Between his departure from Milan and his arrival before Imola, where his
campaign was to be inaugurated, Cesare paid a flying visit to Rome and
his father, whom he had not seen for a full year. He remained three days
at the Vatican, mostly closeted with the Pope’s Holiness. At the end of
that time he went north again to rejoin his army, which by now had been
swelled by the forces that had joined it from Cesena, some Pontifical
troops, and a condotta under Vitellozzo Vitelli.
The latter, who was Lord of Castello, had gone to Milan to seek justice
at the hands of Louis XII against the Florentines, who had beheaded his
brother Paolo--deservedly, for treason in the conduct of the war against
Pisa. This Vitellozzo was a valuable and experienced captain. He took
service with Cesare, spurred by the hope of ultimately finding a way
to avenge himself upon the Florentines, and in Cesare’s train he now
advanced upon Imola and Forli.
The warlike Countess Caterina Sforza-Riario had earlier been granted
by her children full administration of their patrimony during their
minority. To the defence of this she now addressed herself with all the
resolution of her stern nature. Her life had been unfortunate, and of
horrors she had touched a surfeit. Her father, Galeazzo Sforza, was
murdered in Milan Cathedral by a little band of patriots; her brother
Giangaleazzo had died, of want or poison, in the Castle of Pavia, the
victim of her ambitious uncle, Lodovico; her husband, Girolamo Riario,
she had seen butchered and flung naked from a window of the very castle
which she now defended; Giacomo Feo, whom she had secretly married in
second nuptials, was done to death in Forli, under her very eyes, by a
party of insurrectionaries. Him she had terribly avenged. Getting her
men-at-arms together, she had ridden at their head into the quarter
inhabited by the murderers, and there ordered--as Macchiavelli tells
us--the massacre of every human being that dwelt in it, women and
children included, whilst she remained at hand to see it done.
Thereafter she took a third husband, in Giovanni di Pierfrancesco
de’Medici, who died in 1498. By him this lusty woman had a son whose
name was to ring through Italy as that of one of the most illustrious
captains of his day--Giovanni delle Bande Nere.
Such was the woman whom Sanuto has called “great-souled, but a most
cruel virago,” who now shut herself into her castle to defy the Borgia.
She had begun by answering the Pope’s Bull of attainder with the
statement that, far from owing the Holy See the tribute which it
claimed, the Holy See was actually in her debt, her husband, Count
Girolamo Riario, having been a creditor of the Church for the provisions
made by him in his office of Captain-General of the Pontifical forces.
This subterfuge, however, had not weighed with Alexander, whereupon,
having also been frustrated in her attempt upon the life of the Pope’s
Holiness, she had proceeded to measures of martial resistance. Her
children and her treasures she had dispatched to Florence that they
might be out of danger, retaining of the former only her son Ottaviano,
a young man of some twenty years; but, for all that she kept him near
her, it is plain that she did not account him worthy of being entrusted
with the defence of his tyranny, for it was she, herself, the daughter
of the bellicose race of Sforza, who set about the organizing of this.
Disposing of forces that were entirely inadequate to take the field
against the invader, she entrenched herself in her fortress of Forli,
provisioning it to withstand a protracted siege and proceeding to
fortify it by throwing up outworks and causing all the gates but one to
be built up.
Whilst herself engaged upon military measures she sent her son Ottaviano
to Imola to exhort the Council to loyalty and the defence of the city.
But his mission met with no success. Labouring against him was a mighty
factor which in other future cases was to facilitate Cesare’s subjection
of the Romagna. The Riarii--in common with so many other of the Romagna
tyrants--had so abused their rule, so ground the people with taxation,
so offended them by violence, and provoked such deep and bitter enmity
that in this hour of their need they found themselves deservedly
abandoned by their subjects. The latter were become eager to try a
change of rulers, in the hope of finding thus an improved condition of
things; a worse, they were convinced, would be impossible.
So detested were the Riarii and so abhorred the memory they left behind
them in Imola that for years afterwards the name of Cesare Borgia was
blessed there as that of a minister of divine justice (“tanquam minister
divina justitiae”) who had lifted from them the harsh yoke by which they
had been oppressed.
And so it came to pass that, before ever Cesare had come in sight of
Imola, he was met by several of its gentlemen who came to offer him
the town, and he received a letter from the pedagogue Flaminio
with assurances that, if it should be at all possible to them, the
inhabitants would throw open the gates to him on his approach. And
Flaminio proceeded to implore the duke that should he, nevertheless, be
constrained to have recourse to arms to win admittance, he should not
blame the citizens nor do violence to the city by putting it to pillage,
assuring him that he would never have a more faithful, loving city than
Imola once this should be in his power.
The duke immediately sent forward Achille Tiberti with a squadron
of horse to demand the surrender of the town. And the captain of the
garrison of Imola replied that he was ready to capitulate, since that
was the will of the people. Three days later--on November 27--Cesare
rode in as conqueror.
The example of the town, however, was not followed by the citadel. Under
the command of Dionigio di Naldo the latter held out, and, as the
duke’s army made its entrance into Imola, the castellan signified
his resentment by turning his cannon upon the town itself, with such
resolute purpose that many houses were set on fire and demolished. This
Naldo was one of the best reputed captains of foot of his day, and he
had seen much service under the Sforza; but his experience could avail
him little here.
On the 28th Cesare opened the attack, training his guns upon the
citadel; but it was not until a week later that, having found a weak
spot in the walls on the side commanding the town, he opened a breach
through which his men were able to force a passage, and so possess
themselves of a half-moon. Seeing the enemy practically within his
outworks, and being himself severely wounded in the head, Naldo
accounted it time to parley. He begged a three-days’ armistice, pledging
himself to surrender at the end of that time should he not receive
reinforcements in the meanwhile; and to this arrangement the duke
consented.
The good faith of Naldo has been questioned, and it has been suggested
that his asking for three days’ grace was no better than a cloak to
cover his treacherous sale of the fortress to the besieger. It seems,
however, to be no more than one of those lightly-uttered, irresponsible
utterances with which the chronicles of the time abound, for Naldo had
left his wife and children at Forli in the hands of the Countess, as
hostages for his good faith, and this renders improbable the unsupported
story of his baseness.
On December 7, no reinforcements having reached him, Naldo made formal
surrender of the citadel, safe-conduct having been granted to his
garrison.
A week later there arrived at Imola Cesare’s cousin, the Cardinal
Giovanni Borgia, whom the Pope had constituted legate in Bologna and the
Romagna in place of the Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, and whom he had sent
to support Cesare’s operations with ecclesiastical authority. Cardinal
Giovanni, as the Pope’s representative, received in the Church of
San Domenico the oath of fealty of the city to the Holy See. This was
pledged by four representative members of the Council of Thirty; and
by that act the conquest and subjection of the town became a fully
accomplished fact.
The lesser strongholds of the territory threw up their gates one by
one before the advancing enemy, until only Forli remained to be taken.
Cesare pushed forward to reduce it.
On his way he passed through Faenza, whose tyrant, Manfredi, deeming
himself secure in the protection of Venice and in view of the
circumstance that the republic had sent to Rome the arrears of tribute
due from his fief, and anxious to conciliate the Pope, received and
entertained Cesare very cordially.
At Forli the case of Imola was practically repeated. Notwithstanding
that the inhabitants were under the immediate eye of the formidable
countess, and although she sent her brother, Alessandro Sforza, to
exhort the people and the Council to stand by her, the latter, weary
as the rest of the oppressive tyranny of her family, dispatched their
representatives to Cesare to offer him the town.
The Countess’s valour was of the sort that waxes as the straits become
more desperate. Since the town abandoned and betrayed her, she would
depend upon her citadel, and by a stubborn resistance make Cesare pay as
dearly as possible for the place. To the danger which she seems almost
eager to incur for her own part, this strong-minded, comely matron will
not subject the son she has kept beside her until now; and so she packs
Ottaviano off to Florence and safety. That done, she gives her mutinous
subjects a taste of her anger by attempting to seize half a dozen of the
principal citizens of Forli. As it happened, not only did this intent
miscarry, but it went near being the means of involving her in battle
even before the duke’s arrival; for the people, getting wind of the
affair, took up arms to defend their threatened fellow-citizens.
She consoled herself, however, by seizing the persons of Nicolo
Tornielli and Lodovico Ercolani, whom the Council had sent to inform
her that their representatives had gone to Cesare with the offer of the
town. Further, to vent her rage and signify her humour, she turned her
cannon upon the Communal Palace and shattered the tower of it.
Meanwhile Cesare advanced. It was again Tiberti who now rode forward
with his horse to demand the surrender of Forli. This was accorded as
readily as had been that of Imola, whereupon Cesare came up to take
possession in person; but, despite the cordial invitation of the
councillors, he refused to enter the gates until he had signed the
articles of capitulation.
On December 19, under a deluge of rain, Cesare, in full armour, the
banner of the Church borne ahead of him, rode into Forli with his
troops. He was housed in the palace of Count Luffo Nomaglie (one of
the gentlemen whom Caterina had hoped to capture), and his men were
quartered through the town. These foreign soldiers of his seem to have
got a little out of hand here at Forli, and they committed a good many
abuses, to the dismay and discomfort of the Citizens.
Sanuto comments upon this with satisfaction, accounting the city well
served for having yielded herself up like a strumpet. It is a comment
more picturesque than just, for obviously Forli did not surrender
through pusillanimity, but to the end that it might be delivered from
the detestable rule of the Riarii.
The city occupied, it now remained to reduce the fortress and bring its
warrior-mistress to terms. Cesare set about this at once, nor allowed
the Christmas festivities to interfere with his labours, but kept his
men at work to bring the siege-guns into position. On Christmas Day the
countess belatedly attempted a feeble ruse in the hope of intimidating
them. She flew from her battlements a banner, bearing the device of the
lion of St. Mark, thinking to trick Cesare into the belief that she had
obtained the protection of Venice, or, perhaps, signifying thus that
she threw herself into the arms of the republic, making surrender of her
fiefs to the Venetians to the end that she might spite a force which she
could not long withstand--as Giovanni Sforza had sought to do.
But Cesare, nowise disturbed by that banner, pursued his preparations,
which included the mounting of seven cannons and ten falconets in the
square before the Church of St. John the Baptist. When all was ready
for the bombardment, he made an effort to cause her to realize the
hopelessness of her resistance and the vain sacrifice of life it must
entail. He may have been moved to this by the valour she displayed, or
it may have been that he obeyed the instincts of generalship which made
him ever miserly in the matter of the lives of his soldiers. Be that as
it may, with intent to bring her to a reasonable view of the situation,
he rode twice to the very edge of the ditch to parley with her; but
all that came of his endeavours was that on the occasion of his second
appeal to her, he had a narrow escape of falling a victim to her
treachery, and so losing his life.
She came down from the ramparts, and, ordering the lowering of the
bridge, invited him to meet her upon it that there they might confer
more at their ease, having, meanwhile, instructed her castellan to
raise the bridge again the moment the duke should set foot upon it. The
castellan took her instructions too literally, for even as the duke did
set one foot upon it there was a grind and clank of machinery, and the
great structure swung up and clattered into place. The duke remained
outside, saved by a too great eagerness on the part of those who worked
the winches, for had they waited but a second longer they must have
trapped him.
Cesare returned angry to Forli, and set a price upon Caterina’s
head--20,000 ducats if taken alive, 10,000 if dead; and on the morrow he
opened fire. For a fortnight this was continued without visible result,
and daily the countess was to be seen upon the walls with her castellan,
directing the defences. But on January 12, Cesare’s cannon having been
concentrated upon one point, a breach was opened at last. Instantly the
waiting citizens, who had been recruited for the purpose, made forward
with their faggots, heaping them up in the moat until a passage was
practicable. Over this went Cesare’s soldiers to force an entrance.
A stubborn fight ensued within the ravelin, where the duke’s men were
held in check by the defenders, and not until some four hundred corpses
choked that narrow space did the besieged give ground before them.
Like most of the Italian fortresses of the period, the castle of Forli
consisted of a citadel within a citadel. In the heart of the main
fabric--but cut off from it again by its own moat--arose the great tower
known as the Maschio. This was ever the last retreat of the besieged
when the fortress itself had been carried by assault, and, in the case
of the Maschio of the Citadel of Forli, so stout was its construction
that it was held to be practically invulnerable.
Had the countess’s soldiers made their retreat in good order to this
tower, where all the munitions and provisions were stored, Cesare would
have found the siege but in the beginning; but in the confusion of that
grim hour, besieged and besiegers, Borgian and Riarian, swept forward
interlocked, a writhing, hacking, bleeding mob of men-at-arms. Thus
they flung themselves in a body across the bridge that spanned the inner
moat, and so into the Maschio, whilst the stream of Cesare’s soldiers
that poured uninterruptedly across in the immediate wake of that
battling mass rendered it impossible for the defenders to take up the
bridge.
Within the tower the carnage went on, and the duke’s men hacked
their way through what remained of the Forlivese until they had made
themselves masters of that inner stronghold whither Caterina had sought
her last refuge.
A Burgundian serving under the Bailie of Dijon was the first to come
upon her in the room to which she had fled with a few attendants and a
handful of men, amongst whom were Alessandro Sforza, Paolo Riario, and
Scipione Riario--this last an illegitimate son of her first husband’s,
whom she had adopted. The Burgundian declared her his prisoner, and held
her for the price that had been set upon her head until the arrival of
Cesare, who entered the citadel with his officers a little while after
the final assault had been delivered.
Cesare received and treated her with the greatest courtesy, and, seeing
her for the moment destitute, he presented her with a purse containing
two hundred ducats for her immediate needs. Under his escort she left
the castle, and was conducted, with her few remaining servants, to the
Nomaglie Palace to remain in the Duke’s care, his prisoner. Her brother
and the other members of her family found with her were similarly made
prisoners.
After her departure the citadel was given over to pillage, and all
hell must have raged in it if we may judge from an incident related
by Bernardi in his chronicles. A young clerk, named Evangelista da
Monsignane, being seized by a Burgundian soldier who asked him if he had
any money, produced and surrendered a purse containing thirteen ducats,
and so got out of the mercenaries’ clutches, but only to fall into the
hands of others, one of whom again declared him a prisoner. The poor
youth, terrified at the violence about him, and eager to be gone from
that shambles, cried out that, if they would let him go, he would pay
them a ransom of a hundred ducats.
Thereupon “Surrender to me!” cried one of the soldiers, and, as the
clerk was about to do so, another, equally greedy for the ransom, thrust
himself forward. “No. Surrender to me, rather,” demanded this one.
The first insisted that the youth was his prisoner, whereupon the second
brandished his sword, threatening to kill Evangelista. The clerk, in a
panic, flung himself into the arms of a monk who was with him, crying
out for mercy, and there in the monk’s arms he was brutally slain, “to
put an end,” said his murderer, “to the dispute.”
Forlimpopoli surrendered a few days later to Yves d’Allègre, whom
Cesare had sent thither, whilst in Forli, as soon as he had reduced the
citadel, and before even attempting to repair the damage done, the
duke set about establishing order and providing for the dispensation of
justice, exerting to that end the rare administrative ability which not
even his bitterest detractors have denied him.
He sent a castellan to Forlimpopoli and fetched from Imola a Podestà for
Forli.(1) He confirmed the Council of Forty that ruled Forli--being
ten for each quarter of the city--and generally made sound and wise
provision for the town’s well-being, which we shall presently see
bearing fruit.
1 It was customary throughout Italy that the Podestà, or chief
magistrate, should never be a native of the town--rarely of the
State--in which he held his office. Thus, having no local interests or
relationships, he was the likelier to dispense justice with desirable
single-mindedness.
Next the repairing of the fortress claimed his attention, and he
disposed for this, entrusting the execution of his instructions to
Ramiro de Lorqua, whom he left behind as governor. In the place where
the breach was opened by his cannon he ordered the placing of a marble
panel bearing his arms; and there it is to be seen to this day: Dexter,
the sable bars of the House of Lenzol; Sinister, the Borgia bull in
chief, and the lilies of France; and, superimposed, an inescutcheon
bearing the Pontifical arms.
All measures being taken so far as Forli was concerned, Cesare turned
his attention to Pesaro, and prepared to invade it. Before leaving,
however, he awaited the return of his absent cousin, the Cardinal
Giovanni Borgia, who, as papal legate, was to receive the oath of fealty
of the town; but, instead of the cardinal whom he was expecting, came a
messenger with news of his death of fever at Fossombrone.
Giovanni Borgia had left Forli on December 28 to go to Cesena, with
intent, it was said, to recruit to his cousin’s army those men of
Rimini, who, exiled and in rebellion against their tyrant Malatesta,
had sought shelter in that Pontifical fief. Thence he had moved on
to Urbino, where--in the ducal palace--he awaited news of the fall of
Forli, and where, whilst waiting, he fell ill. Nevertheless, when the
tidings of Cesare’s victory reached him, he insisted upon getting to
horse, to repair to Forli; but, discovering himself too ill to keep the
saddle, he was forced to abandon the journey at Fossombrone, whilst the
outcome of the attempt was an aggravation of the fever resulting in the
cardinal’s death.
Cesare appears to have been deeply grieved by the loss of Giovanni,
and there is every cause to suppose that a sincere attachment prevailed
between the cousins. Yet Cesare has been charged with his death, and
accused of having poisoned him, and, amidst the host of silly, baseless
accusations levelled against Cesare, you shall find none more silly or
baseless than this. In other instances of unproven crimes with which he
has been charged there may be some vestiges of matter that may do duty
for evidence or be construed into motives; here there is none that
will serve one purpose or the other, and the appalling and rabid
unscrupulousness, the relentless malice of Borgian chroniclers is in
nothing so completely apparent as in this accusation.
Sanuto mentions the advices received, and the rumours which say that
Cesare murdered him through jealousy, knowing him beloved by the Pope,
seeing him a legate, and fearing that he might come to be given the
governorship of some Romagna fief.
When Gandia died and Cesare was accused of having murdered him, the
motive advanced was that Cesare, a papal legate, resented a brother who
was a duke. Now, Cesare, being a duke, resents a cousin’s being a papal
legate. You will observe that, if this method of discovering motives is
pursued a little further, there is no man who died in Cesare’s life-time
whom Cesare could not be shown to have had motives for murdering.
Sillier even than Sanuto’s is the motive with which Giovio attempts to
bolster up the accusation which he reports: “He [Cesare] poisoned him
because he [Giovanni] favoured the Duke of Gandia.”
That, apparently, was the best that Giovio could think of. It is hardly
intelligible--which is perhaps inevitable, for it is not easy to be
intelligible when you don’t quite know, yourself, what you mean, which
must have been Giovio’s case.
The whole charge is so utterly foolish, stupid, and malicious that it
would scarcely be worth mentioning, were it not that so many modern
writers have included this among the Borgia crimes. As a matter of
fact--and as a comparison of the above-cited dates will show--eighteen
days had elapsed between Giovanni Borgia’s leaving Cesare at Forli and
his succumbing at Urbino--which in itself disposes of the matter. It
may be mentioned that this is a circumstance which those foolish or
deliberately malicious calumniators either did not trouble to ascertain
or else thought it wiser to slur over. Although, had they been pressed,
there was always the death of Djem to be cited and the fiction of the
slow-working poison specially invented to meet and explain his case.
The preparations for the invasion of Pesaro were complete, and it was
determined that on January 22 the army should march out of Forli; but on
the night of the 21st a disturbance occurred. The Swiss under the
Bailie of Dijon became mutinous--they appear throughout to have been an
ill-conditioned lot--and they clamoured now for higher pay if they were
to go on to Pesaro, urging that already they had served the Duke of
Valentinois as far as they had pledged themselves to the King of France.
Towards the third hour of the night the Bailie himself, with these
mutineers at his heels, presented himself at the Nomaglie Palace to
demand that the Countess Sforza-Riario should be delivered into his
hands. His claim was that she was his prisoner, since she had been
arrested by a soldier of his own, and that her surrender was to France,
to which he added--a thought inconsequently, it seems--that the French
law forbade that women should be made prisoners. Valentinois, taken
utterly by surprise, and without the force at hand to resist the Bailie
and his Swiss, was compelled to submit and to allow the latter to carry
the countess off to his own lodging; but he dispatched a messenger to
Forlimpopoli with orders for the immediate return of Allègre and his
horse, and in the morning, after Mass, he had the army drawn up in the
market-place; and so, backed by his Spanish, French, and Italian troops,
he faced the threatening Swiss.
The citizens were in a panic, expecting to see battle blaze out at any
moment, and apprehensive of the consequences that might ensue for the
town.
The Swiss had grown more mutinous than ever overnight, and they now
refused to march until they were paid. It was Cesare’s to quell and
restore them to obedience. He informed them that they should be paid
when they reached Cesena, and that, if they were retained thereafter
in his employ, their pay should be on the improved scale which they
demanded. Beyond that he made no concessions. The remainder of his
harangue was matter to cow them into submission, for he threatened to
order the ringing of the alarm-bells, and to have them cut to pieces by
the people of Forli whom their gross and predatory habits had already
deeply offended.
Order was at last restored, and the Bailie of Dijon was compelled to
surrender back the countess to Cesare. But their departure was postponed
until the morrow. On that day, January 23, after receiving the oath
of fealty from the Anziani in the Church of San Mercuriale, the duke
marched his army out of Forli and took the road to Pesaro.
Caterina Sforza Riario went with him. Dressed in black and mounted upon
a white horse, the handsome amazon rode between Cesare Borgia and Yves
d’Allègre.
At Cesena the duke made a halt, and there he left the countess in the
charge of d’Allègre whilst he himself rode forward to overtake the main
body of his army, which was already as far south as Cattolica. As for
Giovanni Sforza, despite the fact that the Duke of Urbino had sent some
foot to support him, he was far more likely to run than to fight, and
in fact he had already taken the precaution of placing his money and
valuables in safety and was disposing, himself, to follow them. But
it happened that there was not yet the need. Fate--in the shape of his
cousin Lodovico of Milan--postponed the occasion.
On the 26th Cesare lay at Montefiori, and there he was reached by
couriers sent at all speed from Milan by Trivulzio. Lodovico Sforza
had raised an army of Swiss and German mercenaries to reconquer his
dominions, and the Milanese were opening their arms to receive him back,
having already discovered that, in exchanging his rule for that of the
French, they had but exchanged King Log for King Stork. Trivulzio begged
for the instant return of the French troops serving under Cesare,
and Cesare, naturally compelled to accede, was forced to postpone the
continuance of his campaign, a matter which must have been not a little
vexatious at such a moment.
He returned to Cesena, where, on the 27th, he dismissed Yves d’Allègre
and his men, who made all haste back to Milan, so that Cesare was left
with a force of not more than a thousand foot and five hundred horse.
These, no doubt, would have sufficed him for the conquest of Pesaro, but
Giovanni Sforza, encouraged by his cousin’s return, and hopeful now of
assistance, would certainly entrench himself and submit to a siege which
must of necessity be long-drawn, since the departure of the French had
deprived Cesare of his artillery.
Therefore the duke disposed matters for his return to Rome instead,
and, leaving Ercole Bentivogli with five hundred horse and Gonsalvo de
Mirafuente with three hundred foot to garrison Forli, he left Cesena
with the remainder of his forces, including Vitelli’s horse, on January
30. With him went Caterina Sforza-Riario, and of course there were not
wanting those who alleged that, during the few days at Cesena he
had carried his conquest of her further than the matter of her
territories(1)--a rumour whose parent was, no doubt, the ribald jest
made in Milan by Trivulzio when he heard of her capture.
1 “Teneva detta Madona (la qual é belissima dona, fiola del Ducha
Galeazo di Milan) di zorno e di note in la sna camera, con la
quale--judicio omnium--si deva piacer” (Sanuto’s Diarii).
He conducted her to Rome--in golden chains, “like another Palmyra,” it
is said--and there she was given the beautiful Belvedere for her prison
until she attempted an escape in the following June; whereupon, for
greater safety, she was transferred to the Castle of Sant’ Angelo. There
she remained until May of 1501, when, by the intervention of the King of
France, she was set at liberty and permitted to withdraw to Florence
to rejoin her children. In the city of the lilies she abode, devoting
herself to good works until she ended her turbulent, unhappy life in
1509.
The circumstance that she was not made to pay with her life for her
attempt to poison the Pope is surely something in favour of the Borgias,
and it goes some way towards refuting the endless statements of their
fierce and vindictive cruelty. Of course, it has been urged that they
spared her from fear of France; but, if that is admitted, what then
becomes of the theory of that secret poison which might so well have
been employed in such a case as this?