Lucretia Borgia Part 9

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 Caesar, 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, Caesar was the murderer of his brother. From the moment Alexander VI knew this crime had been committed, and a.s.sumed 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 Caesar'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 a.s.sume 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 Dona Beatrice Boria y Arenos. This is rendered probable by the court records of Valencia.

September 27, 1497, Dona 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 doc.u.ments, among which was this letter written by Alexander, and the tribunal accordingly recognized Gandia's son as his legal heir.[52]

Dona 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 Caesar to administer for his nephew, as appears from an official doc.u.ment 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 Caesar 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 Giuffre a cardinal in Caesar'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 Giuffre 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, Caesar 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 a.s.sume 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 Caesar 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 Caesar 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 Caesar.

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 pet.i.tion 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 doc.u.ment 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 e curato de fare prova de se qua con Done per poterne chiarire el Rmo. Legato che era qua, sebbene S. Extia tastandolo sopra ci gli ne habia facto offerta. Despatch from the Ferrarese amba.s.sador 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 per haver scripto cos 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 Amba.s.sador 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 p.r.o.nounced and written Biseglia or Biselli.

Quadrata is now Corato, near Andria.

CHAPTER XIII

A REGENT AND A MOTHER

Lucretia, now d.u.c.h.ess of Biselli, had been living since July, 1498, with a new husband, a youth of seventeen, she herself having just completed her eighteenth year. She and her consort did not go to Naples, but remained in Rome; for, as the Mantuan agent reported to his master, it was expressly agreed that Don Alfonso should live in Rome a year, and that Lucretia should not be required to take up her abode in the kingdom of Naples during her father's lifetime.[60]

The youthful Alfonso was fair and amiable. Talini, a Roman chronicler of that day, p.r.o.nounced him the handsomest young man ever seen in the Imperial City. According to a statement made by the Mantuan agent in August, Lucretia was really fond of him. A sudden change in affairs, however, deprived her of the calm joys of domestic life.

The moving principle in the Vatican was the measureless ambition of Caesar, who was consuming with impatience to become a ruling sovereign.

August 13, 1498, he flung aside the cardinal's robes and prepared to set out for France; Louis XII, who in April had succeeded Charles VIII, having promised him the t.i.tle of Duke of Valentinois and the hand of a French princess. Alexander provided for his son's retinue with regal extravagance.

It happened one day that a train of mules laden with silks and cloth of gold on the way to Caesar in Rome was plundered by the people of Cardinal Farnese and of his cousin Pier Paolo in the forest of Bolsena, whereupon the Pope addressed some vigorous communications to the cardinal, in whose territory, he stated, the robbery had been committed.[61]

In the service of the Farnese were numerous Corsicans, some as mercenaries and bullies, some as field laborers, and these people, who were universally feared, probably were the guilty ones, for it is difficult to believe that Cardinal Alessandro would have undertaken such a venture on his own account. It seems, however, that the relations of the Borgias and the Farnese were somewhat strained during this period.

The cardinal spent most of his time on his family estates, and at this juncture little was heard of his sister Giulia. It is not even known whether or not she was living in Rome and continuing her relations with the Pope, although, from subsequent revelations, it appears that she was. April 2, 1499, we find the cardinal and his sister again in Rome, where a nuptial contract was concluded in the Farnese palace between Laura Orsini, Giulia's seven-year-old daughter, and Federico Farnese, the twelve-year-old son of the deceased condottiere Raimondo Farnese, a nephew of Pier Paolo. Laura's putative father, Orsino Orsini, was present at the ceremony.[62]

It was probably Adriana and Giulia who were endeavoring to bring about a reconciliation between the house of Orsini and the Borgias. In the spring of 1498 these barons, having issued victorious from their war with the Pope, began a bitter contest with their hereditary foes, the Colonna, which, however, ended in their own defeat. These houses made peace with each other in July, a fact which caused Alexander no little anxiety, for upon the hostility of these, the two mightiest families of Rome, depended the Pope's dominion over the city; his greatest danger lay in their mutual friendship. He therefore endeavored again to set them at loggerheads, and he succeeded in attaching the Orsini to himself,--which they subsequently had reason to regret. He accomplished his purpose so well that they intermarried with the Borgias; Paolo Orsini, Giambattista's brother, uniting his son Fabio with Girolama, a sister of Cardinal Giovanni Borgia the younger, September 8, 1498. The marriage contract was concluded in the presence of the Pope and a brilliant gathering in the Vatican, and one of the official witnesses was Don Alfonso of Biselli, who held the sword over the young couple.[63]

Shortly afterwards, October first, Caesar Borgia set sail for France, where he was made Duke of Valentinois, and where, in May, 1499, he married Charlotte d'Albret, sister of the King of Navarre. At this court he met two men who were destined later to exercise great influence upon his career--George of Amboise, Archbishop of Rouen, to whom he had brought the cardinal's hat, and Giuliano della Rovere. The latter, hitherto Alexander's bitterest enemy, now suffered himself, by the intermediation of the King of France, to be won over to the cause of the Borgias; he permitted himself even to become Caesar's stepping-stone to greatness.

The reconciliation was sealed by a marriage between the two families; the city prefect, Giovanni della Rovere, Giuliano's brother, betrothing his eighteen-year-old son Francesco Maria to Angela Borgia, September 2, 1500.

Angela's father, Giuffre, was a son of Giovanni, sister of Alexander VI, and of Guglielmo Lanzol. Giovanni Borgia the younger, Cardinal Ludovico, and Rodrigo, captain of the papal guard, were her brothers. Her sister Girolama, as above stated, was married to Fabio Orsini. The ceremony of Angela's betrothal took place in the Vatican in the presence of the amba.s.sador of France.