Matters went forward as Alexander had wished, and before the end of the
year the pontifical army had, seized a great number of castles and
fortresses that belonged to the Orsini, who thought themselves already
lost when Charles VIII came to the rescue. They had addressed themselves
to him without much hope that he could be of real use to them, with his
want of armed troops and his preoccupation with his own affairs. He,
however, sent Carlo Orsini, son of Virginio, the prisoner, and
Vitellozzo Vitelli, brother of Camillo Vitelli, one of the three valiant
Italian condottieri who had joined him and fought for him at the
crossing of the Taro: These two captains, whose courage and skill were
well known, brought with them a considerable sum of money from the
liberal coffers of Charles VIII. Now, scarcely had they arrived at Citta
di Castello, the centre of their little sovereignty, and expressed their
intention of raising a band of soldiers, when men presented themselves
from all sides to fight under their banner; so they very soon assembled
a small army, and as they had been able during their stay among the
French to study those matters of military organisation in which France
excelled, they now applied the result of their learning to their own
troops: the improvements were mainly certain changes in the artillery
which made their manoeuvres easier, and the substitution for their
ordinary weapons of pikes similar in form to the Swiss pikes, but two
feet longer. These changes effected, Vitellozzo Vitelli spent three or
four months in exercising his men in the management of their new
weapons; then, when he thought them fit to make good use of these, and
when he had collected more or less help from the towns of Perugia, Todi,
and Narni, where the inhabitants trembled lest their turn should come
after the Orsini’s, as the Orsini’s had followed on the Colonnas’, he
marched towards Braccianno, which was being besieged by the Duke of
Urbino, who had been lent to the pope by the Venetians, in virtue of the
treaty quoted above.
The Venetian general, when he heard of Vitelli’s approach, thought he
might as well spare him half his journey, and marched out to confront
him: the two armies met in the Soriano road, and the battle straightway
began. The pontifical army had a body of eight hundred Germans, on which
the Dukes of Urbino and Gandia chiefly relied, as well they might, for
they were the best troops in the world; but Vitelli attacked these
picked men with his infantry, who, armed with their formidable pikes,
ran them through, while they with arms four feet shorter had no chance
even of returning the blows they received; at the same time Vitelli’s
light troops wheeled upon the flank, following their most rapid
movements, and silencing the enemy’s artillery by the swiftness and
accuracy of their attack. The pontifical troops were put to flight,
though after a longer resistance than might have been expected when they
had to sustain the attack of an army so much better equipped than their
own; with them they bore to Ronciglione the Duke of Gandia, wounded in
the face by a pike-thrust, Fabrizia Calonna, and the envoy; the Duke of
Urbino, who was fighting in the rear to aid the retreat, was taken
prisoner with all his artillery and the baggage of the conquered army.
But this success, great as it was, did not so swell the pride of
Vitellozza Vitelli as to make him oblivious of his position. He knew
that he and the Orsini together were too weak to sustain a war of such
magnitude; that the little store of money to which he owed the existence
of his army would very soon be expended and his army would disappear
with it. So he hastened to get pardoned for the victory by making
propositions which he would very likely have refused had he been the
vanquished party; and the pope accepted his conditions without demur;
during the interval having heard that Trivulce had just recrossed the
Alps and re-entered Italy with three thousand Swiss, and fearing lest
the Italian general might only be the advance guard of the King of
France. So it was settled that the Orsini should pay 70,000 florins for
the expenses of the war, and that all the prisoners on both sides should
be exchanged without ransom with the single exception of the Duke of
Urbino. As a pledge for the future payment of the 70,000 florins, the
Orsini handed over to the Cardinals Sforza and San Severino the
fortresses of Anguillara and Cervetri; then, when the day came and they
had not the necessary money, they gave up their prisoner, the Duke of
Urbino, estimating his worth at 40,000 ducats—nearly all the sum
required—and handed him over to Alexander on account; he, a rigid
observer of engagements, made his own general, taken prisoner in his
service, pay, to himself the ransom he owed to the enemy.
Then the pope had the corpse of Virginio sent to Carlo Orsini and
Vitellozzo Vitelli, as he could not send him alive. By a strange
fatality the prisoner had died, eight days before the treaty was signed,
of the same malady—at least, if we may judge by analogy—that had carried
off Bajazet’s brother.
As soon as the peace was signed, Prospero Calonna and Gonzalvo de
Cordova, whom the Pope had demanded from Frederic, arrived at Rome with
an army of Spanish and Neapolitan troops. Alexander, as he could not
utilise these against the Orsini, set them the work of recapturing
Ostia, not desiring to incur the reproach of bringing them to Rome for
nothing. Gonzalvo was rewarded for this feat by receiving the Rose of
Gold from the pope’s hand—that being the highest honour His Holiness can
grant. He shared this distinction with the Emperor Maximilian, the King
of France, the Doge of Venice, and the Marquis of Mantua.
In the midst of all this occurred the solemn festival of the Assumption;
in which Ganzalvo was invited to take part. He accordingly left his
palace, proceeded in great pomp in the front of the pontifical cavalry,
and took his place on the Duke of Gandia’s left hand. The duke attracted
all eyes by his personal beauty, set off as it was by all the luxury he
thought fit to display at this festival. He had a retinue of pages and
servants, clad in sumptuous liveries, incomparable for richness with
anything heretofore seen in Rome, that city of religious pomp. All these
pages and servants rode magnificent horses, caparisoned in velvet
trimmed with silver fringe, and bells of silver hanging down every here
and there. He himself was in a robe of gold brocade, and wore at his
neck a string of Eastern pearls, perhaps the finest and largest that
ever belonged to a Christian prince, while on his cap was a gold chain
studded with diamonds of which the smallest was worth more than 20,000
ducats. This magnificence was all the more conspicuous by the contrast
it presented to Caesar’s dress, whose scarlet robe admitted of no
ornaments. The result was that Caesar, doubly jealous of his brother,
felt a new hatred rise up within him when he heard all along the way the
praises of his fine appearance and noble equipment. From this moment
Cardinal Valentino decided in his own mind the fate of this man, this
constant obstacle in the path of his pride, his love, and his ambition.
Very good reason, says Tommaso, the historian, had the Duke of Gandia to
leave behind him an impression on the public mind of his beauty and his
grandeur at this fete, for this last display was soon to be followed by
the obsequies of the unhappy young man.
Lucrezia also had come to Rome, on the pretext of taking part in the
solemnity, but really, as we shall see later, with the view of serving
as a new instrument for her father’s ambition. As the pope was not
satisfied with an empty triumph of vanity and display for his son, and
as his war with the Orsini had failed to produce the anticipated
results, he decided to increase the fortune of his firstborn by doing
the very thing which he had accused Calixtus in his speech of doing for
him, viz., alienating from the States of the Church the cities of
Benevento, Terracino, and Pontecorvo to form, a duchy as an appanage to
his son’s house. Accordingly this proposition was put forward in a full
consistory, and as the college of cardinals was entirely Alexander’s,
there was no difficulty about carrying his point. This new favour to his
elder brother exasperated Caesar, although he was himself getting a
share of the paternal gifts; for he had just been named envoy ’a latere’
at Frederic’s court, and was appointed to crown him with his own hands
as the papal representative. But Lucrezia, when she had spent a few days
of pleasure with her father and brothers, had gone into retreat at the
convent of San Sisto. No one knew the real motive of her seclusion, and
no entreaties of Caesar, whose love for her was strange and unnatural,
had induced her to defer this departure from the world even until the
day after he left for Naples. His sister’s obstinacy wounded him deeply,
for ever since the day when the Duke of Gandia had appeared in the
procession so magnificently attired, he fancied he had observed a
coldness in the mistress of his illicit affection, and so far did this
increase his hatred of his rival that he resolved to be rid of him at
all costs. So he ordered the chief of his sbirri to come and see him the
same night.
Michelotto was accustomed to these mysterious messages, which almost
always meant his help was wanted in some love affair or some act of
revenge. As in either case his reward was generally a large one, he was
careful to keep his engagement, and at the appointed hour was brought
into the presence of his patron.
Caesar received him leaning against a tall chimney-piece, no longer
wearing his cardinal’s robe and hat, but a doublet of black velvet
slashed with satin of the same colour. One hand toyed mechanically with
his gloves, while the other rested an the handle of a poisoned dagger
which never left his side. This was the dress he kept for his nocturnal
expeditions, so Michelotto felt no surprise at that; but his eyes burned
with a flame more gloomy than their want, and his cheeks, generally
pale, were now livid. Michelotto had but to cast one look upon his
master to see that Caesar and he were about to share some terrible
enterprise.
He signed to him to shut the door. Michelotto obeyed. Then, after a
moment’s silence, during which the eyes of Borgia seemed to burn into
the soul of the bravo, who with a careless air stood bareheaded before
him, he said, in a voice whose slightly mocking tone gave the only sign
of his emotion.
"Michelotto, how do you think this dress suits me?"
Accustomed as he was to his master’s tricks of circumlocution, the bravo
was so far from expecting this question, that at first he stood mute,
and only after a few moments’ pause was able to say:
"Admirably, monsignore; thanks to the dress, your Excellency has the
appearance as well as the true spirit of a captain."
"I am glad you think so," replied Caesar. "And now let me ask you, do
you know who is the cause that, instead of wearing this dress, which I
can only put on at night, I am forced to disguise myself in the daytime
in a cardinal’s robe and hat, and pass my time trotting about from
church to church, from consistory to consistory, when I ought properly
to be leading a magnificent army in the battlefield, where you would
enjoy a captain’s rank, instead of being the chief of a few miserable
sbirri?"
"Yes, monsignore," replied Michelotto, who had divined Caesar’s meaning
at his first word; "the man who is the cause of this is Francesco, Duke
of Gandia, and Benevento, your elder brother."
"Do you know," Caesar resumed, giving no sign of assent but a nod and a
bitter smile,—"do you know who has all the money and none of the genius,
who has the helmet and none of the brains, who has the sword and no hand
to wield it?"
"That too is the Duke of Gandia," said Michelotto.
"Do you know;" continued Caesar, "who is the man whom I find continually
blocking the path of my ambition, my fortune, and my love?"
"It is the same, the Duke of Gandia," said Michelotto.
"And what do you think of it?" asked Caesar.
"I think he must die," replied the man coldly.
"That is my opinion also, Michelotto," said Caesar, stepping towards him
and grasping his hand; "and my only regret is that I did not think of it
sooner; for if I had carried a sword at my side in stead of a crosier in
my hand when the King of France was marching through Italy, I should now
have been master of a fine domain. The pope is obviously anxious to
aggrandise his family, but he is mistaken in the means he adopts: it is
I who ought to have been made duke, and my brother a cardinal. There is
no doubt at all that, had he made me duke, I should have contributed a
daring and courage to his service that would have made his power far
weightier than it is. The man who would make his way to vast dominions
and a kingdom ought to trample under foot all the obstacles in his path,
and boldly grasp the very sharpest thorns, whatever reluctance his weak
flesh may feel; such a man, if he would open out his path to fortune,
should seize his dagger or his sword and strike out with his eyes shut;
he should not shrink from bathing his hands in the blood of his kindred;
he should follow the example offered him by every founder of empire from
Romulus to Bajazet, both of whom climbed to the throne by the ladder of
fratracide. Yes, Michelotto, as you say, such is my condition, and I am
resolved I will not shrink. Now you know why I sent for you: am I wrong
in counting upon you?"
As might have been expected, Michelotto, seeing his own fortune in this
crime, replied that he was entirely at Caesar’s service, and that he had
nothing to do but to give his orders as to time, place, and manner of
execution. Caesar replied that the time must needs be very soon, since
he was on the point of leaving Rome for Naples; as to the place and the
mode of execution, they would depend on circumstances, and each of them
must look out for an opportunity, and seize the first that seemed
favourable.
Two days after this resolution had been taken, Caesar learned that the
day of his departure was fixed for Thursday the 15th of June: at the
same time he received an invitation from his mother to come to supper
with her on the 14th. This was a farewell repast given in his honour.
Michelotto received orders to be in readiness at eleven o’clock at
night.
The table was set in the open air in a magnificent vineyard, a property
of Rosa Vanozza’s in the neighbourhood of San Piero-in-Vinculis: the
guests were Caesar Borgia, the hero of the occasion; the Duke of Gandia;
Prince of Squillace; Dona Sancha, his wife; the Cardinal of Monte Reale,
Francesco Borgia, son of Calixtus III; Don Roderigo Borgia, captain of
the apostolic palace; Don Goffredo, brother of the cardinal; Gian
Borgia, at that time ambassador at Perugia; and lastly, Don Alfonso
Borgia, the pope’s nephew: the whole family therefore was present,
except Lucrezia, who was still in retreat, and would not come.
The repast was magnificent: Caesar was quite as cheerful as usual, and
the Duke of Gandia seemed more joyous than he had ever been before.
In the middle of supper a man in a mask brought him a letter. The duke
unfastened it, colouring up with pleasure; and when he had read it
answered in these words, "I will come": then he quickly hid the letter
in the pocket of his doublet; but quick as he was to conceal it from
every eye, Caesar had had time to cast a glance that way, and he fancied
he recognised the handwriting of his sister Lucrezia. Meanwhile the
messenger had gone off with his answer, no one but Caesar paying the
slightest attention to him, for at that period it was the custom for
have messages to be conveyed by men in domino or by women whose faces
were concealed by a veil.
At ten o’clock they rose from the table, and as the air was sweet and
mild they walked about a while under the magnificent pine trees that
shaded the house of Rosa Vanozza, while Caesar never for an instant let
his brother out of his sight. At eleven o’clock the Duke of Gandia bade
good-night to his mother. Caesar at once followed suit, alleging his
desire to go to the Vatican to bid farewell to the pope, as he would not
be able to fulfil this duty on the morrow, his departure being fixed at
daybreak. This pretext was all the more plausible since the pope was in
the habit of sitting up every night till two or three o’clock in the
morning.
The two brothers went out together, mounted their horses, which were
waiting for them at the door, and rode side by side as far as the
Palazzo Borgia, the present home of Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, who had
taken it as a gift from Alexander the night before his election to the
papacy. There the Duke of Gandia separated from his brother, saying with
a smile that he was not intending to go home, as he had several hours to
spend first with a fair lady who was expecting him. Caesar replied that
he was no doubt free to make any use he liked best of his opportunities,
and wished him a very good night. The duke turned to the right, and
Caesar to the left; but Caesar observed that the street the duke had
taken led in the direction of the convent of San Sisto, where, as we
said, Lucrezia was in retreat; his suspicions were confirmed by this
observation, and he directed his horse’s steps to the Vatican, found the
pope, took his leave of him, and received his benediction.
From this moment all is wrapped in mystery and darkness, like that in
which the terrible deed was done that we are now to relate.
This, however, is what is believed.
The Duke of Gandia, when he quitted Caesar, sent away his servants, and
in the company of one confidential valet alone pursued his course
towards the Piazza della Giudecca. There he found the same man in a mask
who had come to speak to him at supper, and forbidding his valet to
follow any farther, he bade him wait on the piazza where they then
stood, promising to be on his way back in two hours’ time at latest, and
to take him up as he passed. And at the appointed hour the duke
reappeared, took leave this time of the man in the mask, and retraced
his steps towards his palace. But scarcely had he turned the corner of
the Jewish Ghetto, when four men on foot, led by a fifth who was on
horseback, flung themselves upon him. Thinking they were thieves, or
else that he was the victim of some mistake, the Duke of Gandia
mentioned his name; but instead of the name checking the murderers’
daggers, their strokes were redoubled, and the duke very soon fell dead,
his valet dying beside him.
Then the man on horseback, who had watched the assassination with no
sign of emotion, backed his horse towards the dead body: the four
murderers lifted the corpse across the crupper, and walking by the side
to support it, then made their way down the lane that leads to the
Church of Santa Maria-in-Monticelli. The wretched valet they left for
dead upon the pavement. But he, after the lapse of a few seconds,
regained some small strength, and his groans were heard by the
inhabitants of a poor little house hard by; they came and picked him up,
and laid him upon a bed, where he died almost at once, unable to give
any evidence as to the assassins or any details of the murder.
All night the duke was expected home, and all the next morning; then
expectation was turned into fear, and fear at last into deadly terror.
The pope was approached, and told that the Duke of Gandia had never come
back to his palace since he left his mother’s house. But Alexander tried
to deceive himself all through the rest of the day, hoping that his son
might have been surprised by the coming of daylight in the midst of an
amorous adventure, and was waiting till the next night to get away in
that darkness which had aided his coming thither. But the night, like
the day, passed and brought no news. On the morrow, the pope, tormented
by the gloomiest presentiments and by the raven’s croak of the ’vox
populi’, let himself fall into the depths of despair: amid sighs and
sobs of grief, all he could say to any one who came to him was but these
words, repeated a thousand times: "Search, search; let us know how my
unhappy son has died."
Then everybody joined in the search; for, as we have said, the Duke of
Gandia was beloved by all; but nothing could be discovered from scouring
the town, except the body of the murdered man, who was recognised as the
duke’s valet; of his master there was no trace whatever: it was then
thought, not without reason, that he had probably been thrown into the
Tiber, and they began to follow along its banks, beginning from the Via
della Ripetta, questioning every boatman and fisherman who might
possibly have seen, either from their houses or from their boats, what
had happened on the river banks during the two preceding nights. At
first all inquiries were in vain; but when they had gone up as high as
the Via del Fantanone, they found a man at last who said he had seen
something happen on the night of the 14th which might very possibly have
some bearing on the subject of inquiry. He was a Slav named George, who
was taking up the river a boat laden with wood to Ripetta. The following
are his own words:
"Gentlemen," he said, "last Wednesday evening, when I had set down my
load of wood on the bank, I remained in my boat, resting in the cool
night air, and watching lest other men should come and take away what I
had just unloaded, when, about two o’clock in the morning, I saw coming
out of the lane on the left of San Girolamo’s Church two men on foot,
who came forward into the middle of the street, and looked so carefully
all around that they seemed to have come to find out if anybody was
going along the street. When they felt sure that it was deserted, they
went back along the same lane, whence issued presently two other men,
who used similar precautions to make sure that there was nothing fresh;
they, when they found all as they wished, gave a sign to their
companions to come and join them; next appeared one man on a dapple-grey
horse, which was carrying on the crupper the body of a dead man, his
head and arms hanging over on one side and his feet on the other. The
two fellows I had first seen exploring were holding him up by the arms
and legs. The other three at once went up to the river, while the first
two kept a watch on the street, and advancing to the part of the bank
where the sewers of the town are discharged into the Tiber, the horseman
turned his horse, backing on the river; then the two who were at either
side taking the corpse, one by the hands, the other by the feet, swung
it three times, and the third time threw it out into the river with all
their strength; then at the noise made when the body splashed into the
water, the horseman asked, ’Is it done?’ and the others answered, ’Yes,
sir,’ and he at once turned right about face; but seeing the dead man’s
cloak floating, he asked what was that black thing swimming about.
’Sir,’ said one of the men, ’it is his cloak’; and then another man
picked up some stones, and running to the place where it was still
floating, threw them so as to make it sink under; as soon, as it had
quite disappeared, they went off, and after walking a little way along
the main road, they went into the lane that leads to San Giacomo. That
was all I saw, gentlemen, and so it is all I can answer to the questions
you have asked me."
At these words, which robbed of all hope any who might yet entertain it,
one of the pope’s servants asked the Slav why, when he was witness of
such a deed, he had not gone to denounce it to the governor. But the
Slav replied that, since he had exercised his present trade on the
riverside, he had seen dead men thrown into the Tiber in the same way a
hundred times, and had never heard that anybody had been troubled about
them; so he supposed it would be the same with this corpse as the
others, and had never imagined it was his duty to speak of it, not
thinking it would be any more important than it had been before.
Acting on this intelligence, the servants of His Holiness summoned at
once all the boatmen and fishermen who were accustomed to go up and down
the river, and as a large reward was promised to anyone who should find
the duke’s body, there were soon more than a hundred ready for the job;
so that before the evening of the same day, which was Friday, two men
were drawn out of the water, of whom one was instantly recognised as the
hapless duke. At the very first glance at the body there could be no
doubt as to the cause of death. It was pierced with nine wounds, the
chief one in the throat, whose artery was cut. The clothing had not been
touched: his doublet and cloak were there, his gloves in his waistband,
gold in his purse; the duke then must have been assassinated not for
gain but for revenge.
The ship which carried the corpse went up the Tiber to the Castello
Sant’ Angelo, where it was set down. At once the magnificent dress was
fetched from the duke’s palace which he had worn on the day of the
procession, and he was clothed in it once more: beside him were placed
the insignia of the generalship of the Church. Thus he lay in state all
day, but his father in his despair had not the courage to came and look
at him. At last, when night had fallen, his most trusty and honoured
servants carried the body to the church of the Madonna del Papala, with
all the pomp and ceremony that Church and State combined could devise
for the funeral of the son of the pope.
Meantime the bloodstained hands of Caesar Borgia were placing a royal
crown upon the head of Frederic of Aragon.
This blow had pierced Alexander’s heart very deeply. As at first he did
not know on whom his suspicions should fall, he gave the strictest
orders for the pursuit of the murderers; but little by little the
infamous truth was forced upon him. He saw that the blow which struck at
his house came from that very house itself and then his despair was
changed to madness: he ran through the rooms of the Vatican like a
maniac, and entering the consistory with torn garments and ashes on his
head, he sobbingly avowed all the errors of his past life, owning that
the disaster that struck his offspring through his offspring was a just
chastisement from God; then he retired to a secret dark chamber of the
palace, and there shut himself up, declaring his resolve to die of
starvation. And indeed for more than sixty hours he took no nourishment
by day nor rest by night, making no answer to those who knocked at his
door to bring him food except with the wailings of a woman or a roar as
of a wounded lion; even the beautiful Giulia Farnese, his new mistress,
could not move him at all, and was obliged to go and seek Lucrezia, that
daughter doubly loved to conquer his deadly resolve. Lucrezia came out
from the retreat were she was weeping for the Duke of Gandia, that she
might console her father. At her voice the door did really open, and it
was only then that the Duke of Segovia, who had been kneeling almost a
whole day at the threshold, begging His Holiness to take heart, could
enter with servants bearing wine and food.
The pope remained alone with Lucrezia for three days and nights; then he
reappeared in public, outwardly calm, if not resigned; for Guicciardini
assures us that his daughter had made him understand how dangerous it
would be to himself to show too openly before the assassin, who was
coming home, the immoderate love he felt for his victim.