LUCRETIA'S MOTHER
About 1466 or 1467 Cardinal Rodrigo's magnetism attracted a woman of
Rome, Vannozza Catanei. We know that she was born in July, 1442, but of
her family we are wholly ignorant. Writers of that day also call her
Rosa and Catarina, although she named herself, in well authenticated
documents, Vannozza Catanei. Paolo Giovio states that Vanotti was her
patronymic, and although there was a clan of that name in Rome, he is
wrong. Vannozza was probably the nickname for Giovanna--thus we find in
the early records of that age: Vannozza di Nardis, Vannozza di Zanobeis,
di Pontianis, and others.
There was a Catanei family in Rome, as there was in Ferrara, Genoa, and
elsewhere. The name was derived from the title, _capitaneus_. In a
notarial document of 1502 the name of Alexander's mistress is given in
its ancient form, Vanotia de Captaneis.
Litta, to whom Italy is indebted for the great work on her
illustrious families--a wonderful work in spite of its errors and
omissions--ventures the opinion that Vannozza was a member of the
Farnese family and a daughter of Ranuccio. There is, however, no ground
for this theory. In written instruments of that time she is explicitly
called Madonna Vannozza de casa Catanei.
None of Vannozza's contemporaries have stated what were the
characteristics which enabled her to hold the pleasure-loving cardinal
so surely and to secure her recognition as the mother of several of his
acknowledged children. We may imagine her to have been a strong and
voluptuous woman like those still seen about the streets of Rome. They
possess none of the grace of the ideal woman of the Umbrian school, but
they have something of the magnificence of the Imperial City--Juno and
Venus are united in them. They would resemble the ideals of Titian and
Paul Veronese but for their black hair and dark complexion,--blond and
red hair have always been rare among the Romans.
Vannozza doubtless was of great beauty and ardent passions; for if not,
how could she have inflamed a Rodrigo Borgia? Her intellect too,
although uncultivated, must have been vigorous; for if not, how could
she have maintained her relations with the cardinal?
The date given above was the beginning of this liaison, if we may
believe the Spanish historian Mariana, who says that Vannozza was the
mother of Don Pedro Luis, Rodrigo's eldest son. In a notarial instrument
of 1482 this son of the cardinal is called a youth (_adolescens_), which
signified a person fourteen or fifteen years of age. In what
circumstances Vannozza was living when Cardinal Borgia made her
acquaintance we do not know. It is not likely that she was one of the
innumerable courtesans who, thanks to the liberality of their retainers,
led most brilliant lives in Rome at that period; for had she been, the
novelists and epigrammatists of the day would have made her famous.
The chronicler Infessura, who must have been acquainted with Vannozza,
relates that Alexander VI, wishing to make his natural son Cæsar a
cardinal, caused it to appear, by false testimony, that he was the
legitimate son of a certain Domenico of Arignano, and he adds that he
had even married Vannozza to this man. The testimony of a contemporary
and a Roman should have weight; but no other writer, except Mariana--who
evidently bases his statement on Infessura--mentions this Domenico, and
we shall soon see that there could have been no legal, acknowledged
marriage of Vannozza and this unknown man. She was the cardinal's
mistress for a much longer time before he himself, for the purpose of
cloaking his relations with her and for lightening his burden, gave her
a husband. His relations with her continued for a long time after she
had a recognized consort.
The first acknowledged husband of Vannozza was Giorgio di Croce, a
Milanese, for whom Cardinal Rodrigo had obtained from Sixtus IV a
position as apostolic secretary. It is uncertain at just what time she
allied herself with this man, but she was living with him as his wife in
1480 in a house on the Piazzo Pizzo di Merlo, which is now called
Sforza-Cesarini, near which was Cardinal Borgia's palace.
Even as early as this, Vannozza was the mother of several children
acknowledged by the cardinal: Giovanni, Cæsar, and Lucretia. There is no
doubt whatever about these, although the descent of the eldest of the
children, Pedro Luis, from the same mother, is only highly probable.
Thus far the date of the birth of this Borgia bastard has not been
established, and authorities differ. In absolutely authentic records I
discovered the dates of birth of Cæsar and Lucretia, which clear up
forever many errors regarding the genealogy and even the history of the
house. Cæsar was born in the month of April, 1476--the day is not
given--and Lucretia on the eighteenth of April, 1480. Their father, when
he was pope, gave their ages in accordance with these dates. In October,
1501, he mentioned the subject to the ambassador of Ferrara, and the
latter, writing to the Duke Ercole, said, "The Pope gave me to
understand that the Duchess (Lucretia) was in her twenty-second year,
which she will complete next April, in which month also the most
illustrious Duke of Romagna (Cæsar) will be twenty-six."
If the correctness of the father's statement of the age of his own
children is questioned, it may be confirmed by other reports and
records. In despatches which a Ferrarese ambassador sent to the same
duke from Rome much earlier, namely, in February and March, 1483, the
age of Cæsar at that time is given as sixteen to seventeen years, which
agrees with the subsequent statement of his father.[5] The son of
Alexander VI was, therefore, a few years younger than has hitherto been
supposed, and this fact has an important bearing upon his short and
terrible life. Mariana, therefore, and other authors who follow him, err
in stating that Cæsar, Rodrigo's second son, was older than his brother
Giovanni. In reality, Giovanni must have been two years older than
Cæsar. Venetian letters from Rome, written in October, 1496, describe
him as a young man of twenty-two; he accordingly must have been born in
1474.[6]
Lucretia herself came into the world April 18, 1480. This exact date is
given in a Valencian document. Her father was then forty-nine and her
mother thirty-eight years of age. The Roman or Spanish astrologers cast
the horoscope of the child according to the constellation which was in
the ascendancy, and congratulated Cardinal Rodrigo on the brilliant
career foretold for his daughter by the stars.
Easter had just passed; magnificent festivities had been held in honor
of the Elector Ernst of Saxony, who, together with the Duke of Brunswick
and Wilhelm von Henneberg had arrived in Rome March 22d. These gentlemen
were accompanied by a retinue of two hundred knights, and a house in the
Parione quarter had been placed at their disposal. Pope Sixtus IV loaded
them with honors, and great astonishment was caused by a magnificent
hunt which Girolamo Riario, the all-powerful nepot, gave for them, at
Magliana on the Tiber. These princes departed from Rome on the
fourteenth of April.
The papacy was at that time changing to a political despotism, and
nepotism was assuming the character which later was to give Cæsar Borgia
all his ferocity. Sixtus IV, a mighty being and a character of a much
more powerful cast than even Alexander VI, was at war with Florence,
where he had countenanced the Pazzi conspiracy for the murder of the
Medici. He had made Girolamo Riario a great prince in Romagna, and later
Alexander VI planned a similar career for his son Cæsar.
Lucretia was indeed born at a terrible period in the world's history;
the papacy was stripped of all holiness, religion was altogether
material, and immorality was boundless. The bitterest family feuds raged
in the city, in the Ponte, Parione, and Regola quarters, where kinsmen
incited by murder daily met in deadly combat. In this very year, 1480,
there was a new uprising of the old factions of Guelph and Ghibbeline in
Rome; there the Savelli and Colonna were against the Pope, and here the
Orsini for him; while the Valle, Margana, and Santa Croce families,
inflamed by a desire for revenge for blood which had been shed, allied
themselves with one or the other faction.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] Gianandrea Boccaccio to the duke, Rome, February 25 and March 11,
1493. State archives of Modena.
[6] Sanuto, Diar. v. i, 258.