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ROMANCE OF ROMAN VILLAS
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Pope Julius II. Viewing the Newly-found Statue of the
Apollo Belvedere
From the painting by Carl Becker. Permission of the Berlin Photographic
Co.]
(The Renaissance)
by
ELIZABETH W. CHAMPNEY
Author of "Romance of the Italian Villas," "Romance of the
Feudal Chateaux," "Romance of the French Abbeys," Etc.
Illustrated
G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York and London
The Knickerbocker Press
1908
INTRODUCTION
In came the cardinal, grave and coldly wise,
His scarlet gown and robes of cobweb lace
Trailed on the marble floor; with convex glass
He bent o'er Guido's shoulder.
WALTER THORNBURY.
Still unrivalled, after the lapse of four centuries the villas of the
great cardinals of the Renaissance retain their supremacy over their
Italian sisters, not, as once, by reason of their prodigal magnificence
but in the appealing charm of their picturesque decay.
The centuries have bestowed a certain pathetic beauty, they have also
taken away much, and the sympathy which these ruined pleasure palaces
evoke whets our curiosity to know what they were like in their heyday of
joyous revelling.
If we run down the list of the nobler villas of Rome we will find that,
with few exceptions, they were built by princes of the purple, and that
the names they bear are not Roman but those of the ruling families of
other Italian cities.
That the sixteenth century should have produced the most palatial
residences ever inhabited by prelates was but a natural outcome of the
conditions then existing. The society of Rome was a hierarchical
aristocracy made up of the younger sons of every powerful and ambitious
family of Italy, and the red hat was so greatly desired not for the
honour or emoluments of the cardinalcy _per se_ but because it was a
step to the papacy.
"To an Italian," says Alfred Austin, "it must seem a reproach never to
have had a pope in the family, and you will with difficulty find a villa
of any pretension, certainly not in Frascati, where memorial tassels and
tiara carven in stone over porch and doorway do not attest pontifical
kinship."
The young cardinal's first move in the game which he was to play was at
all expense to create an impression, and if, as in the case of Ippolito
d'Este, he had no benevolent uncle in St. Peter's chair to guide his
career, the parental coffers were drawn upon recklessly and the cadet of
the great house led a more extravagant life in his Roman villa than the
duke his elder brother in his provincial court. The object of his
ambition once attained the new Pope unscrupulously enriched his family,
and endeavoured to make his office hereditary by elevating his favourite
nephew to the cardinalcy, and endowing this future candidate for the
papacy with means from the revenues of the Church to purchase the votes
of his rivals. This is the constantly reiterated history of the builders
of the palaces and villas of Rome.
Sixtus IV. made the fortunes of his numerous de la Rovere and Riario
nephews,--one of whom, Pietro, Cardinal of San Sisto, for whom Bramante
built the Cancellaria Palace, set the pace for his comrades of the
Sacred College by squandering in two years the enormous sum of
$2,800,000. Cardinal Raphael Riario of the next generation began the
most beautiful of all villas, Lante, which three other cardinals
subsequently perfected.
Leo X. after his election as pope, proved to be a greater spendthrift
than Sixtus IV., for he not only repaired the broken fortunes of the
Medici but eclipsed his father as a patron of art, making the erection
of monumental buildings and the collection of objects of art a mania
among all men of wealth and culture. Cardinal Giulio (afterwards
Clement VII.) in the Villa Madama, and Cardinal Ferdinando in the Villa
Medici sustained the family tradition, but Cardinal Alexander Farnese
(Pope Paul III.) outrivalled them both, by filling the Farnese palace
with the most valuable collections ever amassed by a private
individual.[1]
Immediately succeeding Alexander Farnese Julius III. built the noble
Villa di Papa Giulio, and Pius IV. the charming Villa Pia; but nepotism
did not scandalously reassert itself until the last quarter of the
century, when the immense Villa Aldobrandini was erected by a nephew of
Clement VIII.
Pope Paul V. in his turn bestowed more than a million dollars upon his
Borghese nephews, to one of whom, Cardinal Scipione, we owe the
delightful Villa Borghese, just outside the Porta del Popolo.
Early in the next century the evil attained greater proportions. Olimpia
Pamphili, whose name and memory are perpetuated in the villa built by
her son, received from Pope Innocent X. more than two millions. But
Innocent seems to have a fair claim to his name when compared with his
immediate predecessor Urban VIII. who conferred upon his nephews, the
brothers Barberini, sums amounting to one hundred and five millions!
An architecture of pompous ostentation and riotous overloading of
ornament, the Baroque, now took the place of the classical beauty of the
Renaissance and art degraded became the slave of wealth, until the great
Cardinal Albani erected his villa to serve as her temple.
We are ready to expect great results in the villas and palaces of the
millionaires of the earlier half of the sixteenth century when we
reflect that they were executed by Bramante, Peruzzi, San Gallo, Michael
Angelo, and Raphael with a host of lesser men who would have been great
in any other age, and that the ruins of imperial Rome furnished them
with models for their designs and an inexhaustible quarry of statues,
columns, mosaics, and other materials.
The point of view of the present volume is the life rather than the art
of these villas, but it is not possible to ignore the stimulus which the
daily discovery of the masterpieces of ancient art afforded to the
artists of the day, and the connoisseurship imposed upon the rivalling
patrons and collectors.
In the chapters entitled: "The Finding of Apollo" and "The Lure of Old
Rome" I have striven to depict the influence of these discoveries upon
such sensitive souls as those of Raphael and Ligorio, and the gradual
education of the financier Chigi and Cardinal Ippolito d'Este in the
refinements of dilettantism.
But the Fornarina left a more potent impression on Raphael's art than
the Apollo Belvedere, and her memory and that of Imperia still haunt the
villa of the Farnesina indissolubly united with that of the master of
art and the master of revels.
In the noble Colonna palace the personality most vividly present to-day
is that of Vittoria Colonna, making good the boast of Michael Angelo's
sonnet,--
"So I can give long life to both of us
In either way by colour or by stone,
Making the semblance of thy face and mine,
Centuries hence when both are buried thus
Thy beauty and my sadness shall be shown
And men shall say, 'For her 't was right to pine.'"
But if Michael Angelo carved or painted Vittoria the portrait is lost;
and it is to his love, not to his art that she owes her immortality. So
from the history of these beautiful dwellings I have chosen as the focal
point of each of the following chapters, the half-forgotten face of some
woman, and were it not that the story of Vittoria Colonna is so well
known that noble woman might well have led the procession. For the same
reason, and because her castle of Spoleto could not be classed under my
topic, I have laid aside a study of Lucrezia Borgia and of another
Lucrezia who may have resided within its walls.
But from the succession of beauties who kissed their lovers beneath the
rose-trellises of Rome, I have stolen secrets enough to overfill these
pages, secrets which few of the gentle shades would forbid my telling,
since for the most part they are sweet and innocent and true. For the
others, daughters of disorder, may their sufferings bespeak your pity.
The difficulty in arriving at just estimates has only made the attempt
the more engrossing, as those will attest who have tracked through the
mass of conflicting histories the story of the elusive lady who gave the
name of Madama to the exquisite villa which Raphael designed for Clement
VII.
The Villa Aldobrandini recalls an ancient legend preserved in more than
one of the Italian novelli; and reading between the lines of the
Amyntas we may trace Tasso's love for Leonora which blossomed in the
terraced garden of the Villa d'Este.
The villas Borghese and Mondragone are still instinct with the
personality of a romantic little lady of a later period, the bewildering
Pauline Bonaparte. It is impossible while enthralled by her portrait
statue to remember any other princess of that noble house; but as we
wander through the portrait gallery of the Colonna palace it is equally
difficult to choose a favourite from its brilliant gallery. My apologies
are due to many another in fixing upon Giulia Gonzaga, wife of Vespasian
Colonna as my heroine, though such was the fame of her beauty that the
Sultan of Turkey despatched a fleet for her capture.
In the last decade of the century, Marie de' Medici looked down upon
Rome from the villa of her uncle, Cardinal Ferdinando, and wandered
among that wonderful array of statues which now form the glory of the
Pitti Palace.
This was the time, if ever, that Shakespeare visited Italy, and I have
attempted to give a true picture of the life and scenes which he may
have viewed.
To my last chapter is left the confession that the supreme charm of
Rome of the Renaissance lies not in itself, but in the fact that it is
the bridge which unites modernity to the Rome of antiquity.
Each statue unearthed in the cardinal's garden, as it reassumed its
place upon the familiar terrace, must have whispered to its marble
companions: "They call this the Villa d'Este! We know better, it is
Hadrian's. Their learned men have labelled you, 'By an Unknown
Sculptor,' little suspecting that your lips were arched by Praxiteles.
They have christened our friend in the garden of Lucullus, the 'Venus
de' Medici,' ignorant of the prouder name she bore, and they call the
relief in that new villa, 'The Antinous of Cardinal Albani,' not knowing
that the portrait and its original were alike, Faustina's."
Shall we, indulgent reader, on some fair, future day, led by the lure of
_old_ Rome, together revisit our loved villas and win the confidences of
these marble men and women who smile on us so inscrutably, and yet with
such all-compelling fascination?
Dear Italy, the sound of thy soft name
Soothes me with balm of Memory and of Hope.
Mine for the moment height and steep and slope
That once were mine. Supreme is still the aim
To flee the cold and grey
Of our December day,
And rest where thy clear spirit burns with unconsuming flame.
Fount of _Romance_ whereat our Shakespeare drank!
Through him the loves of all are linked to thee,
By Romeo's ardour, Juliet's constancy
He sets the peasant in the royal rank,
Shows, under mask and paint,
Kinship of knave and saint
And plays on stolid man with Prospero's wand and Ariel's prank.
Then take these lines and add to them the lay
All inarticulate, I to thee indite;
The sudden longing on the sunniest day,
The happy sighing in the stormiest night,
The tears of love that creep
From eyes unwont to weep,
Full with remembrance, blind with joy and with devotion deep.[2]
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
I.--THE EYES OF A BASILISK
(Vatican, Villa of the Belvedere)
II.--THE FINDING OF APOLLO
(Villa Farnesina)
III.--A CELLINI CASKET
(Villa Madama)
IV.--FLOWER O' THE PEACH
(Villa Aldobrandini)
V.--WITH TASSO AT VILLA D'ESTE
(Villa d'Este)
VI.--MONDRAGONE
(Villas Borghese and Mondragone)
VII.--THE ADVENTURE OF THE KNIGHT OF THE
BRANDISHED LANCE
(Villa Medici)
VIII.--THE LADIES OF PALLIANO
(Colonna Palace and Castle of Palliano)
IX.--THE LURE OF OLD ROME
(Hadrian's Villa. Villas d'Este and Albani)
[Illustration]
ILLUSTRATIONS
IN PHOTOGRAVURE
_Pope Julius II. Viewing the Newly-found
Statue of the Apollo Belvedere_ _Frontispiece_
_From the painting by Carl Becker. Permission of
the Berlin Photographic Co._
_The Borgias_
_From a painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. (Pope
Alexander VI. regards the dancing children, Lucrezia
plays the viol, Cesar beats time with his stiletto
on the stem of a wine glass.) Permission of George
Bell & Sons._
_Pope Leo X. at Raphael's Bier_
_From the painting by Pietro Michis. Permission of
Franz Hanfstaengl._
_Face of Young Girl in the Coronation of the
Virgin_
_By Fra Filippo Lippi. Permission of Alinari._
_The Floral Games_
_From the painting by Jacques Wagrez. Permission
of Braun, Clement & Co._
_In the Garden of Villa d'Este_
_From a photograph by Mr. Charles A. Platt._
_Choosing the Casket_
_From the painting by F. Barth. Permission of the
Berlin Photographic Co._
_Antinous as Bacchus, in the Museum of the
Vatican_
_Permission of Alinari._
[Illustration]
ILLUSTRATIONS
OTHER THAN PHOTOGRAVURE
*_Caesar Borgia_
*_Caterina Sforza. Castle of Forli in Background_
_By Palmezzani._
*_Unknown Lady_ (_probably Imperia_)
_By Sebastian del Piombo. Uffizi._
*_Virgin and Child_
_By Sodoma. Pinacoteca, Milan._
*_Raphael and Sodoma_
_Fragment of School of Athens, in the Vatican--Raphael._
*_Villa Farnesina, Rome_
*_Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, called Sodoma_
_From the portrait by himself in the Abbey of Monte
Oliveto Maggiore._
*_By permission of Messrs. Alinari._
*_Margherita_ (_La Fornarina_)
_Attributed to Raphael. Pitti Gallery, Florence._
*_Pope Leo X., Giulio de Medici_ (_afterward Pope
Clement VII._), _and Luigi de Rossi_
_By Raphael. Pitti Gallery._
_Villa Madama_
_Detail of Vault in Villa Madama_
_Stucchi by Giovanni da Udine._
_Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Parma, 1586_
_From an old engraving._
_Stucchi by Giovanni da Udine_
_Villa Madama._
_Villa Madama--Interior_
*_Villa Aldobrandini, Frascati. The Grand
Cascade and Fountain of Atlas_
*_Upper Cascade, Villa Aldobrandini_
*_Villa d'Este, at Tivoli--Present State_
_Hydraulic Organ, Villa d'Este_
_Villa d'Este in 1740_
_From an etching by Piranesi._
*_Villa d'Este--Terrace Staircase_
*_By permission of Messrs. Alinari._
_*Fountain in Gardens of the Villa Borghese_
_*Pauline Bonaparte, Princess Borghese_
_Portrait statue by Canova at Villa Borghese._
_Henri IV. Receiving the Portrait of Marie de Medici_
_Painted at her order by Rubens._
_View from the Garden of the Villa Medici_
_Colonna Palace, Rome_--_The Grand Salon_
_Garden of the Colonna Palace, Rome_
_With permission of Charles A. Platt._
_Castle of Vittoria Colonna at Ischia_
_The Cascade_
_Villa Conti Torlonia, Frascati._
_The Haunted Pool_
_Villa Conti Torlonia, Frascati._
_Vittoria Colonna_
_From a portrait in the Colonna Gallery._
___Marie Mancini, Princess Colonna_
_From a portrait in later life by Netscher._
_Court of the Massimi Palace_
_Marie Mancini Colonna, Principessa di Palliano_
_By Mignard. Photographische Gesellschaft, Berlin._
_*By permission of Messrs. Alinari._
_Antinous_
_Bas-relief found at Hadrian's Villa, now in the Villa
Albani._
_Ruins of a Gallery of Statues in Hadrian's Villa_
_From an etching by Piranesi._
*_Villa Pia in Garden of the Vatican_
_Pirro Ligorio, architect._
*_Villa Pia, Vatican_
_The rotondo--Pirro Ligorio, architect._
_Eros Bending the Bow_
_Capitoline Museum._
_Faun of Praxiteles_
_Capitoline Museum._
_Villa Albani_
*_Casino, Villa Albani_
*_Candelabra from Hadrian's Villa_
_Museum of the Vatican._
*_Urania_
_Museum of the Vatican._
_View through the Key-hole of the Gate of the Villa
of the Knights of Malta_
*_By permission of Messrs. Alinari._
ROMANCE OF ROMAN VILLAS
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I
THE EYES OF A BASILISK
(AN EPISODE OF THE FRENCH WARS IN ITALY, FROM THE MEMOIRS OF THE GOOD
KNIGHT YVES D'ALLEGRE)
I
There is not one that looketh upon her eyes but he dieth presently.
The like property has the basilisk. A white spot or star she
carrieth on her head and setteth it out like a diadem. If she but
hiss no other serpent dare come near.--PLINY.
A strange story is mine, not of love but of hatred, the slow coiling of
a human serpent about its prey, with something more than human in the
sudden deliverance which came from so unexpected a quarter when all hope
had gone and struggle ceased.
Certes, I am not one of your practised romancers thus to reveal my plot
at the beginning, and yet, with all I have told, you will never guess in
what mysterious guise, yet so subtly that it seemed a breath of wind had
but fluttered a leaf of paper, the enemy we feared was struck with such
opportune paralysis.
Let those who doubt the truth of this tale or the existence of the
basilisk question Cesare Borgia, for we saw the creature at the same
time as we rode together near Imola in northern Italy. It was the
beginning of that campaign in which I, much against my will, was in
command of the French troops, which his Majesty Louis XII. had sent to
aid his ally in the conquest of Romagna. I would far liefer have gone
with my brother knights deputed to sustain Louis's right to the
Milanese, for it is one thing to fight honourably for France and
another, as I soon discovered, to aid a villain in the massacre of his
own countrymen, and all for aims in which I had no interest. But it was
only by degrees that I was enlightened concerning the character of
Borgia. He was brave beyond doubt, and courage had for me great
fascination. I never saw him flinch but once, and that before a thing
which seemed so trivial that I counted it but a matter of physical
repulsion.
[Illustration: _Alinari_
Caesar Borgia]
We were riding thus side by side in advance of our men, when a small
snake darted from the thicket and hissed its puny defiance. I stooped
from my saddle, impaled it on my sword, and waved it writhing in the
air. But Cesare, to my astonishment, turned deadly pale and galloped
incontinently in the opposite direction.
When I rejoined him after throwing the reptile into the underbrush he
explained the seizure. The astrologer, Ormes, had predicted that he
would meet his death neither from natural sickness nor from poison, nor
yet by the sword or cord, but from the eye of a basilisk.
"And what manner of creature may that be?" I asked, wonderingly.
"It is a serpent," he replied, "but one so rare in Italy that not once
in a century is it met with. The monster is gifted with the evil eye,
killing whomsoever it looks upon. It bears a star-shaped spot upon its
head, and when you whirled yon reptile in the air methought I discerned
its baleful flash."
"And so you did," I replied, "but you need have no apprehension, the
creature is blind."
"Blind!" he repeated incredulously.
"Of a verity. Its eyes have long since been removed, for the flesh has
grown over the empty sockets."
"Then," said Cesare, "some wizard must have extracted them to serve him
in his black art, and has let the serpent go free knowing that it is
only by the eye of a living basilisk that this prodigy can be wrought.
Fortunately you have killed it and there is no longer any danger."
"Nay," I replied, "I but wounded the creature. It crawled away when it
fell."
"Then he who holds its eyes holdeth my life and by his hand I shall
die," he stammered with white lips. Little thought I then that Cesare's
inhuman cruelty and perfidy would cause me to thank God for his belief
in the creature's malignancy and that the basilisk was to aid in the one
episode which was in some measure to take the evil taste of this
campaign from my mouth.
Only a few weeks later, on the first of January, 1500, our combined
forces began in earnest the assault of the citadel of Forli, which we
had held in siege throughout the previous month. Little stomach had I
for the business, since to my shame I was making war upon a woman.
Imola which had already surrendered to us, was also her fief, but had
she commanded its forces in person we would not have taken it so easily.
For fighting blood ran in the veins of the Lady of Forli, she being the
grand-daughter of the great condottiere Francesco Sforza. And this was
not the first time that she had fought for her castle.
She had come to it first as the bride of Girolamo Riario, but the
townspeople had refused to recognise his authority and had stabbed him
to death, throwing his naked, mutilated body into the moat before her
windows.
The young widow instantly trained the guns of the citadel upon the town,
and when it surrendered caused the murderers and their families to be
hacked in pieces; and this was but one of many instances reported of her
dauntless and vindictive character. She had remarried, but her second
husband, Giovanni de' Medici, had recently died, and Caterina Sforza
Riario de' Medici, in spite of her noble birth and connexions, had none
to help her.
If Cesare Borgia had not already married perchance the opportunity would
have been offered her to add another great name to those she already
bore, for he recognised in this tigerish woman a fitting mate. He hated
her indeed, but one does not hate one's inferiors, one despises or pets
them, and Cesare hated the Lady of Forli because he knew that he could
never master her.
Therefore on New Year's Day, we having, as I have said, drawn our forces
so closely about the citadel that for weeks past not a mouse could
escape, Cesare before ordering the assault sent me to its lady with
sealed conditions of capitulation.
I thought, as I rode across the draw-bridge with the white truce pennon
fluttering from my lance, how at that other siege when summoned to
surrender on pain of having her children put to death before her walls,
this unnatural mother had replied coldly: "Children are more easily
replaced than castles," and I was unprepared for the vision which
greeted me in the gloomy hall.
For Caterina was no repulsive termagant, but a woman of marvellous
charm. This fascination was something quite different from ordinary
beauty. Its seat was in her eyes, which many thought not at all
beautiful, for they were like those gems called aquamarine, of a
puzzling tint varying from blue to green, lustrous and lapping the
beholder with their gentle lambency, except when passion moved her,
when I have seen them glow with a menacing light as though they might
shoot forth green flames. But now she was all loveliness. The
vicissitudes of her tragic life had left no trace except the slight
scowl, which might be due to defective vision, for from the curiously
linked chatelaine there depended a lorgnon with which she had a nervous
trick of trifling.
[Illustration: _Alinari_
Catenna Sforza
Castle of Forli in Background
By Palmezzani]
She leaned forward as I entered, her lips a little apart and her cheeks
glowing with excitement.
"You have brought me a message from your commander?" she asked, and I
presented the letter.
But as she read her colour flamed to deeper crimson and her small hands
tore the missive in fragments. "And these are the terms proposed by a
belted knight, companion of Bayard _sans reproche_; this your fufilment
of your sworn devoir to women in distress? Then here is my answer," and
she dashed the bits of paper in my face, "for my garrison will prefer
annihilation rather than permit me to submit to such indignity."
"Believe me," I protested, "that, far from assisting in the framing of
those terms, I am in utter ignorance of their purport. Believe also that
though what I have hitherto heard has not prepossessed me in your
favour, I now count those charges as lying slanders, knowing that no
evil soul could inhabit so lovely a person."
Her lip curled scornfully. "I have listened to lovers' flatteries ere
this," she answered, "and know how little they are worth."
"By your pardon," I retorted, "I am a lover indeed, but none of yours.
It is because I love my good wife in Auvergne that I honour all women."
She had lifted her eyeglass as though to scan my face the more keenly to
know if I spoke the truth; but apparently my words alone convinced her,
and, feeling the discourtesy of such an act, she looked about the room
irresolutely and let the lorgnon fall without meeting my eyes.
"Good," she said at length, "I like you better for that word. 'Tis a
pity we must be enemies. Tell your master that I shall defend my
fortress to the last extremity. If I am so unfortunate as to be
conquered, demand that he appoint you my jailer, for to no one else will
I submit myself alive."
I have taken part in many sieges but never saw I a more gallant defence
than the one made by that doomed citadel. Its besiegers were quartered
within the town, fattening on the supplies which flowed in from the
country and sleeping warm at night, while the garrison of the castle
burned its carved wainscotings for fuel and daily buried some
famine-stricken sentry. Twice with blazing missiles Caterina's archers
set fire to the houses within range of her guns, striving by destroying
the homes of her own people to drive us from our shelter, and once in
the dead of night she made sortie and strove to cut her way through only
to be beaten back. She seemed more a deluding spirit of evil leading us
on to our own destruction than an ordinary mortal, and when Cesare gave
orders to bombard the castle it made our flesh creep to see her seated
nonchalantly upon the ramparts scanning the artillerymen through her
lorgnon, laughing when their shots went wild, and clapping her hands
when they tore off fragments of the parapet on which she leaned as
though she were but applauding a play. That very night an epidemic so
deadly broke out among the cannoneers that some foolishly superstitious
declared she had bewitched them with the evil eye, and others as falsely
that the springs in the hills above the castle which supplied the
fountains of the town were poisoned at her command.
But the inevitable day came when the Lady of Forli announced that she
was ready to surrender. Even then she demanded lenient and honourable
terms as though mistress of the situation.
There must be neither bloodshed nor pillage. The allegiance of her
subjects should be transferred indeed to Cesare as Duke of Romagna, and
she offered herself and her children as hostages for their loyalty, but
not to Cesare. They would trust themselves only to the watch-care of the
Pope, and she stipulated that the French troops should be their
body-guard to Rome.
Cesare laughed maliciously. "She is as safe in my care as in that of his
Holiness," he said, "and it is to my interest that the boy alone should
die. It was the great statesman Machiavelli who counselled that when a
city was captured every male heir to its former lord should be slain, to
guard against uprisings in the future. I will take her son into my own
safe-conduct, but you may escort his sisters and mother in welcome, for
I have no wish to come within the range of her quizzing glasses."
When I reported this to Caterina she shuddered slightly and answered
questioningly, "From Cesare's so great personal solicitude I gather
that the health of the young duke might suffer at the Borgia's table?"
To these alarms I could not reply reassuringly, but the lady presently
laughed gleefully. "This is not a recent thought of mine," she said.
"The idea occurred to me when Cesare first laid claim to our estates.
Tell him that I cannot take advantage of his kind offer for I sent my
son before the siege to join his cousin and godfather, Cardinal de'
Medici, in his exile. The Cardinal's family feeling extends even to his
most distant relatives and the boy could have no better guardian."
"Surely it is fortunate that you were so wise," I replied, and even
Cesare had no doubt that she spoke truly.
It was the twelfth of January, the very day of the surrender, that I set
out with my captives for the Eternal City. Caterina was conveyed in her
litter with her elder daughter, but the younger insisted on riding on
horseback at my side. She was an ugly little hoyden of five years, this
Giovanna, who, squat of stature and swarthy as a gypsy, bestrode her
little pony like a man; but, though by nature stubborn and subject to
fits of anger in which she bit and scratched like a wildcat, to me she
had taken a fancy as intense as it was inexplicable.
When I upbraided her manners as ill befitting a little maid, and
marvelled at her unlikeness to her mother, she made answer: "Nay, but
mamma can scratch also. You should have seen the face of the messenger
who told us that the town of Forli had opened its gates to the
besiegers. I am like my father in looks, but I have my mother's spirit.
Cardinal de' Medici said that if my father had worn the petticoat and my
mother had been the man, the Medici would be ruling now in Florence."
"Would you like to rule, little princess?" I asked.
"Nay, I would rather fight. When I am grown I will be a great
condottiere like you, Sir Knight."
"Tush!" I reproved her. "A girl a condottiere--who ever heard of such a
prodigy?"
The child smiled mysteriously. "I have a mind to tell you a secret," she
said.
"Giovanna, Giovanna!" her mother called, beckoning from her litter, but
the little maid had fast hold of my stirrup leather, and pulled me close
while she confided: "I am not Giovanna, I am not a girl at all. I am
Giovanni de' Medici, Duke of Forli, and one of these days I will cut
off that Borgia man's head. But fear not; I will be good to you if only
you do not tell."
[Illustration]
[Illustration: The Borgias
From a painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. (Pope Alexander VI. regards
the dancing children, Lucrezia plays the viol, Cesar beats time with his
stiletto on the stem of a wine glass.) Permission of George Bell & Sons]
I had no mind to tell, and though I let the Duchess know that her little
son had betrayed his disguise, and reproached her for bringing him into
the wolf's jaws, I swore to her that the secret should be safe in my
keeping.
II
The bob of gold
Which a pomander ball doth hold,
This to her side she doth attach
With gold crochet or French pennache.
Then raises to her eyes of blue
Her lorgnon, as she looks at you.
Arrived at Rome, the Pope assigned the captives to the Villa of the
Belvedere, so named from a graceful tower which shot high above the
encircling walls, and commanded a delightful prospect. A charming garden
connected the villa with the Vatican, but it was none the less a prison
whose only approach or egress was through the corridors of the papal
palace. The Lady of Forli had been received with hypocritical cordiality
by the family of the Pope at one of those intimate gatherings in the
Borgia apartments which, devoted to song, dance, and feasting were
greatly enjoyed by Alexander and his children, and so shamelessly
disgraced the residence consecrated to the head of the Church.
Cesare upon his return would find in them an opportunity for meeting his
prisoner, and, if she denied him further familiarity, he held the power
of executing swift vengeance. It behooved us therefore to act quickly
and before the arrival of my superior. The only hope which seemed to me
at all reasonable was of French interference.
Cardinal d'Amboise was in Milan, having recently arrived from the French
Court, and acting upon my advice the Lady of Forli appealed through him
to the King of France, I urging her petition with every conceivable
argument.
While anxiously awaiting his reply I took advantage of my authority as
her body-guard to station a French sentinel at her door, relinquishing
my own cook to protect her from poisoning, and my faithful valet as
groom and guardian of the children.
But all these precautions were swept away by Cesare on his arrival in
the middle of February. For he sent me at that time a curt note stating
that after we had taken part in the triumph granted him by the Pope in
recognition of his victories in Romagna, he would have no further need
either of my troops or myself; and we would be at liberty to report
ourselves at Milan to the commander of the French army.
The "triumph" to which he referred consisted of a procession with
allegorical floats and every description of gala costume. The houses
along its course were hung with brilliant draperies; flags and pennons
should wave, martial music bray, and salvos of artillery were to be
fired at frequent intervals.
But the principal feature of the demonstration and the one on which the
Pope counted to raise popular enthusiasm to the point of delirium was to
be the parade of the captives.
Cesare, in emulation of the celebration of the conquest of Palmyra by
the Emperor Aurelian, had conceived the brilliant idea of compelling
Caterina to walk in the procession bound like Zenobia with golden
chains.
Hitherto Caterina and I had discussed with each other every plan of
action, but now unfortunately we had no opportunity of taking counsel
with one another. Still she had been accustomed too long to
self-reliance to hesitate for that reason, and divining by a flash of
woman's intuition how this spectacle might be converted into an
opportunity of escape, she consented gracefully to Cesare's plans,
requesting only that the French troops should march as her guard.
To this arrangement Cesare gave his ready acquiescence, promising also
of his own accord that I should ride directly behind her and beside her
children. It was well thought out, for she had counted not alone upon my
assistance, but had determined to use every detail of the programme
which Cesare had devised to rouse the populace of Rome to aid in her
rescue.
She robed herself therefore in most becoming though sable garments,
allowing her veil of thinnest gauze to flutter artfully and display her
beautiful face while the long velvet sleeves open to the shoulder showed
the double manacles at the wrist and above the elbow, made purposely too
tight and cutting into the lovely rounded arm.
Growls of indignation from the men and cries of sympathy from the women
rose as they marked her fatigue, and how ruthlessly the men-at-arms who
led her dragged her on, and the demonstration was a triumph to Caterina
rather than to Cesare. As the float representing the dismantled citadel
of Forli tottered by with her little girls upon the battlements,
waving, the one the bull-blazoned ensign of the Borgias and the other
the reversed and degraded arms of the Medici, shouts of "Shame, shame!"
were heard, and the riotous crowd surged so close to the float that it
was impossible for it to proceed. We had reached at this critical
juncture the Porta del Popolo and through its open gates the via
Flaminia stretching straight to the north across the free Campagna was
discernible. With that sight I comprehended Caterina's intention and at
the same instant the boy-girl Giovanni let fall the Borgia emblem, which
was instantly trampled in the mire by the mob, and snatching the banner
bearing the Medici balls from his sister's hand he waved it triumphantly
in its proper position, crying "Palle, palle! Rescue, rescue!"
Then it was that Caterina had counted on my trusty Frenchmen to sweep
her and her children on to liberty while the mob hindered pursuit. But
alas! Cesare had suspected some such plot, and had interposed between
the prisoners and my brave troopers his own corps of veteran pikemen.
For an instant they wavered, for Caterina had sprung upon the float and
was gazing at them through her lorgnon. They remembered what had
happened to the gunners at Forli, and shuddered, but the mob attacking
them with paving stones interposed a screen between them and the danger
they dreaded and roused their mettle. With their old war cry their first
battalion charged the rioters while their second division, halting, kept
back my men.
As the full signification of this lost opportunity overwhelmed me, I
could not in my mortification meet Caterina's reproachful eyes. Her last
gallant stroke for liberty had failed through my lack of co-operation.
Cesare's pikemen enclosed her with a wall of bristling spears; the
populace slunk into side alleys, the gates of the Porta del Popolo had
been closed during the tumult, and the procession resumed its line of
march in the direction of the castle of St. Angelo. As I cursed my
stupidity, Cesare, purple with rage, rode back to me with Giovanni
struggling wildly in his arms.
"Take this brat of a girl to the Belvedere," he commanded, "and beat her
soundly."
But as I lifted the child before me he ceased not to shriek to Cesare:
"Beat me if you dare. I am no girl-brat. I am Giovanni de' Medici, Duke
of Forli!"
There was a chance that Cesare had not rightly understood him, for I
had held my hand over the boy's mouth. I would not save him and desert
his mother, so I rode with him to the Belvedere; but I paused on the way
to obtain a rope-ladder, and to conceal it in a basket of fruit which I
bade Giovanni give to his mother. I dared not write a letter had there
been time to I do so, but the child was intelligent and I made him
repeat my message again and again.
With the help of the ladder they must descend at midnight into the
garden of the Belvedere, and climb by the rose espalier to the top of
the garden wall. I would be on horseback on the other side and would
receive them in my arms. Then with forged passports I would take them to
Milan.
A light in the window of the tower at eleven would signify her
acquiescence in this plan.
But at the time appointed I saw no light, and though my men waited in
the lofts of the stable where their horses stood ready saddled, and I
paced the lane on the hither side of the garden wall until dawn, no
fugitives joined me.
When I returned to my lodgings at daybreak I found a summons from the
Pope awaiting me which bade me attend him at the Vatican at his morning
levee. Presently, too, a man in Cesare's livery brought me the basket
of fruit and the rope-ladder which I had sent to Caterina.
"My master bade me return this to you," said the lackey, "as you may
find it useful for your own needs in future."
I understood the cold sarcasm of the message. I was to be imprisoned,
and I did not flatter myself that any opportunity for use of a
rope-ladder would be left me. But in that supreme moment it was not my
own doom that I thought upon but that of the unfortunate Lady of Forli.
As I prepared to obey the papal summons my landlady brought me a letter
which had arrived during my absence, the long-expected instructions from
Cardinal d'Amboise. They called me and my troop to Milan--the Pope would
not dare controvert that command; and as my eye sought eagerly for an
answer to my appeal for Caterina it caught at the bottom of the page
this line:
"As for Caterina Sforza Riario de' Medici and her children----"
Trembling with excitement I turned the leaf but my hopes died within me
as I read on:
"----that belligerent and unwomanly woman hath but received her
just deserts. We are to be congratulated that her fortresses and
her army fell into the power of our ally before it was possible for
her to aid her uncle Lodovico Sforza, usurper of Milan, at present
our prisoner.
"Our fortunes are now so assured either by conquest or alliance
that all the leading families of northern Italy are on our side.
Even the Medici are with us. Sooner or later"----
Here I turned a page again.
"They must be returned to Florence, as the King desires the good
will of the Medici."
There was more to the effect that the Cardinal desired me to kiss for
him the hands of his Holiness, and to assure both him and Cesare
that--if their promise to the King of France were carried out--they
would ever find in the French army a sure defence. But all this seemed
of little moment to me since the letter contained no hope for Caterina.
I thrust it in my pouch and pursued my way to the Vatican, cudgelling my
brains for some other means by which to save her.
Was there, I questioned, no motive within the complicated mechanism of
Cesare's mind upon which I could play? Was there nothing which he held
sacred, no terror in earth or hell which could daunt his inexorable
will?
Then suddenly I remembered the flaw in his armour, and that he who
could neither be persuaded by friendship nor coerced by authority
trembled before a baseless superstition--the dread of the evil eye.
I had still a card to play, and would continue the game resolutely to
the end. It might be that I could arm his captive with the one weapon
which he feared.
With this thought in my mind I came upon Cesare suddenly, in the
ante-room of the Pope's audience chamber.
"Ah," he exclaimed maliciously, "you thought to anticipate me in gaining
my father's ear. I confess I had the same intention. Well, since chance
will have it so, we will go in together."
"One moment," I replied; "I am glad to have met you thus opportunely,
for I have a word of warning for you."
"Of warning?" he questioned.
"Yes," I replied, "in return for that you so kindly sent me with the
rope-ladder this morning. You may need mine first. Let me beg you to
pursue the Lady of Forli no further. If you do not instantly let her go
free she may work you a terrible mischief--the only one you dread."
The scornful smile which had curled his lip died out, and though he
asked my meaning I knew he already had an inkling of it.
"You remember the eyeless basilisk which we found near Imola?" He nodded
and caught my hand. "She has the eyes?" he asked. "Nay, you need not
answer, I know where she keeps them,--in the pomander that hangs always
at her chatelaine." "That is no pomander," I replied, "but a lorgnon.
She is near-sighted; have you not noted, as she looks from her window of
the Belvedere how she scans the objects in the garden through its
lenses?"
"She was looking for me," he chattered insanely, "she was looking for me
through the eyes of the basilisk; but I am not so dull as you think. I
have long suspected this, and when she glared at my men as they charged
the rioters I struck the diabolical things from her hand with the flat
of my sword. I know not where they fell but she has them no longer."
"Be not so sure of that," I ventured with a grimace, which I strove to
make a smile. "I found the lorgnon in the street and carried it back to
the Belvedere. Be warned and anger her no more."
"It was a thoughtful and friendly act," he sneered exultantly, "but
useless, dear fellow, quite useless. _Mal vedere_ should that falsely
named villa be called; but neither for good nor for evil will she
evermore gaze forth from any casement. She and the son whom she thought
to palm off as a girl lie at this moment in a windowless dungeon in the
vaults of the castle of St. Angelo. I had thought for a moment to give
you guest-room beside her, but you have warned me of her designs, and my
father argues that we must not anger the French King in any fashion. Had
he demanded my prisoners I might even have lost this dear revenge, but
now I shall give orders to their gaoler that he waste no good money on
their nourishment. In less than a week's time their career and my danger
will be over."
I would have strangled him as he stood there but at that instant the
doors of the audience-chamber flew open and the Pope, attended by his
guards, stood between us.
He extended his left hand, which Cesare kissed, and he gave me his
benediction with the other.
"I have sent for you, my friend," he said, "to bid you farewell, for I
have just received word from Cardinal d'Amboise that you and your good
fellows are needed in the Milanese. The Cardinal informs me that he has
written you by the same post. May I read the letter? Perchance I may
gain from it a clearer understanding concerning his desires and how we
may forward them."
"I will go and fetch it," I stammered, for the request was a demand, and
the thought came to me that I might cut out all reference to the Lady of
Forli from the letter.
"I think we shall not need to trouble you to do so," cried the lynx-eyed
Cesare. "Your pouch is open, and if I mistake not that is the
handwriting of the Cardinal."
He had snatched the letter, and it was in his father's hand before he
had said half these words. I am not a man given to prayer, but from the
bitterness of my despair my soul cried silently in that instant, "O God,
save her, for vain is the help of man!"
The Pope ran his eye quickly along the lines without speaking until he
came to the name of the Lady of Forli.
"As to Caterina Sforza Riario de' Medici and her children"--he read
aloud with illy suppressed excitement, and then in his eagerness to know
more he turned two pages at once, without perceiving that the one which
should have followed next adhered to that which he had just read--"As to
Caterina Sforza Riario de' Medici and her children," he repeated, "they
must be returned to Florence, as the King desires the good will of the
Medici."
In utter stupefaction, I could not at first understand how this
misreading had chanced.
"Hem, hem!" grunted the Pope--"but she is only the widow of a member of
the cadet branch, a person of no importance. I see not why the King of
France should concern himself with her fate. Nevertheless, since our
prisoners have his patronage, they shall be detained no longer. I will
write to the Florentine signory commending the lady and her children to
their loving watch-care, and as you, Sir Yves, have been their conductor
hither, so shall you escort them to their destination."
Cesare could not gainsay his father's command. An hour later the gates
of St. Angelo opened for the departure of the Lady of Forli and her
children. I waited not for any chance of fate to turn backward the wheel
of fortune, and as my faithful troop galloped into line about her
litter, I gave the triumphant order--
"To Florence."
She dwells there even as I write these chronicles, in the Medicean
villa of Castello, and as at first she dared not keep her little son
with her (the men of the Medici being banished from Florence), she
confided him, still habited in girlish disguise, to the care of a
community of nuns, who kept a seminary for the daughters of noble
families. But at length, on the restoration of the Medici, he issued
from that retreat, and is now being bred to the profession of arms, in
the which he bids fair to realise the ambitions confided to me as we
rode from Forli, what time I deemed him the most unmannerly little
princess which it had been my lot to meet.