Lucretia Borgia Part 12

The d.u.c.h.ess of Urbino actually went to Rome for the purpose of protecting her n.o.ble kinswoman, whom she kept incognito. She remained there until Easter. On her way to S. Peter's she directed anxious glances toward the Belvedere, where the bravest woman of Italy, a prisoner, was grieving her life away, Catarina Sforza having been confined there since Caesar's return, February 26th, as is attested by a letter of that date written by the Venetian amba.s.sador in Rome to his Signory. Elisabetta's feelings must have been rendered still more painful by the fact that her own husband, as well as her brother Gonzaga, both of whom were in the service of France, had given the princess up for lost.

She had scarcely left Rome when Catarina received news that her uncles Ludovico and Ascanio had fallen into the hands of the King of France.

Having, with the aid of Swiss troops, again secured possession of Milan in 1500, they were ignominiously betrayed by the mercenaries at Novara, April 10th. Ludovico was carried away to France, where he died in misery, having spent ten years a prisoner in the tower of Loches; the once powerful cardinal was likewise taken a captive to France. A great tragedy had occurred in the house of Sforza. What must have been Catarina's distress when she, in her prison, learned that fate had overthrown all her race! Could one transport himself to that environment he would breathe the oppressive atmosphere with which Shakespeare enveloped his characters.

Catarina's jailers were the two most dreaded men of the age--the Pope and his son. The very thought of what surrounded her must have filled her with terror. In the Belvedere she was in constant dread of Caesar's poison, and it is indeed a wonder that she did escape it. She made an unsuccessful attempt at flight, whereupon Alexander had her removed to the castle of S. Angelo. However, certain French gentlemen in the service of the one who was bent on her destruction--especially Ivo d'Allegre--interceded for her; and the Pope, after she had spent a year and a half in captivity, allowed her to choose Florence for her asylum.

He himself commended her to the Signory in the following letter:

UNTO MY BELOVED SONS: Greeting and the Apostolic Blessing.

Our beloved daughter in Christ, the n.o.ble lady Catarina Sforza, is on her way to you. She, as you are aware, having for good reasons been held a prisoner by Us for a time, has again become the object of Our mercy. We, according to Our custom and to Our pastoral duties, have not only exercised mercy with regard to this Catarina, but also, so far as We with G.o.d's help were able, have looked with paternal solicitude after her welfare; therefore We deem it proper to write you for the purpose of commending this Catarina to your protection, so that she, having full confidence in Our good will towards you, and returning, so to speak, into her own country, may not be deluded in her expectations and by Our recommendation. We, therefore, shall be glad to learn that she has been well received and treated by you, in grat.i.tude to her for having chosen your city for her abode, and owing to your feelings toward Us. Given at Rome, in S. Peter's, under the Apostolic seal, July 13, 1501. In the ninth year of our pontificate.

HADRIa.n.u.s.

Catarina Sforza died in a convent in Florence in 1509. In her fatherland she left a son of the same mettle as herself, Giovanni Medici, the last of the great condottieri of the country, who became famous as leader of the Black Bands. There is a seated figure in marble of this captain, of herculean strength, with the neck of a centaur, near the church of S.

Lorenzo in Florence.

FOOTNOTES:

[74] In the Gonzaga archives.

[75] In questa mattina ho hauto lo adviso de la morte del Rmo Card.

Borgia _mio fratre_ pa.s.sato de questa vita in Urbino. Forli, January 16, 1500. Archives of Modena.

[76] A. 1500, Jan. 22 (this is incorrect), mori il Carle Borgia fiolo de Papa Alexo a Orbino. Silva Cronicarum Bernardini Zambotti. Ms. in the library of Ferrara.

[77] La bona memoria del Cardinale Borgia mio fratre. Rome, July 30, 1500. Gonzaga archives.

[78] Cittadella's opinion that Giovanni Borgia, junior, was a son of Pierluigi, Alexander's brother, is also incorrect.

[79] Femina quasi virago crudelissima et di gran animo. Venuta di Carlo VIII, p. 811, Ms. Virago here means amazon.

CHAPTER XVI

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 Caesar; and greater princes, like those of the Gonzaga and Este families, who were either entirely independent or were semi-independent va.s.sals of the Church, courted the friendship of the Pope and his dreaded son. Caesar, 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 Caesar and Ercole, which is very voluminous, is still preserved in the Este archives in Modena. It began August 30, 1498, when Caesar 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.

Caesar 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 Caesar 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:

ILl.u.s.tRIOUS SIR AND HONORED BROTHER: From your Excellency's letter we have learned of the birth of your ill.u.s.trious 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 G.o.dfather, 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 G.o.d to preserve the same to you.

Your Majesty will not fail to congratulate your ill.u.s.trious consort in our name. She will, we hope, through this son prepare the way for a numerous posterity to perpetuate the fame of their ill.u.s.trious parents. Rome, in the Apostolic Palace, May 24, 1500.

CaeSAR 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 Caesar was at the zenith of his power, Gonzaga requested the honor of the betrothal of this son and the duke's little daughter Luisa.

Caesar 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 amba.s.sador called, July 3d, he found Madonna Lucretia, Sancia, the latter's husband, Giuffre, 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 a.s.sa.s.sins from whom she was powerless to save him. Caesar 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 Caesar, 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 amba.s.sador 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."

Caesar remarked to the amba.s.sador, "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 pa.s.sed 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. Caesar 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CaeSAR BORGIA.

From a painting by Giorgione.]

Nothing so clearly discloses the terrible influence which Caesar exercised over his wicked father as this deed, and the way in which the Pope regarded it. From the Venetian amba.s.sador'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 Caesar--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 Caesar 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 Caesar; 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 amba.s.sador 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 Caesar. August 24th the French amba.s.sador, Louis de Villeneuve, made his entry into Rome; near S. Spirito a masked man rode up and embraced him. The man was Caesar. 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 circ.u.mstances 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, Dona 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 ma.s.s 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 pa.s.sionate 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 circ.u.mstances by which she was trammeled, she could make to maintain the dignity of woman. If Lucretia, however, ever did possess the courage to a.s.sert her individuality and rights before those who injured her, she certainly would have done so when her husband was murdered. Perhaps she did a.s.sail her sinister brother with recriminations and her father with tears. She was troublesome to Caesar, 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 amba.s.sador 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.

CHAPTER XVII

LUCRETIA AT NEPI

Travelers from Rome to Nepi, then as now, followed the Via Ca.s.sia, pa.s.sing Isola Farnese, Baccano, and Monterosi. The road consisted in part of the ancient highway, but it was in the worst possible condition.

Near Monterosi the traveler turned into the Via Amerina, much of the pavement of which is still preserved, even up to the walls of Nepi.

Like most of the cities of Etruria, Nepi (Nepe or Nepete) was situated on a high plain bordered by deep ravines, through which flowed small streams, called _rii_. The bare cliffs of tuff const.i.tuted a natural means of defense, and where they were low, walls were built.