resident in Germany that he was looked upon as

more a German than Italian, more of a friend to Caesar than to Peter.

Above all, his transcendent talents and versatility were excessively

distasteful to mere mediocrity.

The adjourned Diet of Nürnberg resumed its session at

Frankfort-on-the-Main. Here it became definitely hostile to Caesar; and,

by announcing its intention to resist the collection of tithe, to the

Pope also. It committed the strategical error of uniting its two enemies

by the bond of a single interest. The Lord Calixtus P.P. III instantly

appealed to Caesar Friedrich IV on behalf of the Crusade; and so ended

the year of grace 1456.

Let it be conceded that Germany was aggrieved; that there were

engagements unfulfilled by Rome. What then? Rome, and all the world,

knew Germany’s habit of clamouring for Reform, whenever she saw a chance

of being paid for silence. Rome, and all the world, knew that these

clamours only originated with insincere and venal prelates and Electors,

who would become obsequiously dumb on a sop being thrown to their

personal interests.

The leader of the Electors was the Lord Hans of Baden, Prince-Archbishop

of Mainz. His chancellor, Martin Mayr, in writing congratulations to the

Cardinal of Siena on his elevation, took occasion to be very bellicose

about Papal treatment of Germany. “His Holiness observes neither the

decrees of the Council of Constance, nor of Basilea, nor the agreements

of His predecessors, but sets the German nation at naught,” he said.

“Our elections of bishops arbitrarily are annulled. Reservations are

made in favour of cardinals and papal secretaries. You yourself have a

general reservation of benefices in the provinces of Mainz, Trier, and

Köln, to the value of two thousand ducats per annum—an unprecedented and

unheard of grant. Annates rigorously are exacted, grants of expectancies

habitually are given, and his Holiness is not content with His due.

Bishoprics are not given to the most worthy, but to the highest bidder.

Fresh tithes are imposed without the consent of our bishops, and are

paid to the Pope. In every way Germany, once so glorious, is used as a

handmaid. For years she has groaned in slavery. Now her nobles think

that the time has come to make her free.”

This letter reads like a genuine cry of distress. The Cardinal of Siena

was an adept at dealing with such dishonesty as this, which would

deceive one less expert. He could read between the lines; and he knew

this Chancellor Mayr. He began by asserting Papal Supremacy, and

rejecting the decrees of the schismatic Council of Basilea. He agreed

that the Concordat of the Lord Eugenius P.P. IV should be observed. He

said that the Lord Calixtus P.P. III was willing to redress grievances,

if the Electors would send envoys to lay them before Him in proper form.

So far, nothing could be more satisfactory; and then the Cardinal of

Siena got to work. Papal interference with elections, he said, was

purely judicial intervention, due to the ambition and greed of

claimants, not to papal rapacity. If any payments had been made by

would-be bishops to bribe officials of the curia, the said would-be

bishops justly could not blame His Holiness, but their own ambition,

which would do anything for its own aggrandisement. Men were not more

angelic in Rome than in Germany: when money was offered they naturally

took it. But the Holy Father must not be blamed for that. He wished to

stop the extortions of his officials. He Himself received nothing but

His due. Every one thinks it a grievance to part with money, and will

think so always. Bohemia made the same complaint against Germany as

Germany made against Rome, that money was drained from the land: yet

Germany, owing to her connection with the papacy, steadily had grown in

wealth and importance, and was richer now than at any previous time,

despite of her complaints. To descend to personal matters, the Cardinal

of Siena thought it very hard that Chancellor Mayr should object to the

provisions which had been made in his favour. As poet-laureate of the

Empire and orator of Caesar he had lived and laboured in Germany so

long, that he now found it hard to be classed as a stranger. In

conclusion, _he thanked the Chancellor for his personal offer of help to

realise the said provisions; and would be glad to know of any eligible

benefices which should fall vacant_.

The sting was in the tail of this letter. It is evident that, while

Martin Mayr was writing for publication his precious list of grievances,

he also was sending to the cardinal in private a second letter offering

his own services as rent-collector. In theory, he pretended to treat his

connection with the Lord Enea Silvio as having no existence. In

practice, he was very anxious to be employed as agent on commission. To

such a venal Janus only one reply was possible; and the Cardinal of

Siena exposed the worthless insincerity of Germany’s spokesman by

answering his private and his public letters together on the same sheet.

This device, as was intended, provoked a proposition from Chancellor

Mayr’s superior, the Prince-Archbishop of Mainz; who sent his secretary

to Rome on the tenth of September, 1456, with plenary powers to

negotiate with the Cardinal of Siena towards an alliance with the Pope

against the Electors. This renegade prelate’s terms were, that he was

prepared to desert the German party of reform, if he were conceded the

right of confirming episcopal elections throughout Germany as the price

of his treachery; a right which would enable him to tax candidates for

bishoprics at his will.

The Cardinal of Siena lashed the Prince-Archbishop with courteous but

stinging pen. He rejoiced to hear that his High Mightiness no longer

cared to be allied with those malignants who attacked the Holy Father;

but regretted that he should ask for that which was a right inherent in

the Papacy, and which none of his predecessors had enjoyed. No bribe, no

secret understanding, was necessary between God’s Vicegerent and His

subjects. All were bound to obey. He was sure that the modesty of the

Archbishop had been misrepresented by this improper request, which he,

for his part, could not dare to lay before a Pope so blameless and so

upright as was the Lord Calixtus. (Pii II. Ep. 338)

Now that the venal nature of the cry for reform had been made clear to

all the world, the Cardinal of Siena wrote eloquently and reasonably to

Caesar Friedrich IV, to the King of Hungary, to the Princes and Prelates

of Germany, pointing out the futility of quarrelling with the Pope, from

Whom they derived so many benefits. (Pii II. Ep. 320, 344, 349.) He also

expanded his letter to the discomfited Chancellor Martin Mayr into a

pamphlet called _De ritu, situ, conditione, et moribus Germaniae_, in

which he shewed that Germany had received from Rome far more than she

ever had given. His wise and irrefragable reasoning, with the diplomatic

skill of the papal envoy Lorenzo Rovarella, made Germany pause. To pause

was to weaken. Then came the death of King Wladislaw of Hungary on the

eve of his marriage with Madame Marguerite de France. His dominions in

Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, were claimed by several pretenders. The

German Powers became intensely interested. Their attention was diverted

from their attempts to blackmail Christ’s Vicar. And so the end of the

Lord Calixtus P.P. III was attained; the crisis was averted without

issue of a Pragmatic Sanction.

* * * * *

Meanwhile the Cardinal-Admiral was in the Ægean. Being neither hero nor

enthusiast he merely cruised from place to place, making a show of

activity, capturing a few unimportant islands from the Muslim Infidel,

relieving the necessities of the Knights of Rhodes. His sole object was

to avoid that judicial inquiry with which the Cardinal-Nephews had

threatened him; and hence he showed himself as but a perfunctory

crusader. In fact, his influence was bad; for by giving the Ægean

islanders the notion that Rome was their defender, he lulled them into

false security and destroyed their self-reliance.

The plight of Eastern Christendom became more hopeless. Only the

Holiness of the Pope, of all the Western powers, took any practical

measures. France promised, but failed to keep her word, and would not

pay the tithe. The Duke of Burgundy collected the tithe, and kept it.

Norway, Denmark, and Portugal sat still. The Duke of Milan and the

Republic of Venice disregarded the Pope’s entreaties. The Signoria of

Florence refused to help Him. A few of the Italian barons, tyrants of

petty fiefs, provided him with money and men. The Republic of Genoa was

loyal; and, in return, the strenuous Lord Calixtus P.P. III protected

Genoese colonies on the Black Sea littoral, and conferred honours on her

nobles. The dark outlook momentarily was lightened by a victory over the

Muslim fleet, in which five and twenty galleys became a Christian spoil.

It must be recorded that it was solely the determination, foresight, and

energy, with which the aged Pontiff in Rome personally directed naval

movements, which inspired His sailors to achieve this triumph. Had the

Cardinal-Admiral Scarampi been endowed with the plenary authority which

he had desired, very much less enterprising and successful would have

been the policy of the papal fleet.

There can be no doubt but that German captiousness prevented the

accomplishment of the Pope’s designs for the protection of the Oriental

Christians. Skanderbeg had but a handful of huszars wherewith to oppose

the Muslim Infidel. And there was no encouragement for him; for the

apathy of Caesar and the Powers prevented him from following up his

victories. The King of Naples was as a thorn in the Pope’s eye. He had

hoped for better things of His old patron who had brought Him to Italy;

and He was bitterly enraged by King Don Alonso’s treachery in sending

the fleet, which, though constructed in the port of Naples, had been

paid for with papal gold, to carry on a private quarrel with a Christian

Power, the Republic of Genoa, at the very moment when Christendom was in

the direst peril from the Infidel.

The forbearance of the Lord Calixtus P.P. III ended there, as far as

Naples was concerned. Henceforward He relentlessly opposed the policy of

King Don Alonso, especially his scheme for an alliance with Milan by

which he hoped to make doubly sure the succession of the Bastard

Ferrando, whose legitimation had been recognised by two preceding

Pontiffs.

At the beginning of 1458, György Podiebrad renounced the Hussite heresy

on his election to the throne of Bohemia. King György made no difficulty

about swearing allegiance to the Holy See; and he also promised to take

the cross of the Crusade. Considering that his dominions immediately

were menaced by the Infidel, his policy would appear to have been

dictated by reasons of state rather than by religious zeal.

The Holiness of the Pope was consoled by this accession to the thinned

ranks of His allies. He hoped that the example of King György would be

of good effect to the Bohemian heretics; for spiritual matters are not

uninteresting to a Roman Pontiff. It seemed that the occasion might be

used to bring the powers into line; and He summoned a congress to meet

in Rome, whose object was the Unity of Christendom. Pious men have

pursued that object ever since—the religious unity. In the days of the

Lord Calixtus P.P. III, political unity was the aim desired, and

striven-for again, in vain.

* * * * *

After the Crusade, the work nearest to the Pope’s heart was the

promotion of His nephews’ interests. Why He should never have done

anything for His own most charming son remains a historical mystery. The

elevation to the cardinalate of Don Luis Juan de Mila y Borja, and of

Don Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja, already has been recorded. There was a

younger brother of Cardinal Rodrigo, younger by a year and a half, Don

Pedro Luis de Lançol y Borja, a gorgeously beautiful sneak and coward,

to whom the Pope extended the envious admiration that feeble age must

feel for youth and strength; and for whom nothing had been done. The

Lord Calixtus P.P. III, though quite independent of the good opinion of

the Sacred College, did not cause a second storm by raising this young

man, also, to the purple. He himself preferred a secular career; and it

was thought that the hot blood of Borja suited him to cut a military

figure. On that account, his Uncle, in the capacity of an Italian

despot, named him Duke of Spoleto, Gonfaloniere of the Holy Roman

Church, Castellan of all pontifical fortresses, and Governor of the

cities of Terni, Narni, Todi, Rieti, Orvieto, Spoleto, Foligno, Nocera,

Assisi, Amelia, Civita Castellana, Nepi, and of the Patrimony of St.

Peter in Tuscany,—an extravagance of generosity which is justifiable

solely on the score of goodwill towards His family, which, after long

years, an octogenarian was able to put into effect. Of course there

arose the usual uproar of protest from the Sacred College, led by the

Lord Domenico Capranica, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Croce

_in Gerusalemme_; and something akin to a riot among the citizens of

Rome, who always hated foreigners, and especially Catalans. For the idea

had got abroad in Spain that in Rome preferment awaited Spaniards, and

thither they flocked to receive the good gifts which, they imagined, a

Spanish Pope would have in store. Rome was furious at this immigration;

but Borja made overtures of friendship to Colonna, and treated the

Romans to a display of Spanish arrogance. As for the strenuous Lord

Calixtus P.P. III, He announced His defiance of public opinion by

installing Don Pedro Luis de Lançol y Borja in the Prefecture of the

City, an act which involved the surrender into Borja hands of the Mola

of Hadrian, or Castle of Santangelo, the impregnable fortress on Tiber

which dominates Rome. Don Pedro Luis was looked upon by Orsini as a

mortal foe, on account of his displacing Don Giovantonio Orsini in this

Prefecture. Thus the inimical relations of Borja with Orsini very

naturally qualified them for an alliance with Colonna, in a simple age

when a man’s friends were his friend’s friends, and his enemies his

friend’s enemies; and Colonna was the most powerful house in Rome. A

nursery ditty of the period will show in what esteem Colonna was held:

“Che possa avere cinque figli maschi,

“E tutti quanti di Casa Colonna,

“Uno Papa, l’altro cardinale,

“Ed uno arcivescovo di Colonia,

“Ed uno possa aver tanta possanza

“Da levar la corona al re di Franza

“E l’altro possa aver tanto valore

“Da levar la corona all’ imperatore.

So, for a brief space, the Eternal City became absolutely an appanage of

the House of Borja. Catalans pervaded the streets, engaged in robbery

and murder. The intimidated Conservators (equivalent to a modern

municipal council) servilely thanked the Pope for the appointment of His

nephew, and even suggested that Don Pedro Luis should be made King of

Rome.

* * * * *

On the twenty-seventh of June 1458 died King Don de Alonso Aragona, The

Magnanimous, of Naples, the Two Sicilies, and Jerusalem. The Lord

Calixtus P.P. III at once refused to acknowledge His quondam pupil, the

Bastard Ferrando, as successor; and impetuously threatened to plunge

Italy into war, by declaring on His Own account a claim to the Regno as

a fief of the Holy See.

A favourite policy of ecclesiastical persons of all ranks, and in all

ages, appears correctly to be summarised by Patrizzi in this

formula:—_Advance pretensions and presently they will become realities_.

The Pope’s Holiness desired to benefit Don Pedro Luis. If His claim, as

suzerain of the Regno, could be substantiated, then He would be able to

crown Don Pedro Luis as its King. It was an extensive and important

domain, including the whole of Southern Italy, the Abruzzi, Apulia, and

Calabria, with the Three-Tongued[18] Island of Sicily. From a commercial

stand-point, the Pope’s action was distinctly smart and business-like.

And there was this further consideration:—Supposing that the Bastard

Ferrando were strong enough to make resistance, at least some part of

the Regno would have to be sacrificed as a concession for the sake of

peace; and so a fief could be created for Don Pedro Luis, who, in any

case, stood to win. Failing the Regno, it was the Pope’s intention

strenuously to press the reconquest of Constantinople, and to crown His

nephew King of Cyprus and Emperor of Byzantium. As an earnest of His

goodwill He lost no time in naming him Lieutenant of Benevento and

Tarracina within the Neapolitan boundary, confirming him in this post by

Brief of the thirty-first of July 1458.

In Rome indignation knew no bounds. It was plain that these strong young

men, the pontifical nephews, were, after the Crusade, all-powerful with

the Ruler of the World. The city seethed with jealousy and revolt,

attacking anything in the shape of a Catalan on sight. Spaniards, rash

enough to show themselves in the streets, courted assassination. As for

the Pope, age and mortal sickness seemed to fan the flame, to white

heat, of His inflexible imperious will. The Cardinal of Santa Croce _in

Gerusalemme_ was banished to distant embassages, and threatened with

imprisonment if he again broke silence, on account of the protest which

he made. The Apostolic Prothonotary, Fra Bernadino Caravajal was sent to

Germany. The Cardinal-Admiral Scarampi was kept at sea. Cardinal Latino

Orsini and his faction fled into exile. Only four of the Most

Illustrious preserved their loyalty to the Pope and the

Cardinal-Nephews; these were:—The Roman Lord Prospero Colonna,

Cardinal-Deacon of San Giorgio _in Velum Aureum_; the Venetian Lord

Pietro Barbo, Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria Nuova; the French Lord

Guillaume d’Estouteville, Cardinal-Bishop of Porto; and the Sienese Lord

Enea Silvio Bartolomeo de’ Piccolhuomini, Cardinal-Presbyter of the

Title of Santa Sabina. Profiting by the temporary absence of opposition,

the Holiness of the Pope gave the Bishopric of Lerida to His nephew,

Cardinal Luis Juan of Santi Quattro Coronati; and to Cardinal Rodrigo of

San Niccolo _in Carcere Tulliano_ he gave the Vicechancellorship of the

Holy Roman Church.

At last, the Bastard of Naples decided on his course of action; and

summoned the Neapolitan nobles, demanding their acceptance of him as

their king. He made no claim upon the kingdoms of Aragon, Valencia, and

Catalonia, in Spain; nor upon Sardinia, the Balearic Islands, and

Sicily, which King Don Alonso had left by will to his own brother, King

Don Juan of Navarre: but for the crown of Naples and the Sovereignty of

the Order of the Stola, which his father had founded, he was prepared to

fight. Further, in defence of his right, he appealed from the Pope to a

General Council—a stupid enough proceeding, but one of the customs

peculiar to aggrieved personages of the Borgian Era. Incidentally, it

may be mentioned that the Lord Calixtus P.P. III, was not the only

disputant of Don Ferrando’s claim. Even supposing that the right of King

Réné of Anjou were set aside, he had a third rival in the shape of his

cousin Don Carlos of Biana, son of King Don Juan of Navarre.

The Pope knew well that, though He might disturb the peace of Italy, He,

single-handed, could not hope to triumph in a war with Naples; and He,

therefore, tried to win over Don Francesco Sforza-Visconti, Duke of

Milan, who, after the Cardinal of Siena, was the greatest and most

far-seeing statesman of his time. Duke Francesco answered shortly and

sharply, that the Neapolitan Succession had been settled by the Lord

Nicholas P.P. V to the satisfaction of all Italian princes, and that he

intended to fight for King Don Ferrando I. sooner than see his country

devastated by civil war.

This last bitter disappointment caused the collapse of the Pope’s

health. With the summer heat plague appeared in Rome. The Lord Calixtus

P.P. III lay in the throes of fever; and Orsini took up arms against all

Catalans in open war. Of the Pontifical Nephews the layman showed the

white feather; the stalwart cardinals were staunch. Don Pedro Luis de

Lançol y Borja, as Prefect of Rome, sold the Mola of Hadrian to the

Sacred College for two and twenty thousand ducats; and fled from the

city, escorted by his Catalans. The Cardinal of Venice helped him to a

boat on Tiber, by which means, owing to the darkness of the night, he

reached Civita Vecchia in safety, having avoided Orsini who watched for

him at the gates of Rome. On the 26th of September, says Lo Spondano,

suddenly he died.

* * * * *

One of the claims of the church is that of a Divine Promise of Her

Maintenance until the end of the world. It is interesting to the student

of history to notice that, from time to time, Her responsible

authorities comport themselves as though they had no faith in the

validity of that prediction. They seem to think that its fulfilment

solely depends upon their own exertions. The strange conviction of the

necessity of his present existence, which is innate in the ordinary man,

is perhaps the explanation of the extraordinary expenditure of energy to

avert death, to invalidate the most fervent and frequent professions of

belief in The Life Of The World To Come, to consolidate human

institutions and human plans, which obtains on such occasions as the

close of a prelacy or the end of a pontificate. If it be true that

actions speak louder than words, then the confusion attendant on a

Pope’s death must tell a sorry tale.

On the sixth of August 1458 the Lord Calixtus P.P. III lay dying in the

Vatican. Rome was in a turmoil. Colonna and Orsini were sharpening their

swords. The banished cardinals were hurrying back for the ensuing

Conclave. The four loyal cardinals were fortified in their palaces. Only

the Cardinal-Nephews attended at the Pope’s bedside.

The curious privilege which was accorded to these last, at this period,

could not be exercised in the present case. By the very conditions of

their juniority in the Sacred College, added to the powerful influence

which they were supposed to hold over the reigning Pontiff, the

Cardinal-Nephews were the objects of intense dislike (to put it mildly)

on the part of their colleagues. Their elevation was an offence; their

enrichment, a matter for envy; their indifference to opinion, a matter

for positive hatred. The only consolation to the other cardinals,

creatures of previous Pontiffs, which their situation held, was that it

must end with the demise of their creator. When their Pontifical Uncle

ceased to live in this world, the Cardinal-Nephews sank at once to their

proper place in the Sacred College. Under these circumstances, the said

Cardinal-Nephews were used to make their hay while yet the sun was

shining, to avail themselves of their opportunities for securing a

satisfactory future, as junior cardinals, by the acquisition of

property, real estate, benefices, jewels, or money, at the pleasure of

the Pope. And when their time was drawing near its close, when their

August Uncle was entering His last agony, it was the custom for the

Cardinal-Nephews to plunder the apostolic palace of any valuables which

already had not passed into their hands. This privilege was their last

chance; for, at the instant of the Pontiff’s death, the

Cardinal-Chamberlain assumes possession as representative of the curia;

and, in an age when self aggrandisement was not less a ruling passion

than at the present hour, the practice was at least connived at, on the

principle that every dog should be allowed to have its day.

But, on the present occasion, there was no plundering by the

Cardinal-Nephews. The fury of the Romans against all Spaniards made it

expedient for them to avoid the risk of a journey across the City, to

their palaces, encumbered by the mules which bore their spoils. This

would seem to be the human explanation of their presence in the Vatican,

while the Orsini faction made havoc of the Catalans, and despoiled all

who bore arms in the Borgo or pontifical Region of Rome.

* * * * *

The learned Dr. Creighton has well said that men of decided opinions and

eminent ability who come to their power late in life, spend the

accumulated passion of a lifetime in the accomplishment of long

cherished desires. The Lord Calixtus P.P. III would come into that

category.

Though He was unenthusiastic regarding the Renascence of Letters and the

Arts, and checked the tremendous schemes of His predecessor, yet He was

by no means inattentive to the duties involved by His position. He

restored the palace and church of Santi Quattro Coronati, because He had

occupied them during His cardinalate. He improved the church of San

Sebastiano _extra muros_ above the Catacomb of San Calixto, in honour of

the saint from whom He took His papal name. He repaired the church of

Santa Prisca, and began the new roof of the Liberian Basilica on the

Esquiline. He employed the painters, who did not leave Rome on His

election, in painting banners for the Crusade. The Vatican school of

arras-weavers, founded by the Lord Nicholas P.P. V, was continued, and

flourished exceedingly under His benevolence. He created nine cardinals

in the course of His short pontificate. The Porporati of the Consistory

of the twentieth of February 1456 were named on p. 36. At the Consistory

at Christmas the same year, He elevated to the purple:—

(α) The Lord Rainaldo Pisciscello, the virtuous and learned Archbishop

of Naples, as Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Cecilia:

(β) Don Juan de Mella, brother of the celebrated Franciscan Frat’

Alonso de Mella, and a noble of Spain, Auditor of the Ruota to

the Lord Martin P.P. III, as Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of

Sant’ Aquila e Santa Prisca:

(γ) The Lord Giovanni Castelleone, patrician of Milan, Legate to

Caesar Friedrich IV, and Bishop of Pavia, as Cardinal-Presbyter

of the Title of San Clemente:

(δ) The Lord Giacomo di Collescipoli Teobaldi, a Roman citizen, as

Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Anastasia:[19]

(ε) The Lord Richart de Longueil Olivier, Bishop of Constance,

Archpriest of the Vatican Basilica, one of the judges at the

Rehabilitation of Madame Jehanne de Lis, the Maid of Orleans, as

Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Sant’ Eusebio:

(ζ) The Lord Enea Silvio Bartolomeo de’ Piccolhuomini, as

Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Sabina.

The Lord Calixtus P.P. III has no share in the evil reputation which has

been cast upon His House. The worst that has been said of Him is, that

He was obstinate, irritable, and inspired no affection. They were

disappointed suitors who so spoke. The Pope’s Holiness used Himself ever

gently to the poor and needy, who found in Him a good samaritan. His

benefactions to the hospital of Santo Spirito have been recorded. In His

will He left five thousand ducats to found a hospital in His

cardinalitial palace of Santo Quattro Coronati. His private life was one

of rigid piety, simplest habits, apostolic fervour. He left one hundred

and fifty thousand ducats in the Pontifical Treasury, which He had

collected for the Holy War.

But the whole force of His resourceful and masterful character was

concentrated upon the Crusade, and the settlement in life of His beloved

nephews. On those two points He would brook no opposition. With the

violent impetuosity of age, of Spanish blood, He was inflexible,

overbearing, inconsiderate, on all matters connected with these

projects. All the ardour, and all the zeal, which He devoted to the

delivery of Christendom from the Muslim Infidel, was doomed to fail. The

Muslim Infidel defiles Constantinople now. But His dealings with His

nephews produced more permanent results.

Yet “it must always be an honour to the Papacy that, in a great crisis

of European affairs, it asserted the importance of a policy which was

for the interest of Europe as a whole. Calixtus and his successor[20]

deserve, as statesmen, credit which can be given to no other politicians

of the time. The Papacy, by summoning Christendom to defend the limits

of Christian civilisation against the assaults of heathenism, was

worthily discharging the chief secular duty of the office.” (Creighton.)

The Lord Calixtus P.P. III died on the sixth of August 1458, in the

fourth year of His reign; and was buried by four priests in the crypt of

the old Basilica of St. Peter-by-the-Vatican.

* * * * *

Kindling

It has been said that the junior branch of the House of Borja (which

originated in Don Ricardo de Borja, second son of Don Pedro, Count of

Aybar, Lord of Borja, who died in 1152), emigrated to the kingdom of

Naples, where it became naturalised, and softened its name into the

Italian Borgia. From Don Fortunio, the son of the aforesaid Don Ricardo,

descends Don Rodrigo who had two sons:—

(α) Don Romano Borgia, Monk of Vall’ Ombrosa and Bishop of Venafri,

A.D. 1300. (_Ricchi_.)

(β) Don Ximenes Borgia, Captain in the Army of Naples, whose son, Don

Antonio Borgia, married Madonna Girolama Ruffola of Naples, and

had issue:—

(α) Don Niccolo Borgia, familiar of King Don Alonso I, The

Magnanimous, Regent of Velletri 1417, married the Noble Madonna

Giovanna Lamberti of Naples, and had issue....

(β) Don Girolamo Borgia, (detto Seniore)....

Reverting to the Senior Branch:—

The career of Don Francisco de Borja, bastard of Bishop Alonso de Borja

of Valencia (afterwards the Lord Calixtus P.P. III), is an unsolved

mystery from his birth in 1441 until 1497....

Of the five children of Doña Juana de Borja by her husband Don Jofre de

Lançol:—

(α) Doña Francisca married Don Ximenez Perez de Arenas;

(β) Doña Tecla married Don Vitale de Villanueva;

(γ) Doña Juana married her cousin Don Guillelmo de Lançol, and had

issue:—

Girolama,

Angela,

Pedro Luis (Pierludovico)....

Juan (Giovanni seniore)....

(δ) Don Rodrigo, Vicechancellor-Cardinal-Deacon of San Niccolo _in

Carcere Tulliano_....

(ε) Don Pedro Luis, Duke of Spoleto, Castellan of Santangelo, Prefect

of Rome, died on the twenty-sixth of September 1458, leaving two

bastards:—

Juan (Giovanni giuniore)....

Silvia, married Don Alonso Gomiel.

Of the two children of Doña Caterina de Borja by her husband Don Juan de

Mila, Baron of Mazalanes:—

(α) Don Luis Juan, Cardinal-Presbyter of Santi Quattro Coronati,

Bishop of Lerida, retired to his diocese on the death of his

August Uncle and Creator, and lived there secluded till his

death in 1507. (The career and character of this prince of the

church, cardinal at twenty, bishop at twenty-three, and during

those three years living in the very arcana of the pontifical

court; who then thought fit to bury himself in a remote

university city during half a century, while his nearest kin

were ruling Europe and Christendom, awaits, and should repay,

investigation.)

(β) Doña Adriana came to Italy, married Don Luigi Orsini, and had

issue Don Orso Orsini....

* * * * *

The chief personage of the House of Borja, on the death of the Lord

Calixtus P.P. III, was Cardinal Rodrigo, of the age of twenty-seven

years.

His position was a precarious one; and it is perfectly amazing that he

was not forced to follow his cousin, the Cardinal de Mila, into

permanent retirement. That he was able, not only to remain in Rome but

to carve out for himself a unique career there, undoubtedly is due to

those superb talents and alert vigour of character which have made him

such a prominent figure in history.

He had only two friends in Rome, the Cardinal Enea Silvio of Siena and

the Cardinal-Archdeacon Prospero Colonna. Quite unmoved by the hatred of

the other Purpled Ones, he entered the Conclave of 1458 for the election

of the new Pope, with no such stupid thing as a plan of action; but with

a determination to comport himself so, according as opportunities arose,

as to improve his position and his prospects. It was impossible to know

beforehand what steps he would have to take: he could be guided only by

circumstances. To a young man of such temper the gods send

opportunities. There arrived a deadlock in the Conclave; and of that

deadlock Cardinal Rodrigo seized the key.

* * * * *

There are five ways by which a Pope may be elected:—

(α) By Compromise—_i.e._, when the cardinals appoint a committee of

themselves with power to name the Pope:

(β) By Inspiration—_i.e._, when a number of cardinals put themselves

to shout the name of some cardinal, as “The

Cardinal-Prior-Presbyter is Pope,” or “The Cardinal-Archdeacon

is Pope;” by which method of shouting other voices are

attracted, and the minimum majority (of two-thirds plus one)

attained:

(γ) By Adoration—_i.e._, when the minimum majority (of two-thirds plus

one) of the cardinals go and adore a certain cardinal:

(δ) By Scrutiny—_i.e._, when each cardinal secretly records a vote:

(ε) By Accession—_i.e._, when, the scrutiny having failed to give the

minimum majority (of two-thirds plus one) to any cardinal, the

opponents of that cardinal, whose tally is the highest, shall

accede to him.