It may well be that it was about this time that Cesare, his ambition
spreading--as men’s ambition will spread with being gratified--was
considering the consolidation of Central Italy into a kingdom of which
he would assume the crown.
It was a scheme in the contemplation of which he was encouraged by
Vitellozzo Vitelli, who no doubt conceived that in its fulfilment the
ruin of Florence would be entailed--which was all that Vitelli cared
about. What to Cesare would have been no more than the means, would have
been to Vitelli a most satisfactory end.
Before, however, going so far there was still the work of subjugating
the States of the Church to be completed, as this could not be so
considered until Urbino, Camerino, and Sinigaglia should be under the
Borgia dominion.
For this, no doubt, Cesare was disposing during that Easter of 1502
which he spent in Rome, and during which there were heard from the south
the first rumblings of the storm of war whereof ill-starred Naples was
once more--for the third time within ten years--to be the scene. The
allies of yesterday were become the antagonists of to-day, and France
and Spain were ready to fly at each other’s throats over the division of
the spoil, as a consequence of certain ill-definitions of the matter
in the treaty of Granada. The French Viceroy, Louis d’Armagnac, and the
great Spanish Captain, Gonzalo de Cordoba, were on the point of coming
to blows.
Nor was the menace of disturbance confined to Naples. In Florence, too,
the torch of war was alight, and if--as he afterwards swore--Cesare
Borgia had no hand in kindling it, it is at least undeniable that he
complacently watched the conflagration, conscious that it would make
for the fulfilment of his own ends. Besides, there was still that little
matter of the treaty of Forno dei Campi between Cesare and Florence,
a treaty which the Signory had never fulfilled and never intended to
fulfil, and Cesare was not the man to forget how he had been fooled.
But for the protection of France which she enjoyed, Florence must long
ere this have been called to account by him, and crushed out of
all shape under the weight of his mailed hand. As it was she was to
experience the hurt of his passive resentment, and find this rather more
than she could bear.
Vitellozzo Vitelli, that vindictive firebrand whose original motive in
allying himself with Cesare had been the hope that the duke might help
him to make Florence expiate his brother’s blood, finding that Cesare
withheld the expected help, was bent at last upon dealing, himself,
with Florence. He entered into plots with the exiled Piero de’Medici
to restore the latter to his dominion; he set intrigues afoot in Pisa,
where his influence was vast, and in Siena, whose tyrant, Pandolfo
Petrucci, was ready and willing to forward his designs, and generally
made so disturbing a stir in Tuscany that the Signory became gravely
alarmed.
Cesare certainly took no apparent active part in the affair. He lent
Vitelli no aid; but neither did he attempt to restrain him or any other
of the Borgia condottieri who were allied with him.
The unrest, spreading and growing sullenly a while, burst suddenly forth
in Arezzo on June 4, when the cries of “Medici!” and “Marzocco!” rang
in its streets, to announce that the city was in arms against the
government of Florence. Arezzo followed this up by summoning Vitelli,
and the waiting, watchful condottiero was quick to answer the desired
call. He entered the town three days later at the head of a small body
of foot, and was very shortly afterwards followed by his brother
Giulio Vitelli, Bishop of Città di Castello, with the artillery, and,
presently, by Gianpaolo Baglioni with a condotta of horse.
A few days later Vitelli was in possession of all the strongholds of
the Val di Chiana, and panic-stricken Florence was speeding ambassadors
hot-foot to Rome to lay her complaints of these matters before the Pope.
Alexander was able to reply that, far from supporting the belligerents,
he had launched a Bull against them, provoked by the poisoning of the
Bishop de’Pazzi.
Cesare looked on with the inscrutable calm for which Macchiavelli was
presently to find him so remarkable. Aware as he was of the French
protection which Florence enjoyed and could invoke, he perceived how
vain must ultimately prove Vitelli’s efforts, saw, perhaps, in all
this the grave danger of ultimate ruin which Vitelli was incurring. Yet
Vitelli’s action served Cesare’s own purposes, and, so that his purposes
were served, there were no other considerations likely to weigh with
that cold egotist. Let Vitelli be caught in the toils he was spinning,
and be choked in them. Meanwhile, Florence was being harrowed, and
that was all to Cesare’s satisfaction and advantage. When sufficiently
humbled, it might well befall that the Republic should come on her knees
to implore his intervention, and his pardon for having flouted him.
While matters stood so in Arezzo, Pisa declared spontaneously for
Cesare, and sent (on June 10) to offer herself to his dominion and to
announce to him that his banner was already flying from her turrets--and
the growth of Florence’s alarm at this is readily conceived.
To Cesare it must have been a sore temptation. To accept such a
pied-à-terre in Tuscany as was now offered him would have been the first
great step towards founding that kingdom of his dreams. An impulsive
man had surely gulped the bait. But Cesare, boundless in audacity, most
swift to determine and to act, was not impulsive. Cold reason, foresight
and calculation were the ministers of his indomitable will. He looked
ahead and beyond in the matter of Pisa’s offer, and he perceived the
danger that might await him in the acceptance. The time for that was
not yet. To take what Pisa offered might entail offending France, and
although Cesare was now in case to dispense with French support, he was
in no case to resist her opposition.
And so, the matter being considered and determined, Cesare quitted Rome
on the 12th and left it for the Pope to give answer to the Pisan envoys
in the Consistory of June 14--that neither his Holiness nor the Duke of
Valentinois could assent to the proposals which Pisa made.
From Rome Cesare travelled swiftly to Spoleto, where his army, some ten
thousand strong, was encamped. He was bent at last upon the conquest
of Camerino, and, ever an opportunist, he had seized the moment when
Florence, which might have been disposed to befriend Varano, Tyrant of
Camerino, was over-busy with her own affairs.
In addition to the powerful army awaiting him at Spoleto, the duke had
a further 2,000 men in the Romagna; another 1,000 men held themselves
at his orders between Sinigaglia and Urbino, and Dionigio di Naldo was
arming yet another 1,000 men at Verucchio for his service. Yet further
to increase this force, Cesare issued an edict during his brief sojourn
at Spoleto ordering every house in the Romagna to supply him with one
man-at-arms.
It was whilst here--as he afterwards wrote to the Pope--that news
reached him that Guidobaldo da Montefeltre, Duke of Urbino, was arming
men and raising funds for the assistance of Camerino. He wrote that
he could not at first believe it, but that shortly afterwards--at
Foligni--he took a chancellor of Camerino who admitted that the hopes
of this State were all founded upon Urbino’s assistance; and later, a
messenger from Urbino falling into his hands, he discovered that there
was a plot afoot to seize the Borgia artillery as it passed through
Ugubio, it being known that, as Cesare had no suspicions, the guns would
be guarded only by a small force. Of this treachery the duke strongly
expressed his indignation in his letter to the Pope.
Whether the matter was true--or whether Cesare believed it to be
true--it is impossible to ascertain with absolute conviction. But it
is in the highest degree unlikely that Cesare would have written such
a letter to his father solely by way of setting up a pretext. Had that
been his only aim, letters expressing his simulated indignation would
have been in better case to serve his ends had they been addressed to
others.
If Guidobaldo did engage in such an act, amounting to a betrayal, he was
certainly paid by Cesare in kind and with interest. If the duke had
been short of a pretext for carrying a drawn sword into the dominions
of Guidobaldo, he had that pretext now in this act of enmity against
himself and the Holy See.
First, however, he disposed for the attack upon Camerino. This State,
lying on the Eastern spurs of the Apennines, midway between Spoleto and
Urbino, was ruled by Giulio Cesare Varano, an old war-dog of seventy
years of age, ruthless and bloodthirsty, who owed his throne to his
murder of his own brother.
He was aided in the government of his tyranny by his four sons,
Venanzio, Annibale, Pietro, and Gianmaria.
Several times already had he been menaced by Cesare Borgia, for he was
one of the Vicars proscribed for the non-payment of tribute due to
the Holy See, and at last his hour was come. Against him Cesare now
dispatched an army under the command of Francesco Orsini, Duke of
Gravina, and Oliverotto Eufreducci, another murderous, bloody gentleman
who had hitherto served the duke in Vitelli’s condotta, and who, by an
atrocious act of infamy and brigandage, had made himself Lord of Fermo,
which he pretended--being as sly as he was bloody--to hold as Vicar for
the Holy See.
This Oliverotto Eufreducci--hereafter known as Oliverotto da Fermo--was
a nephew of Giovanni Fogliano, Lord of Fermo. He had returned home to
his uncle’s Court in the early part of that year, and was there received
with great honour and affection by Fogliano and his other relatives.
To celebrate his home-coming, Oliverotto invited his uncle and the
principal citizens of Fermo to a banquet, and at table contrived to turn
the conversation upon the Pope and the Duke of Valentinois; whereupon,
saying that these were matters to be discussed more in private, he rose
from table and begged them to withdraw with him into another room.
All unsuspecting--what should old Fogliano suspect from one so loved and
so deeply in his debt?--they followed him to the chamber where he had
secretly posted a body of his men-at-arms. There, no sooner had the
door closed upon this uncle, and those others who had shown him so
much affection, than he gave the signal for the slaughter that had been
concerted. His soldiers fell upon those poor, surprised victims of his
greed, and made a speedy and bloody end of all.
That first and chief step being taken, Oliverotto flung himself on his
horse, and, gathering his men-at-arms about him, rode through Fermo on
the business of butchering what other relatives and friends of Fogliano
might remain. Among these were Raffaele della Rovere and two of his
children, one of whom was inhumanly slaughtered in its mother’s lap.
Thereafter he confiscated to his own uses the property of those whom he
had murdered, and of those who, more fortunate, had fled his butcher’s
hands. He dismissed the existing Council and replaced it by a government
of his own. Which done--to shelter himself from the consequences--he
sent word to the Pope that he held Fermo as Vicar of the Church.
Whilst a portion of his army marched on Camerino, Cesare, armed with his
pretext for the overthrow of Guidobaldo, set himself deliberately and
by an elaborate stratagem to the capture of Urbino. Of this there can
be little doubt. The cunning of the scheme is of an unsavoury sort, when
considered by the notions that obtain to-day, for the stratagem was no
better than an act of base treachery. Yet, lest even in this you should
be in danger of judging Cesare Borgia by standards which cannot apply to
his age, you will do well to consider that there is no lack of evidence
that the fifteenth century applauded the business as a clever coup.
Guidobaldo da Montefeltre was a good prince. None in all Italy was
more beloved by his people, towards whom he bore himself with a kindly,
paternal bonhomie. He was a cultured, scholarly man, a patron of the
arts, happiest in the splendid library of the Palace of Urbino. It
happened, unfortunately, that he had no heir, which laid his dominions
open to the danger of division amongst the neighbouring greedy tyrants
after his death. To avoid this he had adopted Francesco Maria della
Rovere, hereditary Prefect of Sinigaglia, his sister’s child and
a nephew of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere’s. There was wisdom and
foresight in the adoption, considering the favour enjoyed in Rome and in
France by the powerful cardinal.
From Nocera Cesare sent Guidobaldo a message calculated to allay
whatever uneasiness he may have been feeling, and to throw him
completely off his guard. The duke notified him that he was marching
upon Camerino--which was at once true and untrue--and begged Guidobaldo
to assist him in this enterprise by sending him provisions to Gubbio,
which he should reach on the morrow--since he was marching by way of
Cagli and Sassoferrato. Further--and obviously with intent that the
Duke of Urbino should reduce the forces at his disposal--he desired
Guidobaldo to send Vitelli the support of a thousand men, which the
latter had earlier solicited, but which Guidobaldo had refused to
supply without orders from the Pope. Cesare concluded his letter with
protestations of brotherly love--the Judas’ kiss which makes him hateful
to us in this affair.
It all proved very reassuring to Guidobaldo who set his mind at ease
and never bethought him of looking to his defences, when, from Nocera,
Cesare made one of those sudden movements, terrible in their swiftness
as the spring of a tiger--enabling him to drive home his claws where
least expected. Leaving all baggage behind him, and with provisions
for only three days, he brought his troops by forced marches to Cagli,
within the Urbino State, and possessed himself of it almost before the
town had come to realize his presence.
Not until the citadel, taken entirely by surprise, was in Cesare’s hands
did a messenger speed to Guidobaldo with the unwelcome tidings that
the Duke of Valentinois was in arms, as an enemy, within the territory.
Together with that message came others into the garden of the Zoccolanti
monastery--that favourite resort of Guidobaldo’s--where he was indulging
his not unusual custom of supping in the cool of that summer evening.
They brought him word that, while Valentinois was advancing upon him
from the south, a force of 1,000 men were marching upon Urbino from
Isola di Fano in the east, and twice that number through the passes
of Sant’ Angelo and Verucchio in the north--all converging upon his
capital.
The attack had been shrewdly planned and timed, and if anything can
condone the treachery by which Guidobaldo was lulled into his false
security, it is the circumstance that this conduct of the matter avoided
bloodshed--a circumstance not wholly negligible, and one that was ever
a part of Cesare Borgia’s policy, save where punishment had to be
inflicted or reprisals taken.
Guidobaldo, seeing himself thus beset upon all sides at once, and
being all unprepared for resistance, perceived that nothing but flight
remained him; and that very night he left Urbino hurriedly, taking with
him the boy Francesco Maria, and intending at first to seek shelter in
his Castle of S. Leo--a fortress that was practically impregnable. But
already it was too late. The passes leading thither were by now in
the hands of the enemy, as Guidobaldo discovered at dawn. Thereupon,
changing his plans, he sent the boy and his few attendants to Bagno,
and, himself, disguised as a peasant, took to the hills, despite the
gout by which he was tormented. Thus he won to Ravenna, which was fast
becoming a home for dethroned princes.
Urbino, meanwhile, in no case to resist, sent its castellan to meet
Cesare and to make surrender to him--whereof Cesare, in the letter
already mentioned, gives news to the Pope, excusing himself for having
undertaken this thing without the Pope’s knowledge, but that “the
treachery employed against me by Guidobaldo was so enormous that I could
not suffer it.”
Within a few hours of poor Guidobaldo’s flight Cesare was housed in
Urbino’s splendid palace, whose stupendous library was the marvel of
all scholars of that day. Much of this, together with many of the
art-treasures collected by the Montefeltri, Cesare began shortly
afterwards to transfer to Cesena.
In addition to publishing an edict against pillage and violence in the
City of Urbino, Cesare made doubly sure that none should take place
by sending his soldiers to encamp at Fermignano, retaining near him in
Urbino no more than his gentlemen-at-arms. The capital being taken,
the remainder of the duchy made ready surrender, all the strongholds
announcing their submission to Cesare with the exception of that
almost inaccessible Castle of S. Leo, which capitulated only after a
considerable resistance.
From Urbino Cesare now entered into communication with the Florentines,
and asked that a representative should be sent to come to an agreement
with him. In response to this request, the Republic sent him Bishop
Soderini as her ambassador. The latter arrived in Urbino on June 25 and
was immediately and very cordially received by the duke. With him,
in the subordinate capacity of secretary, came a lean, small-headed,
tight-lipped man, with wide-set, intelligent eyes and prominent
cheek-bones--one Niccolò Macchiavelli, who, in needy circumstances at
present, and comparatively obscure, was destined to immortal fame. Thus
did Macchiavelli meet Cesare Borgia for the first time, and, for all
that we have no records of it, it is not to be doubted that his study of
that remarkable man began then in Urbino, to be continued presently,
as we shall see, when Macchiavelli returns to him in the quality of an
ambassador himself.
To Soderini the duke expounded his just grievance, founded upon the
Florentines’ unobservance of the treaty of Forno dei Campi; he demanded
that a fresh treaty should be drawn up to replace the broken one, and
that, for the purpose, Florence should change her government, as in
the ruling one, after what had passed, he could repose no faith. He
disclaimed all associations with the affair of Vitelli, but frankly
declared himself glad of it, as it had, no doubt, led Florence to
perceive what came of not keeping faith with him. He concluded by
assuring Soderini that, with himself for their friend, the Florentines
need fear no molestation from any one; but he begged that the Republic
should declare herself in the matter, since, if she did not care to have
him for her friend, she was, of course, at liberty to make of him her
enemy.
So impressed was Soderini by Cesare Borgia that on that same night he
wrote to the Signory:
“This lord is very magnificent and splendid, and so spirited in feats of
arms that there is nothing so great but that it must seem small to him.
In the pursuit of glory and in the acquisition of dominions he never
rests, and he knows neither danger nor fatigue. He moves so swiftly that
he arrives at a place before it is known that he has set out for it.
He knows how to make himself beloved of his soldiers, and he has in his
service the best men of Italy. These things render him victorious and
formidable, and to these is yet to be added his perpetual good fortune.
He argues,” the Florentine envoy proceeds, “with such sound reason that
to dispute with him would be a long affair, for his wit and eloquence
never fail him” (“dello ingegno e della lingua si vale quanto vuole”).
You are to remember that this homage is one of the few surviving
impressions of one who came into personal contact with Cesare, and of
one, moreover, representing a Government more or less inimical to him,
who would therefore have no reason to draw a favourable portrait of
him for that Government’s benefit. One single page of such testimony is
worth a dozen volumes of speculation and inference drawn afterwards by
men who never knew him--in many cases by men who never began to know his
epoch.
The envoy concludes by informing the Signory that he has the duke’s
assurances that the latter has no thought of attempting to deprive
Florence of any of her possessions, as “the object of his campaign has
not been to tyrannize, but to extirpate tyrants.”
Whilst Cesare awaited the Florentines’ reply to their ambassador’s
communication, he withdrew to the camp at Fermignano, where he was
sought on July 6 by a herald from Louis XII. This messenger came to
exhort Cesare to embark upon no enterprise against the Florentine
Republic, because to offend Florence would be to offend the Majesty of
France. Simultaneously, however, Florence received messages from the
Cardinal d’Amboise, suggesting that they should come to terms with
Valentinois by conceding him at least a part of what had been agreed in
the Treaty of Forno dei Campi.
As a consequence, Soderini was able to inform Cesare that the Republic
was ready to treat with him, but that first he must withdraw Vitelli
from Arezzo, and compel him to yield up the captured fortresses. The
duke, not trusting--as he had frankly avowed--a Government which once
already had broken faith with him, and perceiving that, if he whistled
his war-dogs to heel as requested, he would have lost the advantages of
his position, refused to take any such steps until the treaty should be
concluded. He consented, however, to enforce meanwhile an armistice.
But now it happened that news reached Florence of the advance of Louis
XII with an army of 20,000 men, bound for Naples to settle the dispute
with Spain. So the Republic--sly and treacherous as any other Italian
Government of the Cinquecento--instructed Soderini to temporize with
the duke; to spend the days in amiable, inconclusive interviews and
discussions of terms which the Signory did not mean to make. Thus they
counted upon gaining time, until the arrival of the French should put
an end to the trouble caused by Vitelli, and to the need for any
compromise.
But Cesare, though forced to submit, was not fooled by Soderini’s
smooth, evasive methods. He too--having private sources of information
in France--was advised of the French advance and of the imminence of
danger to himself in consequence of the affairs of Florence. And it
occasioned him no surprise to see Soderini come on July 19 to take his
leave of him, advised by the Signory that the French vanguard was at
hand, and that, consequently, the negotiations might now with safety be
abandoned.
To console him, he had news on the morrow of the conquest of Camerino.
The septuagenarian Giulio Cesare Varano had opposed to the Borgia forces
a stout resistance, what time he sent his two sons Pietro and Gianmaria
to Venice for help. It was in the hope of this solicited assistance that
he determined to defend his tyranny, and the war opened by a cavalry
skirmish in which Venanzio Varano routed the Borgia horse under the
command of the Duke of Gravina. Thereafter, however, the Varani had to
endure a siege; and the old story of the Romagna sieges was repeated.
Varano had given his subjects too much offence in the past, and it was
for his subjects now to call the reckoning.
A strong faction, led by a patrician youth of Camerino, demanded the
surrender of the State, and, upon being resisted, took arms and opened
the gates to the troops of Valentinois. The three Varani were taken
prisoners. Old Giulio Cesare was shut up in the Castle of Pergola, where
he shortly afterwards died--which was not wonderful or unnatural at his
time of life, and does not warrant Guicciardini for stating, without
authority, that he was strangled. Venanzio and Annibale were imprisoned
in the fortress of Cattolica.
In connection with this surrender of Camerino, Cesare wrote the
following affectionate letter to his sister Lucrezia--who was
dangerously ill at Ferrara in consequence of her delivery of a
still-born child:
“Most Illustrious and most Excellent Lady, our very dear
Sister,--Confident of the circumstance that there can be no more
efficacious and salutary medicine for the indisposition from which you
are at present suffering than the announcement of good and happy news,
we advise you that at this very moment we have received sure tidings of
the capture of Camerino. We beg that you will do honour to this message
by an immediate improvement, and inform us of it, because, tormented as
we are to know you so ill, nothing, not even this felicitous event,
can suffice to afford us pleasure. We beg you also kindly to convey
the present to the Illustrious Lord Don Alfonso, your husband and our
beloved Brother-in-law, to whom we are not writing to-day.”