THE DIVORCE AND SECOND MARRIAGE
After the surrender of the remnant of the French forces in the fall of
1496, Giovanni Sforza returned from Naples. There is no doubt that he
went to Rome for the purpose of taking Lucretia home with him to Pesaro,
where we find him about the close of the year, and where he spent the
winter. The chroniclers of Pesaro, however, state that he left the city
in disguise, January 15, 1497, and that Lucretia followed him a few days
later for the purpose of going to Rome.[48] Both were present at the
Easter festivities in the papal city.
Sforza was now a worn-out plaything which Alexander was preparing to
cast away, for his daughter's marriage to the tyrant of Pesaro promised
him nothing more, the house of Sforza having lost all its influence;
moreover, the times were propitious for establishing connections which
would be of greater advantage to the Borgias. The Pope was unwilling to
give his son-in-law a command in the war against the Orsini, which he
had begun immediately after the return of his son Don Giovanni from
Spain, for whom he wanted to confiscate the property of these mighty
lords. He secured the services of Duke Guidobaldo of Urbino, who
likewise had served in the allied armies of Naples, and whom the
Venetians released in order that he might assume supreme command of the
papal troops.
This noble man was the last of the house of Montefeltre, and the Borgias
already had their eyes on his possessions. His sister Giovanna was
married in 1478 to the municipal prefect, Giovanni della Rovere, a
brother of Cardinal Giuliano, and in 1490 she bore him a daughter,
Francesca Maria, a child who was looked upon as heir of Urbino.
Guidobaldo did not disdain to serve as a condottiere for pay and in the
hope of winning honors; he was also a vassal of the Church. Fear of the
Borgias led him to seek their friendship although he hated them.
In the war against the Orsini the young Duke of Gandia was next in
command under Guidobaldo, and Alexander made him the standard-bearer of
the Church and Rector of Viterbo, and of the entire Patrimonium after he
had removed Alessandro Farnese from that position. This appears to have
been due to a dislike he felt for Giulia's brother. September 17, 1496,
the Mantuan agent in Rome, John Carolus, wrote to the Marchioness
Gonzaga: "Cardinal Farnese is shut up in his residence in the
Patrimonium, and will lose it unless he is saved by the prompt return of
Giulia."
The same ambassador reported to his sovereign as follows: "Although
every effort is made to conceal the fact that these sons of the Pope are
consumed with envy of each other, the life of the Cardinal of S. Giorgio
(Rafael Riario) is in danger; should he die, Cæsar would be given the
office of chancellor and the palace of the dead Cardinal of Mantua,
which is the most beautiful in Rome, and also his most lucrative
benefices. Your Excellency may guess how this plot will terminate."[49]
The war against the Orsini ended with the ignominious defeat of the
papal forces at Soriano, January 23, 1497, whence Don Giovanni, wounded,
fled to Rome, and where Guidobaldo was taken prisoner. The victors
immediately forced a peace on most advantageous terms.
Not until the conclusion of the war did Lucretia's husband return to
Rome. We shall see him again there, for the last time, at the Easter
festivities of 1497, when, as Alexander's son-in-law, he assumed his
official place during the celebration in S. Peter's, and, standing near
Cæsar and Gandia, received the Easter palm from the Pope's hand. His
position in the Vatican had, however, become untenable; Alexander was
anxious to dissolve his marriage with Lucretia. Sforza was asked to give
her up of his own free will, and, when he refused, was threatened with
extreme measures.
Flight alone saved him from the dagger or poison of his brothers-in-law.
According to statements of the chroniclers of Pesaro, it was Lucretia
herself who helped her husband to flee and thus caused the suspicion
that she was also a participant in the conspiracy. It is related that,
one evening when Jacomino, Lord Giovanni's chamberlain, was in Madonna's
room, her brother Cæsar entered, and on her command the chamberlain
concealed himself behind a screen. Cæsar talked freely with his sister,
and among other things said that the order had been given to kill
Sforza. When he had departed, Lucretia said to Jacomino: "Did you hear
what was said? Go and tell him." This the chamberlain immediately did,
and Giovanni Sforza threw himself on a Turkish horse and rode in
twenty-four hours to Pesaro, where the beast dropped dead.[50]
According to letters of the Venetian envoy in Rome, Sforza fled in
March, in Holy Week. Under some pretext he went to the Church of S.
Onofrio, where he found the horse waiting for him.[51]
The request for the divorce was probably not made by Lucretia, but by
her father and brothers, who wished her to be free to enter into a
marriage which would advance their plans. We are ignorant of what was
now taking place in the Vatican, and we do not know that Lucretia made
any resistance; but if she did, it certainly was not of long duration,
for she does not appear to have loved her husband. Pesaro's escape did
not please the Borgias. They would have preferred to have silenced this
man forever; but now that he had gotten away and raised an objection, it
would be necessary to dissolve the marriage by process of law, which
would cause a great scandal.
Shortly after Sforza's flight a terrible tragedy occurred in the house
of Borgia--the mysterious murder of the Duke of Gandia. On the failure
of Alexander's scheme to confiscate the estates of the Orsini and bestow
them on his dearly beloved son, he thought to provide for him in another
manner. He made him Duke of Benevento, thereby hoping to prepare the way
for him to reach the throne of Naples. A few days later, June 14th,
Vannozza invited him and Cæsar, together with a few of their kinsmen, to
a supper in her vineyard near S. Pietro in Vinculo. Don Giovanni,
returning from this family feast, disappeared in the night, without
leaving a trace, and three days later the body of the murdered man was
found in the Tiber.
According to the general opinion of the day, which in all probability
was correct, Cæsar was the murderer of his brother. From the moment
Alexander VI knew this crime had been committed, and assumed
responsibility for its motives and consequences, and pardoned the
murderer, he became morally accessory after the fact, and fell himself
under the power of his terrible son. From that time on, every act of his
was intended to further Cæsar's fiendish ambition.
None of the records of the day say that Don Giovanni's consort was in
Rome when this tragedy occurred. We are therefore forced to assume that
she was not there when her husband was murdered. It is much more likely
that she had not left Spain, and that she was living with her two little
children in Gandia or Valencia, where she received the dreadful news in
a letter written by Alexander to his sister Doña Beatrice Boria y
Arenos. This is rendered probable by the court records of Valencia.
September 27, 1497, Doña Maria Enriquez appeared before the tribunal of
the governor of the kingdom of Valencia, Don Luis de Cabaineles, and
claimed the estate, including the duchy of Gandia and the Neapolitan
fiefs of Suessa, Teano, Carinola, and Montefoscolo, for Don Giovanni's
eldest son, a child of three years. The duke's death was proved by legal
documents, among which was this letter written by Alexander, and the
tribunal accordingly recognized Gandia's son as his legal heir.[52]
Doña Maria also claimed her husband's personal property in his house in
Rome, which was valued at thirty thousand ducats, and which on the death
of Don Giovanni, had been transferred by Alexander VI, to the
fratricide Cæsar to administer for his nephew, as appears from an
official document of the Roman notary Beneimbene, dated December 19,
1498.
At this time Lucretia was not in her palace in the Vatican. June 4th she
had gone to the convent of S. Sisto on the Appian Way, thereby causing a
great sensation in Rome. Her flight doubtless was in some way connected
with the forced annulment of her marriage. While her father himself may
not have banished her to S. Sisto, she, probably excited by Pesaro's
departure, and perhaps angry with the Pope, had doubtless sought this
place as an asylum. That she was angry with him is shown by a letter
written by Donato Aretino from Rome, June 19th, to Cardinal Ippolito
d'Este: "Madonna Lucretia has left the palace _insalutato hospite_ and
gone to a convent known as that of S. Sisto; where she now is. Some say
she will turn nun, while others make different statements which I can
not entrust to a letter."[53]
We know not what prayers and what confessions Lucretia made at the
altar, but this was one of the most momentous periods of her life. While
in the convent she learned of the terrible death of one of her brothers,
and shuddered at the crime of the other. For she, like her father and
all the Borgias, firmly believed that Cæsar was a fratricide. She
clearly discerned the marks of his inordinate ambition; she knew that he
was planning to lay aside the cardinal's robe and become a secular
prince; she must have known too that they were scheming in the Vatican
to make Don Giuffrè a cardinal in Cæsar's place and to marry the latter
to the former's wife, Donna Sancia, with whom, it was generally known,
he was on most intimate terms.
Alexander commanded Giuffrè and his young wife to leave Rome and take up
their abode in his princely seat in Squillace, and he set out on August
7th for that place. It is stated the Pope did not want his children and
nepots about him any longer, and that he also wished to banish his
daughter Lucretia to Valencia.[54]
In the meantime, in July, Cæsar had gone to Capua as papal legate, where
he crowned Don Federico, the last of the Aragonese, as King of Naples.
September 4th he returned to Rome.
Alexander had appointed a commission under the direction of two
cardinals for the purpose of divorcing Lucretia from Giovanni Sforza.
These judges showed that Sforza had never consummated the marriage, and
that his spouse was still a virgin, which, according to her contemporary
Matarazzo of Perugia, set all Italy to laughing. Lucretia herself stated
she was willing to swear to this.
During these proceedings her spouse was in Pesaro. Thence he
subsequently went in disguise to Milan to ask the protection of Duke
Ludovico and to get him to use his influence to have his wife, who had
been taken away, restored to him. This was in June. He protested against
the decision which had been pronounced in Rome, and which had been
purchased, and Ludovico il Moro made the naive suggestion that he
subject himself to a test of his capacity in the presence of trustworthy
witnesses, and of the papal legate in Milan, which, however, Sforza
declined to do.[55] Ludovico and his brother Ascanio finally induced
their kinsman to yield, and Sforza, intimidated, declared in writing
that he had never consummated his marriage with Lucretia.[56]
The formal divorce, therefore, took place December 20, 1497, and Sforza
surrendered his wife's dowry of thirty-one thousand ducats.
Although we may assume that Alexander compelled his daughter to consent
to this separation, it does not render our opinion of Lucretia's part in
the scandalous proceedings any less severe; she shows herself to have
had as little will as she had character, and she also perjured herself.
Her punishment was not long delayed, for the divorce proceedings made
her notorious and started terrible rumors regarding her private life.
These reports began to circulate at the time of the murder of Gandia and
of her divorce from Sforza; the cause of both these events was stated to
have been an unmentionable crime. According to a reliable witness of the
day it was the lord of Pesaro himself, injured and exasperated, who
first--and to the Duke of Milan--had openly uttered the suspicion which
was being whispered about Rome. By permitting himself to do this, he
showed that he had never loved Lucretia.[57]
Alexander had dissolved his daughter's marriage for political reasons.
It was his purpose to marry Lucretia and Cæsar into the royal house of
Naples. This dynasty had reestablished itself there after the expulsion
of the French, but its position had been so profoundly shaken that its
fall was imminent; and it was this very fact that made Alexander hope to
be able to place his son Cæsar on the throne of Naples. The most
terrible of the Borgias now appropriated the place left vacant by the
Duke of Gandia, to which he had long aspired, and only for the sake of
appearances did he postpone casting aside the cardinal's robe. The Pope,
however, was already scheming for his son's marriage; for him he asked
King Federico for the hand of his daughter Carlotta, who had been
educated at the court of France as a princess of the house of Savoy. The
king, an upright man, firmly refused, and the young princess in horror
rejected the Pope's insulting offer. Federico, in his anxiety, made one
sacrifice to the monster in the Vatican; he consented to the betrothal
of Don Alfonso, Prince of Salerno, younger brother of Donna Sancia and
natural son of Alfonso II, to Lucretia. Alexander desired this marriage
for no other reason than for the purpose of finally inducing the king to
agree to the marriage of his daughter and Cæsar.
Even before Lucretia's new betrothal was settled upon it was rumored in
Rome that her former affianced, Don Gasparo, was again pressing his suit
and that there was a prospect of his being accepted. Although the young
Spaniard failed to accomplish his purpose, Alexander now recognized the
fact that Lucretia's betrothal to him had been dissolved illegally.
In a brief dated June 10, 1498, he speaks of the way his daughter was
treated--without special dispensation for breaking the engagement, in
order that she might marry Giovanni of Pesaro, which was a great
mistake--as illegal. He says in the same letter that Gasparo of Procida,
Count of Almenara, had subsequently married and had children, but not
until 1498 did Lucretia petition to have her betrothal to him formally
declared null and void. The Pope, therefore, absolved her of the perjury
she had committed by marrying Giovanni Sforza in spite of her engagement
to Don Gasparo, and while he now, for the first time, declared her
formal betrothal to the Count of Procida to have been dissolved, he gave
her permission to marry any man whom she might select.[58] Thus did a
pope play fast and loose with one of the holiest of the sacraments of
the Church.
When Lucretia had in this way been protected against the demands of all
pretenders to her hand, she was free to enter into a new alliance, which
she did June 20, 1498, in the Vatican. If we were not familiar with the
character of the public men of that age we should be surprised to learn
that King Federico's proxy on this occasion was none other than Cardinal
Ascanio Sforza, who had been instrumental in bringing about the marriage
of his nephew and Lucretia, and who had consented in Sforza's name to
the disgraceful divorce. Thus were he and his brother Ludovico
determined to retain the friendship of the Borgias at any price.
Lucretia received a dowry of forty thousand ducats, and the King of
Naples bound himself to make over the cities of Quadrata and Biselli to
his nephew for his dukedom.[59]
The young Alfonso accordingly came to Rome in July to become the husband
of a woman whom he must have regarded at least as unscrupulous and
utterly fickle. He doubtless looked upon himself as a sacrifice
presented by his father at the altar of Rome. Quietly and sorrowfully,
welcomed by no festivities, almost secretly, came this unhappy youth to
the papal city. He went at once to his betrothed in the palace of S.
Maria in Portico. In the Vatican, July 21st, the marriage was blessed by
the Church. Among the witnesses to the transaction were the Cardinals
Ascanio, Juan Lopez, and Giovanni Borgia. In obedience to an old custom
a naked sword was held over the pair by a knight, a ceremony which in
this instance was performed by Giovanni Cervillon, captain of the papal
guard.
FOOTNOTES:
[48] Lod. Zacconi, Hist. di Pesaro, Ms. in the Bibl. Oliveriana; also
Pietro Marzetti.
[49] Letters in the Gonzaga archives in Mantua.
[50] Battista Almerici I, and Pietro Marzetti, Memorie di Pesaro, Ms. in
the Oliveriana. These chronicles are often confusing as to dates and
full of mistakes.
[51] Marino Sanuto, Diar. vol. i, 410. March, 1497.
[52] This document is given in part by Amati in Strozzi's Periodico di
Numismatica, Anno III, part ii, p. 73. Florence, 1870.
[53] In the archives of Modena. Letters of Donato Aretino from Rome.
[54] Letter of Ludovico Carissimi, Rome, August 8, 1497. Archives of
Modena.
[55] Et mancho se è curato de fare prova de se qua con Done per poterne
chiarire el Rmo. Legato che era qua, sebbene S. Extia tastandolo sopra
ciò gli ne habia facto offerta. Despatch from the Ferrarese ambassador
in Milan, Antonio Costabili, to Duke Ercole, Milan, June 23, 1497.
Archives of Modena.
[56] Concerning this, Pandolfo Collenuccio, a member of Cardinal
Ippolito's suite in Rome, wrote to the Duke of Ferrara, December 25,
1498 (1497), as follows: El S. de Pesaro ha scripto qua de sua mano: non
haverla mai cognosciuta ... et esser impotente, alias la sententia non
se potea dare.... El prefato S. dice però haver scripto così per obedire
el Duca de Milano et Aschanio. The autographic letter is in the archives
of Modena.
[57] In the same despatch from Milan, June 23, 1497, the Ferrarese
Ambassador Costabili stated that Sforza had said to the Duke Ludovico:
Anzi haverla conosciuta infinite volte, ma chel Papa non gelha tolta per
altro se non per usare con Lei. Extendendose molto a carico di S.
Beatno.
[58] The original of this letter is in the archives of Modena.
[59] Bisceglie, formerly pronounced and written Biseglia or Biselli.
Quadrata is now Corato, near Andria.