On October 2 news of the revolt of the condottieri and the diet of
Magione had reached the Vatican and rendered the Pope uneasy. Cesare,
however, had been informed of it some time before at Imola, where he was
awaiting the French lances that should enable him to raid the Bolognese
and drive out the Bentivogli.
Where another might have been paralyzed by a defection which left him
almost without an army, and would have taken the course of sending
envoys to the rebels to attempt to make terms and by concessions to
patch up a treaty, Cesare, with characteristic courage, assurance, and
promptitude of action, flung out officers on every side to levy him
fresh troops.
His great reputation as a condottiero, the fame of his wealth and his
notorious liberality, stood him now in excellent stead. The response to
his call was instantaneous. Soldiers of fortune and mercenaries showed
the trust they had in him, and flocked to his standard from every
quarter. One of the first to arrive was Gasparo Sanseverino, known as
Fracassa, a condottiero of great renown, who had been in the Pontifical
service since the election of Pope Alexander. He was a valuable
acquisition to Cesare, who placed him in command of the horse. Another
was Lodovico Pico della Mirandola, who brought a small condotta of 60
lances and 60 light horse. Ranieri della Sassetta rode in at the head
of 100 mounted arbalisters, and Francesco de Luna with a body of 50
arquebusiers.(1)
1 The arquebus, although it had existed in Italy for nearly a century,
was only just coming into general use.
Valentinois sent out Raffaele dei Pazzi and Galeotto Pallavicini, the
one into Lombardy to recruit 1,000 Gascons, the other to raise a body of
Swiss mercenaries. Yet, when all is said, these were but supplementary
forces; the main strength of Cesare’s new army lay in the troops raised
in the Romagna, which, faithful to him and confident of his power and
success, rallied to him now in the hour of his need. Than this there can
be no more eloquent testimony to the quality of his rule. In command of
these Romagnuoli troops he placed such Romagnuoli captains as Dionigio
di Naldo and Marcantonio da Fano, thereby again affording proof of his
wisdom, by giving these soldiers their own compatriots and men with whom
they were in sympathy for their leaders.
With such speed had he acted, and such was the influence of his name,
that already, by October 14, he had assembled an army of upwards of
6,000 men, which his officers were diligently drilling at Imola, whilst
daily now were the French lances expected, and the Swiss and Gascon
mercenaries he had sent to levy.
It may well be that this gave the confederates pause, and suggested
to them that they should reconsider their position and ask themselves
whether the opportunity for crushing Cesare had not slipped by whilst
they had stood undecided.
It was Pandolfo Petrucci who took the first step towards a
reconciliation, by sending word to Valentinois that it was not his
intention to take any measures that might displease his Excellency. His
Excellency will no doubt have smiled at that belated assurance from
the sparrow to the hawk. Then, a few days later, came news that Giulio
Orsini had entered into an agreement with the Pope. This appeared to
give the confederacy its death-blow, and Paolo Orsini was on the point
of setting out to seek Cesare at Imola for the purpose of treating
with him--which would definitely have given burial to the revolt--when
suddenly there befell an event which threw the scales the other way.
Cesare’s people were carrying out some work in the Castle of S. Leo,
in the interior of which a new wall was in course of erection. For the
purposes of this, great baulks of timber were being brought into the
castle from the surrounding country. Some peasants, headed by one
Brizio, who had been a squire of Guidobaldo’s, availed themselves of the
circumstance to capture the castle by a stratagem. Bringing forward some
great masses of timber and felled trees, they set them down along the
drawbridge in such a manner as to prevent its being hoisted. That done,
an attack in force was directed against the fortress. The place, whose
natural defences rendered it practically impregnable, was but slightly
manned; being thus surprised, and unable to raise the bridge, it was
powerless to offer any resistance, so that the Montefeltre peasants,
having killed every Borgia soldier of the garrison, took possession of
it and held it for Duke Guidobaldo.
This capture of S. Leo was as a spark that fired a train. Instantly the
hardy hillmen of Urbino were in arms to reconquer Guidobaldo’s duchy for
him. Stronghold after stronghold fell into their hands, until they
were in Urbino itself. They made short work of the capital’s scanty
defenders, flung Cesare’s governor into prison, and finally obtained
possession of the citadel.
It was the news of this that caused the confederates once more to pause.
Before declaring themselves, they waited to see what action Venice would
take, whilst in the meantime they sought shelter behind a declaration
that they were soldiers of the Church and would do nothing against the
will of the Pontiff. They were confidently assured that Venice would
befriend Guidobaldo, and help him back to his throne now that his own
people had done so much towards that end. It remained, however, to be
seen whether Venice would at the same time befriend Pesaro and Rimini.
Instantly Cesare Borgia--who was assailed by grave doubts concerning the
Venetians--took his measures. He ordered Bartolomeo da Capranica, who
was chief in command of his troops in Urbino, to fall back upon Rimini
with all his companies, whilst to Pesaro the duke dispatched Michele da
Corella and Ramiro de Lorqua.
It was a busy time of action with the duke at Imola, and yet, amid all
the occupation which this equipment of a new army must have given him,
he still found time for diplomatic measures, and, taking advantage of
the expressed friendliness of Florence, he had replied by desiring
the Signory to send an envoy to confer with him. Florence responded by
sending, as her representative, that same Niccolò Macchiavelli who had
earlier accompanied Soderini on a similar mission to Valentinois, and
who had meanwhile been advanced to the dignity of Secretary of State.
Macchiavelli has left us, in his dispatches to his Government, the
most precious and valuable information concerning that period of Cesare
Borgia’s history during which he was with the duke on the business of
his legation. Not only is it the rare evidence of an eye-witness that
Macchiavelli affords us, but the evidence, as we have said, of one
endowed with singular acumen and an extraordinary gift of psychological
analysis. The one clear and certain inference to be drawn, not only from
those dispatches, but from the Florentine secretary’s later writings,
is that, at close quarters with Cesare Borgia, a critical witness of his
methods, he conceived for him a transcending admiration which was later
to find its fullest expression in his immortal book The Prince--a
book, remember, compiled to serve as a guide in government to Giuliano
de’Medici, the feeble brother of Pope Leo X, a book inspired by Cesare
Borgia, who is the model prince held up by Macchiavelli for emulation.
Does it serve any purpose, in the face of this work from the pen of the
acknowledged inventor of state-craft, to describe Cesare’s conquest
of the Romagna by opprobrious epithets and sweeping statements of
condemnation and censure--statements kept carefully general, and never
permitted to enter into detail which must destroy their own ends and
expose their falsehood?
Gregorovius, in this connection, is as full of contradictions as any
man must be who does not sift out the truth and rigidly follow it in his
writings. Consider the following scrupulously translated extracts from
his Geschichte der Stadt Rom:
(a) “Cesare departed from Rome to resume his bloody work in the
Romagna.”
(b) “...the frightful deeds performed by Cesare on both sides of the
Apennines. He assumes the semblance of an exterminating angel, and
performs such hellish iniquities that we can only shudder at the
contemplation of the evil of which human nature is capable.”
And now, pray, consider and compare with those the following excerpt
from the very next page of that same monumental work:
“Before him [Cesare] cities trembled; the magistrates prostrated
themselves in the dust; sycophantic courtiers praised him to the stars.
Yet it is undeniable that his government was energetic and good; for
the first time Romagna enjoyed peace and was rid of her vampires. In the
name of Cesare justice was administered by Antonio di Monte Sansovino,
President of the Ruota of Cesena, a man universally beloved.”
It is almost as if the truth had slipped out unawares, for the first
period hardly seems a logical prelude to the second, by which it is
largely contradicted. If Cesare’s government was so good that Romagna
knew peace at last and was rid of her vampires, why did cities tremble
before him? There is, by the way, no evidence of such trepidations in
any of the chronicles of the conquered States, one and all of which hail
Cesare as their deliverer. Why, if he was held in such terror, did city
after city--as we have seen--spontaneously offer itself to Cesare’s
dominion?
But to rebut those statements of Gregorovius’s there is scarce the need
to pose these questions; sufficiently does Gregorovius himself
rebut them. The men who praised Cesare, the historian tells us, were
sycophantic courtiers. But where is the wonder of his being praised if
his government was as good as Gregorovius admits it to have been? What
was unnatural in that praise? What so untruthful as to deserve to be
branded sycophantic? And by what right is an historian to reject as
sycophants the writers who praise a man, whilst accepting every word
of his detractors as the words of inspired evangelists, even when
their falsehoods are so transparent as to provoke the derision of the
thoughtful and analytic?
As l’Espinois points out in his masterly essay in the Revue des
Questions Historiques, Gregorovius refuses to recognize in Cesare Borgia
the Messiah of a united Central Italy, but considers him merely as
a high-flying adventurer; whilst Villari, in his Life and Times of
Macchiavelli, tells you bluntly that Cesare Borgia was neither a
statesman nor a soldier but a brigand-chief.
These are mere words; and to utter words is easier than to make them
good.
“High-flying adventurer,” or “brigand-chief,” by all means, if it
please you. What but a high-flying adventurer was the wood-cutter, Muzio
Attendolo, founder of the ducal House of Sforza? What but a high-flying
adventurer was that Count Henry of Burgundy who founded the kingdom
of Portugal? What else was the Norman bastard William, who conquered
England? What else the artillery officer, Napoleon Bonaparte, who became
Emperor of the French? What else was the founder of any dynasty but a
high-flying adventurer--or a brigand-chief, if the melodramatic term is
more captivating to your fancy?
These terms are used to belittle Cesare. They achieve no more, however,
than to belittle those who penned them; for, even as they are true,
the marvel is that the admirable matter in these truths appears to have
escaped those authors.
What else Gregorovius opines--that Cesare was no Messiah of United
Italy--is true enough. Cesare was the Messiah of Cesare. The well-being
of Italy for its own sake exercised his mind not so much as
the well-being of the horse he rode. He wrought for his own
aggrandisement--but he wrought wisely; and, whilst the end in view is no
more to be censured than the ambition of any man, the means employed
are in the highest degree to be commended, since the well-being of
the Romagna, which was not an aim, was, nevertheless, an essential and
praiseworthy incident.
When it can be shown that every other of those conquerors who cut heroic
figures in history were purest altruists, it will be time to damn Cesare
Borgia for his egotism.
What Villari says, for the purpose of adding rhetorical force to
his “brigand-chief”--that Cesare was no statesman and no soldier--is
entirely of a piece with the rest of the chapter in which it
occurs(1)--a chapter rich in sweeping inaccuracies concerning Cesare.
But it is staggering to find the statement in such a place, amid
Macchiavelli’s letters on Cesare, breathing an obvious and profound
admiration of the duke’s talents as a politician and a soldier--an
admiration which later is to go perilously near to worship. To
Macchiavelli, Cesare is the incarnation of a hazy ideal, as is
abundantly shown in The Prince. For Villari to reconcile all this with
his own views must seem impossible. And impossible it is; yet Villari
achieves it, with an audacity that leaves you breathless.
1 In his Niccolò Machiavelli.
No--he practically tells you--this Macchiavelli, who daily saw and spoke
with Cesare for two months (and during a critical time, which is when
men best reveal their natures), this acute Florentine--the acutest
man of his age, perhaps--who studied and analysed Cesare, and sent his
Government the results of his analyses, and was inspired by them later
to write The Prince--this man did not know Cesare Borgia. He wrote, not
about Cesare himself, but about a creation of his own intellect.
That is what Villari pretends. Macchiavelli, the representative of a
power unfriendly at heart under the mask of the expedient friendliness,
his mind already poisoned by all the rumours current throughout Italy,
comes on this mission to Valentinois. Florence, fearing and hating
Valentinois as she does, would doubtless take pleasure in detractory
advices. Other ambassadors--particularly those of Venice--pander to
their Governments’ wishes in this respect, conscious that there is a
sycophancy in slander contrasted with which the ordinary sycophancy of
flattery is as water to wine; they diligently send home every scrap
of indecent or scandalous rumour they can pick up in the Roman
ante-chambers, however unlikely, uncorroborated, or unconcerning the
business of an ambassador.
But Macchiavelli, in Cesare Borgia’s presence, is overawed by his
greatness, his force and his intellect, and these attributes engage him
in his dispatches. These same dispatches are a stumbling-block to all
who prefer to tread the beaten, sensational track, and to see in
Cesare Borgia a villain of melodrama, a monster of crime, brutal, and,
consequently, of no intellectual force. But Villari contrives to step
more or less neatly, if fatuously, over that formidable obstacle, by
telling you that Macchiavelli presents to you not really Cesare Borgia,
but a creation of his own intellect, which he had come to admire. It
is a simple, elementary expedient by means of which every piece of
historical evidence ever penned may be destroyed--including all that
which defames the House of Borgia.
Macchiavelli arrived at Imola on the evening of October 7, 1502, and,
all travel-stained as he was, repaired straight to the duke, as if
the message with which he was charged was one that would not brook a
moment’s delay in its deliverance. Actually, however, he had nothing to
offer Cesare but the empty expressions of Florence’s friendship and
the hopes she founded upon Cesare’s reciprocation. The crafty young
Florentine--he was thirty-three at the time--was sent to temporize and
to avoid committing himself or his Government.
Valentinois listened to the specious compliments, and replied by similar
protestations and by reminding Florence how he had curbed the hand
of those very condottieri who had now rebelled against him as a
consequence. He showed himself calm and tranquil at the loss of Urbino,
telling Macchiavelli that he “had not forgotten the way to reconquer
it,” when it should suit him. Of the revolted condottieri he
contemptuously said that he accounted them fools for not having known
how to choose a more favourable moment in which to harm him, and that
they would presently find such a fire burning under their feet as would
call for more water to quench it than such men as these disposed of.
Meanwhile, the success of those rustics of Urbino who had risen, and
the ease of their victories, had fired others of the territory to follow
their example. Fossombrone and Pergola were the next to rebel and to put
the Borgia garrisons to the sword; but, in their reckless audacity,
they chose their moment ill, for Michele da Corella was at hand with his
lances, and, although his orders had been to repair straight to Pesaro,
he ventured to depart from them to the extent of turning aside to punish
the insurgence of those towns by launching his men-at-arms upon them and
subjecting them to an appalling and pitiless sack.
When Cesare heard the news of it and the details of the horrors that had
been perpetrated, he turned, smiling cruelly, to Macchiavelli, who
was with him, and, “The constellations this year seem unfavourable to
rebels,” he observed.
A battle of wits was toward between the Florentines’ Secretary of State
and the Duke of Valentinois, each mistrustful of the other. In the end
Cesare, a little out of patience at so much inconclusiveness, though
outwardly preserving his immutable serenity, sought to come to grips by
demanding that Florence should declare whether he was to account her his
friend or not. But this was precisely what Macchiavelli’s instructions
forbade him from declaring. He answered that he must first write to the
Signory, and begged the duke to tell him what terms he proposed should
form the treaty. But there it was the duke’s turn to fence and to avoid
a direct answer, desiring that Florence should open the negotiations and
that from her should come the first proposal.
He reminded Macchiavelli that Florence would do well to come to a
decision before the Orsini sought to patch up a peace with him, since,
once that was done, there would be fresh difficulties, owing, of course,
to Orsini’s enmity to the existing Florentine Government. And of such a
peace there was now every indication, Paolo Orsini having at last
sent Cesare proposals for rejoining him, subject to his abandoning the
Bologna enterprise (in which, the Orsini argued, they could not bear
a hand without breaking faith with Bentivogli) and turning against
Florence. Vitelli, at the same time, announced himself ready to return
to Cesare’s service, but first he required some “honest security.”
Well might it have pleased Cesare to oblige the Orsini to the letter,
and to give a lesson in straight-dealing to these shuffling Florentine
pedlars who sent a nimble-witted Secretary of State to hold him in play
with sweet words of barren meaning. But there was France and her wishes
to be considered, and he could not commit himself. So his answer was
peremptory and condescending. He told them that, if they desired to show
themselves his friends, they could set about reconquering and holding
Urbino for him.
It looked as if the condottieri agreed to this, for on October 11
Vitelli seized Castel Durante, and on the next day Baglioni was in
possession of Cagli.
In view of this, Cesare bade the troops which he had withdrawn to
advance again upon the city of Urbino and take possession of it. But
suddenly, on the 12th, a messenger from Guidobaldo rode into Urbino to
announce their duke’s return within a few days to defend the subjects
who had shown themselves so loyal to him. This, the shifty confederates
accounted, must be done with the support of Venice, whence they
concluded that Venice must have declared against Valentinois, and again
they treacherously changed sides.
The Orsini proceeded to prompt action. Assured of their return to
himself, and counting upon their support in Urbino, Cesare had contented
himself with sending thither a small force of 100 lances and 200
light horse. Upon these fell the Orsini, and put them to utter rout at
Calmazzo, near Fossombrone, capturing Ugo di Moncada, who commanded
one of the companies, but missing Michele da Corella, who contrived to
escape to Fossombrone.
The conquerors entered Urbino that evening, and, as if to put it on
record that they burnt their boats with Valentinois, Paolo Orsini wrote
that same night to the Venetian Senate advices of the victory won.
Three days later--on October 18--Guidobaldo, accompanied by his nephews
Ottaviano Fregioso and Gianmaria Varano, re-entered his capital amid the
cheers and enthusiasm of his loyal and loving people.
Vitelli made haste to place his artillery at Guidobaldo’s disposal for
the reduction of Cagli, Pergola, and Fossombrone, which were still held
for Valentinois, whilst Oliverotto da Fermo went with Gianmaria Varano
to attempt the reconquest of Camerino, and Gianpaolo Baglioni to Fano,
which, however, he did not attempt to enter as an enemy--an idle course,
seeing how loyally the town held for Cesare--but as a ducal condottiero.
Fired by Orsini’s example, Bentivogli also took the offensive, and began
by ordering the canonists of Bologna University to go to the churches
and encourage the people to disregard the excommunications launched
against the city. He wrote to the King of France to complain that Cesare
had broken the Treaty of Villafontana by which he had undertaken never
again to molest Bologna--naïvely ignoring the circumstance that he
himself had been the first to violate the terms of that same treaty, and
that it was precisely upon such grounds that Cesare was threatening him.
Thus matters stood, the confederates turning anxious eyes towards
Venice, and, haply, beginning to wonder whether the Republic was indeed
going to move to their support as they had so confidently expected, and
realizing perhaps by now their rashness, and the ruin that awaited them
should Venice fail them. And fail them Venice did. The Venetians had
received a reply from Louis XII to that letter in which they had heaped
odium upon the Borgia and shown the king what dishonour to himself dwelt
in his alliance with Valentinois. Their criticisms and accusations were
ignored in that reply, which resolved itself into nothing more than a
threat that “if they opposed themselves to the enterprise of the Church
they would be treated by him as enemies,” and of this letter he sent
Cesare a copy, as Cesare himself told Macchiavelli.
So, whilst Valentinois in Imola was able to breathe more freely, the
condottieri in Urbino may well have been overcome with horror at their
position and at having been thus left in the lurch by Venice. None was
better aware than Pandolfo Petrucci of the folly of their action and of
the danger that now impended, and he sent his secretary to Valentinois
to say that if the duke would but reassure them on the score of his
intentions they would return to him and aid him in recovering what had
been lost.
Following upon this message came Paolo Orsini himself to Imola on the
25th, disguised as a courier, and having first taken the precaution of
obtaining a safe-conduct. He left again on the 29th, bearing with him
a treaty the terms of which had been agreed between himself and Cesare
during that visit. These were that Cesare should engage to protect the
States of all his allied condottieri, and they to serve him and the
Church in return. A special convention was to follow, to decide the
matter of the Bentivogli, which should be resolved by Cesare, Cardinal
Orsini, and Pandolfo Petrucci in consultation, their judgment to be
binding upon all.
Cesare’s contempt for the Orsini and the rest of the shifty men who
formed that confederacy--that “diet of bankrupts,” as he had termed
it--was expressed plainly enough to Macchiavelli.
“To-day,” said he, “Messer Paolo is to visit me, and to-morrow there
will be the cardinal; and thus they think to befool me, at their
pleasure. But I, on my side, am only dallying with them. I listen to all
they have to say and bide my own time.”
Later, Macchiavelli was to remember those words, which meanwhile
afforded him matter for reflection.
As Paolo Orsini rode away from Imola, the duke’s secretary, Gherardi,
followed and overtook him to say that Cesare desired to add to the
treaty another clause--one relating to the King of France. To this Paolo
Orsini refused to consent, but, upon being pressed in the matter by
Gherardi, went so far as to promise to submit the clause to the others.
On October 30 Cesare published a notice in the Romagna, intimating the
return to obedience on the part of his captains.
Macchiavelli was mystified by this, and apprehensive--as men will be
of the things they cannot fathom--of what might be reserved in it for
Florence. It was Gherardi who reassured him, laughing in the face of the
crafty Florentine, as he informed him that even children should come to
smile at such a treaty as this. He added that he had gone after Paolo
Orsini to beg the addition of another clause, intentionally omitted by
the duke.
“If they accept that clause,” concluded Messer Agabito, “it will open a
window; if they refuse it, a door, by which the duke can issue from the
treaty.”
Macchiavelli’s wonder increased. But the subject of it now was that the
condottieri should be hoodwinked by a document in such terms, and well
may he have bethought him then of those words which Cesare had used to
him a few days earlier.