In the Conclave of 1458 the method of Compromise was not used, and no

cardinals were moved to proceed by Inspiration or to Adoration. Votes

were taken by the Scrutiny, which revealed an extraordinary state of

things. The French Cardinal d’Estouteville had a certain number of

votes; the Cardinal Enea Silvio of Siena had a higher number; but

neither had the minimum majority. The cardinals sat upon their green or

purple thrones, beneath their green or purple canopies, watching and

waiting for a sign.

Then the young Cardinal-Vicechancellor Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja rose up

and proclaimed: “I accede to the Lord Cardinal of Siena.” His friend and

ally, the Cardinal-Archdeacon Prospero Colonna, followed him: “I accede

to the Lord Cardinal of Siena.” Cardinal Teobaldi, who, as a Roman

citizen, followed Colonna, said also: “I accede to the Lord Cardinal of

Siena.” The three lowered their green and purple canopies. They were in

the presence of the Pope, in Whom all authority resides, before Whom

none may remain covered. The minimum majority had been attained. The

Lord Enea Silvio Bartolomeo de’ Piccolhuomini, sometime Caesar’s

ambassador in “the horrible and ultimate Britains” (Scotland), sometime

poet-laureate, novelist, historian, bishop, and cardinal, had become the

Lord Pius P.P. II.

By this act, which practically gave the proud triregno to his friend,

the Cardinal-Vicechancellor put himself into high favour with the new

Pontiff, Whose enchanting temperament delighted in the brilliance and

aptitude of the Borgia, and made his future the object of especial

interest.

* * * * *

Materials for the history of Cardinal Rodrigo during this reign are but

scanty, in the absence of opportunities for original research. In 1459,

he went a-holiday-making with the Lord Pius P.P. II, on a triumphal

progress through Florence; where the Holy Father chatted with a lovely

boy of seven years, called Lionardo da Vinci, bastard of a Florentine

notary and a contadina. They visited Siena; and Corsignano, where the

Pope’s Holiness was born, which He was pleased to rename Pienza, in

honour of His papal name, and to build there a cathedral, an episcopal

palace, and the Piccolhuomini palace for His Own family on the three

sides of the public square. By way of showing His confidence in the

Vicechancellor-Cardinal-Archdeacon (Archdeacon _vice_ Cardinal Prospero

Colonna), perhaps, also, to curb, with useful employment, the exuberance

of manlihood which had been giving evidence of revolt against the

convenances, the Lord Pius P.P. II left the superintendence of these

buildings in the hands of Cardinal Rodrigo, who has not scrupled to

adorn their façades with the armorials of the House of Borgia, _Or, a

bull passant gules on a field flory vert, within a bordure gules semée

of flammels, or_.

Vicechancellor-Cardinal-Archdeacon Rodrigo had lived the life of a

gallant handsome prince and man of the world of the fifteenth century,

in no wise differing from his antitype of the twentieth. The Renascence

had brought about an age when sensuousness degenerating into sensualism

was found in prominent places. It is difficult to see what else was to

be expected. “Ye can not serve God and Mammon.” Learning and art

essentially, radically, and necessarily are antagonistic to

Christianity, hard though that saying may be found. Towards them the

Church’s policy always has been a policy of compromise. “You may learn

the wisdom of the world, but you may not learn all,” She says; trying to

serve God, paltering the while with Mammon. “Nudus, Nudum Christum

sequens” went Beato Fra Francesco when he renounced the world; and the

Church compromises with St. Sebastian for Phoibos Apollon. Therefore, as

long as Grace and Nature are served up on the same dish, it is stupidly

unreasonable to hold up holy hands in horror when high ecclesiastical

dignitaries happen to comport themselves like human beings.

[Illustration: _Fridericus IV. Emperor._]

The twentieth century is no whit more chaste than the fifteenth, and can

ill afford to cast a stone. Nor was the fifteenth century the stew of

universal depravity which some would have us believe it to have been. It

was unmoral as the twentieth is immoral. But there were pure and

maid-white souls then, as there are now; and the difference between the

fifteenth century and the twentieth is a mere difference of fashion.

Now, we pretend to be immaculate; then, they bragged of being vile. Much

of the literature of the fifteenth century is most suitably presented in

the original. Poets and historians, especially historians, allowed

little scope for exercise of the imagination. The convention of

concealment, of suggestion, had not been invented. Messeri Stefano

Infessura and Benedetto Varchi rank among the most eminent chroniclers

of their day; certainly the Latin of the one, and the Tuscan of the

other, would serve for models: but a complete unbowdlerised translation

of the former’s Journal of Roman Affairs (_Diarium Rerum Romanum_), or

of the latter’s Florentine History (_Storia Fiorentina_), incontinently

would be suppressed by the police. Yet it would be absurd to conclude

that these writers, or others of their kidney, have given a just account

of the morals of their age. “The divorce court and the police news do

not reflect the state of morality in England. No more do Juvenal’s

Satires give us a complete or impartial picture of Roman society. We

must read side by side with them the contemporary letters of Pliny,

which give a very different picture, and also weigh the evidence offered

by inscriptions.” (E. G. Hardy. Satires of Juvenal, p. xliv.) That is

the spirit in which the student of the fifteenth century should approach

his task. He will read all, and hear all sides, and form his own

conclusion, which, at best, must be a faulty one, until the secrets of

all hearts are known.

The Vicechancellor-Cardinal-Archdeacon was a human being. If he were, as

Gaspar Veronensis describes him at a later date, “a comely man, of

cheerful countenance and honeyed discourse, who gains the affections of

all the women he admires, and attracts them as the loadstone attracts

iron,” what must he have been in the glow of his superb youth? This is

not by any means a suitable reputation for a churchman; and only its

non-singularity prevents it from being a disgraceful one. Viewed from a

theological stand-point, Cardinal Rodrigo’s carnal lusts are, of course,

wholly indefensible: but this work is an attempt at the study of certain

human beings prominent in history; and not a theological treatise nor an

act of the _advocatus diaboli_. The Lord Pius P.P. II has said, “If

there are good reasons for enjoining celibacy of the clergy, there are

better and stronger auguments for insisting on their marriage”; and that

Supreme Pontiff was far and away the wisest and most observing man of

His Own (or perhaps of any) time.

Therefore, it is suggested that, knowing of the proclivities of Cardinal

Rodrigo, being in truth his firm friend, desirous that he should live up

to the obligations of his rank, and, above all, actuated by a sense of

duty as Christ’s Vicar, the Pope’s Holiness set him to supervise the

buildings at Pienza—to keep him out of mischief.

In 1460 was born Don Pedro Luis de Borja, bastard of the said

Cardinal-Archdeacon and a spinster (soluta). The child was openly

acknowledged and honourably reared.

About this time the Lord Pius P.P. II wrote a letter, to remonstrate

with Cardinal Rodrigo and with the Lord Giacopo Ammanati,

Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Crisogono, concerning their

divergences from ecclesiastical discipline. It is a genial and paternal

letter, in which frank hatred of Sin is displayed with affection for the

sinners. Cardinal Rodrigo replied, correcting some mis-statements of

fact: but, that the Pope’s Holiness was not satisfied, appears from a

second letter of a firmer and more admonitory nature. Much has been made

of this correspondence by some writers, whose pose is to think

ungenerously of ecclesiastics. It should be noted, however, that the

Lord Pius P.P. II took exception to certain long visits which those

cardinals paid to ladies of their acquaintance, and to nothing more.

Apparently there was nothing more of which to complain; and the fact

that the Pope’s Holiness should deem these visits to be indiscretions on

the part of ecclesiastics, goes to prove rather the extreme and strict

solicitude of the Holy Father for the spiritual welfare of his flock,

than any dissolute conduct of the two cardinals. But the defamers of

Cardinal Rodrigo misrepresent the said visits in the worst possible

light, as nocturnal orgies and debaucheries; and long night visits

obviously would constitute a grave and serious scandal. The

misrepresentation very likely is due to careless ignorance. The fact is,

that the Italian method of computing time in the fifteenth century is

deceptive to the superficial student. Something is known of the dials of

Italy which count the hours up to 24 o’clock; and when it is said that

Cardinal Rodrigo paid visits to ladies in their gardens “from the 17th

to the 22nd hour,” instantly cynical carelessness predicates nocturnal

orgies. But when it is understood that, in the fifteenth century, the

first hour began at half an hour after sunset, and that the visits took

place in time of summer, it will be realised that Cardinal Rodrigo

simply went to the mid-day dinner, and left his friends an hour and a

half before sunset: which may have been indiscreet, but certainly was

not essentially criminal, as some would have us believe. But when the

careless or wilful calumniator sets out to ruin a reputation, he finds

it an easy thing to twist a fault into a crime.

The Vicechancellor-Cardinal-Archdeacon is recorded to have astonished

Rome with the splendour of the arras adorning the outside of his palace

on the Festival of Corpus Domini, 1461. The buildings at Pienza occupied

him through 1462. Of 1463 there is no history with which he is

connected.

In 1464 “an aged man, with head of snow and trembling limbs,” took the

rose-red cross in the Basilica of St. Peter at Rome. This was no other

than the Sovereign Pontiff, the Lord Pius P.P. II, unique in all

history, Who, as an example to the apathetic potentates of Christendom,

went, dying as He was, a crusader against the Muslim Infidel. Cardinal

Rodrigo was in attendance upon His Holiness in that terrible journey in

parching summer heat across Italy to the Adriatic; where, while waiting

for the fleet, at Ancona, in August, the Lord Pius P.P. II died.

Cardinal Rodrigo, stricken by fever there, unable to return to Rome for

the Conclave, was obliged to forego his official privilege as

Cardinal-Archdeacon, the crowning of the Lord Paul P.P. II on the

sixteenth of September.

This Pontiff (lately the Lord Pietro Barbo, Cardinal of Venice) wished,

on His election, to take the name Formosus, in allusion to His handsome

person. It was a naïve age, when men hid neither their vices nor their

virtues; and the story possibly may be true: but it is very likely to be

one of the spiteful little distortions of motive, which ecclesiastics of

all ages are wont to ascribe each to other. The Popes, after the first

six centuries, have never shown much originality in choosing Their

pontifical names, and generally fall back upon the name of one of Their

immediate predecessors. At present the changes are rung upon Pius, Leo,

and Gregory; the fifteenth century had a wider range: but many of the

lovely old names, such as Anacletus, Fabian, Felix, Silvester, Hadrian,

Victor, Evaristus, were buried in oblivion. It is far more kind to

suppose that the Lord Cardinal of Venice had the idea of reviving the

beautiful name of the Lord Formosus P.P., Who reigned from 891 to 896,

and was the hundred and twelfth Pope from the Lord St. Peter P.P.

Persuaded against this course by the cardinals, He spent two hundred

thousand fiorini d’oro on a triregno set with sapphires; built St.

Mark’s Palace (Palazzo Venezia) at the end of the Corso in Rome; and

instituted carnival races of riderless horses (called Bárberi, as a pun

upon his name), and of Jews heavily clothed in garments of thick wool

and stuffed to the throat with cake. In 1467 was born Madonna Girolama

de Borja, bastard of the Vicechancellor-Cardinal-Archdeacon, by an

unknown mother. The child was openly acknowledged and honourably reared.

During this reign Cardinal Rodrigo remained in favour; and, on account

of his fine presence and habitude to curial manners, he was chosen to

receive, at Viterbo, Caesar Friedrich IV, The Pacific, coming on a

state-visit to the Pope in 1469.

At the death of the Lord Paul P.P. II, Cardinal Rodrigo de Lançol y

Borja, Cardinal Guillaume d’ Estouteville, and Cardinal Ioannes

Bessarione were the only foreigners in the Conclave of 1471. Once more

the Vicechancellor-Cardinal-Archdeacon was clever enough to put a Pope

under an obligation, by leading an accession to Cardinal Francesco della

Rovere, who thereby was elected, and chose to be called the Lord Xystus

P.P. IV. All the chroniclers save one allege that this Pope owed His

election to the accession of Cardinals de Borja, Orsini, and Gonzaga of

Mantua, who reaped rich rewards in the shape of benefices and

preferments. The Pope’s Holiness gave to Cardinal Rodrigo the wealthy

Abbey of Subjaco _in commendam_; who left a memorial of his abbatial

tenure in the tower which he added to the castle of Subjaco, where the

armorials of the House of Borgia still remain. The last official act of

Cardinal Rodrigo, as Archdeacon of the Holy Roman Church, appears to

have been the coronation of the Lord Xystus P.P. IV on the twenty-fifth

of August 1471. After that he was ordained priest, and consecrated

bishop, and elevated to the rank of Cardinal-Bishop of Albano, one of

the seven sub-urban sees. He continued to hold the Vicechancellorship;

and, in this capacity, he built for himself in Rome a palace on Banchi

Vecchi, which, even in that sumptuous epoch, excited extravagant

admiration. A little less than a third of it is now the huge Palazzo

Sforza-Cesarini on Piazza Sforza-Cesarini, nearly opposite to the

Oratory, called Chiesa Nuova. Since the unification of Italy in 1870, a

new wide street (Corso Vittoremanuele) has been driven through the city,

necessitating the demolition of more than two-thirds of Cardinal

Rodrigo’s building, and the construction of an undistinguished modern

façade on the modern street: but the remaining courts, whose frontage is

still on Banchi Vecchi, are more or less _in statu quo_. The history of

the passing of this palace into the hands of Sforza-Cesarini belongs to

a later page.

On the twenty-third of December 1471 Cardinal Rodrigo was sent as Legate

_a latere_ to Spain, to preach a new Crusade against the Muslim Infidel.

It is a curious thing that while he was unpopular in Italy on account of

his Spanish origin, he was unpopular also in Spain where they considered

him an Italian; a most ridiculous confusion, for Don Rodrigo de Lançol y

Borja was a pure Spaniard by birth, descent, aspect, character, tastes,

and habit, and so continued until his life’s end, in no way influenced

or modified by his long residence in Italy. During his absence, the Lord

Xystus P.P. IV built the Xystine Chapel of the Vatican; and called to

Rome, from the gardens at Florence of Lorenzo de’ Medici his patron, the

vivacious and bizarre Messer Alessandro Filipepi (nicknamed Botticelli),

wondrous pupil of Fra Lippo Lippi, of Masaccio, of Beato Giovangelico da

Fiesole, to decorate its walls with frescoes _in tempera_, the colours

of which are mixed with the yelks of country-laid eggs for the deeper

tints, and of town-laid eggs for the paler tints, according to the rules

of Messer Cennino Cennini who wrote in 1437. In 1471 the bronze antique,

known as _Il Spinario_, was found on the Capitol.

About this time the Lord Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja, now Cardinal-Bishop

of Porto, Vicechancellor of the Holy Roman Church, and of the age of

three and forty years, maintained irregular relations with Madonna

Giovanna de’ Catanei, a Roman lady, born the thirteenth of July 1442,

and of the age of thirty-two years, wife to one Don Giorgio della Croce.

Whether her husband was used to trade in his wife’s favours (like the

criminal who, as late as 1780, was marched through Rome wearing a

pasteboard mitre labelled _cornuto voluntario contento_), is a matter

for conjecture. But, in 1474, Madonna Giovanna gave birth to a son, Don

Cesare, who is called Borgia; and it is claimed that Cardinal Rodrigo

was his father. As far as historical research has gone, no evidence has

been found to prove that Cardinal Rodrigo ever directly denied

paternity; and, as he was undoubtedly deeply in love with Madonna

Giovanna, and intimate with her during ten subsequent years, it is

probable that his reticence was actuated by kindly feelings. But there

is a very strong suspicion that another cardinal, in every way the

notorious and life-long rival of Cardinal Rodrigo, was the father of

this child; and many mysterious historical inconsistencies would be

explained by the establishment of the truth of this suspicion. However,

for the present, merely the birth in 1474 of Don Cesare (detto Borgia)

is recorded, and the question of his paternity will be examined at a

proper place.

In 1475 Madonna Giovanna de’ Catanei bore, to Cardinal Rodrigo, Don Juan

Francisco de Borja, to whom (after the death in 1481 of Don Pedro Luis

de Borja) his father ever gave the honours and the affection which are

due to an eldest son and heir. This is the most important circumstantial

evidence against Don Cesare’s right to the name of Borgia.

In January of the same year, Cardinal Rodrigo was deputed, with a nephew

of the Lord Xystus P.P. IV, one Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, who, as

a lad, had peddled onions in a boat between Arbisola and Genoa, to

welcome King Don Ferrando I of Naples at Tarracina, on the occasion of

his state-visit to the Holy See. Three days later, Cardinal Rodrigo said

mass for his Majesty at San Paolo _extra muros_ when the king was

leaving for Colonna’s fief at Marino, where English envoys from King

Edward IV Plantagenet, who had just conferred the Most Noble Order of

the Garter upon Duke Francesco Sforza-Visconti of Milan, were waiting

with a similar attention for the King of Naples.

On the tenth of June 1476 the plague appeared in Rome, and the Lord

Xystus P.P. IV, attended by Cardinal Rodrigo, removed His court to

Viterbo, where cooler air lessened the danger of contagion.

In 1478 was the hideous Conspiracy of the Pazzi at Florence, which

created no small stir in all Italy. Also in this year Madonna Giovanna

de’ Catanei bore, to Cardinal Rodrigo, Madonna Lucrezia Borgia.

On the first of October 1480, “Xystus, Bishop, Servant of the servants

of God, to His beloved son Cesare (de Borja), a scholar of the age of

six years,” sent “greeting and the Apostolic Benediction,” and dispensed

him from the necessity of proving the legitimacy of his birth; a rule

which must be observed (in the absence of a dispensation) by whoever

shall wish to become eligible for ecclesiastical benefices.

In 1481 died Don Pedro Luis de Borja, the eldest bastard of the

Vicechancellor-Cardinal Rodrigo. He was of the age of twenty-one years,

and betrothed to a mere child, the Princess Doña Maria de Aragona. Also,

in 1481, Madonna Giovanna de’ Catanei bore, to Cardinal Rodrigo, Don

Gioffredo Borgia.

On the twenty-fourth of January 1482, Madonna Girolama Borgia, bastard

of the Vicechancellor-Cardinal by an unknown mother, was married, at the

age of fifteen years, to Don Giovandrea Cesarini, scion of a Roman

baronial house of Imperial origin. The same year, on the sixteenth of

August, the Lord Xystus P.P. IV named Cardinal Rodrigo administrator of

all benefices that should be conferred upon Don Cesare (detto Borgia)

until the latter reached the age of fourteen years. There is a second

brief of this date, from “Xystus, Bishop, Servant of the servants of

God, to His beloved son Master Cesare (de Borgia),” naming the child

Canon of Valencia and “Our Notary”; little bits of preferment producing

sufficient revenues for his education. These three briefs relating to

Don Cesare, are found in the Secret Archives of the Dukes of Osuña and

Infantado, whose line was extinguished in 1882 at the death of Don

Mariano (v. suggested genealogical tree).

* * * * *

In 1484 died the Lord Xystus P.P. IV, and the Genoese Cardinal Cibo

ascended the papal throne under the title of the Lord Innocent P.P.

VIII.

During the six and twenty years that had elapsed between the death of

the Lord Calixtus P.P. III and the accession of the Lord Innocent P.P.

VIII, the position of the Vicechancellor-Cardinal Rodrigo considerably

was changed. Then, he was a young man with only two friends; a junior

Cardinal-Deacon surrounded by a host of enemies. Now he was in his ripe

maturity, senior member of the Sacred College, Dean of the

Cardinal-Bishops, Vicechancellor of the Church, powerful enough to be

able to command as many friends as he might choose to have—and rich

enough to buy; rich beyond the richest of that rich age, from the

revenues of his numerous benefices; and in rank second only to the Pope

Himself. To such a man, with the paramount ambition and magnificence of

Cardinal Rodrigo, only one thing in all the world remained for him to

do. He deliberately set himself to capture the triregno.

There is no chronicle of his history during the eight years’ reign of

the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII. Evidently he withdrew himself from the

public life of the curia, from the splendour of legations, to nurse his

revenues, to ingratiate himself with those who, in the next Conclave,

would have the crowning or the crushing of his hopes. With the wisdom of

the serpent and the harmlessness of the dove he was to build his house:

but, first, like the prudent man, he counted the cost. Cardinal Rodrigo

was far too polished a diplomatist, far too keen a man of business, to

neglect long and meticulous preparation. He perfectly knew his

century—indeed, as an organiser, he would have been illustrious in any

century—; and, with wisest generalship, he made ready his forces against

the striking of the hour for action. The smoothness with which the

machinery ran in the Conclave of 1492, makes it plain, to the least

experienced student of human affairs, that a master-mind had designed

the gear, to ensure a minimum of friction and an exact performance.

* * * * *

In September 1484 the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII named Don Cesare (detto

Borgia), who was now of the age of ten years, Treasurer of the Cathedral

of Cartagena (Carthago Nova).

In 1485, the year of the supposed murder in England of King Edward V

Plantagenet and of his brother Duke Richard of York, there died in Rome

Don Giorgio della Croce, husband of Madonna Giovanna de’ Catanei. On the

seventh of June 1486 she married Don Carlo de Canale, a noble of Mantua,

and from this time her irregular relations with Cardinal Rodrigo ceased.

In an age when trade was not considered disgraceful, except for

patricians, when even the greatest artists kept shops (not studios by

way of compromise, but regular shops, _botteghe_, like the blacksmiths

or the cobblers), it is not shocking to know that Madonna Giovanna owned

an inn in the Region of Ponte. This does not mean that she performed the

duties of a female boniface. She was a very great lady, bien-vue in

Roman society, with a lovely villa near San Pietro _ad Vincula_; but she

certainly drew a comfortable income from the Lion Inn (Albergo di

Leone), opposite the Tordinona, in the Via del Orso, which was then a

street of inns for foreigners. The Tordinona, from whose upper window

dangled a permanent and generally tenanted noose for evildoers, has now

disappeared: but the cavernous cellars of the Lion Inn, formerly filled

with wine on which, by pontifical favour, no tax was levied, remain

exactly as they were when the Spanish cardinal’s mistress was their

owner.

Deprived of the society of Madonna Giovanna de’ Catanei, Cardinal

Rodrigo, in the fifty-fifth year of his age, amused himself with the

high-born maiden, Madonna Giulia Farnese, nicknamed in Rome _La Bella_,

who was betrothed and afterwards married to Don Orso Orsini, himself of

Borgian descent (v. suggestion for a genealogical tree). A faded

representment of her marvellously brilliant beauty may be seen in the

mannered fresco by Messer Bernardo Betti (detto Pinturicchio) in the

Borgia Tower of the Vatican, where she was painted as Madonna; or on the

tomb of her brother Alessandro (afterwards the Lord Paul P.P. III) in

the Basilica of St. Peter, where she was sculptured in marble by Messer

Guglielmo della Porta as a naked Truth (clumsily draped, after an

erotomaniac Spanish student of theology had taken the statue for

Lucian’s goddess Kuthereia). The fruit of her early intrigue with

Cardinal Rodrigo was Madonna Laura, detto Orsini, born in 1489, and

adopted by Don Orso Orsini, the husband of Madonna Giulia.

The reign of the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII is notable for the extreme of

lawlessness into which lax government had let Rome fall. The Sovereign

Pontiff was a family man, Who openly acknowledged the paternity of seven

bastards, and Whose chief concern appears to have been their settlement

in life. A son, Don Franciotto Cibo, a silly avaricious weakling, He

married to Madonna Maddalena, daughter of Lorenzo de’ Medici; His

daughter He married to Messer Gheraldo Usodimare, a rich merchant of

Genoa; the wedding-feast took place at the Vatican, the Pope’s Holiness

presiding; and so the world was made to lose sight of the high ideals of

the Papacy, as exemplified by the Lord Pius P.P. II, and to regard the

Supreme Pontiff in the light of a mere monarch, a mere man. Cardinal

Piero Riario, in 1473, had bargained with Duke Galeazzo Maria

Sforza-Visconti of Milan to create him King of Lombardy, in return for

money and troops, by the aid of which he himself might ascend the papal

throne, his uncle, the Lord Xystus P.P. IV being willing to abdicate in

his favour: and, but for the sudden death of Cardinal Piero, this

abominable scheme would not have lacked completion.

Nicholas had been a scholar and a gentleman; Calixtus, a zealous

strenuous champion of an impractical cause; Pius, a gentle saintly

genius and skilful statesman; Paul, a noble figure-head; Xystus, a

plebeian nepotist; and Innocent was a lethargic paterfamilias. Naturally

the condition of a kingdom, under such a series of sovereigns

(considering the Popes in their temporal, and not in their spiritual

capacity), would go from bad to worse.

Yet Letters and the Arts were flourishing, as in the golden reign of the

Lord Nicholas P.P. V. Canon Angelo Ambrogini (detto Poliziano) was

showing, in his fine hymn _In Divam Virginem_, that it is possible to

write Christian verse in Latin good as Golden; and in his ‘Ερωτικὸν

Δωριστί and Ἐρωτικὸν περι του χρυσοκομου that a clergyman of the

fifteenth century, whose Greek was not learned at school or college,

could indite as dainty verses as Theokritos. Can the twentieth century

visualise the fifteenth? Can the twentieth century realise how poor the

fifteenth was in material which every board-school boy may have to-day

for the asking? The title of the book “De Omnibus Rebus et Quibusdam

Aliis,” provokes a guffaw now. Then it was used in sober earnest; for,

then, it was possible for one man to know all that was known—so little

was there known in the fifteenth century. Dante Alighieri knew all, at

the beginning of the fourteenth. Lionardo da Vinci knew all at the

beginning of the sixteenth—literally all. Go and look at his manuscript

note-books, and see what divers things he knew, to what depth of

knowledge he had delved, how ingenious an application he made of the

wisdom that he had gained; his inventions of conical bullets, of boats

with paddle-wheels, of flying machines, of a cork-apparatus for walking

on water. Consider that he was machinist, engineer, architect, and

mathematician, constructor of artillery, fortifications, canals, and

drains; and that, incidentally, he painted pictures, the lost “Cenacolo”

at Milan, which the whole world knows—lost, because Messer Lionardo made

the experiment of painting fresco in oil. Mark, too, in the note-books,

how artfully and easily he wrote from right to left, to keep his

knowledge from vulgar superficial eyes that pried. Mark his fluent

gesture, his decisive master-strokes, and the little illuminating

diagrams with which he illustrated every page. Can the twentieth century

understand that the Italian mind of the fifteenth, in the absence of

material, was concentrated on workmanship? Hence the marvels of

handicraft which we use for models now, carving, metalwork, and textile

design. The workmanship was everything then, in Art and in Letters also.

“So long as the form was elegant, according to their standard of taste,

the latinity copious and sound, the subject-matter of a book raised no

scruples. Students of eminent sobriety, like Guarino da Verona, thought

it no harm to welcome Boccadelli’s _Hermaphroditus_ with admiration;

while the excellent Nicholas V. spent nine days perusing the filthy

satires of Filelfo.” (_Symonds’ Renascence_ II. 574.) The workmanship

was everything. The civilisation of the fifteenth century was as high as

that of the twentieth, in conception and production of the beautiful.

But clearly let it be realised that “civilisation has nothing to do with

morality or immorality”; that “great reformers generally destroy the

beautiful”; that “high civilisation is generally immoral.” The age of

the Renascence, which found nothing shameful in the profession of the

ἑταίρα (if we may judge from the epitaph of one, _Imperia, Cortisana

Romana, quae digna tanto nomine, rarae inter homines formae specimen

dedit. Vixit a. XXVI. d. XII. Objit MDXL. die XV. Aug._), though free

from the hypocrisy engendered by the German Reformation of a later date

(which the maxim “Si non caste tamen caute” so admirably describes), was

frankly and unblushingly unmoral, as far as a proportion of its leaders

was concerned. Yet its unmorality was kept within certain bounds, and

circumscribed by a force which, now, is no restraint. Printing was in

its infancy. Written books were few, and very costly. In Milan, a city

of two hundred thousand inhabitants, there were only fifty copyists. Not

till 1465, in the reign of the Lord Paul P.P. II, was there a

printing-press in Italy, at Subjaco in the Sabine Hills; while Florence

had no press till 1471. And, at first, printed books were regarded with

disfavour by reason of their cheapness. One rich man said that he would

be ashamed to have them in his library, as now a rich man would be

ashamed to have Brummagem electro instead of hall-marked silver. Yet, by

means of ambulant printers, who printed only one page at a time on a

hand-press in a mule-cart (and who were the pioneers of that curse to

real civilization, the printed book), before 1500 no fewer than 4987

works had been printed in Italy alone. Here again the fifteenth century

passion for perfect workmanship came into play. Look at an Aldine

Classic, and mark its exquisite form. Messer Aldo Manuzio of Venice set

a great artist, Messer Francesco Raibolini (detto II Francia), who

painted the dulcet Pietá in the National Gallery, to cut a fount of type

after the lovely handwriting of the poet Petrarch. That is the Aldine,

or original Italic type; the script of a fourteenth-century singer. Can

the twentieth century, with its manifold appliances, its labour-saving

machinery, better that handiwork, or approach that design; or would a

Royal Academician condescend to cut types for a printer! Look at the

portrait-medals and pictures of the day to see of what fashion were

these elaborately simple men of the fifteenth century:—The English type,

sturdy, recondite, and simple; the French type, simple and light and

vain; the Italian, subtle and simple and strong—an English Hospitaller,

a French cardinal, an Italian scholar called, The Phoenix of Genius;

John Kendal, Grand Prior of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem in

England; Cardinal-Archbishop Georges d’Amboise; and Messer Giovanni Pico

della Mirandola; on their medals in the British, and Victoria and

Albert, Museums. The painters of this era, after Giotto, had emancipated

themselves from the domination of the Church. They refused any longer to

be bound by that decree of the Council of Nicaea (a.d. 787), which

calmly, inexorably, and altogether justifiably ordained:—_It is not the

invention of the painter which creates the picture; but an inviolable

law, a tradition of the Church. It is not the painter, but the holy

fathers, who have to invent and dictate. To them, manifestly, belongs

the composition; to the painter, only the execution._ The fifteenth

century was the century of broken bonds—bonds of discipline, bonds of

morality. Men tasted liberty, had discovered Man; and, like schoolboys

breaking bounds, playing truant, dazed in some rich orchard, they

revelled and rollicked among fruits hitherto forbidden, potentialities

long-dormant now alive. Unaccustomed sight had yet but imperfect

impressions. Men saw “men as trees walking”; but as far as they went the

impressions were vivid, life-like, true. Study the mercilessly precise

drawings of Cavaliere Andrea Mantegna, the Lombard, pupil of Squarcione,

who painted for the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII that chapel on the Belvedere

which was destroyed by the Lord Pius P.P. VI, and who won his knighthood

by painting for the Marquess Don Francesco de Gonzaga of Mantua. Study

the works of Messer Luca Signorelli, “the first and last painter except

Michelangelo to use the body without sentiment, without voluptuousness,

without any secondary intention whatsoever, as the supreme decorative

principle” (_Symonds’ Renascence_); who, having had killed at Cortona

his young and splendid son, stripped the body naked, and, with iron

nerve, painted from it during a day and a night, “that he might be able,

through the work of his own hand, to contemplate that which nature had

given him, but which an adverse fortune had taken away.” (_Vasari._)

Above all, study Messer Alessandro Filipepi (detto Botticelli), who,

having finished the chapel of the Lord Xystus P. P. IV, was back again

in Florence, painting for Lorenzo de’ Medici. How many of the Medici he

put into his pictures we never shall know; but if ever a painter painted

from the life Alessandro Filipepi was that painter; and, with a little

sympathetic ingenuity, one can trace at least a single precious portrait

through his pictures, and into the pictures of another and more

conventional painter; and, in this way, learn what like was one very

prominent personality of the Borgian Era, as παίς, μειράκιον, σιδεύνης,

ἐφήβος, ανδρός· Study the angel-boys and San Giambattista in the round

Madonna of the National Gallery and the round Coronation of Madonna at

the Uffizi. Study the Hermes Ptenopedilos in the Primavera that

Botticelli painted on the verses of Lucretius Carus (737–740) as a

setting for a portrait of an unknown lady of the House of Medici. And

study the limber San Sebastiano at Berlin. Then study murdered

Giuliano’s bastard, the Lord Giulio de’ Medici, Archbishop of Florence,

Knight of St. John of Jerusalem, and Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria _in

Domnica_, in the portrait of the myopic Lord Leo P.P. X by Messer

Rafaele Sanzio da Urbino. So shall a lean, muscular, vivid, thoughtful,

pious, unmoral, voluptuous yet hardy, typical, young Italian of the

Borgian Era be clearly, intimately, seen and known. And the medals:—Note

how that the medallists have not learned to flatter or idealise; that,

what they saw in their model, that they chiselled in perennial bronze.

Note the character, the distinguished individuality, here preserved; the

Sforza medals, for example, with their clean, compelling, vigorous,

venomous, Greek profiles, which that illustrious House got (and

preserves to this day in Prince Guido Sforza and his sister Princess

Carolina Corsini) from Countess Polissena Russa of Montalto, who married

Duke Francesco. Observe, from their manner of clothing him, how these

people worshipped Man. Not for them was the concealment of his grace in

dented fractured cylinders. Every natural line must be preserved, every

contour displayed, in that age of unconventional realism. The frescoes

of Messer Bernardo Betti (detto Pinturicchio), in the cathedral library

of Siena, are said to be the fashion-plates of the day and month

(1503–1507), done by an eminent artist. And the fabrics of which they

made their clothes were fine and simple; for the uses of shoddy were not

known. Sumptuous brocades, fairest linen of flax, furs from the East,

and delicate enduring leather, adorned those men and women who had not

learned to change their garments as often as they changed their minds;

and who went to bed at night simply as nature made them. That they were

meticulously clean, is witnessed by the embossed basins and ewers for

frequent washings, the hanging lavabo on the wall of every room (when

washing was a ceremonial habit), the elaborate supplies of water, the

baths of macerated sweet herbs, glasswort, white lily, marsh-mallow, and

lupin-meal, alkaline, mucilaginous, emollient, demulcent, which were the

substitute for soap. Care for the personal appearance was extreme.

Little signs show this. For example, the twentieth century man,

confection of his hosier and his tailor, plays with watch-chain, stick,

or card-case; the writer, hesitating over the turning of a phrase or

waiting for the just word, rolls a cigarette; the painter, considering

an effect, dabbles in a tobacco-jar and lights a pipe. Man has a natural

craving to employ his hands. In similar situations, Messer Lionardo da

Vinci’s model and studio-boy, the curly-headed Salaino, would bring

rosewater and towel to refresh his master’s fingers; Canon Angelo

Ambrogini (detto Poliziano) would take out an ivory comb and comb his

long straight hair; and a dandy anxiously would study his image in

polished metal mirrors set like bosses on his dagger sheath, or chew

comfits of coriander-seeds, steeped in marjoram vinegar and crusted with

sugar, to bring a special commodity to the memory. In an age when

personal and private functions were pursued after the methods of cats or

dogs according to the temperament of the pursuer, when that which is now

called sanitation was unknown, great and incessant efforts in the way of

cleanliness were imperative; and he who insistently displayed, who

publicly exhibited, his cleanly habits, naturally enjoyed the

consideration and approval of his equally modish contemporaries. And

they were practically pious too, these hardy ardent exquisites, who shed

an enemy’s blood as remorselessly as though murder were a natural

function. They would weep real tears of devotion over the drama of the

Passion of our Divine Redeemer enacted in the ruined Colosseo of Rome;

and, afterwards, zealously adjourn with knives to the houses of known

Jews, or perfervidly hunt the dark lanes of the city for any of the

accursed race who was so misguided as to show his yellowpatched jerkin

on the street. The Venetians had a penchant for holy relics, and deemed

no sacrifice too great for increasing their collection. In 1455, the

republic made a bid of ten thousand ducats for the Seamless Coat, now at

Treves, and ordained days of humiliation when the offer was refused. The

Doge of Venice was obliged officially to assist at twelve public

processions in each year. To please the piety and vanity of Florence,

Lorenzo de’ Medici personally applied to the city of Spoleto for the

corpse of the painter Fra Lippo Lippi; but Spoleto answered that it had

none too many ornaments as a city, especially in the shape of the

cadavers of distinguished people, and begged to be excused. “The men of

the Renascence were so constituted that, to turn, from vice and cruelty

and crime, from the deliberate corruption and enslavement of a people by

licentious pleasures, from the persecution of an enemy in secret, with a

fervid and impassioned movement of the soul to God, was nowise

impossible. Their temper admitted of this anomaly, as we may plainly see

from Cellini’s autobiography.” (_Symonds’ Renascence._)

* * * * *

The Lord Innocent P.P. VIII made no impression on His age; as a despot,

He was an accented failure. “The Patrimony of St. Peter would be the

most delightful country in the world if it were not for Colonna and

Orsini,” said the Sieur Philippe de Comines, Orator of the Christian

King Louis XI of France. The States of the Church became a seething

cauldron of lawlessness and licence. Rome herself, “where everything

that is shameful or horrible collects and is practised” (_Tacitus_),

swarmed with assassins, professional and amateur. Every man who valued

his personal safety put on a mail-shirt when he left his naked bed, and

set no foot in the streets till he had buckled a sword, or at least a

dagger, by his side. The very perfection of these fifteenth century

mail-shirts, which could be hidden in two hands, and yet were proof

against a thrust or cut at closest quarters, tells its own tale. The

trade of an armourer became an honourable art and mystery, when men

staked their lives at every turn, as men callously stake money now on

their convictions or opinions. A whole embassage from Maximilian, King

of the Romans, as the heir of Caesar Friedrich IV was styled, was

assailed by brigands and stripped to the shirts in sight of Rome.

In July 1492 the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII showed signs of decay, the

feebleness of age increased, and He was only kept alive by women’s milk.

Modern chroniclers of His last hours have fallen into serious error, in

relating that the operation for transfusion of blood was performed by a

Hebrew chirurgeon upon the Holiness of the Pope without accomplishing

its end. The error arises from forgetfulness of the facts: (α) that the

idea of the operation for transfusion could not occur to any one to whom

the circulation of the blood was unknown; (β) that the phenomenon of the

circulation of the blood was not discovered by Harvey until the

seventeenth century. Before the circulation of the blood was known, the

visible veins were taken for sinews. Verrochio thought them to be sinews

when he carved them on the lean young arms of his alert David. The blood

was conceived of as stagnant in the flesh; the heartbeats as a pulsing

of the bowels. If the idea of transferring blood from a healthy to a

feeble body had occurred to any one of them, the ordinary fifteenth

century chirurgeons would not have been contented with a single

incision, but would have filled up the weak body through numerous

apertures, to be closed with the red hot cautery as usual; and the

patient most certainly would have died under the operation, of syncope,

caused, not by loss, but by acquisition of blood. Modern historians have

misunderstood the words with which Infessura and Raynaldus describe the

death of this Pope: and their misunderstanding further is caused by a

casual and superficial knowledge of the pharmacy of the fifteenth

century. Infessura and Raynaldus say that a certain Jewish physician

promised to the Pope’s Holiness the restoration of His health; that he

took three boys of the age of ten years, giving to them a ducat a-piece,

saying that he wished to restore the Pope’s health, and that he required

for that purpose a certain quantity of human blood, which must be young;

that he drew all the blood out of those three boys; that the said boys

incontinently died; that, when the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII knew, He

execrated the crime of the Jew and gave order for his arrest; that the

Jew had taken himself by flight out of the reach of the torturers; and

that the Pope received no cure. This, Dr. Mandell Creighton and Mr. John

Addington Symonds call transfusion of blood. They appear to be unaware

of the fifteenth century passion for sublimation and distillation: and

they appear to have missed this sentence of Raynaldus, _ut ex eo_ (the

young blood) _pharmacum stillicidium chimica arte paratum propinandum

Pontifici conficeret_; which plainly shows that it was a draught, a

drink,[21] the quintessence of the boys’ blood, prepared by his

alchymical art, with which the Hebrew physician was going to fail to

save the life of the Pope.

* * * * *

These were the times, and the men, which the Vicechancellor-Cardinal

Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja had to deal.

* * * * *

=Book the Second=

The Roaring Blaze

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

hold upon the faggots; bursts into a roaring blaze with raging

tongues of flame, devouring all in reach_;

The subject of this book has furnished occasion for liars of all

ages—reckless liars, venal liars, raving liars, careless liars, clever

liars, and futile liars, to perform their functions.

The Lord Innocent P.P. VIII died on the twenty-fifth of July 1492. The

Lord Rafaele Galeotti Sansoni-Riarjo, Cardinal-Deacon of San Giorgio _in

Velum Aureum_, Cardinal-Chamberlain of the Holy Roman Church, sent

guards to seize and hold the gates of Rome. _Caporioni_, priors of the

fourteen Regions, patrolled the city to deal with seditions and

disorders. Patarina, the great bell on Capitol, that only tolls when the

Pope is dead, knelled unceasingly.

At this time the Sacred College consisted of seven and twenty cardinals.

Four of these were absent in distant sees, and were unable to reach the

Eternal City in the nine days at their disposal. They were:—

(α) The Lord Luis Juan de Mila y Borja, Cardinal-Prior-Presbyter of

the Title of Santi Quattro Coronati;

(β) The Lord Pedro Gonsalvo de Mendoza, Cardinal-Presbyter of the

Title of Santa Croce _in Gerusalemme_;

(γ) The Lord André Spinay, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San

Martino _in Monte t.t. Equitii_;

(δ) Frère Pierre d’Aubusson, Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes,

Cardinal-Deacon of Sant’ Adriano.

Twenty-one cardinals entered the Conclave. They were:—

(α) The Lord Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja, Cardinal-Bishop of Porto and

Santa Rufina, Dean of the Sacred College, Vicechancellor of the

Holy Roman Church, etc.;

(β) The Lord Giovanni Michele, Cardinal-Bishop of Praeneste, Bishop of

Verona;

(γ) The Lord Oliviero Carafa, Cardinal-Bishop of Sabina, Archbishop of

Naples;

(δ) The Lord Giorgio Costa, Cardinal-Bishop of Albano.

(ε) The Lord Antoniotto Pallavicini, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title

of Sant’ Anastasia;

(ζ) The Lord Girolamo Basso della Rovere, Cardinal-Presbyter of the

Title of San Crisogono, Bishop of Recanata;

(η) The Lord Domenico della Rovere, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of

San Clemente, Archbishop of Taranto;

(θ) The Lord Giuliano della Rovere, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of

San Pietro _ad Vincula_;

(ι) The Lord Paolo Fregosio, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San

Sisto, Archbishop of Genoa;

(κ) The Lord Giovanni de’ Conti, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of

San Vitale, Archbishop of Consano;

(λ) The Lord Giangiacomo Sclafenati, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title

of San Stefano _in Monte Celio_, Bishop of Parma;

(μ) The Lord Ardicino della Porta, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of

San Giovanni e San Paolo, Bishop of Alba;

(ν) The Lord Lorenzo Cibo, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa

Cecilia, Archbishop of Benevento;

(ξ) The Lord Francesco de’ Piccolhuomini, Cardinal-Archdeacon of Sant’

Eustachio, Archbishop of Siena;

(ο) The Lord Rafaele Galeotti Sansoni-Riarjo, Cardinal-Deacon of San

Giorgio _in Velum Aureum_, Cardinal-Chamberlain of the Holy

Roman Church;

(π) The Lord Giovanni Colonna, Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria _in

Aquiro_;

(ρ) The Lord Giambattista Orsini, Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria

_Nuova_;

(σ) The Lord Giovanni de’ Medici, Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria _in

Domnica_;

(τ) The Lord Giovanni Savelli, Cardinal-Deacon of San Niccolo _in

Carcere Tulliano_;

(υ) The Lord Giambattista Zeno, Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria _in

Portico_;

(φ) The Lord Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti, Cardinal-Deacon of San

Vito e San Modesto _in Macello_, Martiri.

At the last moment, before the Conclave finally was immured, there

came:—

(χ) Fra Mafeo Gheraldo, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Nereo e

Sant’ Achilleo, Patriarch of Venice;

(ψ) The Lord Friderico Sanseverini, Cardinal-Deacon of San Teodoro.

On the sixth of August 1492, this Conclave of twenty-three cardinals

listened to the preliminary exhortations of Fra Bernardino Lopez de

Caravajal, and the business of election was begun.

* * * * *

Man mercifully has been left unable to foresee the effect which his

actions will have upon the future. Many of these cardinals had assisted

before at the election of a Pope; it was a routine with which they were

acquainted. But by no means could they know what a mark upon the world’s

history they would make with this election. Subsequent events, however,

have shewn that the seed of tremendous issues here was sown, issues as

great as the consolidation of a European kingdom under a sovereign

dynasty that endured until 1870. As such, the Conclave of 1492 must be

regarded as one of the most pregnant that ever have occurred; and its

details, as worthy of intent consideration.

There was a faction and a shadow of a faction among the cardinals. The

candidate of the first was the Dean and Vicechancellor-Cardinal Rodrigo

de Lançol y Borja, nephew of the Lord Calixtus P.P. III. He actively was

supported by the very influential cardinals Sforza-Visconti, Colonna,

and Riarjo, whose friendship he is said to have cultivated during the

reign of the late Pope, by promises of preferment and by gifts. He also

is said to have won the alliance of fourteen other cardinals by similar

inducements, and so to have placed himself at the head of a faction of

eighteen. His supporters were led to believe that his Spanish

nationality would make him neutral to the political parties of Italy;

and much stress was laid upon the fact that Spain was now the rising

power in Europe, with whom the Church would do well to be allied. The

standard of morality of the day prevented objections to the character of

Cardinal Rodrigo; and it was made clear to all that he was by far the

richest cardinal, holding all the most lucrative appointments, which

last would have to be vacated, and would be his to give away, in the

event of his election.

The candidate of the second faction was Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere,

a nephew of the Lord Xystus P.P. IV. He was the life-long disappointed

rival, in more senses than one, of Cardinal Rodrigo. His candidature was

an attempt on the part of the Christian King Charles VIII of France to

set up a Pontiff devoted to French, and not to Spanish, interests; to

which end the King’s Majesty deposited two hundred thousand ducats with

a Roman bank for the purchase of cardinalitial votes.

There was an independent candidate, Cardinal Lorenzo Cibo, a nephew of

the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII, to whom Cardinal Pallavicini was bound by

ties of gratitude: but he had no other supporter, and became submerged

in the majority.

Of the two contestants, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere had the poorer

chance. His own cousins, Cardinals Girolamo and Domenico della Rovere,

would not support him. His personality was universally antipathetic; his

opponent’s was universally sympathetic. The French money which he had

taken, was but as a drop in the ocean compared with the enormous wealth

and desperate determination of the Spaniard. Also, there were no votes

for sale. Four cardinals—the Lords Oliviero Carafa, Giorgio Costa,

Francesco de’ Piccolhuomini, and Giambattista Zeno—announced that they

would vote independently and under no influence; while the remnant of

the Sacred College, consisting of seventeen cardinals, having been

fiercely canvassed by Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti,

representative of the reigning House of Milan and hereditary foe of

France, were already in the pocket of the Vicechancellor-Cardinal-Dean.

The third night of the Conclave concluded the preliminary discussions;

and at dawn, on the eleventh of August 1492, Cardinal Rodrigo was

elected Pope, by the large majority of twenty-two out of twenty-three,

consisting of his own vote with those of the Cardinal-Bishops Giovanni

Michele, Oliviero Carafa, Giorgio Costa, the Cardinal-Presbyters

Antoniotto Pallavicini, Lorenzo Cibo, Mafeo Gheraldo, Girolamo Basso

della Rovere, Domenico della Rovere, Paolo Fregosio, Giovanni de’ Conti,

Giangiacomo Sclafenati, Ardicino della Porta, the Cardinal-Archdeacon

Francesco de’ Piccolhuomini, the Cardinal-Deacons Rafaele Galeotti

Sansoni-Riarjo, Giovanni Colonna, Giambattista Orsini, Giovanni de’

Medici, Giovanni Savelli, Friderico Sanseverini, Giambattista Zeno, and

Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti.

Rome was exciting herself about this election. Four mule loads of silver

had been taken from the palace of Cardinal Rodrigo to the house of

Cardinal Sforza-Visconti before the immuring of the Conclave, most

conceivably to be guarded there more safely. Rome guessed that the

Spaniard was so certain of his own election as to be preparing for the

pleasant custom, which the citizens used, of pillaging the palace of the

cardinal who was elected Pope. Some of the silver perhaps may have

passed into Sforza’s possession; but there is no direct evidence to

prove the absurd statement of Monsignor Burchard that it was the price

of his vote. In the first instance, the security of the silver, was most

probably the motive for its transference. After the election the Pope

would naturally wish to reward his most useful supporter; and no doubt

left the silver[22] with Cardinal Sforza-Visconti while bestowing on him

other and more proportionate acknowledgments.

In the Conclave, if one can believe reports, there was no less

excitement. All the sombre dignity of Spain left Cardinal Rodrigo at the

supreme moment of his life. He showed himself as just a human man,

successful in the most daring, most immense, of all ambitions, when his

quondam colleagues lowered their green or purple canopies to his, as he

joyfully cried: “We are Pope and Vicar of Christ!”

The cardinals knelt at His feet, and Cardinal Sforza-Visconti said that

undoubtedly the election was the work of God. Then the new Pope

recovered at least decorum of speech, replying that He was conscious of

His Own weakness, and relied entirely upon Divine Guidance; but His

order to Monsignor Burchard, the Caerimonarius, to write His name on

little slips of paper, and fling them from a window for the satisfaction

of the citizens who swarmed impatiently outside the Vatican; and His

haste to retire behind the altar for the purpose of changing His

cardinalitial scarlet for the papal habit of white taffetas with

cincture, rochet of fair linen, embroidered crimson stola, house-cap,

almuce, and shoes of ermine and crimson velvet (of which vestments three

sizes are prepared, to suit the stature of any Pope); this order and

this haste shew that the Pope’s Holiness was most deeply moved, as any

human being well might be.

Outside, Rome rejoiced. Inside, the cardinals asked what name the Pope

would choose, suggesting Calixtus as a compliment to His dead Uncle and

Creator, Who had brought Him first to Rome. But, now, the Pontiff had

regained His magnificent composure, and He answered mightily: “We desire

the name of the Invincible Alexander.” Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici, a

clever, serious boy of the age of seventeen years, whispered to Cardinal

Cibo: “Now we are in the jaws of a ravening wolf, and if we do not flee

he will devour us.” But the gigantic Cardinal Sanseverini lifted the

Lord Alexander P.P. VI in his strong arms and throned Him on the altar;

and the Sacred College paid Him the first adoration, kissing the cross

embroidered on His shoe and on the ends of the stola at His knee, and

the Ring of the Fisherman on His right forefinger, while

Cardinal-Archdeacon Franceso de’ Piccolhuomini and the second

Cardinal-Deacon made proclamation to the crowd at the re-opened door of

the Conclave:

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

Vicechancellor-Cardinal-Dean Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja, Who wills to be

called Alexander the Sixth.”

[23]And, incontinent, says Monsignor Hans Burchard the vulgar

tittle-tattling Caerimonarius, (wilfully misquoting the Vulgate Psalm

cxi. 9,) having assumed the papal power, _dispersit et dedit pauperibus

bona sua_, He hath dispersed, He hath given to the poor, his goods.

(_Authorised Version_, _Psalm_ cxii. 9.) To Cardinal Orsini He gave the

Vicechancellor’s palace of San Lorenzo _in Damaso_, the fortalices of

Soria and Monticelli, the revenues of the cathedral of Cartagena in

Spain, worth five thousand ducats (which He had been administering for

Don Cesare (detto Borgia) in accordance with the Breves of the Lords

Xystus P.P. IV and Innocent P.P. VIII), and the legation of the Mark of

Ancona. To Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti He gave His new palace

on Banchi Vecchi (_v._ p. 67), the town of Nepi, the revenues of the

cathedral of Agria in Hungary, worth ten thousand ducats, and named him,

at the age of thirty-seven years, Vicechancellor of the Holy Roman

Church. To Cardinal Colonna He gave the Abbacy of Subjaco with all its

fortresses and rights of patronage, confirming the same to his house for

ever. To Cardinal Riarjo He gave the huge palace in Trastevere (now

Corsini) vacated by Cardinal Sforza-Visconti, benefices in Spain

producing four thousand ducats yearly revenue, and confirmed him in his

office of Cardinal-Chamberlain. To Cardinal Savelli He gave the

legations of Perugia and Civita Castellana, including twenty towns and a

revenue of three thousand ducats; and to other cardinals the remainder

of the preferments which He now vacated.

If these gifts were given and taken as the price of votes, then an

enormous act of Simony technically was committed, the buying and selling

of ecclesiastical power. Afterwards, His enemies continually were

charging Him with Simony; but, at the time, no serious accusation was

made. Even the four cardinals, who had announced that they did not

intend to be bribed, voted for the Lord Alexander P.P. VI. And here it

may be noticed, that though Simony, by the Bull of the Lord Julius P.P.

II _De Simoniaca Electione_, is held to invalidate an ecclesiastical

election; yet the said Bull was not issued until after the death of the

Lord Alexander P.P. VI, and was not retrospective in effect, although

the vehement personal hatred of Julius for Alexander, hatred worthy

rather of Carthaginian Hannibal than of the Vicar of the Prince of

Peace, leaves no doubt whatever of the intention to defile the memory of

the preceding Pontiff with an insinuation which never has been made

valid. Under these circumstances, it perhaps may be permitted to those

irrational persons who habitually usurp the functions of the Eternal

Judge, and who already have condemned the Borgia Pontiff, to remember

that, if this election was invalidated and annulled by Simony, He never

was a Pope at all, and therefore cannot be blamed, attacked, condemned,

in a papal capacity. Much satisfaction of a kind may be derived from

that reflection. At the same time, though the theory might be allowed

for private consumption, as a “pious opinion” distinguished from a

“dogma,” it would be highly injudicious to court collision with another

Bull—the Bull _Execrabilis_ of the Lord Pius P.P. II—which provides all

proclaimed aspersions of the Popes with pains and penalties. But when

all has been considered, no evidence is forthcoming to prove that a

single cardinal sold—_sold_—his vote to Cardinal Rodrigo buying. None

but a purchased or unpurchased cardinal can testify that he sold, or did

not sell; and none of these have testified. That the new Pope gave great

gifts is not denied. Popes always do. They cannot help Themselves. The

Lord Alexander P.P. VI vacated so much preferment, that He had much to

give. To give that preferment was one of the duties of His office; and,

naturally, He gave it to His friends, and not to His single enemy and

envious rival, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, who, in revenge, alleged

Simony.

* * * * *

The Lord Innocent P.P. VIII died on the twenty-fifth of July 1492. The

Lord Alexander P.P. VI began to reign on the eleventh of August. During

the seventeen days that intervened, while the city was under the rigid

rule of the white-faced Cardinal-Chamberlain Riarjo, a matter of some

two hundred and twenty assassinations took place: in such order had the

deceased Pope left His capital that more than nine murders were

committed every day among a population of a mere five and eighty

thousand. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI acted with decision to end this

abominable state of lawlessness. An assassin was caught redhanded—there

was no difficulty about that—he and his brother were forced to look on

while their house was rased to the ground (the worst disgrace possible

to a Roman); and then they were ceremoniously hanged among the ruins. A

commission was established to decide all quarrels, which, formerly, had

been settled by cold steel. Official inspectors of prisons were

appointed; arrears of official salaries paid up to date; and a bench of

four judges established for dealing with capital crimes. So the first

act of this pontificate was the restoration, at least provisionally, of

public order. The admiring Romans said that this vigorous administration

of justice was due to the direct disposing of the Almighty.

The coronation, on the steps before the Basilica of St. Peter in the

Vatican, of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI by the Cardinal-Archdeacon on the

twenty-sixth of August was a scene of unlimited magnificence, attended

by the Orators of the Powers who hailed the Pope with the most laudatory

congratulations. Canon Angelo Ambrogini (detto Poliziano), who spoke for

Siena, said :—

“Præstans animi magnitudo quae mortales crederes omnes

antecellere—Magna quaedam de te, rara, ardua, singularia,

incredibilia, inaudita, pollicentur.[24]

The Orator of Lucca said:—

“Quid iste tuus divinus, et maiestate plenus, aspectus?

The Orator of Genoa said:—

“Adeo virtutum gloria et disciplinarum laude, et vitae sanctimonia

decoraris, et adeo singularum ac omnium rerum ornamento dotaris, quae

talem summam ac venerandam dignitatem praebeant ut valde ab omnibus

ambigendum sit, tu ne magis pontificatui, an illa tibi sacratissima et

gloriosissima Papatus dignitas offerenda fuerit.

The Venetian Senate rejoiced:—

“propter divinas virtutes ac dotes quibus Ipsum insignitum et ornatum

conspiciebamus, videbatur a Divina Providentia talem Pastorem gregi,

dominio et sacrosancto Romanae Ecclesiae Vicarium Suum fuisse delectum

et praeordinatum.

Manfredi, the Ferrarese Orator at Florence, wrote to his Duchess:—

“Dicesi che sara glorioso pontifice!

[Illustration: _Alexander P.P. VI._]

Those words were re-echoed from Milan, from Naples, even from far

Germany, “They say that this will be a glorious Pontiff!” All who were

permitted to approach Him were enchanted by His magnificent presence and

His honeyed tongue; every one praised His talents, His notable mastery

of affairs, His active benevolence and beneficence. He was admired

because His habits were of the simplest kind, and His magnificence free

from prodigal ostentation: though it must be added that the Ferrarese

Orator said that people disliked dining with the Lord Alexander P.P. VI

because His meals consisted of a single dish. But Rome and Italy

generally were very proud of Him, because, at sixty-one years of age, He

combined the vigour of manhood’s prime with the wisdom of experience of

life. If peace could be maintained, while a strong hand guided politics,

the auspices were all propitious.

On the thirty-first of August, at the First Consistory, the Lord

Alexander P.P. VI named his nephew, Don Juan de Borja y Lançol (Giovanni

Borgia, detto Seniore) Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Susanna.

This Most Worshipful Purpled One was the son of the Pope’s sister, Doña

Juana. He had been Apostolic Prothonotary, Corrector of Pontifical

Breves, and Archbishop of Monreale, under the Lord Xystus P.P. IV; and

powerless Governor of Rome under the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII. He was a

great man of business, dexterous and capable with plenary powers, and

competent to deal with grave matters. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI, like

His August Uncle, lost no time in securing the services of blood

relation near to His Own person.

The chorus of flattery was not altogether free from discords. The

sinister Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, every day becoming more and

more aggrieved by the success of his abhorred rival, called for a

General Council (according to the ridiculous custom of his age) to

adjudge the Lord Alexander P.P. VI guilty of Simony. In Florence the

eccentric Fra Girolamo Savonarola, a friar of the Religion of St.

Dominic, was prophesying evil days. Lorenzo de’ Medici, “that monster of

genius,” was dead; and he, literally, had been the Keeper of the Peace.

His sons, Don Piero and Don Lorenzo Secondo, brothers to Cardinal

Giovanni, were no fit successors to their renowned father. Fra Girolamo

really ruled in Florence; and his rule was baneful, because he let his

personality over-ride his principles. Starting, a few years before, to

convert the sinners of Florence, he had preached naked Christianity.

When he had smitten many souls to penitence, his converts (in the manner

of converts) leaned upon him. He allowed himself to become a director.

From director it naturally was but a step to dictator: and there is the

human error of Fra Girolamo Savonarola. That is the point from which he

went astray. As dictator, he brought not peace but a sword—privilege of

not a human man. He ordained what the world calls eccentricities; he

became impatient of opinion, of resistance, of control; his penitents

were the Salvation Army of the fifteenth century, making singular

exhibitions of frenetic benevolence. He had made himself, by perfectly

legal means, independent of his local Dominican superiors; the

Archbishop of the province had no jurisdiction over him; he was subject

only to the General of Dominicans and to the Pope in Rome. He was

absolutely sincere; he was a fervent Catholic; of his bonafides there

can be no doubt whatever. He had no attraction of manner; his personal

aspect was vulgar, terrible, appalling. Yet there must have been some

charm in his teaching, for great and holy men left all to follow him;

Messer Alessandro Filipepi (detto Botticelli) joined him. And now he

claimed to be the prophet of the Most High, prophesying of evils at the

door.

* * * * *

Milan menaced the peace of Italy. By the assassination of Duke Galeazzo

Maria Sforza-Visconti in 1476, the duchy passed to his infant son Duke

Giangaleazzo; whose widowed mother, the Duchess Bona of Savoja, ruled as

Regent. Four brothers of her dead husband conspired against her; and in

1479, the eldest, Don Ludovico Maria Sforza-Visconti (detto Il Moro),

took possession of her child and deprived her of the regency. Cardinal

Ascanio Maria, brother of Il Moro, exerted himself in Rome to obtain

confirmation of this heartless deed. Duchess Bona, distracted when she

found her young son torn from her arms, knowing his infant life to be

the only bar between his uncle Don Ludovico Maria and the throne of

Milan, made frantic appeals for the intervention of France. But the

Christian King Louis XI died before he could reply to that poor mother:

and Don Ludovico Maria, as Regent, thrived, keeping the boy-duke at

Pavia in a palace that was, in fact, a prison, in conditions not cruel

nor fatal but assuredly not ducal, nor suited to the enjoyment and

maintenance of life. In 1489 Duke Giangaleazzo reached the age of twenty

years; and then it was remembered that his mother; the Duchess Bona, had

affianced him in his infancy to Madonna Isabella, daughter of the heir

of Naples, Duke Don Alonso de Aragona of Calabria. There appeared to be

no reason why Don Ludovico Maria should exacerbate the royal House of

Naples by interference with the keeping of this contract; the boy was

eager, the girl was marriageable; and the wedding was celebrated with

appropriate pomp. The usurping Regent insisted, however, that, as the

young Duke was a minor, he should still remain in the condition of a

ward; and the newly-wedded children retired to try conjugal life at

Pavia. A year later, 1492, a son was born; and then Duke Giangaleazzo,

by paternity emboldened into manlihood, became restive against his

uncle’s yoke, protesting that he no longer would submit to the treatment

of a boy. But Don Ludovico was well aware that long confinement shortens

life; and he had kept his nephew a prisoner for ten years. He was not

precisely of the stuff of which murderers are made; or a knife-blade

delicately pushed between the youngster’s neck and spine long ago would

have made the sceptre of Milan his. As Regent he had absolute power; and

he was well content to wait. So he took no notice of Duke Giangaleazzo’s

remonstrances; and, to pass the time, he practised marriage in his

proper person, wedding the lovely Madonna Beatrice d’Este of Ferrara in

1491. (Don Francesco Sforza, son of Don Bosio Sforza and Madonna Cecilia

Aldobrandeschi, heiress of Santafiora, the kinsman of Don Ludovico

Maria, who arranged this marriage, was the Orator of Milan at the

coronation of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI in 1492.) After the nuptials of

the usurping Regent, the young Duke Giangaleazzo resigned himself to

bear his lot. But his wife was furious, and thought of the interests of

her baby son. “In real truth,” cried Madonna Isabella to her feeble

spouse, “thou art Duke of Milan, and I thy Duchess. But thou art content

to abide in Pavia while that Black, Don Ludovico, ruleth in thy duchy,

and seateth Madonna Beatrice near him in my place on thy throne. I will

have that girl to know that she is no duchess, and that I, I Isabella,

am Duchess of Milan.” And the lady wrote to her father, Don Alonso de

Aragona Duke of Calabria, who was heir to the crown of the Regno,

inciting him to resent the insult put upon her, his daughter, to end the

usurpation of Don Ludovico Maria, and to restore Duke Giangaleazzo to

his duchy.

Duke Don Alonso was not unwilling. War was imminent between Naples and

Milan. Then the Pope died; the Lord Alexander P.P. VI succeeded Him;

and, it being an age when the Pope frankly was admitted to be Ruler of

the World, Father of princes and of kings, etc., all Italy and

Christendom waited to know the new Pope’s pleasure.

This was the first of a series of extremely delicate positions in which

the Lord Alexander P.P. VI found Himself involved. On the one hand, the

Papacy was at peace with Naples. On the other, the Pope’s Holiness found

His brilliant young Vicechancellor-Cardinal Ascanio Maria

Sforza-Visconti to be exceedingly valuable; and he was own brother to

that Don Ludovico Maria (detto Il Moro) against whom Naples was invoked.

Momentous consequences waited on His action.

* * * * *

On the eleventh of December 1492, there arrived in Rome Don Federigo de

Aragona, Prince of Altamura, second son of King Don Ferrando I,

ostensibly to offer to the Pope’s Holiness the obedience of Naples, with

congratulations on His coronation. The royal envoy sumptuously was

entertained by Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, whose chief occupations

at this period appear to have been the feeling of the pulses of the

Powers, and the search for a potentate willing to be used against the

Borgia.

Manifestations of goodwill between Papacy and Regno pleased the Romans.

The frontier of Naples was but a day’s ride from Rome; and the Romans

liked to feel that beyond that frontier flourished a friend, not lurked

a foe. In private audience, however, Don Federigo said that the

assistance of the Pope’s Holiness was required in a family affair; and

he made it clear that the attitude of Regno to Papacy would be

determined by the extent to which the Lord Alexander P.P. VI would go on

behalf of Naples.

This was the case in question. King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary had

married Madonna Beatrice, a bastard of King Don Ferrando I. On the death

of King Matthias Corvinus, his childless widow Queen Beatrice had

intrigued to get the Hungarian crown settled upon King Wladislaw of

Bohemia, who, in return for her Majesty’s services, had promised to

marry her. Such a promise of marriage was equivalent to a betrothal, and

a betrothal was only less binding than an actual marriage in that it was

capable of being dissolved; whereas a marriage was, and is,

indissoluble. King Wladislaw of Bohemia had been crowned King of Hungary

through the exertions of Queen Beatrice. She, preferring the situation

of Queen Regnant to that of Queen Dowager, had performed her part of the

contract; and now King Wladislaw had changed his mind, and was about to

ask the Pope for a dispensation from the obligation of fulfilling his

promise of marriage. This was a grievous insult to the bastard of the

King of Naples, whose counterpetition to the Lord Alexander P.P. VI was

that no such dispensation should be granted to King Wladislaw, and that

he should be compelled to perform his part of the bargain. Nothing was

said at this time regarding the affair of the Duchess Isabella of Milan,

in which the Regno also was interested. The cases of queens take

precedence of those of duchesses.

The Lord Alexander P.P. VI, with the experience of seven and thirty

years of curial diplomacy behind Him, required time in which to reflect

upon His answer; and would enter into no immediate engagement with the

Neapolitan prince. Don Federigo, who imagined that the Regno had but to

ask and have, was much aggrieved; and his host, Cardinal Giuliano della

Rovere, inflamed him with sardonic sympathy, and eyed the Regno, for a

purpose, from that day forward. An uncouth pugnacious schemer was this

Most Illustrious Lord Cardinal. As a captain of condottieri he might

have captured a kingdom: but as an ecclesiastic he was at all times

utterly disedifying. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI seems to have treated

him with admirable forbearance, with contemptuous indifference, than

which no attitude is more calculated to sting and irritate an angry

mediocrity. He had been allowed to proceed in his turn to the

cardinal-bishopric of Ostia without let or hindrance: he had rank,

riches, and power. But he was discontented, jealous, filled with envy,

hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness.

* * * * *

It is imperatively important to be able to distinguish between the

Office and the Man; and to avoid the excessively vulgar error of

confounding the general with the particular. The pontifical acts of

Rodrigo, Who is called Alexander P.P. VI, will compare favourably with

those of any Supreme Pontiff, from Simon, Who is called Peter P.P., to

Gioacchino Vincenzo Rafaele Luigi, Who is called Leo P.P. XIII. His

comportment as man, and Italian despot, is another matter. The just

necessity of the distinction insistently is laid upon the student of His

history.

Man does not yearn to please a person who is playing ugly tricks upon

him. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI particularly did not yearn to please the

King of Naples. While the envoy of the Regno was displaying his royal

father’s petition at the feet of the Father of princes and of kings, the

Pope’s Holiness was digesting news of a trick which had been played upon

Him by the intrigues of King Don Ferrando I.

Don Franciotto Cibo, bastard of the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII, had been

enriched by his Father with the lordships of Cervetri and Anguillara.

These were pontifical fiefs, held by feudal tenure from the Pope. Being

a silly avaricious weakling, rather frightened of the responsibility of

baronage, Don Franciotto Cibo sold the said lordships to Don Virginio

Orsini for forty thousand ducats; and went to live at Florence under the

protection of his brother-in-law Don Piero de’ Medici. Now Don Virginio

Orsini had borrowed those forty thousand ducats from the King of Naples,

who was his firm friend, and perfectly qualified to understand the loan

to be a super-excellent investment. The lordships of Cervetri and

Anguillara lay between the Regno and the territories of the Republic of

Florence; and their transference into the hands of Orsini, Naples’

friend, signified the opening of a road from Naples into Tuscany, along

which a Neapolitan army easily might travel, should King Don Ferrando be

pleased to campaign in a northerly direction.

It was Don Ludovico Maria Sforza-Visconti (detto Il Moro), the usurping

Regent of Milan, who first saw the serious portent of this move: but,

though he communicated his discovery to the Holiness of the Pope, he

laboured under a slight misapprehension; for usurpers are the most

touchy of mankind, and see an enemy in everything which they do not

understand. The northern frontier of Tuscany impinged upon the southern

frontier of Milan. Now that the southern frontier of Tuscany was

connected, by Cervetri and Anguillara, with the Regno, Don Ludovico

Maria suspected an alliance between Don Piero de’ Medici and King Don

Ferrando I, between Tuscany and Naples, an alliance which most possibly

implied designs detrimental to the duchy of Milan—after all the real

Duchess Isabella was Naples’ bastard, thought Don Ludovico Maria, the

usurper—; and he envoyed swift couriers to his brother the

Vicechancellor-Cardinal in Rome, with instructions to advise the Pope’s

Holiness of the imbroglio.

That was the news of which the Lord Alexander P.P. VI chewed the cud at

the time when He gave audience to the Prince of Altamura. With His

magnificent talent for resolving diplomatic problems into their

elements, from which He could discard those that He deemed useless while

reserving those possessing salient features, the Pope’s Holiness

concluded that the politics of Milan, of Tuscany, of the Regno, and the

affairs of their respective rulers, were of secondary importance and

altogether negligeable; but that the secret unauthorised transfer of

papal fiefs into the hands of dangerous malcontents of the very powerful

House of Orsini, required prompt decisive assertion of the rights of the

Pontifical Suzerain.

At the beginning of 1493, Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti was

found to be urging the Supreme Pontiff to act against the illegal

transfer of Cervetri and Anguillara. Loyalty to his brother, the

usurping Regent of Milan, and his duty as Vicechancellor bound to

maintain the paramountcy of the Holy Roman Church—these make clear his

point of view.

A clashing of interests between Papacy and Regno was an opportunity

which Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere greatly relished. He did not

hesitate to take the part of Naples. If he had one enemy whom he hated

as perfervidly as he hated the Pope, that enemy was Cardinal Ascanio

Maria Sforza-Visconti whose exertions on behalf of his rival had

deprived him of the tiara or triregno; and, having sworn that either he

or Sforza-Visconti should quit the Sacred College, he avidly seized the

present chance of belabouring the cardinal as well as the Pope. He had

the support of Orsini, naturally. Colonna, always more Ghibelline than

Guelf, was not unwilling to espouse the cause of a man who went about

saying that the Pope’s Holiness was plotting to ruin his reputation—his

reputation!—and to deprive him of his dignities: and hence arose a very

singular and unusual combination.

The Papacy generally has been allied with Colonna or with Orsini. Such

was the importance of these houses, that during many hundred years all

European treaties and concordats contained their names on one side or

the other. But here, for once in their mysterious and interminable feud,

these mighty barons of Rome, with all their collateral branches and

their myriads of armed retainers, were found united in a common cause.

The phenomenon may be explained by the rise of other baronial houses,

who were becoming quite as numerous and quite as potent as Colonna or

Orsini; and who were equally desirable as allies. The most prominent of

these, in 1493, were the Sforza and the Cesarini. The Sforza descended

from Don Giovanni Muzio Attendolo (detto Sforza); and included the

Sovereign-Duchy of Milan, by the marriage of the great Francesco with

the heiress of Duke Giangaleazzo Visconti; the Sovereign-County of

Santafiora, by the marriage of Francesco’s brother Bosio with the

heiress of Aldobrandeschi; and the Tyrannies of Pesaro, Chotignuola,

Imola and Forli. The Sforza blazon the lion rampant with the holy flower

of the quince for Santafiora, and the salvage boy couped at the thighs

issuant from a serpent statant for Milan. The Cesarini were a Roman

house of enormous wealth and distinction, claiming a Cesarian origin. It

was already allied with the Lord Alexander P.P. VI by the marriage in

1482 of His bastard Madonna Girolama Borgia with Don Giovandrea

Cesarini. Its representative, Don Gabriele Cesarini, was the

Gonfaloniere of Rome, who fought the Prior of the Caporioni for

precedence at the coronation of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, Who, in

person, accorded the first place to Cesarini. Don Giangiorgio Cesarini,

the heir, was allied with Sforza by marriage with Madonna Maria Sforza

di Guido di Santafiora; and Don Giuliano Cesarini held office in the

Apostolic Chamber. It was a house which, during centuries, had been

content with secondary rank, while accumulating immense reserves of

power, now to be brought into action. These were the two patrician

Houses which the Pope’s Holiness found ready to His hand when Colonna

leagued with Orsini against His peace. In fact, Sforza and Cesarini were

the right and left hands of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, as Colonna or

Orsini were of His predecessors and successors.

Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, after relieving himself of some

treasonable speeches, considered Rome to be unsafe; and fled down Tiber

to his bishopric of Ostia, where he fortified himself and advertised for

mercenaries.

The word war, to the bloody men of valour of the end of the fifteenth

century, signified a game like that of chess. The sole object of war was

profit. It was undertaken simply to deprive an enemy of his goods.

Prisoners were captured, and held to ransom. Cities and fortresses were

reduced by starvation, or by a display of overwhelming force. But

bloodshed—and this is noteworthy—was avoided as far as possible; and the

game chiefly was played by strategic marches, counter-marches, and

manœuvres. It was a business, a profession, “not more hazardous than

that of a professional football-player.” The superfluous men of Europe,

and the temperamental fighters, served as hired mercenaries under the

captains and the princes who could pay their price and afford them a

roystering life. Patriotism, the honour of the fatherland, were unknown.

Except in the case of England, there was no national army. When a

position had been won, a city captured, the conquerors satisfied

themselves with the ransoms and the richest spoils. If the citizens

wished to avoid the inconvenience of a sack, they collected a sum

sufficient to pay off the rank and file. Otherwise the mercenaries took

the women, and had licence to recoup themselves by pillage. Resistance

meant torture and death: but bloodshed was an accident, not an essential

of war.

The action of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere was an invitation to the

Lord Alexander P.P. VI to engage in war. He had thrown down the

gauntlet. He had made the first move in the game; and his gambit was a

very fine one, for the fortress of Ostia dominated Tiber mouth, and

enabled him to paralyse Rome by stopping sea-borne supplies.

Like all important characters, the Pope’s Holiness was neurotic; not by

any means a coward, but quick to scent danger, susceptible of momentary

fright. Early in the spring of 1493 He was going to a picnic, at the

villa which the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII had built for pontifical

refreshment at La Magliana, outside the walls; and when a cannon saluted

His approach He was stricken with a sudden panic, and galloped back to

the Vatican amid the frank execrations of His escort disappointed of

their dinner.

Here was the situation. The Pope was comfortably embroiled with Cardinal

Giuliano della Rovere and his allies of Naples, of Colonna, of Orsini.

To some extent His interests tied Him to Sforza and Milan. Tuscany was

undecided between the Pope and Naples. The other Powers looked on.

While Don Ludovico Maria Sforza-Visconti was suggesting an alliance

between the Pope, the duchy of Milan, and the Republic of Venice, to

overawe the Neapolitan Bond, King Don Ferrando was intriguing with a

view to discover whether he could make a better bargain with the

Sovereign Pontiff than with Colonna + Orsini + della Rovere. This was

not treachery. It was merely the Neapolitan method, of which all Italy

was fully cognizant. The King’s Majesty sent envoys to Rome, to Milan,

and to Tuscany, to try to settle the Cervetri-Anguillara affair by

pacific means.

The Lord Alexander P.P. VI was well aware that no confidence could be

placed in King Don Ferrando I: but by way of giving him a chance He

proposed a marriage between His bastard, Don Gioffredo Borgia, now of

the age of twelve years, and Madonna Lucrezia, a grand-daughter of the

Majesty of Naples. At the same time He gathered troops and fortified the

Vatican and the Mola of Hadrian, with the gallery-passage, called Lo

Andare, which connects them, enabling Pope and cardinals to run, in time

of danger, from the Apostolic Palace to the impregnable fortress tomb by

Tiber.

The Republic of Venice flung itself into the arms of Don Ludovico Maria

Sforza-Visconti; for the Doge and Senate were dreadfully afraid lest the

impassioned appeals of the Duchess Isabella on behalf of her husband,

the pathetic Duke Giangaleazzo, should receive the attention of Naples.

If the said Duke Giangaleazzo should come to owe his throne to King Don

Ferrando I, then Milan would be, to all intents and purposes, a fief of

the Regno; and to have Naples lording it in Northern Italy would by no

means satisfy Venice, which, on this account, preferred alliance with

the usurping Regent, even at the cost of winking at his usurpation of

the Regency of Milan. Now Milan and Venice in alliance were a menace to

their own neighbours; and, acting on the principle that made those two

Powers one, the duchies of Mantua and Ferrara, and the Republic of

Siena, hastened to fall into line with them. This concatenation, being

superior to anything that Naples could exhibit, also caused the Lord

Alexander P.P. VI to arrive at a decision: and, on the twenty-fifth of

April 1493, accompanied by an armed cavalcade of Sforza and Cesarini for

the ocular instruction of Colonna and Orsini, the Holiness of the Pope

proceeded through Rome to the Venetian church of San Marco, on Piazza

Venezia, where He ceremonially published the Bull of League between the

Papacy, the duchies of Milan, Mantua, and Ferrara, and the Republics of

Venice and Siena; after which, the river-port of Rome at Ostia being in

His enemies’ hands, He began to fortify the land-port of Rome at Civita

Vecchia, by way of giving effect to His warlike proclamation.

At this call of check, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere howled aloud for a

General Council to depose the Lord Alexander P.P. VI; and Don Alonso de

Aragona, Duke of Calabria, wanted immediately to unite with Don Piero

de’ Medici and the Signoria of Florence, and, aided by the Colonna of

Paliano and Marino and the Orsini of Gravina and Bracciano, to assault

Rome from the outer side, while Colonna + Orsini, who were in the city,

engaged in similar diversions. But King Don Ferrando was too sly. He had

yet another piece to play. He knew, and none knew better, that the

territories of the Holy See during a long course of centuries had been

distributed among pontifical relatives and favourites; that, at present,

the States of the Church were smaller than an ordinary duchy; and he had

heard of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI as a singularly affectionate father,

devoted to His children’s interests. Wherefore the Majesty of Naples

conceived, and with absolute correctness, that the Pope’s Holiness

intended, by hook or by crook, by diplomacy, by marriages, or by war, to

recover the possessions of the Papacy, and to use them to promote the

fortunes of His family. Secondly, King Don Ferrando I knew France to be

Milan’s northern neighbour; and he saw the exceeding possibility of an

alliance between the usurping Regent, Don Ludovico Maria

Sforza-Visconti, and the Christian King Charles VIII of France; a

combination which, with the Papacy, the duchies, and republics, already

joined in league, would be absolutely and permanently overwhelming and

disintegrating to the very Regno itself. To turn the flank, as it were,

to give France occupation in another direction, he resolved on courting

an alliance with Spain.

To this end he indited an invective against the Lord Alexander P.P. VI,

adopting all the gratuitous insults and lying babble foamed out by the

malignant Cardinal-Bishop Giuliano della Rovere. “He leads a life that

is abhorred by all, without respect to the seat He holds.” [Compare the

speeches of the Orators and contemporary dispatches.] “He cares for

nothing save to aggrandise His children by fair means or by foul.” [So

far He had done nothing at all, by foul means or by fair, for His

children; except to deprive His reputed bastard Don Cesare (detto

Borgia) of the revenues of the cathedral of Cartagena, in favour of that

very Cardinal Giambattista Orsini who now deserted Him.] “From the

beginning of His pontificate He has done nothing but disturb the peace.”

[This is partly true. The Pope’s Holiness wonderfully had done more than

any preceding Pontiff to restore good government and order and security

to Rome. But He had behaved, in a certain instance, in a way that was

extremely offensive to the Spanish ideal of peace. According to the

notions of King Don Ferrando I de Aragona, himself a Spaniard—according

to Spanish notions, and the Majesty of Naples was a Spaniard writing to

Spaniards—the Lord Alexander P.P. VI was indeed a disturber of the

peace. But the facts are these. In 1492, the horrible Spanish

Inquisition—that frightful and diabolical atrocity constantly condemned

by Rome—under the guidance of the Grand Inquisitor Torquemada, had

procured the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. The Spaniards have much

of the Moor, a touch of the oriental, the element of the human devil, in

their blood. Throughout Christendom the Jews were looked upon with

horror, by no means undeserved. Many long years before, England had cast

them out; and now they were forced from Spain. The sufferings, with

which the fiendish Spaniard visited them, were so fearful as to excite

pity even in Papal Italy, whose loathing of Jews was a habit of mind, an

article of faith, not an inhuman vice. Messer Giovanni Pico della

Mirandola (detto Fenice degli Ingegni) said:—

“The sufferings of the Jews, in which the glory of Divine Justice

delights, were so extreme as to fill us Christians with commiseration.

Senarega said:—

“The matter (_i.e._, the expulsion of the Jews) at first sight seemed

praiseworthy as regarding the honour done to our religion; yet it

involved some amount of cruelty, if we look upon them (the Jews) not

as beasts but as men, the handiwork of God.

Many of this miserable race came to Rome, where, under the expressed

order of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, they were protected, and allowed to

share in that security of life and limb which He, at the beginning of

His pontificate, had ordained. The Romans did not like these Marañas, as

the Moorish Jews were called, any more than they liked, or like,

Catalans, or Franks, or Goths, or any other foreigners save the

English-speaking race; and, following hereditary instinct, there were

occasional attempts at persecution, the rigorous stamping out of which,

by the justice of the Pope, caused intermittent rioting and disaffection

of the citizens who only could look upon the Jews as fair game. That was

the only disturbance of the peace with which King Don Ferrando could

charge the Holy Father; and it was an act of justice and humanity. But

the fifteenth century, in common with the nineteenth (the twentieth is

too young yet to be judged), was very wont to give a bad name to the dog

that it had failed to hang.]

* * * * *

Any success that might have attended the rabid calumnies of the Majesty

of Naples was prevented by an occurrence of the most startling species.

A mariner of Genoa, called Messer Cristoforo Colombi, announced to the

Spanish Court, in March 1493, the astounding news of his discovery of a

continent. An explorer’s ardour, combined with religious zeal, had made

him seek to extend the boundaries of Christendom. He had set out in the

hope of finding a few islands. He returned to Europe solemnly asserting

that he had found a world. Universal curiosity was awakened, and a fresh

expedition planned, with which the intrepid mariner set forth on a

second voyage to prove, and to secure, his prize. Meanwhile, Don

Hernando and Doña Isabella, the Catholic King and Queen of Spain,

thought it would be prudent to bind this new world to their domain by a

bond that easily could not be broken. The Pope, as Ruler of the World

and Earthly Vicar of Jesus Christ, was held to have authority over all

heathen lands, and to His Holiness an envoy went from Spain commissioned

to announce the discovery, and to pray Him graciously to confirm it to

the Catholic King and Queen.

_Precipitevolissimevolmente_ (no other word describes the act) was

issued a Bull, dated “At Rome by St. Peter’s, the year of our Lord’s

Incarnation, 1493, the fourth day of the nones of May, and the first

year of Our pontificate,” giving to Don Hernando and to Doña Isabella,

and to their heirs and successors, all islands and continents,

discovered or yet to be discovered, in the western ocean, west and south

of a line to be drawn from the North Pole to the South Pole, one hundred

leagues west of the Açores and Cape Verde Islands. The language of this

Bull is exquisitely touching; strong, pregnant, earnest, and majestic,

as the Authorised Version of the Epistles of St. Paul. The motive

undoubtedly is the motive of an Apostle to convert a world to Christ.

The grant is made to the Majesty of Spain, with commands to send honest

God-fearing learned and expert men to teach the Christian Faith; and the

penalty of excommunication _latae sententiae_ is imposed upon anyone,

even royal or imperial, who shall interfere. This supremely beautiful

Pontifical Act, the Bull _Inter caetera_ of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI,

is given verbatim in Raynaldus, sub anno 1493. So in return for the

Borgia, which Spain gave to Italy, Italy and the Borgia gave Messer

Cristoforo Colombi and the New World to Spain.

Don Hernando and Doña Isabella, the Catholic King and Queen, were

Spaniards. And when that is said all is said; and all the hideous

history of the New World under Spanish domination is explained. Those

sovereigns bore no goodwill for the Lord Alexander P.P. VI although He

was a Spaniard. They, like every other sovereign of Europe, were quite

prepared to harass and to flout an unobliging Pope up to the verge of

excommunications and interdicts; when they, of course, would cringe and

cower like the villainous usurper John Plantagenet: but the quick

granting of their petition in this matter of the New World, the immense

distinction which the Bull _Inter caetera_ conferred on them and on

Spain, turned them, from suitors prepared with impertinence, into the

abjectly devoted adherents of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, at least for

the time; and absolutely prevented King Don Ferrando’s application for

an anti-pontifical alliance from meeting with success. This, no doubt,

is that on which the Pope’s Holiness counted. Very seldom in life does a

man so clearly see his duty with the certainty of reward for its prompt

performance. And very rarely, in the pontificate of the Lord Alexander

P.P. VI, did He deign, so immediately and so unreservedly, to grant a

favour. He must have perceived, with that marvellous instinct of His,

which led Him inevitably to the very roots of matters, that for once the

paths of duty and of pleasure coincided. Certainly He unhesitatingly

walked therein.

* * * * *

On the twelfth of June the Lord Alexander P.P. VI married His bastard,

Madonna Lucrezia Borgia, of the age of fifteen years, to the Tyrant of

Pesaro, Don Giovanni Sforza, of the age of twenty-six years, with all

the magnificence due to His secular rank as an Italian despot; and

thereby set wagging the tongues of those who lamented the decay of

ecclesiastical discipline, and who could not distinguish between the

dual and contradictory offices which the Pope was expected to reconcile;

as well as the pens of professional manufacturers of squibs and

lampoons. The wedding-banquet took place at the Vatican, in the presence

of the Pope, ten cardinals, and fifteen Roman patricians with their

wives. The Holy Father presented to the ladies silver cups filled with

sweetmeats, throwing them into their bosoms _ad honorem et laudem

Omnipotentis Dei et Ecclesiae Romanae_, says the golden-mouthed,

venomous, untrustworthy historian, Messer Stefano Infessura. In the

evening there was dancing, with comedies of the conventional coarse but

common type. This event is one of the bases from which disgusting

charges have been levelled against the Lord Alexander P.P. VI. It

summarily may be stated that those charges consist entirely of the

unprintable gossip of enemies or inferiors, and that not one of them

satisfactorily can be proved. That the Vicar of Christ should have

condescended so far is impossible; that a temporal sovereign should have

condescended so far is probable, and, perhaps, regrettable; but the

status of the guests, the ten cardinals, and the fifteen Roman

patricians with their wives, guarantees the utter respectability of the

Despot’s little private party from a contemporary point of view.

* * * * *

In June, also, arrived in Rome Don Diego Lopez de Haro to offer to the

Holiness of the Pope the homage and obedience of Spain. These having

been accepted, the Orator proceeded to remonstrate with the Pope, in the

name of the Catholic King and Queen, regarding the asylum extended to

the Marañas who were fled from the Spanish Inquisition to Rome.

Thousands of these unfortunates were encamped among the tombs on the

Appian Way, and had brought the plague with them. Spain execrated the

Papal tolerance, and wondered that the Holy Father, as the Head of

Christianity, should protect those whom Spain had driven away as being

enemies of the Christian Faith. Further, the Spanish Orator said that

the Christian King Charles VIII of France was threatening to invade

Italy and to take advantage of the quarrels of the Italian Powers;

wherefore he urged the necessity of peace, and an agreement among the

sovereigns of whom the Pope was chief. By way of showing that

concessions would ensure the unanimity of Italy, he set forth a list of

ecclesiastical grievances that needed remedies; grievances “which, since

the days of the Council of Constance, had been standing complaints

against the Papacy, to be urged in all negotiations for other purposes.”

(_Creighton_ iv. 199.)

* * * * *

Publicly Don Ludovico Maria Sforza-Visconti harped upon the league

between Venice, Milan, and the Papacy. Privately he entered into a

secret treaty with the Christian King Charles VIII through Belgioso,

Orator of Milan. Being an usurper he trusted not even his allies:

preferring to have two strings to his bow, he believed that he could

consolidate his position only by disturbing the peace of Italy.

Publicly, from his fortress of Ostia, that psychic epileptic, Cardinal

Giuliano della Rovere, continued to shout for a General Council to

depose his Rival. The abominable character of this cardinal well may be

exposed by stating that he was endeavouring to rend the Church and

Christendom with a Fortieth Schism, in order to satiate his personal

revenge.

And, like Gallio, the Pope’s Holiness cared for none of these things—for

Spain, for Milan, for the contemptible cardinal. He believed in Himself,

and in His Own power to rule. At least, He officially had been saluted

as Ruler of the World.

The intrigues and invectives of the King of Naples deservedly having

failed, his Majesty made the experiment of a hostile demonstration. His

second son, Prince Don Federigo of Altamura appeared with eleven galleys

at Ostia on Tiber mouth; and rapturously was hailed by that

traitor-cardinal-bishop, with the Colonna and Don Virginio Orsini.

The Lord Alexander P.P. VI was willing to negotiate. Borgian

negotiations invariably meant that Borgia would give its opponents

something, but not the something that they wanted, and always in such a

way that it could not be refused. The Naples + Colonna + Orsini +

Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere conspiracy had demanded Cervetri and

Anguillara for Orsini (and Naples) and the disgrace of the

Vicechancellor-Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti to satisfy the

spleen of him of Ostia. On the twenty-fourth of July the cardinal, the

Neapolitan prince, and Don Virginio Orsini came to Rome to hear the

pontifical terms, which were:—

(α) That the Pope’s Holiness would confirm Cervetri and Anguillara to

Don Virginio for life; at his death they would revert to the

Holy See: but he must pay into the pontifical treasury their

price of forty thousand ducats, which he previously had paid to

Don Franciotto Cibo:

(β) That the Pope’s Holiness was willing to forgive and to show favour

to Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere: but He refused to disgrace

the Vicechancellor-Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti:

(γ) That the Pope’s Holiness would consent to ally Himself with the

Royal House of Naples by the marriage of His bastard, Don

Gioffredo Borgia, to Madonna Sancia, bastard of Don Alonso de

Aragona, Duke of Calabria and heir of King Don Ferrando I. This

agreement was ratified by betrothal; and Don Gioffredo set out

for Naples to see the girl, and to receive her dowry with the

title Prince of Squillace. The marriage was postponed for the

present, because neither bride nor bridegroom had completed

their thirteenth year.

No sooner was the treaty of peace signed, than the Sieur Perron de

Basche, Orator of the Christian King Charles VIII of France, arrived in

Rome, armed with instructions to prevent an alliance between Papacy and

Regno, and to obtain pontifical confirmation of the election, by the

Rouen chapter, of Messire Georges d’Amboise as Archbishop. The Supreme

Pontiff, by way of emphasising His independent attitude to France,

refused to receive the Orator in audience, annulled the election of

Messire Georges d’Amboise, and named one of His Own court to the

Archbishopric of Rouen. This was what the twentieth century timidly

calls an “unfriendly act”; and the Christian King forthwith began to

sympathise with Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere’s recent clamour for a

General Council to depose the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, and to meditate

thereon day and night.[25]

* * * * *

To strengthen His influence in the Sacred College by adding creatures of

His Own, at the Second Consistory of the twentieth of September 1493,

the Lord Alexander P.P. VI named twelve new cardinals.

These were:—

(α) The Lord John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord High

Chancellor of England, whose virtues have been praised

by another English Chancellor, the Blessed Sir Thomas

More;—Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Anastasia;

(β) The Lord Giovantonio di Sangiorgio;—Cardinal-Presbyter of the

Title of San Nereo e Sant’ Achilleo;

(γ) Frère Jean Villiers de la Grolaye, Lord Abbot of Saint Denys by

Paris;—Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Sabina;

(δ) The Lord Bernardino Lopez de Caravajal, Apostolic Legate to Caesar

Friedrich IV, the eloquent preacher at the Conclave of

1492;—Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Marcellino e San

Pietro:

(ε) The Lord Raymond Perauld,[26] a Frenchman, Apostolic Nuncio in

Germany;—Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Giovanni e San

Paolo:

(ζ) The Lord Cesare (detto Borgia), reputed bastard of the Lord

Alexander P.P. VI, and of the age of eighteen

years;—Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria _Nuova_:

(η) The Lord Ippolito d’Este, of the age of fifteen years, a great

athlete and fighter from boyhood to youth, and a prince of the

Royal House of Ferrara; “tall he was of frame, brawny of

sinew, mighty of limb, strengthening his robustitude with

exercises, archery, and hurling javelins; grace and charm

bloomed on the face of him; his bright eyes beamed with grave

tranquillity, worthy of all praise; most royal was his whole

aspect; he was an expert swimmer; and with whatsoever weapons

he adroitly strove he innured himself to heat and cold and

night-long vigils”;—Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Lucia _in Silice,

alias in Orfea_:

(θ) The Lord Fryderyk Kasimierz Jagelone di Polonia, son of King

Kasimierz of Poland, Bishop of Cracow;—Cardinal-Deacon of Santa

Lucia _in Septisolio, alias in Septizonio_:

(ι) The Lord Giuliano Cesarini (detto Giuniore), Apostolic

Prothonotary, Canon of the Vatican Basilica;—Cardinal-Deacon of

San Sergio e San Bacco:

(κ) The Lord Domenico Grimani, Apostolic Prothonotary;—Cardinal-Deacon

of San Niccolo _inter Imagines_:

(λ) The Lord Alessandro Farnese, Apostolic Prothonotary (nicknamed

“Cardinal Petticoat,” on account of the Pope’s partiality for

his sister, Madonna Giulia Orsini nata Farnese);—Cardinal-Deacon

of San Cosma e San Damiano:

(μ) The Lord Bernardino de’ Lunati, Apostolic Prothonotary, friend of

the Cardinal-Vicechancellor;—Cardinal-Deacon of San Ciriaco

_alle Terme Diocleziane_.[27]

The vigour of this deed struck Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere and his

friend King Don Ferrando into frantic silence. By a mere act of His

Sovereign Will the Holiness of the Pope immensely had increased His Own

potentiality. Two of the new creatures were scions of reigning

dynasties, whose loyalty thereby was secured. The virtue and eloquence

of the English cardinal were as twin towers of strength. The two French

creatures were as a sop to France. The minor diaconate conferred on Don

Cesare (detto Borgia) gave him a standing, from which the splendour of

his youth might do great things. And the other cardinals were proved

adherents, who, by being made to owe their promotion to the Lord

Alexander P.P. VI, became bound (in so far as human foresight went) to

His interests by the bond of gratitude. It was a most paralysing and

disheartening stroke for the enemies of the Sovereign Pontiff; and the

year 1493 ended amid renewed demands for a General Council from Cardinal

Giuliano della Rovere, and renewed invectives from the Majesty of

Naples.

* * * * *

On the twenty-fifth of January 1494, King Don Ferrando I died, in the

seventieth year of his age and the thirty-fifth of his reign. He was a

cautious and experienced politician; and, since the Lord Pius P.P. II,

Lorenzo de’ Medici, and the great Duke Francesco Sforza-Visconti, the

greatest secular statesman of his century. His policy was directed to

the preservation of Italy from French invasion, and to the destruction

of the Papal States. He was not harsh in his dealings with his

subjects: but to his barons and to his opponents he behaved with

cruelty and treachery. He liked to have his enemies always near him,

either alive in the dungeons of his palace, or dead, and embalmed, and

clothed in their habits as they lived. Yet he died regretted; for his

heir, the thick-haired, thin-lipped, narrow-eyed, fat-jowled,

asymmetrically-featured Don Alonso de Aragona, Duke of Calabria,

enjoyed a reputation for violence and brutality the bare idea of which

created universal terror.

The game of politics entered on a new phase. The Christian King

Charles VIII of France was burning for an opportunity of asserting

himself; and had collected an army, ostensibly for a Crusade against

the Great Turk, the Sultán Bajazet, really for purposes of French

aggrandisement—purposes yet undefined. He was a self-conceited little

abortion, this Christian King, of the loosest morals even for a king,

of gross semitic type, with a fiery birth-flare round his left eye,

and twelve toes on his feet hidden in splayed shoes, which set the

fashion in foot-gear for the end of the fifteenth century in Italy;

and, like all vain little men, he was anxious to cut a romantic and

considerable figure. He announced a claim to the crown of Naples.

This made it necessary for the Lord Alexander P.P. VI to compare the

advantages of France as an ally with the Regno; and, in the meantime,

that He might lead the Christian King to declare himself with more

particularity, the Pope’s Holiness addressed a Brief to him in which the

subject of Naples was not named: but which assured him of pontifical

favour, and gave him leave to pass through Rome with his army on the way

to his contemplated Crusade. There was dissatisfaction in the Sacred

College about the matter of the Archbishopric of Rouen; and some of the

cardinals were beginning to think that the time was come for turning

coats, especially as it was known that the Orator of France had made

overtures of friendship on the part of his sovereign to Cardinal

Giuliano della Rovere.

The Supreme Pontiff finally concluded that He would rather have an ally

on His frontier, than an ally whose territories were separated from His

by the domains of other princes. He decided to leave France out of the

question; and to recognize the heir of the late King Don Ferrando I.

Accordingly He conveyed this news to Don Alonso de Aragona Duke of

Calabria, adding that He would envoy a Legate to Naples to concede

investiture and to perform the ceremony of coronation. At the same time,

the Pope’s Holiness sent the Golden Rose to the Christian King; and it

is hard to know whether this gift symbolized consolation or contempt. If

the former, then the gift should have been a sword; for the Sword is the

pontifical gift to kings. If the latter, then it was bitterly

appropriate, for the Golden Rose is the pontifical gift to queens. Yet

only with difficulty one can conceive of the Pope as deliberately

setting himself to provoke a reigning sovereign who heads a mobilized

army; and the act may have been merely one of those slipshod

performances which the greatest geniuses, from time to time, provide to

remind mankind of the maxim _non semper arcum tendit Apollo_. But all

the same the Lord Alexander P.P. VI was a very strong man, guilty of

hiding none of His human weaknesses.

When the Pope issued His Bull on this matter of the Investiture in

Public Consistory, storms ensued. Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, again

diplomatically deprived of his Neapolitan friends, flitted from Rome to

Ostia with the pontifical condottieri at his heels. From Ostia, he

shipped to Genoa, and made haste to present himself to the pink-eyed

Majesty of France. The French Orators in Rome shrieked “We are betrayed”

in the consecrated formula; and hurried to safe places. And the fortress

of Ostia capitulated to the Pope.

In May, the Lord Giovanni Borgia, Archbishop of Monreale and

Cardinal-Priest of the Title of Santa Susanna, received his Brief as

Apostolic Ablegate, and went to Naples to crown the new king. The

fourteen-year-old Don Gioffredo Borgia accompanied his Most Worshipful

cousin; and was married on the coronation-day, the seventh of May.

Madonna Sancia, bastard of King Don Alonso II, who confirmed to him the

title of Prince of Squillace with a revenue of forty thousand ducats.

Also, as an earnest of his gratitude to the Pope, the King of Naples

conferred the Principalities of Teano and Tricarico on Don Juan

Francisco de Lançol y Borja, eldest surviving bastard of the Lord

Alexander P.P. VI (who already had procured for him the Spanish duchy of

Gandia;) and enriched Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) with Neapolitan

benefices. The Papacy and the Regno now were a Dual Alliance.

* * * * *

In Italy of the fifteenth century, men’s minds chiefly were occupied

with the accumulation and disposition of matters connected with the

intellect and the tastes. The Elect-Emperor Maximilian, who in 1493

succeeded the Pacific Caesar Friedrich IV on the throne of Central

Europe (called the Holy Roman Empire) was adding outlying territories to

the possessions of his dynasty, the Habsburg House of Austria. Spain was

freeing herself, by means of steel and faggot, from her brain, _i.e._,

the Moors and Jews; and in exploiting her New World. England was

enjoying peace and a new dynasty, since the close of the War of the

Roses in 1485. France had made peace, at a price, with King Henry VII

Tudor in 1492; and with Spain, at the cost of her frontier provinces of

Cerdogne and Rouissillion, in 1493. Lastly, the Christian King Charles

VIII of France had pacified the rage of the Elect-Emperor Maximilian,

whom he had robbed of his betrothed the Duchess Anne of Bretagne, by

ceding to him the greater part of Burgundy. For the rest, nearly all the

kingdoms, duchies, and fiefs of France had fallen into the hands of the

vaunting Charles, by conquest, inheritance, lapse or marriage. Finding

himself at the head of a great army experienced in the art of war, and

with a domain smiling with prosperity, he looked for fresh fields to

conquer. The chivalric glamour of the Crusade had by no means faded: it

dazzled the pink eye of France: and, at one time, undoubtedly the

Christian King intended to march on the Muslim Infidel, now settled in

Europe and unmolested. But, with the death of King Don Ferrando I, the

fickle Frenchman revived an old claim of the House of Anjou to the crown

of Naples, intrigued with Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, and brought

his veteran army south to Lyons; where he spent his time in lubricity,

until he should have felt the pulses of the Italian Powers with

reference to his undertaking. French envoys reported to him that the

Papacy was allied with Naples, and Naples with Don Piero de’ Medici of

Tuscany; that Don Filiberto the Fair, (the boy-duke of Savoja, married

to the Elect-Emperor’s daughter Anne,) with Duke Ercole d’Este of

Ferrara, the Marquesses of Monserrat and Saluzzo, and the Republic of

Venice, were neutral. The auguries were not propitious for France; but

the Christian King, emboldened by the presence, and attentive to the

rhodomontades of, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, and stupidly believing

it possible to reduce a Pope by fear, joined in the duet and cried for a

General Council. Indeed, he placed more confidence in the virtue of this

threat than in his army; for he definitely threatened the Lord Alexander

P.P. VI with deposition and deprivation of the Apostolic dignity, not by

force of arms, but by canonical proof of His simoniacal election—unless

He would concede to France the crown of Naples. (Corio, Storie di

Milano. III 525)

It is very difficult to understand these shouters for a General Council.

They were so clever, so logical, in other matters, that it is perfectly

impossible for them to have been unaware of the extreme futility of

their cry. They could not have been ignorant: then they must have been

malignant. Suppose that an assemblage calling itself a General Council

had been convened by the Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia and the Majesty of

France, and had proved to its own satisfaction that Cardinal Rodrigo de

Lançol y Borja had bought, by bribery, the votes of his

brother-cardinals, raising himself by these means to the throne of God’s

Vicegerent; what end would have been served? There was a moral but no

legal prohibition then, as already has been shewn, to prevent a cardinal

from buying votes, if he could find cardinals criminal enough to sell.

The money-changers were, as now, in possession of the Temple; and the

whip of small cords still on the Knees of God.

Suppose that a self-called General Council had decreed the deposition of

the Pope on the ground of simony; the decrees of a General Council are

ineffective until they have been promulgated with the expressed sanction

of the Roman Pontiff. Is it probable that the Lord Alexander P.P. VI,

that the sanctimonious Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, that any human

man, would sanction the promulgation of the decree that ordained his own

deposition? If he did so declare himself to be no Pope, what would be

the value of such a declaration? If he were Pope, he would not; if he

were not Pope he could not, depose himself. Then what would have been

the good, (if the Sokratic method be so far permitted,) of a self-called

General Council which only could compile ineffectual decrees?

We are dealing with this matter in its human aspect only. Humanity was

master of the mighty then, as now; Morality of the humble and meek.

Suppose that a self-called General Council had decreed the deposition of

the Pope: what would have happened? This—the Sacred College would have

split into two or more factions; let us say two, to keep the argument in

reasonable bounds. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI would have headed one

faction; the envious Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere the other. Both

would have gone into Conclave; the one in Rome, the other in France. The

Roman Conclave would have affirmed the Lord Alexander P.P. VI to be the

Pontiff-Regnant. The French conclave would have elected Cardinal

Giuliano della Rovere, who incontinently would have blossomed forth as

Pseudopontiff Julius II. Each would have created cardinals. Each would

have administered as much of the Church and Christendom as he could have

persuaded to submit to his administration. There would have been a

Pontiff in Rome, a pseudopontiff in France. The sheep of Christ’s Flock

would have been neglected, while the shepherds exchanged anathemas. It

all had happened before—many times before. It would have been the

Fortieth Schism. In course of time, death would claim the Pontiff or the

pseudopontiff. His party would replace him. In course of time

subdivision would take place, a schism in a schism. A section of

cardinals would secede from Pontiff, or from pseudopontiff; call

themselves the Sacred College in Conclave, and elect a second

pseudopontiff. Christendom would have been torn asunder. The crime would

have been capable of infinite development. All had been seen before,

many times before—last, in this identical Fifteenth Century—the century

of the Thirty-ninth Schism of the Holy Roman Church, the Thirty-ninth

Rending of the Seamless Robe of Christ.

And that was the atrocious turpitude to which Revenge was leading

Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, and Vanity was leading the Christian

King Charles VIII, all light-heartedly.

* * * * *

Being now in amity with Colonna and Orsini through the Neapolitan

alliance, as well as with Sforza and Cesarini, the Holiness of the Pope

proceeded to the Regno for the purpose of concerting a plan of campaign

with King Don Alonso II, whom He met at Vicovaro on the fourteenth of

July. There it was arranged that the King should hold the Abruzzi

provinces with part of the Neapolitan army, while his son, Don

Ferrandino de Aragona, with another part should make a swift advance on

Milan by way of the Romagna, sending out flying columns to sweep the

country free from rebels; and, after expelling the usurping Regent, Don

Ludovico Maria Sforza-Visconti, and restoring Duke Giangaleazzo to the

throne of Milan, he should force the French to engage in Lombardy.

Meanwhile, Don Virginio Orsini with the pontifical condottieri was to

protect the Papal States; and Don Federigo de Aragona, brother to King

Don Alonso II, was to take the Neapolitan fleet, capture Genoa, and

command the northern coast.

No better plan could have been invented for a war of the chess-game

species: but in two places it was weak. It would occupy too long in

performance; for the French army was on Milan’s frontier which half the

length of Italy separated from Naples. It caused the defection of some

Sforza: it alienated the Supreme Pontiff from His vicechancellor, His

closest friend, for the Neapolitan scheme involved the expulsion from

Milan of the brother of Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti, who

thereupon became neutral, Sforza holding by Sforza.

Before the Regno was ready, the French fleet reached Genoa, and the

French army crossed the Alps to Milan. Admiral Don Federigo de Aragona,

finding Genoa in his enemy’s hand, led the Neapolitan galleys to Porto

Venere on the Gulf of Spezzia, only to sustain a repulse which caused

him to retire to Livorno to repair his fleet. Seeing from which

direction he might expect attack, the Christian King garrisoned Genoa

with Swiss mercenaries under Duke Louis d’Orleans. On the eighth of

September, the Admiral of Naples took Rapallo, a little city six leagues

from Genoa, and landed troops. The French commander made an accipitrine

swoop from Genoa, cut up the squadrons of Naples, and put Rapallo to

sack and pillage for entertaining them. All Italy was amazed, paralyzed

with horror, at war conducted on these bloodthirsty lines. The idea of

being killed, except perhaps accidentally by being trampled underfoot in

a rout, or in a simple personal quarrel, was terrible to people

accustomed to battles which were processions, and sieges which were

decorative occupations for gentlemen of leisure. Admiral Don Federigo

led the remnant of his fleet to Naples without an hour’s delay.