The world had now arrived at one of those supreme moments of history
when every thing is transformed between the end of one period and the
beginning of another: in the East Turkey, in the South Spain, in the
West France, and in the North German, all were going to assume, together
with the title of great Powers, that influence which they were destined
to exert in the future over the secondary States. Accordingly we too,
with Alexander VI, will cast a rapid glance over them, and see what were
their respective situations in regard to Italy, which they all coveted
as a prize.
Constantine, Palaeologos Dragozes, besieged by three hundred thousand
Turks, after having appealed in vain for aid to the whole of
Christendom, had not been willing to survive the loss of his empire, and
had been found in the midst of the dead, close to the Tophana Gate; and
on the 30th of May, 1453, Mahomet II had made his entry into
Constantinople, where, after a reign which had earned for him the
surname of ’Fatile’, or the Conqueror, he had died leaving two sons, the
elder of whom had ascended the throne under the name of Bajazet II.
The accession of the new sultan, however, had not taken place with the
tranquillity which his right as elder brother and his father’s choice of
him should have promised. His younger brother, D’jem, better known under
the name of Zizimeh, had argued that whereas he was born in the
purple—that is, born during the reign of Mahomet—Bajazet was born prior
to his epoch, and was therefore the son of a private individual. This
was rather a poor trick; but where force is all and right is naught, it
was good enough to stir up a war. The two brothers, each at the head of
an army, met accordingly in Asia in 1482. D’jem was defeated after a
seven hours’ fight, and pursued by his brother, who gave him no time to
rally his army: he was obliged to embark from Cilicia, and took refuge
in Rhodes, where he implored the protection of the Knights of St. John.
They, not daring to give him an asylum in their island so near to Asia,
sent him to France, where they had him carefully guarded in one of their
commanderies, in spite of the urgency of Cait Bey, Sultan of Egypt, who,
having revolted against Bajazet, desired to have the young prince in his
army to give his rebellion the appearance of legitimate warfare. The
same demand, moreover, with the same political object, had been made
successively by Mathias Corvinus, King of Hungary, by Ferdinand, King of
Aragon and Sicily, and by Ferdinand, King of Naples.
On his side Bajazet, who knew all the importance of such a rival, if he
once allied himself with any one of the princes with whom he was at war,
had sent ambassadors to Charles VIII, offering, if he would consent to
keep D’jem with him, to give him a considerable pension, and to give to
France the sovereignty of the Holy Land, so soon as Jerusalem should be
conquered by the Sultan of Egypt. The King of France had accepted these
terms.
But then Innocent VIII had intervened, and in his turn had claimed
D’jem, ostensibly to give support by the claims of the refugee to a
crusade which he was preaching against the Turks, but in reality to
appropriate the pension of 40,000 ducats to be given by Bajazet to any
one of the Christian princes who would undertake to be his brother’s
gaoler. Charles VIII had not dared to refuse to the spiritual head of
Christendom a request supported by such holy reasons; and therefore
D’jem had quitted France, accompanied by the Grand Master d’Aubusson,
under whose direct charge he was; but his guardian had consented, for
the sake of a cardinal’s hat, to yield up his prisoner. Thus, on the
13th of March, 1489, the unhappy young man, cynosure of so many
interested eyes, made his solemn entry into Rome, mounted on a superb
horse, clothed in a magnificent oriental costume, between the Prior of
Auvergne, nephew of the Grand Master d’Aubusson, and Francesco Cibo, the
son of the pope.
After this he had remained there, and Bajazet, faithful to promises
which it was so much his interest to fulfil, had punctually paid to the
sovereign pontiff a pension of 40,000 ducats.
So much for Turkey.
Ferdinand and Isabella were reigning in Spain, and were laying the
foundations of that vast power which was destined, five-and-twenty years
later, to make Charles V declare that the sun never set on his
dominions. In fact, these two sovereigns, on whom history has bestowed
the name of Catholic, had reconquered in succession nearly all Spain,
and driven the Moors out of Granada, their last entrenchment; while two
men of genius, Bartolome Diaz and Christopher Columbus, had succeeded,
much to the profit of Spain, the one in recovering a lost world, the
other in conquering a world yet unknown. They had accordingly, thanks to
their victories in the ancient world and their discoveries in the new,
acquired an influence at the court of Rome which had never been enjoyed
by any of their predecessors.
So much for Spain.
In France, Charles VIII had succeeded his father, Louis XI, on the 30th
of August, 1483. Louis by dint of executions, had tranquillised his
kingdom and smoothed the way for a child who ascended the throne under
the regency of a woman. And the regency had been a glorious one, and had
put down the pretensions of princes of the blood, put an end to civil
wars, and united to the crown all that yet remained of the great
independent fiefs. The result was that at the epoch where we now are,
here was Charles VIII, about twenty-two years of age, a prince (if we
are to believe La Tremouille) little of body but great of heart; a child
(if we are to believe Commines) only now making his first flight from
the nest, destitute of both sense and money, feeble in person, full of
self-will, and consorting rather with fools than with the wise; lastly,
if we are to believe Guicciardini, who was an Italian, might well have
brought a somewhat partial judgment to bear upon the subject, a young
man of little wit concerning the actions of men, but carried away by an
ardent desire for rule and the acquisition of glory, a desire based far
more on his shallow character and impetuosity than on any consciousness
of genius: he was an enemy to all fatigue and all business, and when he
tried to give his attention to it he showed himself always totally
wanting in prudence and judgment. If anything in him appeared at first
sight to be worthy of praise, on a closer inspection it was found to be
something nearer akin to vice than to virtue. He was liberal, it is
true, but without thought, with no measure and no discrimination. He was
sometimes inflexible in will; but this was through obstinacy rather than
a constant mind; and what his flatterers called goodness deserved far
more the name of insensibility to injuries or poverty of spirit.
As to his physical appearance, if we are to believe the same author, it
was still less admirable, and answered marvellously to his weakness of
mind and character. He was small, with a large head, a short thick neck,
broad chest, and high shoulders; his thighs and legs were long and thin;
and as his face also was ugly—and was only redeemed by the dignity and
force of his glance—and all his limbs were disproportionate with one
another, he had rather the appearance of a monster than a man. Such was
he whom Fortune was destined to make a conqueror, for whom Heaven was
reserving more glory than he had power to carry.
So much for France.
The Imperial throne was occupied by Frederic III, who had been rightly
named the Peaceful, not for the reason that he had always maintained
peace, but because, having constantly been beaten, he had always been
forced to make it. The first proof he had given of this very
philosophical forbearance was during his journey to Rome, whither he
betook himself to be consecrated. In crossing the Apennines he was
attacked by brigands. They robbed him, but he made no pursuit. And so,
encouraged by example and by the impunity of lesser thieves, the greater
ones soon took part in the robberies. Amurath seized part of Hungary.
Mathias Corvinus took Lower Austria, and Frederic consoled himself for
these usurpations by repeating the maxim, Forgetfulness is the best cure
for the losses we suffer. At the time we have now reached, he had just,
after a reign of fifty-three years, affianced his son Maximilian to
Marie of Burgundy and had put under the ban of the Empire his
son-in-law, Albert of Bavaria, who laid claim to the ownership of the
Tyrol. He was therefore too full of his family affairs to be troubled
about Italy. Besides, he was busy looking for a motto for the house of
Austria, an occupation of the highest importance for a man of the
character of Frederic III. This motto, which Charles V was destined
almost to render true, was at last discovered, to the great joy of the
old emperor, who, judging that he had nothing more to do on earth after
he had given this last proof of sagacity, died on the 19th of August,
1493; leaving the empire to his son Maximilian.
This motto was simply founded on the five vowels, a, e, i, o, u, the
initial letters of these five words
"AUSTRIAE EST IMPERARE ORBI UNIVERSO."
This means
"It is the destiny of Austria to rule over the whole world."
So much for Germany.
Now that we have cast a glance over the four nations which were on the
way, as we said before, to become European Powers, let us turn our
attention to those secondary States which formed a circle more
contiguous to Rome, and whose business it was to serve as armour, so to
speak, to the spiritual queen of the world, should it please any of
these political giants whom we have described to make encroachments with
a view to an attack, on the seas or the mountains, the Adriatic Gulf or
the Alps, the Mediterranean or the Apennines.
These were the kingdom of Naples, the duchy of Milan, the magnificent
republic of Florence, and the most serene republic of Venice.
The kingdom of Naples was in the hands of the old Ferdinand, whose birth
was not only illegitimate, but probably also well within the prohibited
degrees. His father, Alfonso of Aragon, received his crown from Giovanna
of Naples, who had adopted him as her successor. But since, in the fear
of having no heir, the queen on her deathbed had named two instead of
one, Alfonso had to sustain his rights against Rene. The two aspirants
for some time disputed the crown. At last the house of Aragon carried
the day over the house of Anjou, and in the course of the year 1442,
Alfonso definitely secured his seat on the throne. Of this sort were the
claims of the defeated rival which we shall see Charles VIII maintaining
later on. Ferdinand had neither the courage nor the genius of his
father, and yet he triumphed over his enemies, one after another he had
two rivals, both far superior in merit to him self. The one was his
nephew, the Count of Viana, who, basing his claim on his uncle’s
shameful birth, commanded the whole Aragonese party; the other was Duke
John of Calabria, who commanded the whole Angevin party. Still he
managed to hold the two apart, and to keep himself on the throne by dint
of his prudence, which often verged upon duplicity. He had a cultivated
mind, and had studied the sciences—above all, law. He was of middle
height, with a large handsome head, his brow open and admirably framed
in beautiful white hair, which fell nearly down to his shoulders.
Moreover, though he had rarely exercised his physical strength in arms,
this strength was so great that one day, when he happened to be on the
square of the Mercato Nuovo at Naples, he seized by the horns a bull
that had escaped and stopped him short, in spite of all the efforts the
animal made to escape from his hands. Now the election of Alexander had
caused him great uneasiness, and in spite of his usual prudence he had
not been able to restrain himself from saying before the bearer of the
news that not only did he fail to rejoice in this election, but also
that he did not think that any Christian could rejoice in it, seeing
that Borgia, having always been a bad man, would certainly make a bad
pope. To this he added that, even were the choice an excellent one and
such as would please everybody else, it would be none the less fatal to
the house of Aragon, although Roderigo was born her subject and owed to
her the origin and progress of his fortunes; for wherever reasons of
state come in, the ties of blood and parentage are soon forgotten, and,
’a fortiori’, relations arising from the obligations of nationality.
Thus, one may see that Ferdinand judged Alexander VI with his usual
perspicacity; this, however, did not hinder him, as we shall soon
perceive, from being the first to contract an alliance with him.
The duchy of Milan belonged nominally to John Galeazzo, grandson of
Francesco Sforza, who had seized it by violence on the 26th of February,
1450, and bequeathed it to his son, Galeazzo Maria, father of the young
prince now reigning; we say nominally, because the real master of the
Milanese was at this period not the legitimate heir who was supposed to
possess it, but his uncle Ludovico, surnamed ’il Moro’, because of the
mulberry tree which he bore in his arms. After being exiled with his two
brothers, Philip who died of poison in 1479, and Ascanio who became the
cardinal, he returned to Milan some days after the assassination of
Galeazzo Maria, which took place on the 26th of December 1476, in St.
Stephen’s Church, and assumed the regency for the young duke, who at
that time was only eight years old. From now onward, even after his
nephew had reached the age of two-and-twenty, Ludovico continued to
rule, and according to all probabilities was destined to rule a long
time yet; for, some days after the poor young man had shown a desire to
take the reins himself, he had fallen sick, and it was said, and not in
a whisper, that he had taken one of those slow but mortal poisons of
which princes made so frequent a use at this period, that, even when a
malady was natural, a cause was always sought connected with some great
man’s interests. However it may have been, Ludovico had relegated his
nephew, now too weak to busy himself henceforward with the affairs of
his duchy, to the castle of Pavia, where he lay and languished under the
eyes of his wife Isabella, daughter of King Ferdinand of Naples.
As to Ludovico, he was an ambitious man, full of courage and astuteness,
familiar with the sword and with poison, which he used alternately,
according to the occasion, without feeling any repugnance or any
predilection for either of them; but quite decided to be his nephew’s
heir whether he died or lived.
Florence, although she had preserved the name of a republic, had little
by little lost all her liberties, and belonged in fact, if not by right,
to Piero dei Medici, to whom she had been bequeathed as a paternal
legacy by Lorenzo, as we have seen, at the risk of his soul’s salvation.
The son, unfortunately, was far from having the genius of his father: he
was handsome, it is true, whereas Lorenzo, on the contrary, was
remarkably ugly; he had an agreeable, musical voice, whereas Lorenzo had
always spoken through his nose; he was instructed in Latin and Greek,
his conversation was pleasant and easy, and he improvised verses almost
as well as the so-called Magnificent; but he was both ignorant of
political affairs and haughtily insolent in his behaviour to those who
had made them their study. Added to this, he was an ardent lover of
pleasure, passionately addicted to women, incessantly occupied with
bodily exercises that should make him shine in their eyes, above all
with tennis, a game at which he very highly excelled: he promised
himself that, when the period of mourning was fast, he would occupy the
attention not only of Florence but of the whole of Italy, by the
splendour of his courts and the renown of his fetes. Piero dei Medici
had at any rate formed this plan; but Heaven decreed otherwise.
As to the most serene republic of Venice, whose doge was Agostino
Barbarigo, she had attained, at the time we have reached, to her highest
degree of power and splendour. From Cadiz to the Palus Maeotis, there
was no port that was not open to her thousand ships; she possessed in
Italy, beyond the coastline of the canals and the ancient duchy of
Venice, the provinces of Bergamo, Brescia, Crema, Verona, Vicenza, and
Padua; she owned the marches of Treviso, which comprehend the districts
of Feltre, Belluno, Cadore, Polesella of Rovigo, and the principality of
Ravenna; she also owned the Friuli, except Aquileia; Istria, except
Trieste; she owned, on the east side of the Gulf, Zara, Spalatra, and
the shore of Albania; in the Ionian Sea, the islands of Zante and Corfu;
in Greece, Lepanto and Patras; in the Morea, Morone, Corone, Neapolis,
and Argos; lastly, in the Archipelago, besides several little towns and
stations on the coast, she owned Candia and the kingdom of Cyprus.
Thus from the mouth of the Po to the eastern extremity of the
Mediterranean, the most serene republic was mistress of the whole
coastline, and Italy and Greece seemed to be mere suburbs of Venice.
In the intervals of space left free between Naples, Milan, Florence, and
Venice, petty tyrants had arisen who exercised an absolute sovereignty
over their territories: thus the Colonnas were at Ostia and at Nettuna,
the Montefeltri at Urbino, the Manfredi at Faenza, the Bentivogli at
Bologna, the Malatesta family at Rimini, the Vitelli at Citta di
Castello, the Baglioni at Perugia, the Orsini at Vicovaro, and the
princes of Este at Ferrara.
Finally, in the centre of this immense circle, composed of great Powers,
of secondary States, and of little tyrannies, Rome was set on high, the
most exalted, yet the weakest of all, without influence, without lands,
without an army, without gold. It was the concern of the new pope to
secure all this: let us see, therefore, what manner of man was this
Alexander VI, for undertaking and accomplishing such a project.