MURDER OF ALFONSO OF ARAGON
After the fall of the Riario, of Imola, and Forli, all the tyrants in
the domain of the Church trembled before Cæsar; and greater princes,
like those of the Gonzaga and Este families, who were either entirely
independent or were semi-independent vassals of the Church, courted the
friendship of the Pope and his dreaded son. Cæsar, as an ally of France,
had secured for himself the services of these princes, and since 1499
they had helped him in his schemes in the Romagna. He engaged in a
lively correspondence with Ercole d'Este, whom he treated as his equal,
as his brother and friend, although he was a young and immature man. To
him he reported his successes, and in return received congratulations,
equally confidential in tone, all of which consisted of diplomatic lies
inspired by fear. The correspondence between Cæsar and Ercole, which is
very voluminous, is still preserved in the Este archives in Modena. It
began August 30, 1498, when Cæsar was still a cardinal. In this letter,
which is written in Latin, he announces to the duke that he is about to
set out for France, and asks him for a saddle horse.
Cæsar engaged in an equally confidential correspondence with Francesco
Gonzaga, with whom he entered into intimate relations which endured
until his death. In the archives of the Gonzaga family in Mantua there
are preserved forty-one letters written by Cæsar to the marquis and his
consort Isabella. The first is dated October 31, 1498, from Avignon; the
second, January 12, 1500, from Forli; the third is as follows:
ILLUSTRIOUS SIR AND HONORED BROTHER: From your
Excellency's letter we have learned of the birth of your
illustrious son, which has occasioned us no less joy than we would
have felt on the birth of an heir to ourselves. As we, owing to our
sincere and brotherly goodwill for you, wish you all increase and
fortune, we willingly consent to be godfather, and will appoint for
our proxy anyone whom your Excellency may choose. May he in our
stead watch over the child from the moment of his baptism. We
earnestly pray to God to preserve the same to you.
Your Majesty will not fail to congratulate your illustrious consort
in our name. She will, we hope, through this son prepare the way
for a numerous posterity to perpetuate the fame of their
illustrious parents. Rome, in the Apostolic Palace, May 24, 1500.
CÆSAR BORGIA of France, Duke of Valentinois,
Gonfallonier, and Captain-General
of the Holy Roman Church.
This son of the Marquis of Mantua was the hereditary Prince Federico,
born May 17, 1500. Two years later, when Cæsar was at the zenith of his
power, Gonzaga requested the honor of the betrothal of this son and the
duke's little daughter Luisa.
Cæsar remained in Rome several months to secure funds for carrying out
his plans in Romagna. All his projects would have been wrecked in a
moment if his father had not escaped, almost unharmed, when the walls of
a room in the Vatican collapsed, June 27, 1500. He was extricated from
the rubbish only slightly hurt. He would allow no one but his daughter
to care for him. When the Venetian ambassador called, July 3d, he found
Madonna Lucretia, Sancia, the latter's husband, Giuffrè, and one of
Lucretia's ladies-in-waiting, who was the Pope's "favorite," with him.
Alexander was then seventy years of age. He ascribed his escape to the
Virgin Mary, just as Pius IX did his own when the house near S. Agnese
tumbled down. July 5th Alexander held a service in her honor, and on his
recovery he had himself borne in a procession to S. Maria del Popolo,
where he offered the Virgin a goblet containing three hundred ducats.
Cardinal Piccolomini ostentatiously scattered the gold pieces over the
altar before all the people.
The saints had saved a great sinner from the falling walls in the
Vatican, but they refrained from interfering eighteen days later to
prevent a hideous crime--the attempted murder of a guiltless person. In
vain had the youthful Alfonso of Biselli been warned by his own
premonitions and by his friends during the past year to seek safety in
flight. He had followed his wife to Rome like a lamb to the slaughter,
only to fall under the daggers of the assassins from whom she was
powerless to save him. Cæsar hated him, as he did the entire house of
Aragon, and in his opinion his sister's marriage to a Neapolitan prince
had become as useless as had been her union with Sforza of Pesaro;
moreover, it interfered with the plans of Cæsar, who had a matrimonial
alliance in mind for his sister which would be more advantageous to
himself. As her marriage with the Duke of Biselli had not been
childless, and, consequently, could not be set aside, he determined upon
a radical separation of the couple.
July 15, 1500, about eleven o'clock at night, Alfonso was on his way
from his palace to the Vatican to see his consort; near the steps
leading to S. Peter's a number of masked men fell upon him with daggers.
Severely wounded in the head, arm, and thigh, the prince succeeded in
reaching the Pope's chamber. At the sight of her spouse covered with
blood, Lucretia sank to the floor in a swoon.
Alfonso was carried to another room in the Vatican, and a cardinal
administered the extreme unction; his youth, however, triumphed, and he
recovered. Although Lucretia, owing to her fright, fell sick of a fever,
she and his sister Sancia took care of him; they cooked his food, while
the Pope himself placed a guard over him. In Rome there was endless
gossip about the crime and its perpetrators. July 19th the Venetian
ambassador wrote to his Signory: "It is not known who wounded the duke,
but it is said that it was the same person who killed the Duke of Gandia
and threw him into the Tiber. Monsignor of Valentinois has issued an
edict that no one shall be found with arms between the castle of S.
Angelo and S. Peter's, on pain of death."
Cæsar remarked to the ambassador, "I did not wound the duke, but if I
had, it would have been nothing more than he deserved." His hatred of
his brother-in-law must have been inspired also by personal reasons of
which we are ignorant. He even ventured to call upon the wounded man,
remarking on leaving, "What is not accomplished at noon may be done at
night."
The days passed slowly; finally the murderer lost patience. At nine
o'clock in the evening of August 18th, he came again; Lucretia and
Sancia drove him from the room, whereupon he called his captain,
Micheletto, who strangled the duke. There was no noise, not a sound; it
was like a pantomime; amid a terrible silence the dead prince was borne
away to S. Peter's.
The affair was no longer a secret. Cæsar openly stated that he had
destroyed the duke because the latter was seeking his life, and he
claimed that by Alfonso's orders some archers had shot at him when he
was strolling in the Vatican gardens.
[Illustration: CÆSAR BORGIA.
From a painting by Giorgione.]
Nothing so clearly discloses the terrible influence which Cæsar
exercised over his wicked father as this deed, and the way in which the
Pope regarded it. From the Venetian ambassador's report it appears that
it was contrary to Alexander's wishes, and that he had even attempted to
save the unfortunate prince's life. After the crime had been committed,
however, the Pope dismissed it from his mind, both because he did not
dare to bring Cæsar--whom he had forgiven for the murder of his
brother--to a reckoning, and because the murder would result in offering
him opportunities which he desired. He spared himself the trouble of
directing useless reproaches to his son, for Cæsar would only have
laughed at them. Was the care with which Alexander had his unfortunate
son-in-law watched merely a bit of deceit? There are no grounds for
believing that the Pope either planned the murder himself or that he
consented to it.
Never was bloody deed so soon forgotten. The murder of a prince of the
royal house of Naples made no more impression than the death of a
Vatican stable boy would have done. No one avoided Cæsar; none of the
priests refused him admission to the Church, and all the cardinals
continued to show him the deepest reverence and respect. Prelates vied
with each other to receive the red hat from the hand of the all-powerful
murderer, who offered the dignity to the highest bidders. He needed
money for carrying out his schemes of confiscation in the Romagna. His
condottieri, Paolo Orsini, Giuliano Orsini, Vitellozzo Vitelli, and
Ercole Bentivoglio were with him during these autumn days. His father
had equipped seven hundred heavy men at arms for him, and, August 18th,
the Venetian ambassador reported to the signory that he had been
requested by the Pope to ask the Doge to withdraw their protection from
Rimini and Faenza. Negotiations were in progress with France to secure
her active support for Cæsar. August 24th the French ambassador, Louis
de Villeneuve, made his entry into Rome; near S. Spirito a masked man
rode up and embraced him. The man was Cæsar. However openly he committed
his crimes, he frequently went about Rome in disguise.
The murder of the youthful Alfonso of Aragon was by far the most tragic
deed committed by the Borgias, and his fate was more terrible than even
that of Astorre Manfredi. If Lucretia really loved her husband, as there
is every reason to suppose she did, his end must have caused her the
greatest anguish; and, even if she had no affection for him, all her
feelings must have been aroused against the murderer to whose fiendish
ambition the tragedy was due. She must also have rebelled against her
father, who regarded the crime with such indifference.
None of the reports of the day describe the circumstances in which she
found herself immediately after the murder, nor events in the Vatican
just preceding it. Although Lucretia was suffering from a fever, she did
not die of grief, nor did she rise to avenge her husband's murder, or to
flee from the terrible Vatican.
She was in a position similar to that of her sister-in-law, Doña Maria
Enriquez, after Gandia's death; but while the latter and her sons had
found safety in Spain, Lucretia had no retreat to which she could retire
without the consent of her father and brother.
It would be wrong to blame the unfortunate woman because at this fateful
moment of her life she did not make herself the subject of a tragedy. Of
a truth, she appears very weak and characterless. We must not look for
great qualities of soul in Lucretia, for she possessed them not. We are
endeavoring to represent her only as she actually was, and, if we judge
rightly, she was merely a woman differentiated from the great mass of
women, not by the strength, but by the graciousness, of her nature. This
young woman, regarded by posterity as a Medea or as a loathsomely
passionate creature, probably never experienced any real feeling. During
the years she lived in Rome she was always subject to the will of
others, for her destiny was controlled, first, by her father, and
subsequently by her brother. We know not how much of an effort, in view
of the circumstances by which she was trammeled, she could make to
maintain the dignity of woman. If Lucretia, however, ever did possess
the courage to assert her individuality and rights before those who
injured her, she certainly would have done so when her husband was
murdered. Perhaps she did assail her sinister brother with
recriminations and her father with tears. She was troublesome to Cæsar,
who wished her away from the Vatican, consequently Alexander banished
her for a time; and apparently she herself was not unwilling to go. The
Venetian ambassador Paolo Capello refers to some quarrel between
Lucretia and her father. He departed from Rome, September 16, 1500, and
on his return to Venice made a report to his government on the condition
of affairs, in which he says: "Madonna Lucretia, who is gracious and
generous, formerly was in high favor with the Pope, but she is so no
longer."
August 30th, Lucretia, accompanied by a retinue of six hundred riders,
set out from Rome for Nepi, of which city she was mistress. There,
according to Burchard, she hoped to recover from the perturbation which
the death of the Duke of Biselli had caused her.