NEPOTISM--GIULIA FARNESE--LUCRETIA'S BETROTHALS
It is not difficult to imagine what emotions were aroused in Lucretia
when she first became aware of the real condition of her family. Her
mother's husband was not her father; she discovered that she and her
brothers were the children of a cardinal, and the awakening of her
conscience was accompanied by a realization of circumstances
which--frowned on by the Church--it was necessary to conceal from the
world. She herself had always hitherto been treated as a niece of the
cardinal, and she now beheld in her father one of the most prominent
princes of the Church of Rome, whom she heard mentioned as a future
pope.
The knowledge of the great advantages to be derived from these
circumstances certainly must have affected Lucretia's fancy much more
actively than the conception of their immorality. The world in which she
lived concerned itself but little with moral scruples, and rarely in the
history of mankind has there been a time in which the theory that it is
proper to obtain the greatest possible profit from existing conditions
has been so generally accepted. She soon learned how common were these
relations in Rome. She heard that most of the cardinals lived with their
mistresses, and provided in a princely way for their children. They told
her about those of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere and those of
Piccolomini; she saw with her own eyes the sons and daughters of
Estouteville, and heard of the baronies which their wealthy father had
acquired for them in the Alban mountains. She saw the children of Pope
Innocent raised to the highest honors; to her were pointed out his son
Franceschetto Cibò and his illustrious spouse Maddalena Medici. She knew
that the Vatican was the home of other children and grandchildren of the
Pope, and she frequently saw his daughter Madonna Teodorina, the consort
of the Genoese Uso di Mare, going and coming. She was eight years old
when his daughter Donna Peretta was married in the Vatican to the
Marchese Alfonso del Carretto with such magnificent pomp that it set all
Rome to talking.
Lucretia first became conscious of the position to which she and her
brothers might be called by their birth when she learned that her eldest
brother, Don Pedro Luis, was a Spanish duke. We do not know when the
young Borgia was raised to this dignity, but it was some time after
1482. The strong ties which existed between the cardinal and the Spanish
court doubtless enabled him to have his son created Duke of Gandia in
the kingdom of Valencia. As Mariana remarks, he bought this dukedom for
his son.
Don Pedro Luis, however, when still a young man, died in Spain, for a
document of the year 1491 speaks of him as deceased, and mentions a
legacy left by his will to his sister Lucretia. The duchy of Gandia
passed to Rodrigo's second son, Don Giovanni, who hastened to Valencia
to take possession of it.
Meanwhile the fancy of the licentious cardinal had turned to other
women. In May, 1489, when Lucretia was nine years old, appears for the
first time the most celebrated of his mistresses, Giulia Farnese, a
young woman of extraordinary beauty, to whose charms the cardinal and
future pope, who was growing old, yielded with all the ardor of a young
man.
It was the adulterous love of this Giulia which first brought the
Farnese house into the history of Rome, and subsequently into that of
the world; for Rodrigo Borgia laid the foundation of the greatness of
this family when he made Giulia's brother Alessandro a cardinal. In this
manner he prepared the way to the papacy for the future Paul III, the
founder of the house of Farnese of Parma, a distinguished family which
died out in 1758 in the person of Queen Elisabeth, who occupied the
throne of Spain.
The Farnese, up to the time of the Borgias, were of no importance in
Rome, where two of the most beautiful buildings of the Renaissance have
since helped to make their name immortal. They did not even live in
Rome, but in Roman Etruria, where they owned a few towns--Farneto, from
which, doubtless, their name was derived, Ischia, Capracola, and
Capodimonte. Some time later, though just when is not known, they were
temporarily in possession of Isola Farnese, an ancient castle in the
ruins of Veii, which from the fourteenth century had belonged to the
Orsini.
[Illustration: FARNESE PALACE, ROME.]
The origin of the Farnese family is uncertain, but the tradition,
according to which they were descended from the Lombards or the Franks,
appears to be true. It is supported by the fact that the name Ranuccio,
which is the Italian form of Rainer, is of frequent occurrence in the
family. The Farnese became prominent in Etruria as a small dynasty of
robber barons, without, however, being able to attain to the power of
their neighbors, the Orsini of Anguillara and Bracciano, and the famous
Counts of Vico, who were of German descent and who ruled over the
Tuscan prefecture for more than a hundred years, until that country
was swallowed up by Eugene IV. While these prefects were the most active
Ghibellines and the bitterest enemies of the popes, the Farnese, like
the Este, always stood by the Guelphs. From the eleventh century they
were consuls and podestas in Orvieto, and they appeared later in various
places as captains of the Church in the numerous little wars with the
cities and barons in Umbria and in the domain of S. Peter. Ranuccio,
Giulia's grandfather, was one of the ablest of the generals of Eugene
IV, and he had been a comrade of the great tyrant-conqueror Vitelleschi,
and through him his house had won great renown. His son, Pierluigi,
married Donna Giovanella of the Gaetani family of Sermoneta. His
children were Alessandro, Bartolomeo, Angiolo, Girolama, and Giulia.
Alessandro Farnese, born February 28, 1468, was a young man of intellect
and culture, but notorious for his unbridled passions. He had his own
mother committed to prison in 1487 under the gravest charges, whereupon
he himself was confined in the castle of S. Angelo by Innocent VIII. He
escaped from prison, and the matter was allowed to drop. He was a
prothonotary of the Church. His elder sister was married to Puccio
Pucci, one of the most illustrious statesmen of Florence, a member of a
large family which was on terms of close friendship with the Medici.
On the twentieth of May, 1489, the youthful Giulia Farnese, together
with the equally youthful Orsino Orsini, appeared in the "Star Chamber"
of the Borgia palace to sign their marriage contract. It is worthy of
note that this occurred in the house of Cardinal Rodrigo. His name
appears as the first of the witnesses to this document, as if he had
constituted himself the protector of the couple and had brought about
their marriage. This union, however, had been arranged when the
betrothed were minors, by their parents, Ludovico Orsini, lord of
Bassanello, and Pierluigi Farnese, both of whom had died before 1489. In
those days little children were often legally betrothed, and the
marriage was consummated later, as was the custom in ancient Rome, where
frequently boys and girls only thirteen years of age were affianced.
Giulia was barely fifteen, May 20, 1489, and she was still under the
guardianship of her brothers and her uncles of the house of Gaetani;
while the young Orsini was under the control of his mother, Adriana, who
was Adriana de Mila, the kinswoman of Cardinal Rodrigo, and Lucretia's
governess. This, therefore, sufficiently explains the part, personal and
official, which the cardinal took in the ceremony of Giulia's betrothal.
The witnesses to the marriage contract, which was drawn up by the notary
Beneimbene, were, in addition to the cardinal, Bishop Martini of
Segovia, the Spanish Canons Garcetto and Caranza, and a Roman nobleman
named Giovanni Astalli. The bride's brothers should have supported her,
but only the younger, Angiolo, was present, Alessandro remaining away.
His failure to attend such an important family function in the Borgia
palace is strange, although it may have been occasioned by some
accident. The bride's uncles, the prothonotary Giacomo, and his brother
Don Nicola Gaetani were present. Giulia's dowry consisted of three
thousand gold florins, a large amount for that time.
The civil marriage of the young couple took place the following day, May
21st, in this same palace of the Borgias. Many great nobles were
present, among whom were specially mentioned the kinsmen of the groom,
Cardinal Gianbattista Orsini and Raynaldo Orsini, Archbishop of
Florence. The young couple, as the season was charming, may have gone to
Castle Bassanello, or, if not, may have taken up their abode in the
Orsini palace on Monte Giordano.
Before her marriage Cardinal Rodrigo must have known, and often seen
Giulia Farnese in the palace of Madonna Adriana, the mother of the young
Orsini. There, likewise, Lucretia, who was several years younger, made
her acquaintance. Like Lucretia, Giulia had golden hair, and her beauty
won for her the name La Bella. It was in Adriana's house that this
tender, lovely child became ensnared in the coils of the libertine
Rodrigo. She succumbed to his seductions either shortly before or soon
after her marriage to the young Orsini. Perhaps she first aroused the
passion of the cardinal, a man at that time fifty-eight years old, when
she stood before him in his palace a bride in the full bloom of youth.
Be that as it may, it is certain that two years after her marriage
Giulia was the cardinal's acknowledged mistress. When Madonna Adriana
discovered the liason she winked at it, and was an accessory to the
shame of her daughter-in-law. By so doing she became the most powerful
and the most influential person in the house of Borgia.
Two of the three sons of the cardinal, Giovanni and Cæsar, had in the
meantime reached manhood. In 1490 neither of them was in Rome; the
former was in Spain, and the latter was studying at the University of
Perugia, which he later left for Pisa. As early as 1488 Cæsar must have
attended one of these institutions, probably the University of Perugia,
for in that year Paolo Pompilio dedicated to him his _Syllabica_, a work
on the art of versification. In it he lauded the budding genius of
Cæsar, who was the hope and ornament of the house of Borgia, his
progress in the sciences, and his maturity of intellect--astonishing in
one so young--and he predicted his future fame.[14]
His father had intended him for the Church, although Cæsar himself felt
for it nothing but aversion. From Innocent VIII he had secured his son's
appointment as prothonotary of the Church and even as Bishop of
Pamplona. He appears as a prothonotary in a document of February, 1491,
and at the same time the youngest of Rodrigo's sons, Giuffrè, a boy of
about nine years, was made Canon and Archdeacon of Valencia.
Cæsar went to Pisa, probably in 1491. Its university attracted a great
many of the sons of the prominent Italian families, chiefly on account
of the fame of its professor of jurisprudence, Philippo Decio of Milan.
At the university the young Borgia had two Spanish companions, who were
favorites of his father, Francesco Romolini of Ilerda and Juan Vera of
Arcilla in the kingdom of Valencia. The latter was master of his
household, as Cæsar himself states in a letter written in October, 1492,
in which he also calls Romolini his "most faithful comrade."[15]
Francesco Romolini was more than thirty years of age in 1491. He was a
diligent student of law, and became deeply learned in it. He is the same
Romolini who afterwards conducted the prosecution of Savonarola in
Florence. In 1503 Alexander made him a cardinal, to which dignity Vera
had been raised in 1500. His father's wealth enabled the youthful Cæsar
to live in Pisa in princely style, and his connections brought him into
friendly relations with the Medici.
The cardinal was still making special exertions to further the fortunes
of his children in Spain. Even for his daughter Lucretia he could see no
future more brilliant than a Spanish marriage; and he must indeed have
regarded it as a special act of condescension for the son of an old and
noble house to consent to become the husband of the illegitimate
daughter of a cardinal. The noble concerned was Don Cherubino Juan de
Centelles, lord of Val d'Ayora in the kingdom of Valencia, and brother
of the Count of Oliva.
The nuptial contract was drawn up in the Valencian dialect in Rome,
February 26 and June 16, 1491. The youthful groom was in Valencia, the
young bride in Rome, and her father had appointed the Roman nobleman
Antonio Porcaro her proxy. In the marriage contract it was specified
that Lucretia's portion should be three hundred thousand timbres or sous
in Valencian money, which she was to bring Don Cherubino as dowry, part
in coin and part in jewels and other valuables. It was specially stated
that of this sum eleven thousand timbres should consist of the amount
bequeathed by the will of the deceased Don Pedro Luis de Borgia, Duke of
Gandia, to his sister for her marriage portion, while eight thousand
were given her by her other brothers, Cæsar and Giuffrè, for the same
purpose, presumably also from the estate left by the brother. It was
provided that Donna Lucretia should be taken to Valencia at the
cardinal's expense within one year from the signing of the contract, and
that the church ceremony should be performed within six months after
her arrival in Spain.[16]
Thus Lucretia, when only a child eleven years of age, found her hand and
life happiness subjected to the will of another, and from that time she
was no longer the shaper of her own destiny. This was the usual fate of
the daughters of the great houses, and even of the lesser ones. Shortly
before her father became pope it seemed as if her life was to be spent
in Spain, and she would have found no place in the history of the papacy
and of Italy if she and Don Cherubino had been married. However, the
marriage was never performed. Obstacles of which we are ignorant, or
changes in the plans of her father, caused the betrothal of Lucretia to
Don Cherubino to be annulled. At the very moment this was being done for
her by proxy, her father was planning another alliance for his daughter.
The husband he had selected, Don Gasparo, was also a young Spaniard, son
of Don Juan Francesco of Procida, Count of Aversa. This family had
probably removed to Naples with the house of Aragon. Don Juan
Francesco's mother was Donna Leonora de Procida y Castelleta, Countess
of Aversa. Gasparo's father lived in Aversa, but in 1491 the son was in
Valencia, where, probably, he was being educated under the care of some
of his kinsmen, for he was still a boy of less than fifteen years. In an
instrument drawn by the notary Beneimbene, dated November 9, 1492, it is
explicitly stated that on the thirtieth of April of the preceding year,
1491, the marriage contract of Lucretia and Gasparo had been executed by
proxy with all due form, and that in it Cardinal Rodrigo had bound
himself to send his daughter to the city of Valencia at his expense,
where the church ceremony was to be performed. However, since the
marriage contract between Lucretia and the young Centelles had been
legally executed on the twenty-sixth of February of the same year, 1491,
and was recognized as late as the following June, there is room for
doubt regarding the correctness of the date; but both the instrument in
Beneimbene's protocol-book, and an abstract of the same in the archives
of the Hospital Sancta Sanctorum in Rome, give the last of April as the
date of the marriage contract of Lucretia and Don Gasparo. In these
proceedings her proxies were, not Antonio Porcaro, but Don Giuffrè
Borgia, Baron of Villa Longa, the Canon Jacopo Serra of Valencia, and
the vicar-general of the same place, Mateo Cucia. Hence follows the
curious fact that Lucretia was the betrothed at one and the same time of
two young Spaniards.
In spite of the rejection of her first affianced, the Centelles family
appears to have remained on good terms with the Borgias, for, later,
when Rodrigo became Pope, a certain Gulielmus de Centelles is to be
found among his most trusted chamberlains, while Raymondo of the same
house was prothonotary and treasurer of Perugia.
FOOTNOTES:
[14] Accedit studium illud tuum et perquam fertile bonarum litterarum in
quo hac in aetate seris.... Non deerit surgenti tuæ virtuti commodus
aliquando et idoneus praeco.--At tu Cæsar profecto non parum laudandus
es; qui in hac aetate tam facile senem agis. Perge nostri temporis
Borgiæ familiæ spes et decus. Introduction to the Syllabica. Rome, 1488.
Gennarelli's Edition of Burchard's Diary.
[15] Regarding Cæsar's studies at Pisa, see Angelo Fabroni, Hist. Acad.
Pisan. i, 160, 201.
[16] On June 16, 1491, some changes were made in this contract, which
Beneimbene has noted in the same protocol-book.