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Title: Chronicles of the house of Borgia
Author: Frederick Rolfe
Release date: October 21, 2025 [eBook #77105]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Grant Richards, 1901
Credits: Richard Tonsing, Hannah Wilson, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRONICLES OF THE HOUSE OF BORGIA ***
Chronicles of
The House of Borgia
[Illustration:
_From a Portrait in the Vatican Library._
_Alexander P. P. VI._
]
CHRONICLES OF THE HOUSE OF BORGIA
BY
FREDERICK BARON CORVO
“=Go lytil quayer / submytte you euery where
Under correction of benyuolence
And where enuye is / loke ye come not there
For ony thynge / kepe your tretye thens
Eruye is full of frowarb reprehens
And how to hurte lyeth euer in a wayte
Kepe your quayer / that it be not ther bayte.=”
(WILLIAM CAXTON, in the _Boke of Curtesye_, A.D. 1477.)
LONDON: GRANT RICHARDS
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.
1901
“GIANNOTTO IL DOMANDO QUELLO CHE DEL SANTO PADRE ET DE’CARDINALI ET DE
GLI ALTRI CORTIGIANI GLI PAREA.
“ALQUALE IL GIUDEO PRESTAMENTE RISPOSE PARMENE MALE CHE IDDIO DEA A
QUANTI SONO. ET DICOTO COSI CHE SE IO BEN SEPPI CONSIDERARE QUIVI
NIUNA SANTITA NIUNA DIVOTIONE NIUNO BUONO OPERA O EXEMPLO DI VITA O D’
ALTRO IN ALCUNO CHE CHERICO FOSSE VEDER MI PARVE MA LUSSERIA AVARITIA
ET GOLOSITA ET SIMILI COSE ET PIGGIORI (SE PIGGIOR ESSER POSSONO IN
ALCUNO) MI VI PARVE IN TANTA GRATIA DI TUTTI VEDERE CHE IO HO PIU
TOSTO QUELLA PER UNA FUCINA DI DIABOLICHE OPERATIONI CHE SI DIVINE. ET
PER QUELLO CHE IO ESTIMI CON OGNI SOLLECITUDINE ET CON OGNI INGEGNO ET
CON OGNI ARTE MI PARE CHE IL VOSTRO PASTORE ET PER CONSEQUENTE TUTTI
GLI ALTRI SI PROCACCINO DI RIDUCERE A NULLA ET DI CACCIARE DEL MONDO
LA CHRISTIANA RELIGIONE. LA DOVE ESSI FONDAMENTO ET SOSTEGNO ESSER
DOVREBBER DI QUELLA. ET PERCIO CHE IO VEGGIO NON QUELLO ADVENIRE CHE
ESSI PROCACCIANO MA CONTINUAMENTE LA VOSTRA RELIGIONE AUMENTARSI ET
PIU LUCIDA ET PIU CHIARA DIVENIRE MERITAMENTE MI PAR DISCERNER LO
SPIRITO SANTO ESSER D’ ESSA SI COME DI VERA ET DI SANTA PIU CHE D’
ALCUN’ ALTRA FONDAMENTO ET SOSTEGNO.”
(GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO. _DECAMERON._
GIORNATA J. NOVELLA IJ.)
Preface
Great Houses win and lose undying fame in a century. They shoot, bud,
bloom, bear fruit;—from obscurity they rise to dominate their Age,
indelibly to write their names in History: and, after a hundred years,
giving place to others who in turn shall take the stage, they descend
into the crowd, and live on, insignificant, retired, unknown.
Once upon a time, Caesars were masters of the world; and the genius of
Divus Julius, of Divus Augustus, was worshipped everywhere on altars.
There are Cesarini at this day in Rome, _cosa grande ch’ il sole_,
masters of wide domains, but not of empires. Once upon time, Buonaparte
held Europe in its grip. Buonaparte at this day keeps exile in Muscovy
or Flanders. Once upon a time, the Sforza were sovereigns-regnant; and
of their daughters were made an empress and a queen. There are Sforza at
this day at Santafiora and at Rome; peers of princes only, not of kings.
Once upon a time, Borgia was supreme in Christendom. There are Borgia at
this day, peers of France; or patricians whose names are written in the
Golden Book of Rome.
In little more than a century, from 1455 to 1572, Borgia sprang to the
pedestal of fame; leaping at a bound, from little bishoprics and
cardinalates, to the terrible altitude of Peter’s Throne; producing, in
those few years, two Popes, and a Saint and General of Jesuits. It is
true that there died, in the nineteenth century, another Borgia of
renown,—the Lord Stefano Borgia, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San
Clemente—a great and good man, admirable by Englishmen for a certain
gracious deed which is not yet written in English History; and who
preferred a second place to that giddy pre-eminence on which his kin
formerly had played their part.
The history of the House of Borgia is the history of the healing of the
Great Schism; of the Renascence of letters and the arts; of the
Invention of Printing; of the Muslim Invasion of Europe; of the
consolidation of that Pontifical Sovereignty which endured till 1870;
the history of the Discovery of a World; the history of the Discovery,
by man, of Man.
“To penetrate the abyss of any human personality is impossible. No man
truly sees his living neighbour’s, brother’s, wife’s,—nay, even his own,
soul.” (_John Addington Symonds._) Much more obscure must be his
friend’s; and darker still, his enemy’s;—and these alive. What, then,
can be known of personalities, who are but distant, perhaps
uninteresting, mere names?
Chronicles there are, and chroniclers; and no more reliance can be
placed in those, than in modern morning and evening newspapers. The same
defect is common to both,—the personal equation, the human nature of the
writer, historian, journalist.
Cardinal Bartolomeo Sacchi (detto Platina) was “a heathen, and a bad
one.” He had to stand his trial on a charge of worshipping false gods,
was acquitted for want of evidence, and departed this life in the Odour
of Sanctity. Modern discoveries, in the secret recesses of the
catacombs, have proved that he was used to carry on his nefarious
practices there, with a handful of other extravagant athenians of like
kidney. He wrote a History of the Popes, which fairly deserves to be
called veracious: but he had a personal grudge against the Lord Paul
P.P. II. Who had put him to trial for paganism and grieved him with the
torture called The Question; wherefore, he got even with His Holiness
when he wrote His life, and a more singular example of truth untruly
told would be hard to find. Platina died in the reign of the Lord Xystus
P.P. IV; and his History of the Popes was continued by Onofrio Panvinii,
who, according to Sir Paul Rycaut, gravely states that, in 1489, the
Lord Innocent P.P. VIII permitted mass to be said without wine, in
Norway; because, that country being cold and the distance far, the wine
either was frozen, or was turned to vinegar, before it could be brought
thither. Obviously, Platina and Panvinii require credible corroboration.
Messer Stefano Infessura lays himself open to suspicion, as to his bona
fides and as to his knowledge, by his remarks on the Lord Xystus P.P.
IV.
Monsignor Hans Burchard, whose original Diarium awaits discovery, is
careless, Teutonic, and petty.
The Orators of the Powers compile their state-dispatches from what they
have picked up when hanging about the doors of palaces, or from the
observations of bribed flunkeys.
Messer Paolo Giovio, preconised Bishop of Nocera by the Lord Clement
P.P. VII, Messer Francesco Guicciardini, and Messer Benedetto Varchi,
were Florentines, who wrote in the Florentine manner, of Rome and Roman
affairs, from an antipathetic point of view, and solely on the gossip
and tittle-tattle that filtered through to Florence after long years.
Yet they wrote in stately delicate language, “Dante’s desiderata,—that
illustrious cardinal courtly curial mother-tongue, proper to each
Italian state, special to none, whereby the local idioms of every city
are to be measured, weighed, compared.” Only—only—the student of their
work must know that, (in common with all professional manufacturers of
squibs, libels, and lampoons, in every age,) what they liked they
praised; and what they loathed they rhetorically and categorically
damned, compiling concise catalogues of all the worst crimes known to
casuistry, to lay at their foe’s door. Therefore, the student of history
must learn the personal sympathies and antipathies of these historians;
he must find their personal equation: and, when he has deducted that, he
may arrive at least in juxtaposition with truth. This method has been
attempted in the present work—in the absence of impersonal authorities.
_Mi sembra che la storia si sia servita della famiglia Borgia come di
tela sopra la quale abbia voluto dipingere le sfenatezze dei secoli XV,
XVI._ “It appears to me that history has made the House of Borgia to
serve as a canvas whereon to depict the unbridled licence of the
Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries.” (_Ragguali, sulla vita di Marino
Sanuto, 207, note._) By some historians, the Borgia women are delineated
as “poison-bearing maenads,” or “veneficous bacchantes”; the Borgia men
as monsters utterly flagitious: both men and women of a wickedness
perfectly impossible to human nature, perfectly improbable even in
nature kakodaimoniacal. By other historians, chiefly, strange to say, of
the French School, and afflicted with the modern itch for
rehabilitation, the identical Borgia are displayed in the character of
stainless innocents who shine in the light of inconceivable virtue.
No man, save One, since Adam, has been wholly good. Not one has been
wholly bad. The truth about the Borgia, no doubt, lies between the two
extremes. They are accused of loose morals, and of having been addicted
to improper practices and amusements.
Well; what then? Does anybody want to judge them? Popes, and kings, and
lovers, and men of intellect, and men of war cannot be judged by the
narrow code, the stunted standard, of the journalist and the
lodging-house keeper, or the plumber and the haberdasher. So indecently
unjust a suggestion only could emanate from persons who expect to gain
in comparison.
Why should good hours of sunlight be wasted on the judgment seat, by
those who, presently, will have to take their turn in the dock? Why not
leave the affairs of Borgia to the Recording Angel?
All about the Borgia quite truly will be known, some day; and, in the
interim, more profitable entertainment may be gained by frankly and
openly studying that swift vivid violent age, when “the Pope was an
Italian Despot with sundry sacerdotal additions;” when “what Mill, in
his Essay on Liberty, desired,—what seems every day more unattainable in
modern life,—was enjoyed by the Italians; _there was no check to the
growth of personality, no grinding of men down to match the average_.”
“Amorist, agonist, man, that, incessantly toiling and striving,
“Snatches the glory of life only from love and from war—
that is the formula in which the Borgia best may find expression. For
they, also, were human beings, who were born, struggled through life,
and died.
* * * * *
In this Ideal Content of the House of Borgia, there is matter for a
score of specialists. The present writer lays no claim to any special
knowledge whatever; although his studies obviously have led him more in
one direction than in another. Curbed by his limitations, he makes no
pretensions to the discovery of new or striking facts: but he humbly
trusts that he has been enabled to throw new and natural light on myths
and legends, and to re-arrange causes and events in a humanly probable
sequence.
In dealing with circumstantial calumny, he has adopted an unworn system;
_e.g._, in the case of persons said to have been raised to the purple in
reward for criminal services. Here, he furnishes complete lists of the
persons raised to the purple; and, when the names of those accused of
crime do not appear therein, he takes the fact as direct and positive
refutation of the calumny.
Touching the matter of names and styles, he has made an attempt to
correct the slipshod and corrupt translations of the same, which, at
present, are the vogue. To allude to Personages in terms which are
appropriate enough for one’s terrier, or for one’s slave; to speak of
sovereigns as mere John, or of pontiffs as plain Paul; are breaches of
etiquette of unpardonable grossness. The present writer has tried, at
least, to accord to his characters the use of the names, and the
courtesy of the styles that they actually bore.
In his manner of writing, he has endeavoured to rush from mood to mood,
in consonance with the subject under consideration, with something of
the flippant breathless masterful versatility which Nature uses. For men
were very natural in the Borgian Era.
It is said that the style of a history should be grave and stately; and
so it should be, when History is written in epic form. But to write of
men and women,—human men and women,—on those inhuman lines, is nothing
but an unnatural crime; and, also, as ridiculously incongruous and
inconsistent, as it would be to sing the _Miserere mei Deus_ to the tune
of the _Marseillaise_. For human nature is not at all times grave and
stately; but has its dressing-gown-and-slipper periods,—being human
nature. The aim of this work is to display the Borgia alive and
picturesque and unconventional, as indeed they were; not monumentally to
freeze them into ideally heroic moulds, or to chisel them into
conventionally unrecognisable effigies.
The writer does not write with the simple object of “white-washing” the
House of Borgia; his present opinion being that all men are too vile for
words to tell.
Further, he does not write in the Roman Catholic interest; nor in the
Jesuit interest; nor in the interest of any creed, or corporation, or
even human being: but solely as one who has scratched together some
sherds of knowledge, which he perforce must sell, to live.
It should be unnecessary to say that no persuasion of, and no offence
to, any man, or any school of thought, is intended in these pages; and
that the writer, in the absence of desired advice, has written what he
has written under correction.
He returns thanks to the officers of the Oxford University Galleries, of
the Bodleian Library, and of the British Museum, for courteous and
valuable assistance.
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Contents
BOOK I
_Page_
THE KINDLING OF THE FIRE 3
KINDLING 58
BOOK II
THE ROARING BLAZE 81
THE LEGEND OF THE BORGIA VENOM 214
PONTIFEX MAXIMUS ALEXANDER VI. ET PRINCEPS 241
SPARKS THAT DIE 254
BOOK III
THE BRILLIANT LIGHT 297
ASHES 332
BOOK IV
A FLICKER FROM THE EMBERS 336
APPENDICES 363
List of Illustrations
_Alexander P.P. VI_ (_from a Portrait in the Vatican
Library_) _Frontispiece_
_To face page_
_Calixtus P.P. III_ 18
_Alfonso of Aragon_ 40
_Fridericus IV, Emperor_ 62
_Alexander P.P. VI_ 90
_Charles VIII of France_ 120
_Fra Girolamo Savonarola_ 152
_Lucrezia Borgia, Duchess of Ferrara_ 182
_Julius P.P. II_ 264
_Saint Francis Borgia_ 324
CHRONICLES OF THE
HOUSE OF BORGIA
“A FIRE, THAT IS KINDLED, BEGINS WITH SMOKE AND HISSING, WHILE IT LAYS
HOLD ON THE FAGGOTS; BURSTS INTO A ROARING BLAZE, WITH RAGING TONGUES
OF FLAME, DEVOURING ALL IN REACH, SPANGLED WITH SPARKS THAT DIE;
SETTLES INTO THE STEADY GENIAL GLARE, THE BRILLIANT LIGHT, THAT MEN
CALL FIRE; BURNS AWAY TO SLOWLY EXPIRING ASHES; SAVE WHERE SMOULDERING
EMBERS FLICKER, AND NURSE THE GLOW, UNTIL PROPITIOUS BREEZES BLOW IT
INTO LIFE AGAIN.”
=Book the First=
The Kindling of the Fire
“_A fire, that is kindled, begins with smoke and hissing, while it lays
hold on the faggots_”
In the year 1455 of Restored Salvation, Christendom was in a parlous
way. The Muslim Infidel swarmed from the dark Orient, sworn to plant the
Crescent on the ruin of the Cross. In resisting encroachment, King
Wladislaw of Hungary and the Apostolic Legate, the Most Illustrious[1]
Lord Giuliano Cesarini, Cardinal-Bishop of Tusculum, a Roman of Rome,
and scion of a most splendid family,[2] had laid down life at the Battle
of Varna. After three and fifty days of siege, Constantinople fell to
the Great Turk, the Sultàn Muhammed II. Ioannes Palaiologos, “King and
Autocrat of the Romans,” was dead; and his successor Konstantinos
Dragases XIII, the last Christian Emperor of the East, was slain in
defence of his capital. By the fall of the great Byzantine Empire, the
bulwarks of Christendom were broken down; the Infidel was raiding on her
borders. Alone, with no ally, Jan Hunniades desperately defended
Hungary’s frontier. The Powers of Europe occupied themselves with less
important matters.
At this time, Rome was the eye, and the brain, of the world; and Rome
had seen and realised all that was portended.
During many years, since the first signs of Muslim activity, fugitives
from Byzantium descended upon Italian shores. The glory of Greece had
gone to Imperial Rome. The grandeur of Imperial Rome had returned to
Byzantium. And now the glory and grandeur of Byzantium was going to
Christian Rome. When danger menaced, when the day of stress began to
dawn, scholars and cunning artificers, experts skilful in all knowledge,
fled westward to the open arms of Italy with their treasures of work.
Italy welcomed all who could enlarge, illuminate, her transcendent
genius; learning and culture and skill found with her not exile but a
home, and a market for wares. Scholarship became the fashion. “Literary
taste was the regulative principle.” It was the Age of Acquisition.
“Tuscan is hardly known to all Italians, but Latin is spread far and
wide throughout the world”; said Filelfo. But to know Greek was the real
test of a gentleman of that day; and Greek scholars were Italy’s most
honoured guests. Not content with the codices and classics of antiquity
that these brought with them, Italian princes and patricians sent
embassies to falling Byzantium, to search for manuscripts, inscriptions,
or carven gems, and bronze, and marble. Greek intaglii and camei graced
the finger-rings, the ouches, collars, caps, of Venetian senators, of
the lords of Florence, of the sovereigns of the Regno,[3] of the barons
and cardinals and popes of Rome. “They had made the discovery that the
body of a man is a miracle of beauty, each limb a divine wonder, each
muscle a joy as great as sight of stars or flowers.” Messer Filippo
Brunelleschi, who truly said that his figure of Christ was a crucified
contadino, erected the marvellous dome of Florence. For the Lord
Eugenius P.P. IV, Messer Antonio Filarete carved the Rapes of Leda and
Ganumedes on the great bronze gates of St. Peter’s. Messer Lorenzo
Ghiberti modelled the marvellous doors of the Baptistery. Messer Simone
Fiorentino (detto Donatello) placed, on the north wall of Orsanmichele,
his superb St. George in marble; and cast in bronze for Duke Cosmo the
nitid David of the Bargello. Tommaso di Ser Giovanni degli Scheggia,
called Masaccio (great hulking Tom), painted St. Peter and St. Paul
raising the dead, with the skill which he learned from Tommaso di
Cristoforo Fini, called Masolino (pretty little Tom). Paolo Doni,
nicknamed Uccello (Bird), put birds into his pictures according to his
wont. The Blessed Giovangelico da Fiesole filled triptychs with his
visions of the angelic hierarchy. Fra Filippo Lippi painted the St.
Gabriel Archangel with the argus-eyed wings in an admirable
Annunciation. Petrarch and Boccaccio hunted convents, abbeys, and
museums, of Byzantium for codices. Messer Poggio Bracciolini discovered
manuscripts of Lucretius Carus, of Vitruvius, of Quinctillian, and
Cicero’s Oration _For Caecina_. “No severity of winter cold, no snow, no
length of journey, no roughness of road, prevented him from bringing the
monuments of antiquity to light,” says Francesco Barbaro. Nor did he
hesitate to steal, when theft seemed necessary to secure a precious
codex. Three pupils of Manuel Chrysoloras won renown beyond all
competitors in the distinguished race: Giovanni Aurispa collected no
fewer than two hundred and thirty eight valuable manuscripts of
antiquity; Guarino da Verona and Francesco Filelfo came back laden from
Byzantium.
Drunk with the joy of the new learning, Italy failed to perceive the
true inwardness of her acquisitions. She was blind to the peril which
they most surely portended.
But Rome saw. And, during many years, Rome had lifted up her voice and
cried aloud that Italy enjoyed these accessions to her treasure only
because Byzantium was no longer a safe repository for them. During many
decades, Rome proclaimed the danger implied by the advance of the Muslim
Infidel. But Christendom lent deaf ears, and compared Rome to Kassandra.
Then Immortal Rome was lulled into a kind of apathy: her voice was heard
less frequently, speaking in feebler, in less insistent tone. And,
gradually, the potent spell of the Renascence mastered Rome; and, in the
reign of the Lord Nicholas P.P. V.[4] she fell a victim to the
fashionable delirium. Churches and palaces were planned, and builded,
and decorated. Manuscripts were collected, collated, copied. Libraries
and colleges were formed. Culture, at last, and for once, was supreme;
and the phenomenon of needy genius was unknown. It was an age when the
demand for learning, and for the fine arts, exceeded the supply.
Then, Rome knew that the beautiful may be purchased at too dear a price;
that its essential evanescence needs the safeguard of virtue and of
heroism, of honour and of arms; precisely as woman needs the protection
of man. Rome perceived that the irruption of the Muslim Infidel was a
menace to civilisation, and she cried on Christendom to resist the flood
of barbarism now outpoured.
Hungary, alone of all the Occidental Powers, responded; but then Hungary
was actually in the Muslim clutch.
England, lately torn by Jack Cade’s rebellion, was entering upon a
conflict bloodier than any American Civil War or Boer Revolt. The reign
of King Henry VI. Plantagenet, gentlest saint that ever wore an earthly
diadem, drew near its close: from those pale prayer-raised hands—holy
hands that had lifted to Christ’s Vicar a petition for the canonisation
of England’s Hero, King Ælfred the Great[5]—the sceptre was about to
fall. Trumpets were sounding from Northumberland to Kent. The clean air
of Yorkshire wolds sang with the hissing of cloth-yard shafts, with the
clang of steel of lance on shield. England was an armed camp; and the
War of the Roses was begun.
Germany and Austria, under the rule of the Holy Roman Emperor, “Caesar
Semper Augustus” Friedrich IV (The Pacific), seethed with
politico-religious discontent. Under the guise of a desire for reform,
political and personal ambitions strove. Caesar Friedrich IV held the
reins of government but loosely. Excellent as a figure-head, ornamental
as an emperor, he had not his empire in the grip of a _mailed fist_. The
symbol A.E.I.O.U. (AUSTRIAE EST IMPERATOR ORBIS UNIVERSI—ALLE ERDE IST
OESTERREICHS UNTERTHAN), which he had invented for his motto,
represented his desire, but not his potentiality. Personal
aggrandisement employed the feudal sovereigns of the empire: their
suzerain’s influence was no check upon them.
Italy, then, deserved the designation given to it in modern times by
Metternich; it was not a nation, but a geographical expression. In the
north were the Republics of Venice, Genoa, Florence, and their smaller
imitators; with the royal duchies of Savoja, Milan, and Ferrara. Across
the country, from Rome and the Mediterranean, to the Mark of Ancona and
the Adriatic, in a north-easterly direction, stretched the Papal States.
The east and south, with Sicily, Sardinia, and the Islands, were called
The Regno; and were ruled from Naples by kings of the House of Aragon.
And dotted all over the land were small semi-independent cities and
territories, held as feudal fiefs by local noble houses, whose barons
bore the harmless title of Tyrant, and exercised absolute lordship
within their little states, _e.g._, the Manfredi, Tyrants of Faenza; the
Malatesta, Tyrants of Rimini; the Sforza, Tyrants of Pesaro,
Chotignuola, Santafiora, Imola and Forli; etc.
France, having burned her greatest glory, The Maid of Orleans, was
recovering from victories by which, from 1434 to 1450, she had deprived
England of all French territory save Calais. Her feeble dastard King
Charles VII. was dead; and Louis XI., a gentleman of pleasure and piety,
occupied her throne.
Spain, united, after centuries of strife among her divers kingdoms and
antagonistic races, by the marriage of King Don Hernando of Aragon to
Queen Doña Isabella of Castile, was preparing for an era of colonial
expansion.
Portugal was consolidating African discoveries and acquisitions.
Norway and Sweden, after brief separation, once more were united under
the sceptre of Denmark; and were learning the lessons of peace.
And then, in Rome, in 1455, on the 24th of March, being Monday in
Passion-week, the Lord Nicholas P.P. V was dead: and, with His death,
the tide of the Italian Renascence stayed.
* * * * *
The College of Cardinals assumed the government of Rome and of the
Universal Church, while the Conclave for the election of the Successor
of St. Peter was assembling. During nine days the Novendialia, the
quaint ceremonies connected with the obsequies of a Pope, were
celebrated. On Good Friday, the 4th of April, after the Adoration of the
Cross, the Mass of the Presanctified, and the Exposition of the Vernicle
(or True Image of our Divine Redeemer, vulgarly known as The Veronica),
had been performed in the Vatican Basilica, the cardinals were immured;
the doors and windows of the Vatican were bricked up; Pandolfo, Prince
Savelli, Hereditary Marshal of the Holy Roman Church, entered upon the
guardianship of the Conclave; and the election was begun.
The College of Cardinals consisted then of twenty members. Of these,
only fifteen assisted at the Conclave of 1455. In the fifteenth century,
a journey across Europe, from some distant see, occupied a longer time
than the eleven days which should elapse between a Pope’s death and the
enclosure of the Conclave. Of these fifteen cardinals present, seven
were Italians, four Spaniards, two Frenchmen, two Byzantines. As usual
they were divided into factions; but, strange to say, the division was
not one of nationality. The ancient and interminable feud between the
great Roman baronial houses of Colonna and Orsini, penetrated even here.
Not temporal policy of the Holy See, not differences of pious opinions,
but simply rivalry of clan, governed this election.
The Most Illustrious Lord Prospero Colonna, Cardinal-Archdeacon of San
Giorgio _in Velum Aureum_, creature (_creatura_) of the Lord Martin P.P.
III, undoubtedly would have been elected had the Lord Nicholas P.P. V
died at the beginning instead of at the end of a long illness: for,
according to the dispatch of Nicholas of Pontremoli, Orator of Duke
Francesco Sforza-Visconti of Milan, dated the first of April, 1455, he
was then the favourite. Herr Ludwig Pastor, whose valuable history of
the Popes is also the latest, most unaccountably urges that the great
age of Cardinal Colonna prevented his election. But the accurate
Ciacconi raises him to the purple with Cardinal Capranica at the Lord
Martin P.P. III’s fourth creation in 1426, he being then still a youth
(“_adhuc iuvenis_”); the publication of his elevation being delayed till
the fifth consistory of the 8th of November 1430. Supposing him to have
been of the age of twenty-one years in 1426—a very liberal assumption in
an age when boys became cardinals at thirteen, benedicks at puberty, and
fathers at fifteen—he only would have reached the age of fifty in 1455.
The disability of senility may therefore be dismissed. In default of
Cardinal Prospero, the Most Illustrious Lord Domenico Capranica,
Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Croce _in Gerusalemme_,
Cardinal-Penitentiary, Bishop of Fermo, and himself a Roman noble of the
Ghibelline party, was put forward by the House of Colonna as their
second candidate.
On the other side, the wealthy business-like Roman Guelf, the Lord
Latino Orsini di Bari, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Giovanni e
San Paolo _in Monte Celio_, represented the interests of the House of
Orsini: who offered, as an alternative for the suffrages of the Sacred
College, the Venetian Lord Pietro Barbo, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title
of San Marco, and Bishop of Vicenza.
The first three scrutinies produced no result; and the cardinals
conferred regarding the merits of the candidates, and of the causes that
they represented. Much was said on behalf of Cardinal Capranica. He was
“Romano di Roma,” his character stood above reproach, his breeding was
polite and high. But Cardinal Orsini and his faction, though unable to
bring in their own nominee the Cardinal of Venice, were strong enough to
out-manœuver the candidate of Colonna: and the electors found themselves
at a deadlock.
In this emergency, the College, sought, and found, a neutral; a partizan
neither of Colonna nor of Orsini. There were two Byzantine cardinals;
the one, the Lord Ioannes Bessarione, Cardinal-Bishop of Tusculum, Monk
of the Religion[6] of St. Basil, Archbishop of Trebizond; the other, the
Lord Isidoro of Thessalonika, Cardinal-Bishop of Sabina, Monk of the
Religion of St. Basil, Archbishop of Ruthenia. Of these two, Cardinal
Bessarione had many recommendations. He was a convert from the Greek
Schism; he had been a pupil of Gemisthos Plethon at Constantinople; no
one was of higher repute in Christian piety, more admirable in doctrine,
more ornate in generous manners. (Ciacconi II. 906.) He had no enemy in
the Conclave. At a juncture, like the present, the election of a
Byzantine Pontiff, who naturally sympathised with the hapless
Byzantines, would have secured for Christendom a champion against the
triumphant Muslim Infidel. When night closed the Conclave’s
deliberations, it appeared certain that Cardinal Bessarione would ascend
the Throne of St. Peter on the morrow; indeed his brother-cardinals
asked favours of him, as though he were already in possession of the
Keys. Had he condescended to canvass the other fourteen electors, or to
make the slightest exertion on his own behalf, his election would have
been secure.
But, in the morning of that Easter Monday, the French Archbishop of
Avignon, the Lord Alain Coëtivy Britto, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title
of Santa Prassede, created a diversion against Cardinal Bessarione.
“Shall we Latins,” he protested, “shall we Latins go to Greece for the
Head of the Latin Church? My Lord of Trebizond has not been among us
long enough to shave off his beard[7]; he is a mere neophyte, a newcomer
to Italy and to the Holy Roman Church, and shall we set him over us?”
All day long the cardinals debated; but no election was achieved. Night
came, bringing no solution of the difficulty.
On the 8th of April a compromise was suggested. It was resolved to
postpone the contest, by electing an old man whose life was almost at an
end. Therefore a cardinal was chosen, whose age, in the course of
nature, would cause a new election in the near future; whose colourless
character neither would alter nor interfere with the traditional policy
of the papacy; who during a long life had eschewed pomp and vain glory;
whose profound learning, wisdom, and moderation had won for him his high
place; whose reputation was blameless; whose political capacity was
high; who was the intimate of the friend and neighbour of Holy Church,
Don Alonso de Aragona, King of Naples; lastly, one who, being of the
Spanish race, was the hereditary foe of Islam, and pre-eminently
qualified to defend Christendom from the Muslim Infidel. The aforesaid
Cardinal of Avignon, and the Lord Ludovico Scarampi dell’ Arena
Mezzaruota, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Lorenzo _in Damaso_,
exerted all their influence to this end; and, after a new scrutiny, the
Cardinal-Dean, the Lord Giorgio Flisco de Savignana, Cardinal-Bishop of
Ostia and Velletri, made proclamation of election,
“I announce to you great joy. We have for a Pope the Lord Alonso de
Borja, Bishop of Valencia, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santi
Quattro Coronati, Who wills to be called Calixtus the Third.”[8]
* * * * *
The Spanish House of Borja claims to originate in King Don Ramiro
Sanchez de Aragona, A.D. 1035.
Until the time of Don Pedro, Count of Aybar and Lord of Borja, who died
in 1152, the family was confined to Spain. Then, according to valid
authorities, the Junior Branch, in the person of Don Ricardo de Borja,
migrated to the kingdom of Naples and the Two Sicilies, and took service
there. This Don Ricardo is named in a document of donation in the reign
of the Lord Lucius P.P. III, 1181–1185 (Ricchi); which should go to
prove that the Junior Branch was naturalised in Italy. Its lineal
descendants undoubtedly are living there at the beginning of the
twentieth century; the latest recorded being Don Alessandro Borgia, who
was born at Milan in 1897. For purposes of clear arrangement, the
history of this Junior Branch may be relegated to later pages; the main
interest lies in descendants of Don Ximenes Garcia de Borja, the eldest
son of the aforesaid Don Pedro, and founder of the Senior Branch; which,
though transplanted to Italy in the middle of the fifteenth century, and
flourishing there for some generations, must always be regarded as
Spanish and not Italian.
There is record of a son of Don Ximenes Garcia de Borja in 1244, called
Gonzales Gil: his son, Don Raymon de Borja, was the father of Don Juan
Domingo de Borja, Lord of La Torre de Canals in the city of Xativa in
Valencia. By his wife, Doña Francisca, this Don Juan Domingo had at
least two daughters and a son—Juana, Caterina, and Alonso.
Doña Juana married Don Jofre de Lançol; Doña Caterina married Don Juan
de Mila, Baron of Mazalanes; a third daughter, whose name is missing,
also married; and the offspring of these three became later of extreme
importance.
The son, Alonso, was born on St. Sylvester’s Eve, 1378, the year of the
opening of the Great Schism, at Xativa, and baptized in the church of
St. Mary in that city. He himself has told us this, in two Bulls dated
1457.[9] His youth was spent at the University of Lerida, where he
specialised in jurisprudence for the degree of Doctor in Civil and Canon
Law, and obtained a professorship and Holy Order. While he was a young
priest (1398–1408) he chanced to assist at a sermon preached by the
great Dominican Vincent Ferrer in a mission at Valencia. At the close of
his discourse, the friar singled out from the crowd Don Alonso de Borja,
to whom he addressed this remarkable prediction: “My son, you one day
will be called to be the ornament of your house and of your country. You
will be invested with the highest dignity that can fall to the lot of
man. After my death, I shall be the object of your special honour.
Endeavour to persevere in a life of virtue.” Don Alonso was impressed by
this saying, for he repeated it to St. John Capistran in 1449, and he
tenaciously waited for the fulfilment. After His election to the papacy,
He performed the solemn canonisation of St. Vincent Ferrer on the
twenty-ninth of June, 1455.
Don Alonso proceeded from his University professorship to a canonry in
the cathedral of Lerida, which was conferred upon him by his countryman
Don Pedro de Luna, the Pseudopontiff Benedict XIII. Later, he entered
the arena of politics as secretary to King Don Alonso I (The
Magnanimous) of Naples and the Two Sicilies; and, here, his diplomatic
skill and legal training raised him to the unofficial but important post
of confidential counsellor to the Majesty of the Regno. Now that he was
domiciled in Italy his fortunes moved swiftly. In 1429 he won the
gratitude of the Lord Martin P.P. III (or V) by winning for His Holiness
the support of Spain, and by negotiating the renunciation of the Spanish
Pseudopontiff, Don Gil Muñoz, who called himself Clement VIII.
These days of the Great Schism, when the Roman Pontiffs had much ado to
hold Their Own against irregularly elected pseudopontiffs, must have
been utterly horrible. A reigning sovereign is uneasy when pretenders
to, or usurpers of, his crown appear. Republican France farcically
banishes men whose nobler forefathers represented other forms of
government. England sometimes wakes prodigally to spend blood and
treasure in support of her suzerainty. If secular powers, then, strive,
struggle for their life; and, in the struggle, cause distress, how many
times more distressing must have been the rivalry of the Great Schism,
when the prize at stake was the Headship of Christendom. This
consideration will make it easy to understand how great an obligation
the Lord Martin P.P. III lay under to the skilful canon, who actually
persuaded His rival peaceably to renounce his claim to the triple crown,
terminating the thirty-eighth schism of the Holy Roman Church. As a
reward, Canon Alonso de Borja received the bishopric of Valencia, his
native diocese; and, after his consecration, he continued to be useful
to King Don Alonso de Aragona, by re-organising the government of the
Regno, and by supervising the education of the King’s Bastard and
subsequent successor, Don Ferrando.
* * * * *
The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were not more filled with
improbable situations than the twentieth. The situations were different,
that is all. The situation of bastards was quite curious, and must be
realised by any one who desires intelligently to understand the time. To
this intelligent understanding Ludovico Romano’s theories will lend aid.
He argues that it is false to say that bastards are infamous and
incapable of honours. To the infamous is denied the dignity of Decurion
(command of ten men). But bastards may become Decuriones. Therefore
bastards are neither infamous nor incapable of honour. Giampietro de
Crescenzi Romani, in _Il Nobile Romano_, states the case thus: Plebeians
are not eligible to the Decurionate. Bastards are eligible to the
Decurionate. Therefore, bastards are not plebeians, but nobles if born
of noble stock. Bastards are capable of nobility, of secular and civil
dignity; for Ishmael was not hunted from his father’s house on account
of his bastardy, but on account of his insolence. It is not necessary to
quote Crescenzi’s argument as to the bastards of King David, from whom
descends the Son of David, Son of Abraham, according to the Scripture,
and Whom the Fathers of the Church acclaim as One of royal generation;
nor to give more of his catalogue of noble bastards than Theodoric, King
of the Goths of Italy and of Spain, the Emperor Charlemagne, Roberto and
Pandolfo Malatesta, Tyrants of Rimini, Giovanni Sforza, Tyrant of
Pesaro, William (called The Conqueror), Duke of Normandy and King of
England. He continues to say that nature does not distinguish between
bastards and legitimates; that the former are called natural children
because they are true children of nature. Neither does grace
distinguish; and, as bastards are capable of temporal nobility, so also
they are capable of spiritual, as witness St. Bridget of Ireland, and
other natural children of signal grace and distinguished virtue.
Further, he holds that the sons, of bastards who lose nobility by
rebellion, are not infamous; and recover nobility on their father’s
death; that infamy of any kind is washed-out by baptism: and that the
Pope can free from subsequently contracted infamy by His dispensation.
He distinguishes between bastards only legitimated by princes or the
emperor, who are ineligible to ecclesiastical benefices; and bastards
legitimated only by the Pope, who cannot succeed to the fiefs of other
princes. He concludes that bastardy purges itself at the latest in the
fourth generation.
In the twentieth century, an inheritance devolves from the holder to
“the heirs male of his body lawfully begotten”; in the fifteenth, the
proviso “lawfully begotten” did not invariably obtain. A bastard,
legitimated and recognised by his father, was as valid and capable as
the son of a lawful marriage. The sin of the father and mother was a sin
personal to them, and none the less a Sin: but it was not allowed to
affect their innocent children. The Lord Pius P.P. II, on his way to the
Congress of Mantua in 1459, was met on the frontier of Ferrara by eight
bastards of the royal House of Este, including the delicious Borso,
reigning duke, and two bastards of his highness’s bastard brother and
predecessor Duke Leonello. These matters should be understood; for a
large proportion of the personages in this history were of illegitimate
birth, and under no disability of any kind thereby.
* * * * *
King Don Alonso I de Aragona did not feel safe with the crown of the
Regno which he wore. The House of Anjou claimed it. Madame Marguerite
d’Anjou, daughter of the poet-king Réné, had ceded or sold her rights to
the Christian King Louis XI of France, whose claim was supported by the
Lord Martin P.P. III. The Magnanimous King Don Alonso I threatened to
espouse the cause and benefit by the aid of the Pseudopontiff (called
Clement VIII); and so the materials for a devastating conflagration were
brought together. But the diplomacy of Bishop Alonso de Borja was
repeated here. Once again, by negotiating the peaceful disappearance of
a pseudopontiff, he earned the gratitude of the Pope; and the Lord
Martin P.P. III, Who owed so much to Bishop Alonso, was easily persuaded
to look favourably also upon Bishop Alonso’s royal master. Unfortunately
the Pope died, and His Successor, the Lord Eugenius P.P. IV had a
prejudice for the French claim, which resulted in a renewal of the
quarrel in 1439. But a third time the difficulties of the Roman Pontiff
were turned to account by Bishop Alonso. When the schismatic Synod of
Basilea, to gain some private ends, futilely pronounced a sentence of
excommunication and deposition upon the Lord Eugenius P.P. IV, and
elected the ambitious Duke Amadeo of Savoja as Pseudopontiff with the
name Felix V, all Christendom expected that King Don Alonso, who was a
very crafty potentate, would be only too happy to make common cause with
the rival of that Pope who would not confirm his crown to him. But all
Christendom was disappointed. King Don Alonso’s secretary ably manœuvred
in his accustomed manner. First, Bishop Alonso de Borja in his proper
person refused to attend that schismatic Synod of Basilea; and, by this
act, became persona gratissima at the Vatican. Second, the King of
Naples instructed his Orators (ambassadors) to play with Pontiff and
pseudopontiff, to find out which would meet him with a satisfactory
concession. Third, Don Francesco Sforza-Visconti, Duke of Milan, began
to harass the Lord Eugenius P.P. IV. And, then, the Pope agreed to
receive an embassage from the King of Naples, and to hear his cause
pleaded by Bishop Alonso de Borja.
This was the cause of King Don Alonso. A bastard of the House of Aragon,
he had been adopted by Queen Doña Juana of Naples, who lacked a lineal
heir, in 1420. He was acknowledged by the people as sovereign of the
Regno, and was actually in possession of the crown.
The Christian King Louis XI. also claimed to have been adopted by Queen
Doña Juana: but he never had been acknowledged, nor ever had possessed
the crown.
Then there was the matter of King Don Alonso’s bastard, Don Ferrando.
The childless Queen believed him to be the son of Doña Margarita de
Hijar, one of her ladies; and, in jealous rage, she smothered her.
Whereupon the King banished his wife to Aragon, and legitimated Don
Ferrando as his heir.
Let it be recognised that, in the fifteenth century, Popes acted, and
were expected to act, in the letter, as well as in the spirit, of the
momentous words which are said by the cardinal-archdeacon to all of Them
at Their coronation, _Receive this tiara adorned with three crowns, and
know Thyself to be the Ruler of the World, the Father of princes and of
kings, and the Earthly Vicar of Jesus Christ our Saviour_. The twentieth
century is apt to conceive of the Pope as an uninteresting, far-away,
semi-diplomatic species of clergyman, nourishing pretensions of utter
insignificance. It will be well to remember that once upon a time the
Pope was a Power, Who saw nothing figurative, metaphorical, or
extravagant in the exordium just quoted, Who was not by any means a
négligeable quantity in the world’s affairs, and Who literally had the
unquestioned right of making or unmaking princes and kings or even
emperors.
Here was a case in point. King Don Alonso was a crowned king; but he
perfectly was aware that he was powerless to keep his crown, much less
to secure the succession for the offspring of his illicit love, unless
he could gain the confirmation, the licence, of the Roman Pontiff—in
technical phrase, a sovereign found it to be indispensable that he
should be able to add to his style of King By The Grace Of God, _And By
The Favour Of The Apostolic See_.
Hence the embassage to the Lord Eugenius P.P. IV, headed by Bishop
Alonso de Borja, to whose incessant labour and exquisite mastery of
affairs was due the treaty, ratified in 1444, by which the Pope’s
Holiness of the one part confirmed the crown of Naples, the Two
Sicilies, and Jerusalem, to King Don Alonso I. de Aragona, and licensed
the legitimation of Don Ferrando; while the King’s Majesty of the other
part agreed to defend the Lord Eugenius P.P. IV against His enemies, and
especially against Duke Francesco Sforza-Visconti of Milan.
As a reward for his skill in the rôle of peacemaker, Bishop Alonso de
Borja was raised to the purple on the second of May 1444, as
Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santi Quattro Coronati with curial
rank; and so King Don Alonso, the Magnanimous, lost his most trusted
counsellor. The Bishop’s bastard, Don Francisco de Borja, who will
appear later in this history, had been born at Savina, in Valencia, in
1441.
* * * * *
The Cardinal of Valencia at the Court of Rome gained the reputation of
being inaccessible to flattery, incapable of party-feeling, impregnable
in integrity, inconspicuous in morals, inexhaustible in capacity for
business and in knowledge of canon-law. In 1446, the Lord Eugenius P.P.
IV restored the Hospital of the Confraternity of Santo Spirito, in the
Region of Borgc, to something of its pristine glory; and He undertook to
contribute a yearly sum whereby its usefulness among the poor and needy
might be maintained. The pontifical example of practical Christian
charity set a fashion for the cardinals of the curia. The quaint Bull
containing the subscribers’ names is signed by
_I, Eugenius, The Bishop of the Catholic Church_,
and by nine cardinals, of whom the last is
_I, the Cardinal of Valencia, Presbyter of the Title of Santi Quattro
Coronati_.
Cardinal de Borja assisted at the election of the succeeding Pontiff,
the Lord Nicholas P.P. V; at Whose death, in 1455, the prediction of St.
Vincent Ferrer was fulfilled.
* * * * *
At the time of His elevation to the Supreme Pontificate, the Lord
Calixtus P.P. III was a feeble old man of the age of seventy-seven
years. His duties, as Governor of the Bastard of Naples, as Bishop of
Valencia, as Orator of King to Pope, as Plenipotentiary between Pope and
King, as Counsellor of King, as Cardinal-Counsellor of Pope, and his
ceaseless studies in jurisprudence and canon-law, had worn away the
bodily strength of him—the perishable thin scabbard that hid steel
indomitable and keen.
[Illustration: _Calixtus P.P. III._]
Outside the Vatican very diverse opinions were entertained of Him. His
long connection with King Don Alonso I. caused anxiety, suspicion, and
jealousy, among the Powers of Italy. They were always disgusted, those
Powers, to find the Pope on easy terms with a temporal sovereign, with
one of themselves; and the Magnanimous King Don Alonso was the next-door
neighbour, so to speak, of the Lord Calixtus P.P. III. Such a
combination inevitably inspired distrust. The fear was expressed that
Naples, through his former secretary, would rule the Holy See—and
Christendom. The official despatches of the Orators of Florence, Genoa,
and Venice, hypocritically displayed the greatest satisfaction: but
their private letters were in a diametrically opposing strain. A great
grievance was made of the fact that the new Pope was a Spaniard and a
foreigner. Some thought that a handful of discontented cardinals should
leave Rome, set up a pseudopontiff in another city, and inaugurate a
Fortieth Schism. Oh, people knew one another to be properly cantankerous
in the fifteenth century! But Rome considered the Lord Calixtus P.P. III
a just and right-minded man. The Procurator-General of the Order of
Teutonic Knights wrote to the Grand Master on the third of May 1455:
“The new Pope is an old man, of honourable and virtuous life, and of
excellent repute.” Messer Bartolomeo Michele, a Sienese, wrote to his
native city, exhorting the Sienesi to send the most splendid possible
embassage to congratulate the Pope, selecting for the same only eminent
and worthy men, inasmuch as that the Lord Calixtus P.P. III was
excessively learned and clear-sighted: “He is a man of great sanctity
and learning, a friend and adherent of King Don Alonso. He has always
shown Himself well-disposed to our city, and by nature He is peaceable
and kindly.” But the best appreciation of all is given by St. Antonino,
that gentle, brave Archbishop of Florence, whose quality all the world
admires and loves. He wrote to Messer Giovanni of Orvieto, the 24th of
April 1455.
“The election of the Lord Calixtus P.P. III at first gave little
satisfaction to the Italians. Inprimis, he was Valencian or Catalan;
and they feared lest He should transfer the Papal Court to another
country. Also, they feared lest He should entrust to Catalans the
fortresses of Holy Church, which, only after many difficulties, could
be recovered. But now they are reassured by more mature reflection,
and by the reputation that He bears for goodness, penetration, and
impartiality. And, also, I have seen His solemn promise that He will
devote all His powers against the Turks and for the conquest of
Constantinople. It is not to be believed or said that He is attached
to one nation more than another, but rather that, as a just and
prudent man, He will give to every one his due. Meanwhile, let us
always think well of the Holy Father, and judge His actions more
favourably than those of any other human being. And let us not be
frightened by every little shock. Christ guides the Barque of Peter,
which, therefore, can never sink.”
That letter contains a concise summary of the situation, written with
the benevolent simplicity of a dignified fine gentleman, and with the
unerring sapience of a saint.
* * * * *
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome. The insignia of His office are the
Fisherman’s Ring, the Triple Crown, the Triple Cross, and the
Keys. At His election by the Conclave, He receives the Ring.
Afterwards the insignia are conferred, with the Pallium that He
wears at all times in sign of universal jurisdiction, at His
coronation by the Cardinal-Archdeacon in the Collegiate-Basilica
of St. Peter-by-the-Vatican. But yet another ceremony awaits
performance. As Bishop of Rome, He must take formal possession of,
and be enthroned in, the cathedral of His diocese, either in
person or by proxy. That cathedral is not St. Peter’s: but St.
John’s _in Laterano_, which, consequently, bears on its façade the
magniloquent title
MOTHER AND MISTRESS OF ALL CHURCHES IN THE CITY AND IN THE WORLD
It is the most important church in Christendom.
* * * * *
The Lord Calixtus P.P. III was elected on the eighth of April 1455. On
the twentieth He was crowned as “Ruler of the World, Father of princes
and of kings, and Earthly Vicar of Jesus Christ our Saviour”; and the
same day He made a triumphal progress through the city to take
possession of the Lateran. In the porch of that cathedral there is a low
marble throne, called Sedes Stercoraria, on which the Pope sits to
receive the homage of the Lateran Chapter while cantors chant the anthem
“He raiseth-up the poor out of the dust:
“and lifteth the needy out of the dung-hill.
“That He may set him with princes:
“even with the princes of His people.
(Ps. cxiii. 7, 8).
“_Suscitans a terra inopem:
“et de stercore erigens pauperem._
“_Ut collocet eum cum principibus:
“cum principibus populi Sui._
(Vulgate, Ps. cxii. 6, 7).
It has been seen that the Lord Calixtus P.P. III was not unnaturally
popular. It will be readily admitted that the Roman baronial houses of
Colonna and Orsini would have been more than human had they not felt
some mortification at the failure of their conclavial manœuvres to
secure the Papacy for one of themselves. Still, the thing was done. A
Catalan—the Romans of the fifteenth century called all Spaniards
Catalans—a Catalan indubitably had been elected; but He was old, He was
feeble, He might be influenced, He might be amenable to intimidation, to
a show of force. It is so easy for the twentieth century, with its jaded
physique and sophisticated brain, and the magnificent perspective of
half a thousand years, to read the motives which actuated the physically
strong and intellectually simple fifteenth, when the world—the dust
which makes man’s flesh—was five centuries younger and fresher; when
colour was vivid; light, a blaze; virtue and vice, extreme; passion,
primitive and ardent; life, violent; youth, intense, supreme; and
sententious pettifogging respectable mediocrity, senile and debile, of
no importance whatever.
So, while the Lord Calixtus P.P. III was at the Lateran, the barons of
Rome took action. A slight quarrel arising in the crowd between one of
the Orsini and a retainer of Anguillara (hereditary foes of Orsini)
provided a pretext. Instantly shouts ascended, and men of arms coursed
through the city roaring _Orso, Orso_ (Bear, Bear—war-cry of Orsini,
alluding to their badge). From every dark and narrow alley of the
Regions of Campo Marzo and Ponte, from the Albergo dell Orso (Bear Inn)
by the Torre di Nona, from the castellated fortress which Orsini had
made of Pompey’s Theatre, came the clang of arms, with the rush of
hurrying feet of desperate brigands, adherents and mercenaries of
Orsini; and Don Napoleone Orsini was at the head of three thousand men.
Outside the cathedral, the hum of a maddened mob swelled into a raucous
roar as of bears hungry for hot blood, when Count Averso of Anguillara
fled into the Lateran Basilica, seeking sanctuary in the very presence
of Christ’s Vicar; and, above the roar, the voice of Orsini pierced the
holy portals of the Prince of Peace, penetrated to the ears of Pope
Calixtus throned as Bishop of Rome among His canons in the centre of the
apse, launching a hideous threat to storm and sack the Lateran unless
the body of Anguillara were given to him as meat for his three thousand
bears. There was a movement in the ermine and scarlet college that stood
near the papal throne, and Cardinal Latino Orsini di Bari hurried down
the nave to confer with his turbulent brother, Don Napoleone. Though
disappointed that he had failed to win the Triregno[10] for himself,
this cardinal appears to have had some feeling of decency as to what was
due to Holy Church. As a churchman he felt bound to stand by his order;
although as an Orsini he would have preferred a different state of
affairs. Still, the object of the riot had been attained, the Lord
Calixtus P.P III had received an object-lesson poignant and pregnant to
an ultimate degree, concerning the kind of kakodaimons that He would
have to quell, the species of subject that He was called to rule. No
doubt these were the arguments used to his brother by the cardinal. It
was not the writhing mangled body of the Eel (Anguillara) that the Bear
(Orsini) craved. That was the merest subterfuge. But to humiliate the
Holiness of the Pope at the very moment of His exaltation from Sedes
Stercoraria to Lateran Throne, to terrify Him into malleability, into
subjugation to Orsini’s will—that—that had been done, and well done.
Surely an aged man, so near His grave as was the Lord Calixtus P.P. III,
would wish to purchase peace with any sacrifice, now that once it had
been shown to Him what kind of devildom environed His very throne-steps.
Don Napoleone Orsini allowed himself to take this view. He withdrew his
myrmidons. The riot was over. Presently the Pope was riding on His
crimson-caparisoned palfrey towards the Vatican, through a peaceful city
kneeling at the roadside for Apostolic Benediction.
* * * * *
The fashion which foreigners affect in writing of Italy makes one
laugh—and weep.
They drawl of a dreamland of subtle sweetness and softest light, of
delicate fantasy, of neutral hue; peopled by shades from faded frescoes
æsthetically tinctured, academic, conventional, conformant to the canons
of that unspeakably abominable dilution which the twentieth century
calls Art; and mitigated only by a leavening of organ-grinders and
fortune-telling paroquets.
They must be blind, these foreigners—blind, physically and
mentally—blind, as those who will not see.
Italy is, and always has been, a land of raw reality, of glittering
light, of pure primary colour, of nature naked and not ashamed, of
perfectly transparent souls, of rapidest versatility, clearest mystery,
ultimate simplicity, steel, and brains, and blood.
Else she had made no mark, no singular distinguished mark, in history.
Has she made no mark?
Ah—what a mark she has made!
* * * * *
The greatest historian of this period, perhaps the most alert and agile
writer of any period, Enea Silvio Bartolomeo de’ Piccolhuomini (who
afterwards became Pope with the title of the Lord Pius P.P. II), says of
the Lord Calixtus P.P. III, that His attention to the duties of His
office was amazing; that His patience at audiences was astounding; that
He Himself dictated the Apostolic Briefs and Bulls written to kings and
princes, nor trusted them to the official scribes; that jurisprudence
was His recreation; that He was as familiar with canon-law as though He
were still professor at the University of Lerida.
Two problems confronted Him at the beginning of His reign: the
Renascence of Learning, and the Infidel in Christendom. His predecessor
had been a man of words. The Lord Calixtus P.P. III was a man of
strenuous deeds. His attitude to Letters and Art was in strong contrast
to that of the Lord Nicholas P.P. V. This “withered canonist,” as a wit
styled Him, was not in sympathy with Culture. Wholly occupied in matters
ecclesiastical and political, He had nor time nor means nor inclination
to patronise the fashionable scholarship of His day. His vogue was
strictly practical.
One of the secrets of the success of the Holy Catholic Apostolic and
Roman Church is her catholicity. All sorts and conditions of men can,
and do, live within her boundaries. The Lord Nicholas P.P. V had been a
Maecenas of Letters and the Arts. In His reign scholars, scribes, and
artificers had found their golden age. The Lord Calixtus P.P. III
entirely employed Himself in the defence of Christendom, and the clients
of His predecessor were conscious of the change. Literature and the fine
arts have one very sorry effect upon their professors. Intellectual
culture avidly pursued makes its devotees show pitifully by the side of
the manly men who deal with realities and verities, with life and death,
the sailors, soldiers, adventurers, and empire-builders. Letters and the
Arts cultivate the baser parts of man—meanness, jealousy, conceit. The
touchy nature of the writers and artists of 1455 led to violent
denunciations of the Spanish Pope. Messer Francesco Filelfo’s letter
(102) to the Cardinal of Trebizond shows how men of letters hated Him.
Another writer charged Him with destroying the Vatican library. Bishop
Vespasiano da Bisticci, of Vicenza, says:
“When Pope Calixtus began His reign, and saw so many excellent books,
five hundred of them resplendent in bindings of crimson velvet with
clasps of silver, He wondered greatly (it should be remembered that
printing was not invented), for the old canonist only was used to
books written on linen (?) and stitched together. Instead of
commending the wisdom of His predecessor, He cried, on entering the
library, _See now where the treasure of God’s Church has gone_. Soon
He began to disperse the Greek books. He gave several hundred to the
Cardinal of Ruthenia. As this latter was in his dotage, the volumes
fell into his servants’ hands. Things which had been bought for golden
florins[11] were sold for a few pence. Many Latin books came to
Barcelona: some through the Bishop of Vich, powerful Datary of the
Pope; some as gifts to Catalan nobles.
Calumny (which, by the bye, ranks as mortal sin in modern catechisms,)
appears to be habitual to the faithful. In this particular the fifteenth
century meets the twentieth on common ground. To speak truth in a
paradox, the proximate occasion of the sin of calumny is hatred of sin.
Roman Catholics, like Bishop Vespasiano, are, from their conception,
imbued and saturated with the idea of the hideousness of sin, not of its
stupidity and unprofitableness. It is their bogey, their forbidden
fruit, the covert strictly preserved and labelled Trespassers will be
prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the Law. Consequently, Roman
Catholic human nature is violently fascinated by the bogey; has
singularly well informed itself of the nature, colour, shape, condition,
and location, of the forbidden fruit; has minutely investigated every
inch of ground and every blade of grass, and every bird and bush in the
strictly preserved covert, simply and solely in order that it may avoid
poaching, sampling the forbidden fruit, or becoming a prey for the
bogey. When one has the duty of avoiding a thing, it is well to know
what the thing is which one must avoid; but it is quite easy to know
more than enough. All this intimate realisation of the hideousness of
sin, this systematic cataloguing of its divisions and sub-divisions,
with elaborate excursions along its divers ramifications, certainly
inspires a loathing of the intensest kind. It also has another effect.
It induces an exaggerated consciousness of virtue. When human nature
knows, and is able to describe, with a wealth of detail ordinarily
inaccessible, the horrible things which it does not do, it becomes
“puffed up,” in the words of St. Paul. This condition of “unctuous
rectitude,” inspired entirely by a horror of sin, is a proximate
occasion of the sin of calumny. Roman Catholic human nature, not
unconscious of its own integrity, when confronted by an antipathetic
personality, instantly conceives of the latter as a sinner. I am
right—you disagree with me—therefore you are wrong—is the absurd
syllogism or logical process which it uses. And, drawing upon its
copious catalogues of sins, on the principle that he who offends in the
least is guilty of all, Roman Catholic human nature will proceed to shew
how exceedingly sinful it is possible for an enemy to be. The said
enemy, or perhaps a mere opponent, incontinently finds himself accused
of breaking the Ten Commandments of God, the various Precepts of the
Church; of committing the Seven Deadly Sins—Pride, Covetousness, Lust,
Anger, Gluttony, Envy, Sloth; the Six Sins against the Holy
Ghost—Presumption of God’s Mercy, Despair, Impugning the Known Truth,
Envy at another’s Spiritual Good, Obstinacy in Sin, Final Impenitence;
the Four Sins Crying to Heaven for Vengeance—Wilful Murder, Sin of the
Cities of the Plain, Oppression of the Poor, Defrauding Labourers of
their Wages; or, if he has not achieved the guilt of these in his proper
person, at least he has been an accomplice of some other sinner, in the
Nine Ways by which a Man may be Accessory to Another’s Sin—_i.e._, by
counsel, command, consent, provocation, by praise or flattery, by
concealment, by partaking, by silence, by defence of the ill which is
done. That is, (in the twentieth century when Catholics are ruled by a
Press ostentatiously Fenian and Anglophobe, and was, in the fifteenth
century when Catholics were also human, but not vulgar or
sophisticated), the predicament of anybody, Pope or peasant, who incurs,
or incurred, the disesteem of, or who makes, or made, himself unpleasant
to a brother in the Faith. By hints, inferences, insinuations,
ill-motives assigned, and a hundred ingenious methods, rarely by defined
accusations, the sin of calumny is, and was, committed, absolutely and
utterly because the calumniator so hates sin as to have no difficulty in
persuading himself that the man who flouts him must be a sinner. For be
it noted, that all the calumnies that bespatter the House of Borgia, all
the “liability to disesteem,” which through five centuries has been
their portion, and has made their very name a synonym of Turpitude, all
these have a Roman Catholic origin. Roman Catholics are the primal
calumniators who have muddied, and do muddy, God’s Vicegerents, the Lord
Calixtus P.P. III, and His nephew the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, with every
species of ordure, with ascriptions of every crime known to casuistry
(the science of cases of conscience), including those which are
unspeakable except in an appendix veiled in a learned language _quo
minus erubescamus_. Bishop Vespasiano da Bisticci of Vicenza was a Roman
Catholic; Messer Stefano Infessura, Monsignor Hans Burchard, Messer
Francesco Guicciardini, Bishop Paolo Giovio of Nocera, Messer Giangiovio
Pontano, Sannazar “The Christian Vergil,” Messer Benedetto Varchi—they
were all Roman Catholics who inaugurated the campaign of calumny against
the Supreme Pontiffs of the House of Borgia. In dealing with calumny,
the difficulty is to obtain definite evidence of a definite charge which
is intrinsically false and, at the same time, derogatory to the person
against whom it is laid. This difficulty is one that continually
confronts the investigator. Prelates, priests, princes, penmen,
sometimes because they had a grievance, sometimes confessedly wilfully,
sometimes by way of wanton babble, habitually launched against their
enemies or superiors accusations of depravity the most loathsome, of
crime the most odious. What they said by word of mouth cannot surely be
known Until The Books Are Opened. What they wrote in pasquinades, in
diaries, in official despatches, in official chronicles, or for the mere
æsthetic pleasure of recording a salacious gibe in curial Tuscan or in
golden Latin—these remain. A few of the more important icily will be
discussed here. The student of history knows no more refreshing
recreation than that of nailing liars, like vermin, to the wall.
The statement of Bishop Vespasiano da Bisticci of Vicenza, quoted above,
is a fair example of the less fœtid species of calumny: it only amounts
to an accusation of “philistinism.” However, it at once may be described
as being both stupid and improbable. With regard to the naif surprize,
said to have been shown by the Lord Calixtus P.P. III, on seeing “so
many excellent books,” is it likely that, as Bishop Alonso de Borja,
Ambassador Plenipotentiary and Confidential Counsellor of the Majesty of
Naples, he never had seen fine things before? Is it likely that Cardinal
Alonso de Borja, eleven years cardinal of the curia residing in the
Court of Rome, had never seen splendid books before? Of what kind then
were the missals and pontificals which, as bishop, he would have used in
his daily mass? Is it likely that Cardinal Alonso de Borja—one of the
actual electors of the Lord Nicholas P.P. V, constantly at His side from
beginning to end of His reign, if not assistant to, at least cognizant
of, His every action—had never seen, had never touched, handled, tasted,
those identical five hundred books, bound in crimson velvet with clasps
of silver, with which that august Pontiff enriched the Vatican library.
The assumption is ridiculous, absurd.
The calumny that the Lord Calixtus P.P. III gave books to the Bishop of
Vich in the manner of a Vandal arose in this way. The Lord Cosimo de
Monserrato, Bishop of Vich from 1460 to 1471, was ordered by His
Holiness to compile a catalogue of the books in the Vatican library, on
the sixteenth of April 1455, four days before His coronation. A copy of
this catalogue was brought to Vich by this same Lord Cosimo on his
appointment to the bishopric five years later. It was most likely made
by one of the Vatican scribes,[12] and it contains numerous marginal
notes in the bishop’s handwriting. From these notes, a precise list of
the number of books actually given away by the Lord Calixtus P.P. III
may be obtained. They were five—not “several hundred”—of no great value,
and—duplicates. Two of these, a copy of the Epistles of St. Augustine,
annotated by Nicholas of Lira, and a Book on the Truth of the Catholic
Faith, were presented to the Pope’s late patron, King Don Alonso de
Aragona of Naples, the Two Sicilies, and Jerusalem. The note against
them in the catalogue is _S.D.N. dedit hunc domino regi Arag._ (“Our
Holy Lord gave this to the lord king of Aragon.”) Now, if He only gave
two books to His old friend and former employer who (as may be judged
from the fact that he employed the renowned Messeri Lorenzo Valla and
Giangiovio Pontano as his secretaries) had a very pretty taste for
letters, who was a reigning sovereign, and an extremely serviceable and
powerful ally of the Holy See, is He likely to have given “several
hundred” to the Cardinal of Ruthenia and Catalan nobles? Finally, the
heathen Cardinal Platina, who wrote his History of the Popes in the
reign of the Lord Xystus[13] P.P. IV (the third in succession from the
Lord Calixtus P.P. III,) expressly mentions the magnificence of the
library of the Lord Nicholas P.P. V, which, certainly, he could not have
known if it had been destroyed in the manner described by the lying
Bishop Vespasiano da Bisticci of Vicenza.
One “philistine” act may be admitted on behalf of the Lord Calixtus P.P.
III. He sold the silver from the bindings of those books. He sacrificed
them for the crusade in defence of Christendom. He also sold all the
Vatican plate. He insisted that the salt-cellar of His Own table should
be of earthenware, not gold; and, indeed, He even offered His tiara in
pledge for the same admirable object. He was blamed.
The Lord Calixtus P.P. III was by no means the enemy of letters. He made
havoc among the decadents, the affected literary poseurs who infested
the Borgian as well as the Victorian Era; but He cherished genius, and
to scholars of distinction He was a generous patron. The diverting case
of Messer Lorenzo Valla will serve for an example. This notable, being
one of the secretaries of King Don Alonso I, was well-known to the
Holiness of the Pope. He was erudite beyond most of his contemporaries,
of a daring temperament, and impatient of bad scholarship, falsehood,
and superstition. In 1440 he indited a merciless exposure of the
monstrous fiction now known as the Forged Decretals and Donation of
Constantine, upon which, in perfect good faith, the temporal dominions
of the Papacy then were held. Also, he attacked the leaden Latin of the
Vulgate, and lauded the Golden Latin of Vergil and Cicero, or the Silver
Latin of Tacitus. The twentieth century—which knows the Latin of the
Roman Mass to be the low Latin of Roman plebeians of the first five
centuries, from the age of the Lord St. Peter P.P. to that of His
successor the Lord St. Gelasius P.P., Whose “Prayer for Peace” is the
latest known addition to the canon—will not find Messer Lorenzo Valla to
have been guilty of any very shocking crime herein. But the clergy of
Naples considered him in the light of a menace to the Christian
Palladium, and mentioned him to the Inquisition. When he was brought
before them, the Inquisitors invited him formally to assent to a
profession of faith, which was neither the Apostles’ nor the Nicene
Creed, nor the Creed of St. Athanasius, but one which they had drawn up
to suit the fancied needs of his case. The situation was the historical
parallel of one which sullied the dying years of the last century.
Messer Lorenzo knew too much; took an impish delight in saying what he
knew; he was a nuisance, a disturbing influence. To the proposition of
the Inquisition he opposed a firm refusal; he would not sign their
specimen of a creed. The circumstances now were becoming strained. But
the Inquisitors of the fifteenth century had more serpentine wisdom than
those of the nineteenth. They did not proceed at once to an abrupt and
tactless excommunication, exacerbating to all parties. They tried
another line. Would Messer Lorenzo Valla have the courtesy, then, to
propound his own creed, that his judges might examine whether it were
heretical or no? The reply of Messer Lorenzo was delicious. “I believe,”
he said, “I believe what Holy Mother Church believes. She _knows_
nothing. But—I _believe_ what she _believes_.” Just at this stage the
king sent a mandate to the Inquisitors of Naples, bidding them to leave
his Majesty’s secretary alone; and the process ended here. But when the
news of the case travelled to Rome, the Lord Nicholas P.P. V, admiring
the wit and learning of Messer Lorenzo Valla, being amused, perhaps, at
the way in which he had taken the wind out of the sail of the wily
Inquisitors, invited the distinguished scholar to His Court, where He
named him Apostolic scribe, with magnificent appointments. On the death
of that Pontiff, Messer Lorenzo’s sometime colleague, the Lord Calixtus
P.P. III made him Pontifical Secretary, and dignified him with several
canonries including one at St. John _in Laterano_, the cathedral-church
of Rome. So fifteenth century tact and mental limberness made a friend,
where nineteenth century arrogant stupidity made a host of scornful
foes.
* * * * *
The first year of the pontificate of the Lord Calixtus P.P. III was
occupied by audiences granted to Orators offering the homage of the
Powers, and by preparations for the Crusade.
Germany deserved and enjoyed high consideration, because the ruler of
Germany held the title of _Romanorum Imperator Caesar Semper Augustus
Mundi Totius Dominus Universis Principibus et Populis Semper
Venerandus_; and an understanding between Pope and Emperor, a friendship
between Peter and Caesar, was desirable for the peace and prosperity of
Christendom. This friendship, however, was subject to frequent breaches.
Both Papacy and Empire were exceedingly tenacious of their dignity,
willing to consider themselves aggrieved, or their rights in danger of
encroachment. Each, in fact, was a power of dimensions so gigantic that
intermittent paroxysms of megalomania were the order of the day. The
violence of these attacks was allayed, from time to time, by cooling
lotions in the shape of concessions. There had been a serious relapse
not many years before, which temporarily had been retrieved by a treaty,
known as the Concordat of the Lord Eugenius P.P. IV.
At the beginning of His reign, while waiting for the formal homage of
The Pacific Caesar Friedrich IV, the Lord Calixtus P.P. III observed the
terms of this Concordat. When the news of His election in April reached
Germany, a Diet of the Empire was held at Neustadt to appoint
Orators,[14] and to consider the chances of squeezing fresh concessions.
“Now is the time to vindicate our liberty, for hitherto we have only
been the handmaid of Holy Church,” said Jacob of Trier; and Caesar
Friedrich IV privately grieved that the Papacy gave him little support
in his difficulties with turbulent sub-sovereigns and subjects. The
celebrated Lord Enea Silvio Bartolomeo de’ Piccolhuomini, Bishop of
Siena, poured oil upon the troubled waters of the Diet. He had lived
many years in Germany, as poet-laureate, orator to Utter Britain[15]
(Scotland), novelist, historian, and confidential secretary to Caesar;
and he knew his Germany. He deservedly was trusted both by Church and
State. He soothed Caesar, saying that the mob was always inconstant,
dangerous, and that a ruler did a vain thing when he tried to please. He
soothed the Diet, saying that the interests of Papacy and Empire were
identical, and that from a new Pope new favours might be gained. The
Diet named Bishop Enea Silvio, with the jurist Hans Hagenbach, as
orators who were to offer to the Lord Calixtus P.P. III the obedience of
the Holy Roman Empire, and to lay before Him the grievances of Caesar.
The Lord Calixtus P.P. III was more independent of Germany than His two
predecessors had been; and in a position to command, not compromise. The
Lord Eugenius P. P. IV, being in need of temporal support, had purchased
Germany’s obedience by secret concessions and promises of money. The
Lord Nicholas P.P. V was privy to these arrangements, and, feeling bound
by them, had paid His share; but there was a matter of twenty-five
thousand ducats yet unpaid. The Lord Calixtus P.P. III had taken no part
in these negotiations. During His cardinalate, He had had ample
opportunities of reckoning up Caesar Friedrich IV as a feeble, feckless
old simpleton, devoid of moral backbone, whom no concessions ever could
stiffen into any semblance of imperial capacity. The Pope’s Holiness
felt that He could do quite well without the Emperor’s Augustitude.
Therefore, when Caesar’s Orators arrived in Rome, on the tenth of August
1455, and prayed for a private audience, (at which, as the custom was,
they would try to squeeze the Holy Father, making the proffer of their
sovereign’s homage dependent upon the Pope’s willingness to oblige), the
Lord Calixtus P.P. III refused to entertain requests until after the
obedience of Germany should have been received.
The Orators were confounded, so they said, by this demand; but, as loyal
sons of Holy Mother Church, (Bishop Enea Silvio was the spokesman), and
that scandal might be avoided, they would give way. Before a public
consistory of cardinals, they presented to the Pope the homage of
Caesar, in an elaborate oration containing no mention of unpleasant
topics, such as the imperial demands and the Concordat of the Lord
Eugenius P.P. IV, but mainly consisting of a string of formal
compliments to the Supreme Pontiff, and declamations against the Muslim
Infidel. (Pii II. Orationes I, 336.)
After this the Orators could not insist upon the Rights of Caesar. On
his behalf, they might only approach the strenuous Pope as suppliants
appealing to His clemency, as children begging a father’s favour. They
had cut the ground from under their own feet; and, as Bishop Enea Silvio
knew quite well, that was precisely what had been intended. The Lord
Calixtus P.P. III disclaimed any obligation of paying His predecessor’s
debts, having other uses for five and twenty thousand ducats; and the
question of Caesar’s rights to nominate to bishoprics, and to have a
share of the tithe about to be raised for the Crusade, should be
considered in due season, said the Pope to the Orators.
* * * * *
Meanwhile the Eternal City was engaged in making ready for war.
Immediately after His coronation, the Lord Calixtus P.P. III privately
proclaimed the Crusade. In August, He made the same proclamation in
public consistory, and read the following vow: “We, Calixtus the
Pontiff, swear to God Almighty, the Holy and Undivided Trinity, that We
relentlessly will follow the Turks, the enemies of the Name of Christ,
with war, with maledictions, with interdicts, with execrations, and
indeed with every means in Our power.” (Ciacconi II., 981.) This oath in
holograph, was constantly before the Pope’s eyes during His pontificate,
and was found hanging on the wall by His bedside as an ornament of His
chamber when at length He died.
The infirmities of age chained the Pontiff to His room: recreation was
to Him a thing unknown, for the business of the Crusade consumed His
energies. His firm and unrelenting will, set upon this single aim, would
brook no control, no influence. He knew Himself to be the “Ruler of the
World,” and He shut His mouth down fast against all opposition. To the
quarrelsome sovereigns of Christendom He envoyed ablegates charged to
reconcile all differences, to urge the setting aside of private
squabbles, of petty ambitions, in favour of the greater necessity,
resistance to and annihilation of the Muslim Infidel. Through every
Christian country He sent Apostolic Missionaries, curial bishops and
prelates, friars and monks renowned for eloquence, to preach the sacred
duty of fighting against the enemies of the Christian Faith. On every
Christian country He imposed tax of a tithe to meet the cost of the
Crusade. Archbishop St. Antonino of Florence nobly seconded His efforts,
raising the standard of St. George’s rose-red cross, and preaching like
a new St. Bernard. The buildings, with which the preceding Pontiff had
begun to adorn the city, were stopped, and the swarms of workmen
dismissed. The revenues of the Papal States were applied to the
construction of a fleet of swift galleys for the harrying of the Turk.
Daily the Holy Father descended to St. Peter’s with His Own hands to fix
the cross on the breasts of recruits enlisting. The papal jewels were
pawned, and their price added to the war-chest. The Pope’s Holiness
trusted much in Duke Philip of Burgundy: He tried to persuade the
Magnanimous King Don Alonso de Aragona to take the cross.
In the east of Europe, the black cloud of the Muslim Infidel advanced
continually. Skanderbeg, a chieftain of romantic past, renowned for
military deeds, opposed them. The fame of his achievements is the one
brightness in the holy war. His army, composed of divers races naturally
antagonistic, only was welded together by the magic of success or of his
personal influence. Such a bond is but a weak one. A cause, that rests
upon a single man, will stand no strain. Presently his Albanians
revolted, at a moment when the Infidel pressed him hard. Defeated, he
withdrew to mountain fastnesses; and sent couriers to Rome with an
appeal for reinforcement. The Lord Calixtus P.P. III replied with money,
wherewith Skanderbeg bought the allegiance of his disaffected troops and
retrieved his position. But on the heels of triumph came fresh disaster.
To avenge some slight, his own nephew made cause against him, persuaded
the Albanians to fresh revolt, and deserted with them to the Infidel.
* * * * *
In the nature of human things, every man, in every rank of life, must
submit to some affliction of mind or body. Has any one ever troubled to
inquire what may be the special affliction proper to the Pope? It is
loneliness—utter loneliness—loneliness in a crowd. The Pope cannot have
a friend; for friendship postulates equality: and who is the equal of
the Pope? The cardinals who surround Him are of the faction that opposed
His election, or of the faction that claims favour in return for
support. He, Who sits upon the Throne of Peter, looks down from that
pinnacle upon the peoples, the nations, and the tongues, in His heart
knowing them to be enemies or suitors. What wonder then that, though His
spirit indeed be willing, His humanity shall crave human sympathy!
This consideration is offered to explain the nepotism of the Popes of
the Renascence. They surrounded Themselves with men of Their own
families; men bound to Them by ties of blood and kinship. Being
generally of mature age themselves, They chose Their young relations;
and upon these They conferred the rank which qualified them to enter the
inner circle of the curia. This action appears to have been dictated by
the natural desire of human man for offspring. Certainly a Pope can
always create cardinals, who are to Him as spiritual sons; but to create
cardinals of those who already are of one’s own family is a thing
nearer, a more intimate relation. So the human heart of the Pope would
become rejuvenate, would renew its strength, would gratify its natural
longing for an entourage of creatures in which it might place confidence
and trust. For the cardinal-nephews, loathed by all other cardinals,
owing everything to the Pope, would be bound to Him and to His interest
as by chains of iron. The system is proved to be liable to abuse. That
is the corollary of all human systems. It is indefensible; but it is
explicable; and the foregoing is an attempt only in the direction of
explanation.
On the twentieth of February 1456, at the beginning of the second year
of His reign, the Lord Calixtus P.P. III proclaimed to a stormy
consistory the creation of three cardinals, two being His Own nephews,
and one the son of the heir to the crown of Portugal. Let it be remarked
that He did nothing for His son, Don Francisco de Borja, now a charming
and eligible young man of fifteen years.
The Sacred College murmured and objected: but, in this matter the will
of the Pope is law. The new creatures were:—
(α) Don Luis Juan de Mila y Borja, of the age of twenty years,
celebrated for vigorous physical beauty. He was son of Doña Caterina de
Borja (sister of the Pope’s Holiness) by her husband Don Juan de Mila,
Baron of Mazalanes. To him the Pontiff gave the scarlet hat, which He
had relinquished on His election to the papacy, that of
Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santi Quattro Coronati.
(β) Don Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja, of the age of twenty-five years,
distinguished by that marvellous Spanish courtliness and magnificence of
person which was the theme of admiration until he died. He was son of
Doña Juana de Borja, (sister of the Pope’s Holiness,) by her husband Don
Jofre de Lançol. To him the Pontiff gave the scarlet hat of
Cardinal-Deacon of San Niccolo _in Carcere Tulliano_.
(γ) Don Jayme de Portugal, Archbishop of Lisbon and son of the Infante
Don Pedro de Portugal. To him the Pontiff gave the scarlet hat of
Cardinal-Deacon of Sant’ Eustachio. There appear to have been reasons of
state for the elevation of this young man; and it was usual for the
reigning Houses of Europe to have one of their junior scions in the
Sacred College. The Cardinal of Portugal lived a retired and saint-like
life, distinguished for his modesty and maiden purity. He died in 1459
at the age of five and twenty years; and his tomb, by Messer Antonio
Rossellino, in Samminiato al Monte at Florence, one of the most
exquisite monuments of the Renascence, bears the touching epitaph:
“Regia stirps Jacobus nomen Lusitana propago,
“Insignis forma, summa pudicitia,
“Cardineus titulus, morum nitor, optima vita,
“Iste fuere mihi: mors iuuenem rapuit;
“Ne se pollueret, maluit iste mori.
Bishop Enea Silvio Bartolomeo de’ Piccolhuomini says of these creatures
in his commentaries, “All are young, but of an excellent nature.” The
only concession that the Pope would make to the objecting cardinals, was
the postponement of the ceremonial conferring of insignia until the
ensuing September; when many of the malcontents vented vain spleen by
quitting Rome.
* * * * *
This was a year of strife. The peace of central Italy was disturbed by
the bandit Niccolo Piccinino, a bastard of Visconti; who, believing the
country to be about to be denuded of armed men, saw an opportunity for
self aggrandisement. He collected mercenaries, and marched against
Siena, a small republic, very loyal to the Holy See, which, in this age
of culture, had destroyed the lovely Aphrodite of Lusippos in its dread
of paganism, and consecrated itself to Madonna under the title “Sena
Ciuitas Virginis.” Meeting the Papal and Milanese forces which were
concentrating for the Crusade, but quite ready for a little incidental
fighting on the way, Piccinino withdrew to the mountains. King Don
Alonso of the Regno, as usual, was playing a double part. It did not
suit him to show conspicuous friendship for the Pope’s allies, lest the
Lord Calixtus P.P. III should become independent. Stipulations were made
favourable to Piccinino; and, their appeal to Naples having failed, the
Sienesi were forced into a disgraceful peace with the brigand.
Sultàn Muhammed extended his conquests to Servia, and prepared to devour
Hungary, launching one hundred and fifty thousand infidels against
Belgrade. Fra Jan Capistran’s eloquence and pious zeal roused the
Magyars to consciousness of the imminent peril; Cardinal Bernardino
Caravajal, the ablegate, inspired their patriotism with his wisdom and
devotion; and Jan Hunniades, the Vaivod of Hungary, resolved to resist
invasion. Confidence in princes was, as always, vain. The
terror-stricken King Wladislaw fled with his court and his guardian,
Count de Cilly, from Buda to Venice; and along the valley of the Danube
poured the locust-swarms of Infidels to invest Belgrade. The Vaivod Jan
Hunniades raised an army at his own expense; whence came the means, the
men, is still unknown, for most important documents connected with the
siege of Belgrade yet attend discovery: but there was a Magyar army,
commanded by Jan Hunniades, ministered to by Fra Jan Capistran, which
advanced to relieve Belgrade; and the ablegate, Fra Bernardino
Caravajal, remained behind at Buda, by the Vaivod’s request, to collect
and forward reinforcements. On the fourteenth day of siege the Magyars
collided with the Infidels. Already the walls of Belgrade sorely were
shaken: but the arrival of the Vaivod, breaking the Muslim line and
winning a complete victory, put courage into the hearts of the
beleaguered. In three months time, once more the Muslim concentrated,
and on the twenty-first of July the city suffered a second storm. Jan
Hunniades and Fra Jan Capistran, from one of the towers, directed the
defence. At a crisis in the fray, the heroic friar rushed, like a second
Joshua, through the Christian host, waving the crucifix and a banner
with the sacred monogram invented by San Bernardino of Siena. Behind him
came the Vaivod with aid. Through breaches in the walls many times the
Infidels streamed in, and always the stream was dammed and driven back.
Fra Jan Capistran himself led a squadron of Magyar huszars[16] who put
to flight the fierce janissaries of Islam. And, at last, the day was
won; and the air resounded with the Most Holy Name shouted by victorious
Crusaders, while Sultàn Muhammed, wounded, was retreating in confusion
with the remnant of his conquered army. Belgrade was relieved.
When the news reached Rome, the Holiness of the Pope was lying sick,
heart-worn, heart-sore, gazing from His window at the galleys building
in shipwrights’ yards on Ripa Grande. The relief of a beleaguered city,
even as late as the last century when decorous indifference was the
fashionable pose, used to cause deliriously human demonstrations. Men
were quite as human in the fifteenth as in the nineteenth century, less
compound, and much more simple. Belgrade was relieved, and there was joy
in Christendom.
* * * * *
In May the Lord Ludovico Scarampi dell’ Arena Mezzarota, Archbishop of
Florence, Patriarch of Aquileia, Ablegate to the Regno,
Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Lorenzo _in Damaso_, was
appointed Admiral of the Pontifical Fleet. Under the Lord Eugenius P.P.
IV, as Commander-in-Chief of the Pontifical Army, he had used Rome at
his will. Dismissed from office by the Lord Nicholas P.P. V, he had
devoted himself to luxurious living, and gained the nickname of _the
Lord Lucullus_. His haggard but voluptuous profile makes it probable
that he deserved the name. Seeing the Lord Calixtus P.P. III to be an
old and feeble man, who conceivably might afford him new preferment and
a fresh field for his insatiable ambition, he had come to Rome to offer
his service to the Holy Father. But the stalwart cardinal-nephews, the
Lord Luis Juan de Mila y Borja, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santi
Quattro Coronati, and the Lord Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja,
Cardinal-Deacon of San Niccolo _in Carcere Tulliano_, distrusted the
professions of Cardinal Scarampi. Suspecting his bonafides, they
mentioned their suspicions to their August Uncle, with the result that
he was forbidden to approach the Vatican. Not to be beaten, Cardinal
Scarampi discovered a fervent zeal for the Crusade. There could be no
surer way into the Pope’s favour. His Holiness considered that this
prelate might devote his enormous fortune to the war-fund; and He lost
no time in receiving him in audience, and naming him Pontifical Admiral.
The Cardinal-Nephews urged the advisability of flying him with a string;
and therefore his authority was restricted. A man of his fashion and
quality could have put in a fine dignified time ashore. But that would
not have suited the Cardinal-Nephews; and the Lord Calixtus P.P. III
perceived no signs of the unbuckling of the Cardinal-Admiral’s pouches.
So they gave him banquets, and his sailing-orders. A fleet of transports
left the Tiber with five thousand troops aboard: but the
Cardinal-Admiral stayed in Rome to assure the Pope’s Holiness that these
were insufficient for any practical purposes; and that a fleet of thirty
galleys was absolutely necessary.
Then the strenuous Pontiff remembered that King Don Alonso had promised
to provide Him with such a fleet; and it gently and firmly was intimated
to the Cardinal-Admiral that he might go to Naples and collect the same:
if he failed to go, he had the alternative of facing a judicial inquiry
into his doings as generalissimo under the Lord Eugenius P.P. IV.
Thereon the Cardinal-Admiral scoured away hot-foot for Naples; where he
found that King Don Alonso the Magnanimous had belied his promises,
having sent the ships to settle a little private dispute in which his
Majesty was engaged with the Republic of Genoa. This was bad news for
the Pope: but it did not alter His determination by the breadth of a
single hair. He was quite well-used to the vagaries and magnanimities of
the King of Naples, whom He had known for more than forty years. He was
equally well-resolved to use the services which the Cardinal-Admiral had
volunteered. Men had thought Him to be a feeble old man who could be
influenced with ease. They found out their mistake. We are accustomed to
think of youth as fiery and headstrong: but what can bend the will of
fiery headstrong age? His Holiness sent imperative commands to the
Cardinal-Admiral that he must make the best of the ships in hand, and
sail for the Ægean Sea, where at least he could help the Crusade by
creating a diversion among the islands that the Infidels owned there.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Alfonso of Aragon_]
Fresh troubles were at hand in Hungary. Round Belgrade, the putrefying
carcases of the Muslim thousands envenomed the air. The rudiments of
antiseptic sanitation were unknown. Those who have had to do with Boers,
or Cubans, or Filipinos will know the unspeakable horror that this
implies. Pest decimated the Christian army. Plague swept away the Magyar
host, that Infidels in vain had tried to overcome. When they told him
that his end was near, that Viaticum was approaching to be his strength
on that dark road which man must tread alone, the noble Vaivod Jan
Hunniades, said: “It is not fitting that our Lord should visit his
servant”; and, rising from his death-bed, he dragged himself to the
nearest altar, where, after confession and communion, in the priest’s
hands he fell and yielded up his great and splendid soul, the eleventh
of August 1456. On the twenty-third of October Fra Jan Capistrano also
died.
From Rome came the voice of the Pope strenuously appealing to the
Powers. His ablegates preached in every country. The common people heard
Him gladly, and responded to His call: but the nobles lent deaf ears.
Upper Germany and Nürnberg equipped battalions of crusaders, which were
increased by contingents from England and France.
In November the faineant young King Wladislaw returned to Hungary, and
visited the field of Belgrade. Since the death of Jan Hunniades the
Count de Cilly had made himself of supreme authority over his royal
ward. Belgrade still was mourning the mighty Vaivod; and the nobles
under Wladislaw Corvinus, Hunniades’s son, resenting the insolent
assumptions and cowardice of De Cilly, slew him there. The young king
concealed his wrath, and persuaded the sons of Jan Hunniades to follow
him to Buda. All unsuspicious of that treachery of which cowards are
capable they obeyed, and, on arrival in the capital, the Majesty of
Hungary had them seized, and Wladislaw Corvinus Hunniades publicly
beheaded as a traitor. Hungary was now in woeful plight. Deprived by axe
and pest of those strong leaders who had merited her trust, her king a
venomous child, her throne with no legitimate heir, she waited, in fear
and trembling, to hear again the Infidel thundering at her gate. All
discipline was at an end; the Magyar huszars were disbanded, and
returned to their homes.
* * * * *
In Germany, the question of the Magyar Succession was regarded as
confusion worse confounded; and the Electors of the Empire considered
the time a suitable one for reapplying the screw to feeble needy Caesar
Friedrich IV, their suzerain.
They invited him to preside at a Diet at Nürnberg, on St. Andrew’s Day,
1456; and, indeed, their conduct throughout was thoroughly Caledonian.
Their ostensible object was the projection of a new crusade; and they
announced an intention of acting independently if Caesar should refuse
to come. In reality they meant to pit Pope against Emperor, and Emperor
against Pope; so that, in the confusion, they might gratify their
private ambitions by snatching concessions from one or other of those
Powers. By pretending to desire a new crusade they would gain pontifical
favour. By taking independent action they would arouse imperial ire. The
Pope might be trusted to grant them what they called Ecclesiastical
Reform in return for their alliance to His plans against the Infidel.
Caesar might be trusted to concede extension of their political power,
in return for their allegiance to him as suzerain. In either case they
stood to win something.
Caesar promptly forbade the assembling of the Diet at Nürnberg. His
command was slighted; the Diet sat, and was attended by a Papal
Ablegate. Purely political discussions ensued; and the Diet adjourned
before reaching any conclusion. Then the Elector Albrecht of Brandenberg
found it worth his while to form a strong Caesarian party; and the
Electors of the papal faction were left in a minority. The cry for
Church Reform was raised. The Papacy was threatened with what it was
supposed to dread more than a General Council—viz., a Pragmatic
Sanction,[17] _i.e._, a definite assertion of Imperial Supremacy. The
Electors kept their proceedings secret, and little news was allowed to
reach Rome, where the curia was determined to resist in any case.
The cry for Church Reform is a popular one. The expression of desire for
the cultivation and consummation of the Christian Ideal invariably wins
sympathy. It is, perhaps, a little unfortunate that the soi-disant
reformers of the fifteenth century attached to the word Reform a baser
meaning than that which it bears in the twentieth.
Rome had her champion ready in the Lord Enea Silvio Bartolomeo de
Piccolhuomini, Bishop of Siena, to whom she entrusted the task of her
defence; and that he might be well-armed with all authority, the Pope’s
Holiness created him Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Sabina.
“No cardinal ever entered the college with greater difficulty than I;
rust had so spread over the hinges (_cardines_, specimen of fifteenth
century pun) that the door could not turn and open. Calixtus used
battering rams and every kind of instrument to force it,” said the new
Cardinal of Siena to the Lord Giovanni Castelleone, Bishop and Cardinal
of Pavia. (Pii II. Ep. 195) The Sacred College had not forgiven the Lord
Calixtus P.P. III for the creation of the Cardinal-Nephews; and its
policy was to oppose God’s Vicegerent and all His works. This new
creature, too, was credited with liberal proclivities; and the
conservatism of the Italian cardinals was up in arms. The Cardinal of
Siena had been so long a resident in Germany that he was looked upon as
more a German than Italian, more of a friend to Caesar than to Peter.
Above all, his transcendent talents and versatility were excessively
distasteful to mere mediocrity.
The adjourned Diet of Nürnberg resumed its session at
Frankfort-on-the-Main. Here it became definitely hostile to Caesar; and,
by announcing its intention to resist the collection of tithe, to the
Pope also. It committed the strategical error of uniting its two enemies
by the bond of a single interest. The Lord Calixtus P.P. III instantly
appealed to Caesar Friedrich IV on behalf of the Crusade; and so ended
the year of grace 1456.
Let it be conceded that Germany was aggrieved; that there were
engagements unfulfilled by Rome. What then? Rome, and all the world,
knew Germany’s habit of clamouring for Reform, whenever she saw a chance
of being paid for silence. Rome, and all the world, knew that these
clamours only originated with insincere and venal prelates and Electors,
who would become obsequiously dumb on a sop being thrown to their
personal interests.
The leader of the Electors was the Lord Hans of Baden, Prince-Archbishop
of Mainz. His chancellor, Martin Mayr, in writing congratulations to the
Cardinal of Siena on his elevation, took occasion to be very bellicose
about Papal treatment of Germany. “His Holiness observes neither the
decrees of the Council of Constance, nor of Basilea, nor the agreements
of His predecessors, but sets the German nation at naught,” he said.
“Our elections of bishops arbitrarily are annulled. Reservations are
made in favour of cardinals and papal secretaries. You yourself have a
general reservation of benefices in the provinces of Mainz, Trier, and
Köln, to the value of two thousand ducats per annum—an unprecedented and
unheard of grant. Annates rigorously are exacted, grants of expectancies
habitually are given, and his Holiness is not content with His due.
Bishoprics are not given to the most worthy, but to the highest bidder.
Fresh tithes are imposed without the consent of our bishops, and are
paid to the Pope. In every way Germany, once so glorious, is used as a
handmaid. For years she has groaned in slavery. Now her nobles think
that the time has come to make her free.”
This letter reads like a genuine cry of distress. The Cardinal of Siena
was an adept at dealing with such dishonesty as this, which would
deceive one less expert. He could read between the lines; and he knew
this Chancellor Mayr. He began by asserting Papal Supremacy, and
rejecting the decrees of the schismatic Council of Basilea. He agreed
that the Concordat of the Lord Eugenius P.P. IV should be observed. He
said that the Lord Calixtus P.P. III was willing to redress grievances,
if the Electors would send envoys to lay them before Him in proper form.
So far, nothing could be more satisfactory; and then the Cardinal of
Siena got to work. Papal interference with elections, he said, was
purely judicial intervention, due to the ambition and greed of
claimants, not to papal rapacity. If any payments had been made by
would-be bishops to bribe officials of the curia, the said would-be
bishops justly could not blame His Holiness, but their own ambition,
which would do anything for its own aggrandisement. Men were not more
angelic in Rome than in Germany: when money was offered they naturally
took it. But the Holy Father must not be blamed for that. He wished to
stop the extortions of his officials. He Himself received nothing but
His due. Every one thinks it a grievance to part with money, and will
think so always. Bohemia made the same complaint against Germany as
Germany made against Rome, that money was drained from the land: yet
Germany, owing to her connection with the papacy, steadily had grown in
wealth and importance, and was richer now than at any previous time,
despite of her complaints. To descend to personal matters, the Cardinal
of Siena thought it very hard that Chancellor Mayr should object to the
provisions which had been made in his favour. As poet-laureate of the
Empire and orator of Caesar he had lived and laboured in Germany so
long, that he now found it hard to be classed as a stranger. In
conclusion, _he thanked the Chancellor for his personal offer of help to
realise the said provisions; and would be glad to know of any eligible
benefices which should fall vacant_.
The sting was in the tail of this letter. It is evident that, while
Martin Mayr was writing for publication his precious list of grievances,
he also was sending to the cardinal in private a second letter offering
his own services as rent-collector. In theory, he pretended to treat his
connection with the Lord Enea Silvio as having no existence. In
practice, he was very anxious to be employed as agent on commission. To
such a venal Janus only one reply was possible; and the Cardinal of
Siena exposed the worthless insincerity of Germany’s spokesman by
answering his private and his public letters together on the same sheet.
This device, as was intended, provoked a proposition from Chancellor
Mayr’s superior, the Prince-Archbishop of Mainz; who sent his secretary
to Rome on the tenth of September, 1456, with plenary powers to
negotiate with the Cardinal of Siena towards an alliance with the Pope
against the Electors. This renegade prelate’s terms were, that he was
prepared to desert the German party of reform, if he were conceded the
right of confirming episcopal elections throughout Germany as the price
of his treachery; a right which would enable him to tax candidates for
bishoprics at his will.
The Cardinal of Siena lashed the Prince-Archbishop with courteous but
stinging pen. He rejoiced to hear that his High Mightiness no longer
cared to be allied with those malignants who attacked the Holy Father;
but regretted that he should ask for that which was a right inherent in
the Papacy, and which none of his predecessors had enjoyed. No bribe, no
secret understanding, was necessary between God’s Vicegerent and His
subjects. All were bound to obey. He was sure that the modesty of the
Archbishop had been misrepresented by this improper request, which he,
for his part, could not dare to lay before a Pope so blameless and so
upright as was the Lord Calixtus. (Pii II. Ep. 338)
Now that the venal nature of the cry for reform had been made clear to
all the world, the Cardinal of Siena wrote eloquently and reasonably to
Caesar Friedrich IV, to the King of Hungary, to the Princes and Prelates
of Germany, pointing out the futility of quarrelling with the Pope, from
Whom they derived so many benefits. (Pii II. Ep. 320, 344, 349.) He also
expanded his letter to the discomfited Chancellor Martin Mayr into a
pamphlet called _De ritu, situ, conditione, et moribus Germaniae_, in
which he shewed that Germany had received from Rome far more than she
ever had given. His wise and irrefragable reasoning, with the diplomatic
skill of the papal envoy Lorenzo Rovarella, made Germany pause. To pause
was to weaken. Then came the death of King Wladislaw of Hungary on the
eve of his marriage with Madame Marguerite de France. His dominions in
Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, were claimed by several pretenders. The
German Powers became intensely interested. Their attention was diverted
from their attempts to blackmail Christ’s Vicar. And so the end of the
Lord Calixtus P.P. III was attained; the crisis was averted without
issue of a Pragmatic Sanction.
* * * * *
Meanwhile the Cardinal-Admiral was in the Ægean. Being neither hero nor
enthusiast he merely cruised from place to place, making a show of
activity, capturing a few unimportant islands from the Muslim Infidel,
relieving the necessities of the Knights of Rhodes. His sole object was
to avoid that judicial inquiry with which the Cardinal-Nephews had
threatened him; and hence he showed himself as but a perfunctory
crusader. In fact, his influence was bad; for by giving the Ægean
islanders the notion that Rome was their defender, he lulled them into
false security and destroyed their self-reliance.
The plight of Eastern Christendom became more hopeless. Only the
Holiness of the Pope, of all the Western powers, took any practical
measures. France promised, but failed to keep her word, and would not
pay the tithe. The Duke of Burgundy collected the tithe, and kept it.
Norway, Denmark, and Portugal sat still. The Duke of Milan and the
Republic of Venice disregarded the Pope’s entreaties. The Signoria of
Florence refused to help Him. A few of the Italian barons, tyrants of
petty fiefs, provided him with money and men. The Republic of Genoa was
loyal; and, in return, the strenuous Lord Calixtus P.P. III protected
Genoese colonies on the Black Sea littoral, and conferred honours on her
nobles. The dark outlook momentarily was lightened by a victory over the
Muslim fleet, in which five and twenty galleys became a Christian spoil.
It must be recorded that it was solely the determination, foresight, and
energy, with which the aged Pontiff in Rome personally directed naval
movements, which inspired His sailors to achieve this triumph. Had the
Cardinal-Admiral Scarampi been endowed with the plenary authority which
he had desired, very much less enterprising and successful would have
been the policy of the papal fleet.
There can be no doubt but that German captiousness prevented the
accomplishment of the Pope’s designs for the protection of the Oriental
Christians. Skanderbeg had but a handful of huszars wherewith to oppose
the Muslim Infidel. And there was no encouragement for him; for the
apathy of Caesar and the Powers prevented him from following up his
victories. The King of Naples was as a thorn in the Pope’s eye. He had
hoped for better things of His old patron who had brought Him to Italy;
and He was bitterly enraged by King Don Alonso’s treachery in sending
the fleet, which, though constructed in the port of Naples, had been
paid for with papal gold, to carry on a private quarrel with a Christian
Power, the Republic of Genoa, at the very moment when Christendom was in
the direst peril from the Infidel.
The forbearance of the Lord Calixtus P.P. III ended there, as far as
Naples was concerned. Henceforward He relentlessly opposed the policy of
King Don Alonso, especially his scheme for an alliance with Milan by
which he hoped to make doubly sure the succession of the Bastard
Ferrando, whose legitimation had been recognised by two preceding
Pontiffs.
At the beginning of 1458, György Podiebrad renounced the Hussite heresy
on his election to the throne of Bohemia. King György made no difficulty
about swearing allegiance to the Holy See; and he also promised to take
the cross of the Crusade. Considering that his dominions immediately
were menaced by the Infidel, his policy would appear to have been
dictated by reasons of state rather than by religious zeal.
The Holiness of the Pope was consoled by this accession to the thinned
ranks of His allies. He hoped that the example of King György would be
of good effect to the Bohemian heretics; for spiritual matters are not
uninteresting to a Roman Pontiff. It seemed that the occasion might be
used to bring the powers into line; and He summoned a congress to meet
in Rome, whose object was the Unity of Christendom. Pious men have
pursued that object ever since—the religious unity. In the days of the
Lord Calixtus P.P. III, political unity was the aim desired, and
striven-for again, in vain.
* * * * *
After the Crusade, the work nearest to the Pope’s heart was the
promotion of His nephews’ interests. Why He should never have done
anything for His own most charming son remains a historical mystery. The
elevation to the cardinalate of Don Luis Juan de Mila y Borja, and of
Don Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja, already has been recorded. There was a
younger brother of Cardinal Rodrigo, younger by a year and a half, Don
Pedro Luis de Lançol y Borja, a gorgeously beautiful sneak and coward,
to whom the Pope extended the envious admiration that feeble age must
feel for youth and strength; and for whom nothing had been done. The
Lord Calixtus P.P. III, though quite independent of the good opinion of
the Sacred College, did not cause a second storm by raising this young
man, also, to the purple. He himself preferred a secular career; and it
was thought that the hot blood of Borja suited him to cut a military
figure. On that account, his Uncle, in the capacity of an Italian
despot, named him Duke of Spoleto, Gonfaloniere of the Holy Roman
Church, Castellan of all pontifical fortresses, and Governor of the
cities of Terni, Narni, Todi, Rieti, Orvieto, Spoleto, Foligno, Nocera,
Assisi, Amelia, Civita Castellana, Nepi, and of the Patrimony of St.
Peter in Tuscany,—an extravagance of generosity which is justifiable
solely on the score of goodwill towards His family, which, after long
years, an octogenarian was able to put into effect. Of course there
arose the usual uproar of protest from the Sacred College, led by the
Lord Domenico Capranica, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Croce
_in Gerusalemme_; and something akin to a riot among the citizens of
Rome, who always hated foreigners, and especially Catalans. For the idea
had got abroad in Spain that in Rome preferment awaited Spaniards, and
thither they flocked to receive the good gifts which, they imagined, a
Spanish Pope would have in store. Rome was furious at this immigration;
but Borja made overtures of friendship to Colonna, and treated the
Romans to a display of Spanish arrogance. As for the strenuous Lord
Calixtus P.P. III, He announced His defiance of public opinion by
installing Don Pedro Luis de Lançol y Borja in the Prefecture of the
City, an act which involved the surrender into Borja hands of the Mola
of Hadrian, or Castle of Santangelo, the impregnable fortress on Tiber
which dominates Rome. Don Pedro Luis was looked upon by Orsini as a
mortal foe, on account of his displacing Don Giovantonio Orsini in this
Prefecture. Thus the inimical relations of Borja with Orsini very
naturally qualified them for an alliance with Colonna, in a simple age
when a man’s friends were his friend’s friends, and his enemies his
friend’s enemies; and Colonna was the most powerful house in Rome. A
nursery ditty of the period will show in what esteem Colonna was held:
“Che possa avere cinque figli maschi,
“E tutti quanti di Casa Colonna,
“Uno Papa, l’altro cardinale,
“Ed uno arcivescovo di Colonia,
“Ed uno possa aver tanta possanza
“Da levar la corona al re di Franza
“E l’altro possa aver tanto valore
“Da levar la corona all’ imperatore.
So, for a brief space, the Eternal City became absolutely an appanage of
the House of Borja. Catalans pervaded the streets, engaged in robbery
and murder. The intimidated Conservators (equivalent to a modern
municipal council) servilely thanked the Pope for the appointment of His
nephew, and even suggested that Don Pedro Luis should be made King of
Rome.
* * * * *
On the twenty-seventh of June 1458 died King Don de Alonso Aragona, The
Magnanimous, of Naples, the Two Sicilies, and Jerusalem. The Lord
Calixtus P.P. III at once refused to acknowledge His quondam pupil, the
Bastard Ferrando, as successor; and impetuously threatened to plunge
Italy into war, by declaring on His Own account a claim to the Regno as
a fief of the Holy See.
A favourite policy of ecclesiastical persons of all ranks, and in all
ages, appears correctly to be summarised by Patrizzi in this
formula:—_Advance pretensions and presently they will become realities_.
The Pope’s Holiness desired to benefit Don Pedro Luis. If His claim, as
suzerain of the Regno, could be substantiated, then He would be able to
crown Don Pedro Luis as its King. It was an extensive and important
domain, including the whole of Southern Italy, the Abruzzi, Apulia, and
Calabria, with the Three-Tongued[18] Island of Sicily. From a commercial
stand-point, the Pope’s action was distinctly smart and business-like.
And there was this further consideration:—Supposing that the Bastard
Ferrando were strong enough to make resistance, at least some part of
the Regno would have to be sacrificed as a concession for the sake of
peace; and so a fief could be created for Don Pedro Luis, who, in any
case, stood to win. Failing the Regno, it was the Pope’s intention
strenuously to press the reconquest of Constantinople, and to crown His
nephew King of Cyprus and Emperor of Byzantium. As an earnest of His
goodwill He lost no time in naming him Lieutenant of Benevento and
Tarracina within the Neapolitan boundary, confirming him in this post by
Brief of the thirty-first of July 1458.
In Rome indignation knew no bounds. It was plain that these strong young
men, the pontifical nephews, were, after the Crusade, all-powerful with
the Ruler of the World. The city seethed with jealousy and revolt,
attacking anything in the shape of a Catalan on sight. Spaniards, rash
enough to show themselves in the streets, courted assassination. As for
the Pope, age and mortal sickness seemed to fan the flame, to white
heat, of His inflexible imperious will. The Cardinal of Santa Croce _in
Gerusalemme_ was banished to distant embassages, and threatened with
imprisonment if he again broke silence, on account of the protest which
he made. The Apostolic Prothonotary, Fra Bernadino Caravajal was sent to
Germany. The Cardinal-Admiral Scarampi was kept at sea. Cardinal Latino
Orsini and his faction fled into exile. Only four of the Most
Illustrious preserved their loyalty to the Pope and the
Cardinal-Nephews; these were:—The Roman Lord Prospero Colonna,
Cardinal-Deacon of San Giorgio _in Velum Aureum_; the Venetian Lord
Pietro Barbo, Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria Nuova; the French Lord
Guillaume d’Estouteville, Cardinal-Bishop of Porto; and the Sienese Lord
Enea Silvio Bartolomeo de’ Piccolhuomini, Cardinal-Presbyter of the
Title of Santa Sabina. Profiting by the temporary absence of opposition,
the Holiness of the Pope gave the Bishopric of Lerida to His nephew,
Cardinal Luis Juan of Santi Quattro Coronati; and to Cardinal Rodrigo of
San Niccolo _in Carcere Tulliano_ he gave the Vicechancellorship of the
Holy Roman Church.
At last, the Bastard of Naples decided on his course of action; and
summoned the Neapolitan nobles, demanding their acceptance of him as
their king. He made no claim upon the kingdoms of Aragon, Valencia, and
Catalonia, in Spain; nor upon Sardinia, the Balearic Islands, and
Sicily, which King Don Alonso had left by will to his own brother, King
Don Juan of Navarre: but for the crown of Naples and the Sovereignty of
the Order of the Stola, which his father had founded, he was prepared to
fight. Further, in defence of his right, he appealed from the Pope to a
General Council—a stupid enough proceeding, but one of the customs
peculiar to aggrieved personages of the Borgian Era. Incidentally, it
may be mentioned that the Lord Calixtus P.P. III, was not the only
disputant of Don Ferrando’s claim. Even supposing that the right of King
Réné of Anjou were set aside, he had a third rival in the shape of his
cousin Don Carlos of Biana, son of King Don Juan of Navarre.
The Pope knew well that, though He might disturb the peace of Italy, He,
single-handed, could not hope to triumph in a war with Naples; and He,
therefore, tried to win over Don Francesco Sforza-Visconti, Duke of
Milan, who, after the Cardinal of Siena, was the greatest and most
far-seeing statesman of his time. Duke Francesco answered shortly and
sharply, that the Neapolitan Succession had been settled by the Lord
Nicholas P.P. V to the satisfaction of all Italian princes, and that he
intended to fight for King Don Ferrando I. sooner than see his country
devastated by civil war.
This last bitter disappointment caused the collapse of the Pope’s
health. With the summer heat plague appeared in Rome. The Lord Calixtus
P.P. III lay in the throes of fever; and Orsini took up arms against all
Catalans in open war. Of the Pontifical Nephews the layman showed the
white feather; the stalwart cardinals were staunch. Don Pedro Luis de
Lançol y Borja, as Prefect of Rome, sold the Mola of Hadrian to the
Sacred College for two and twenty thousand ducats; and fled from the
city, escorted by his Catalans. The Cardinal of Venice helped him to a
boat on Tiber, by which means, owing to the darkness of the night, he
reached Civita Vecchia in safety, having avoided Orsini who watched for
him at the gates of Rome. On the 26th of September, says Lo Spondano,
suddenly he died.
* * * * *
One of the claims of the church is that of a Divine Promise of Her
Maintenance until the end of the world. It is interesting to the student
of history to notice that, from time to time, Her responsible
authorities comport themselves as though they had no faith in the
validity of that prediction. They seem to think that its fulfilment
solely depends upon their own exertions. The strange conviction of the
necessity of his present existence, which is innate in the ordinary man,
is perhaps the explanation of the extraordinary expenditure of energy to
avert death, to invalidate the most fervent and frequent professions of
belief in The Life Of The World To Come, to consolidate human
institutions and human plans, which obtains on such occasions as the
close of a prelacy or the end of a pontificate. If it be true that
actions speak louder than words, then the confusion attendant on a
Pope’s death must tell a sorry tale.
On the sixth of August 1458 the Lord Calixtus P.P. III lay dying in the
Vatican. Rome was in a turmoil. Colonna and Orsini were sharpening their
swords. The banished cardinals were hurrying back for the ensuing
Conclave. The four loyal cardinals were fortified in their palaces. Only
the Cardinal-Nephews attended at the Pope’s bedside.
The curious privilege which was accorded to these last, at this period,
could not be exercised in the present case. By the very conditions of
their juniority in the Sacred College, added to the powerful influence
which they were supposed to hold over the reigning Pontiff, the
Cardinal-Nephews were the objects of intense dislike (to put it mildly)
on the part of their colleagues. Their elevation was an offence; their
enrichment, a matter for envy; their indifference to opinion, a matter
for positive hatred. The only consolation to the other cardinals,
creatures of previous Pontiffs, which their situation held, was that it
must end with the demise of their creator. When their Pontifical Uncle
ceased to live in this world, the Cardinal-Nephews sank at once to their
proper place in the Sacred College. Under these circumstances, the said
Cardinal-Nephews were used to make their hay while yet the sun was
shining, to avail themselves of their opportunities for securing a
satisfactory future, as junior cardinals, by the acquisition of
property, real estate, benefices, jewels, or money, at the pleasure of
the Pope. And when their time was drawing near its close, when their
August Uncle was entering His last agony, it was the custom for the
Cardinal-Nephews to plunder the apostolic palace of any valuables which
already had not passed into their hands. This privilege was their last
chance; for, at the instant of the Pontiff’s death, the
Cardinal-Chamberlain assumes possession as representative of the curia;
and, in an age when self aggrandisement was not less a ruling passion
than at the present hour, the practice was at least connived at, on the
principle that every dog should be allowed to have its day.
But, on the present occasion, there was no plundering by the
Cardinal-Nephews. The fury of the Romans against all Spaniards made it
expedient for them to avoid the risk of a journey across the City, to
their palaces, encumbered by the mules which bore their spoils. This
would seem to be the human explanation of their presence in the Vatican,
while the Orsini faction made havoc of the Catalans, and despoiled all
who bore arms in the Borgo or pontifical Region of Rome.
* * * * *
The learned Dr. Creighton has well said that men of decided opinions and
eminent ability who come to their power late in life, spend the
accumulated passion of a lifetime in the accomplishment of long
cherished desires. The Lord Calixtus P.P. III would come into that
category.
Though He was unenthusiastic regarding the Renascence of Letters and the
Arts, and checked the tremendous schemes of His predecessor, yet He was
by no means inattentive to the duties involved by His position. He
restored the palace and church of Santi Quattro Coronati, because He had
occupied them during His cardinalate. He improved the church of San
Sebastiano _extra muros_ above the Catacomb of San Calixto, in honour of
the saint from whom He took His papal name. He repaired the church of
Santa Prisca, and began the new roof of the Liberian Basilica on the
Esquiline. He employed the painters, who did not leave Rome on His
election, in painting banners for the Crusade. The Vatican school of
arras-weavers, founded by the Lord Nicholas P.P. V, was continued, and
flourished exceedingly under His benevolence. He created nine cardinals
in the course of His short pontificate. The Porporati of the Consistory
of the twentieth of February 1456 were named on p. 36. At the Consistory
at Christmas the same year, He elevated to the purple:—
(α) The Lord Rainaldo Pisciscello, the virtuous and learned Archbishop
of Naples, as Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Cecilia:
(β) Don Juan de Mella, brother of the celebrated Franciscan Frat’
Alonso de Mella, and a noble of Spain, Auditor of the Ruota to
the Lord Martin P.P. III, as Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of
Sant’ Aquila e Santa Prisca:
(γ) The Lord Giovanni Castelleone, patrician of Milan, Legate to
Caesar Friedrich IV, and Bishop of Pavia, as Cardinal-Presbyter
of the Title of San Clemente:
(δ) The Lord Giacomo di Collescipoli Teobaldi, a Roman citizen, as
Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Anastasia:[19]
(ε) The Lord Richart de Longueil Olivier, Bishop of Constance,
Archpriest of the Vatican Basilica, one of the judges at the
Rehabilitation of Madame Jehanne de Lis, the Maid of Orleans, as
Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Sant’ Eusebio:
(ζ) The Lord Enea Silvio Bartolomeo de’ Piccolhuomini, as
Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Sabina.
The Lord Calixtus P.P. III has no share in the evil reputation which has
been cast upon His House. The worst that has been said of Him is, that
He was obstinate, irritable, and inspired no affection. They were
disappointed suitors who so spoke. The Pope’s Holiness used Himself ever
gently to the poor and needy, who found in Him a good samaritan. His
benefactions to the hospital of Santo Spirito have been recorded. In His
will He left five thousand ducats to found a hospital in His
cardinalitial palace of Santo Quattro Coronati. His private life was one
of rigid piety, simplest habits, apostolic fervour. He left one hundred
and fifty thousand ducats in the Pontifical Treasury, which He had
collected for the Holy War.
But the whole force of His resourceful and masterful character was
concentrated upon the Crusade, and the settlement in life of His beloved
nephews. On those two points He would brook no opposition. With the
violent impetuosity of age, of Spanish blood, He was inflexible,
overbearing, inconsiderate, on all matters connected with these
projects. All the ardour, and all the zeal, which He devoted to the
delivery of Christendom from the Muslim Infidel, was doomed to fail. The
Muslim Infidel defiles Constantinople now. But His dealings with His
nephews produced more permanent results.
Yet “it must always be an honour to the Papacy that, in a great crisis
of European affairs, it asserted the importance of a policy which was
for the interest of Europe as a whole. Calixtus and his successor[20]
deserve, as statesmen, credit which can be given to no other politicians
of the time. The Papacy, by summoning Christendom to defend the limits
of Christian civilisation against the assaults of heathenism, was
worthily discharging the chief secular duty of the office.” (Creighton.)
The Lord Calixtus P.P. III died on the sixth of August 1458, in the
fourth year of His reign; and was buried by four priests in the crypt of
the old Basilica of St. Peter-by-the-Vatican.
* * * * *
Kindling
It has been said that the junior branch of the House of Borja (which
originated in Don Ricardo de Borja, second son of Don Pedro, Count of
Aybar, Lord of Borja, who died in 1152), emigrated to the kingdom of
Naples, where it became naturalised, and softened its name into the
Italian Borgia. From Don Fortunio, the son of the aforesaid Don Ricardo,
descends Don Rodrigo who had two sons:—
(α) Don Romano Borgia, Monk of Vall’ Ombrosa and Bishop of Venafri,
A.D. 1300. (_Ricchi_.)
(β) Don Ximenes Borgia, Captain in the Army of Naples, whose son, Don
Antonio Borgia, married Madonna Girolama Ruffola of Naples, and
had issue:—
(α) Don Niccolo Borgia, familiar of King Don Alonso I, The
Magnanimous, Regent of Velletri 1417, married the Noble Madonna
Giovanna Lamberti of Naples, and had issue....
(β) Don Girolamo Borgia, (detto Seniore)....
Reverting to the Senior Branch:—
The career of Don Francisco de Borja, bastard of Bishop Alonso de Borja
of Valencia (afterwards the Lord Calixtus P.P. III), is an unsolved
mystery from his birth in 1441 until 1497....
Of the five children of Doña Juana de Borja by her husband Don Jofre de
Lançol:—
(α) Doña Francisca married Don Ximenez Perez de Arenas;
(β) Doña Tecla married Don Vitale de Villanueva;
(γ) Doña Juana married her cousin Don Guillelmo de Lançol, and had
issue:—
Girolama,
Angela,
Pedro Luis (Pierludovico)....
Juan (Giovanni seniore)....
(δ) Don Rodrigo, Vicechancellor-Cardinal-Deacon of San Niccolo _in
Carcere Tulliano_....
(ε) Don Pedro Luis, Duke of Spoleto, Castellan of Santangelo, Prefect
of Rome, died on the twenty-sixth of September 1458, leaving two
bastards:—
Juan (Giovanni giuniore)....
Silvia, married Don Alonso Gomiel.
Of the two children of Doña Caterina de Borja by her husband Don Juan de
Mila, Baron of Mazalanes:—
(α) Don Luis Juan, Cardinal-Presbyter of Santi Quattro Coronati,
Bishop of Lerida, retired to his diocese on the death of his
August Uncle and Creator, and lived there secluded till his
death in 1507. (The career and character of this prince of the
church, cardinal at twenty, bishop at twenty-three, and during
those three years living in the very arcana of the pontifical
court; who then thought fit to bury himself in a remote
university city during half a century, while his nearest kin
were ruling Europe and Christendom, awaits, and should repay,
investigation.)
(β) Doña Adriana came to Italy, married Don Luigi Orsini, and had
issue Don Orso Orsini....
* * * * *
The chief personage of the House of Borja, on the death of the Lord
Calixtus P.P. III, was Cardinal Rodrigo, of the age of twenty-seven
years.
His position was a precarious one; and it is perfectly amazing that he
was not forced to follow his cousin, the Cardinal de Mila, into
permanent retirement. That he was able, not only to remain in Rome but
to carve out for himself a unique career there, undoubtedly is due to
those superb talents and alert vigour of character which have made him
such a prominent figure in history.
He had only two friends in Rome, the Cardinal Enea Silvio of Siena and
the Cardinal-Archdeacon Prospero Colonna. Quite unmoved by the hatred of
the other Purpled Ones, he entered the Conclave of 1458 for the election
of the new Pope, with no such stupid thing as a plan of action; but with
a determination to comport himself so, according as opportunities arose,
as to improve his position and his prospects. It was impossible to know
beforehand what steps he would have to take: he could be guided only by
circumstances. To a young man of such temper the gods send
opportunities. There arrived a deadlock in the Conclave; and of that
deadlock Cardinal Rodrigo seized the key.
* * * * *
There are five ways by which a Pope may be elected:—
(α) By Compromise—_i.e._, when the cardinals appoint a committee of
themselves with power to name the Pope:
(β) By Inspiration—_i.e._, when a number of cardinals put themselves
to shout the name of some cardinal, as “The
Cardinal-Prior-Presbyter is Pope,” or “The Cardinal-Archdeacon
is Pope;” by which method of shouting other voices are
attracted, and the minimum majority (of two-thirds plus one)
attained:
(γ) By Adoration—_i.e._, when the minimum majority (of two-thirds plus
one) of the cardinals go and adore a certain cardinal:
(δ) By Scrutiny—_i.e._, when each cardinal secretly records a vote:
(ε) By Accession—_i.e._, when, the scrutiny having failed to give the
minimum majority (of two-thirds plus one) to any cardinal, the
opponents of that cardinal, whose tally is the highest, shall
accede to him.
In the Conclave of 1458 the method of Compromise was not used, and no
cardinals were moved to proceed by Inspiration or to Adoration. Votes
were taken by the Scrutiny, which revealed an extraordinary state of
things. The French Cardinal d’Estouteville had a certain number of
votes; the Cardinal Enea Silvio of Siena had a higher number; but
neither had the minimum majority. The cardinals sat upon their green or
purple thrones, beneath their green or purple canopies, watching and
waiting for a sign.
Then the young Cardinal-Vicechancellor Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja rose up
and proclaimed: “I accede to the Lord Cardinal of Siena.” His friend and
ally, the Cardinal-Archdeacon Prospero Colonna, followed him: “I accede
to the Lord Cardinal of Siena.” Cardinal Teobaldi, who, as a Roman
citizen, followed Colonna, said also: “I accede to the Lord Cardinal of
Siena.” The three lowered their green and purple canopies. They were in
the presence of the Pope, in Whom all authority resides, before Whom
none may remain covered. The minimum majority had been attained. The
Lord Enea Silvio Bartolomeo de’ Piccolhuomini, sometime Caesar’s
ambassador in “the horrible and ultimate Britains” (Scotland), sometime
poet-laureate, novelist, historian, bishop, and cardinal, had become the
Lord Pius P.P. II.
By this act, which practically gave the proud triregno to his friend,
the Cardinal-Vicechancellor put himself into high favour with the new
Pontiff, Whose enchanting temperament delighted in the brilliance and
aptitude of the Borgia, and made his future the object of especial
interest.
* * * * *
Materials for the history of Cardinal Rodrigo during this reign are but
scanty, in the absence of opportunities for original research. In 1459,
he went a-holiday-making with the Lord Pius P.P. II, on a triumphal
progress through Florence; where the Holy Father chatted with a lovely
boy of seven years, called Lionardo da Vinci, bastard of a Florentine
notary and a contadina. They visited Siena; and Corsignano, where the
Pope’s Holiness was born, which He was pleased to rename Pienza, in
honour of His papal name, and to build there a cathedral, an episcopal
palace, and the Piccolhuomini palace for His Own family on the three
sides of the public square. By way of showing His confidence in the
Vicechancellor-Cardinal-Archdeacon (Archdeacon _vice_ Cardinal Prospero
Colonna), perhaps, also, to curb, with useful employment, the exuberance
of manlihood which had been giving evidence of revolt against the
convenances, the Lord Pius P.P. II left the superintendence of these
buildings in the hands of Cardinal Rodrigo, who has not scrupled to
adorn their façades with the armorials of the House of Borgia, _Or, a
bull passant gules on a field flory vert, within a bordure gules semée
of flammels, or_.
Vicechancellor-Cardinal-Archdeacon Rodrigo had lived the life of a
gallant handsome prince and man of the world of the fifteenth century,
in no wise differing from his antitype of the twentieth. The Renascence
had brought about an age when sensuousness degenerating into sensualism
was found in prominent places. It is difficult to see what else was to
be expected. “Ye can not serve God and Mammon.” Learning and art
essentially, radically, and necessarily are antagonistic to
Christianity, hard though that saying may be found. Towards them the
Church’s policy always has been a policy of compromise. “You may learn
the wisdom of the world, but you may not learn all,” She says; trying to
serve God, paltering the while with Mammon. “Nudus, Nudum Christum
sequens” went Beato Fra Francesco when he renounced the world; and the
Church compromises with St. Sebastian for Phoibos Apollon. Therefore, as
long as Grace and Nature are served up on the same dish, it is stupidly
unreasonable to hold up holy hands in horror when high ecclesiastical
dignitaries happen to comport themselves like human beings.
[Illustration: _Fridericus IV. Emperor._]
The twentieth century is no whit more chaste than the fifteenth, and can
ill afford to cast a stone. Nor was the fifteenth century the stew of
universal depravity which some would have us believe it to have been. It
was unmoral as the twentieth is immoral. But there were pure and
maid-white souls then, as there are now; and the difference between the
fifteenth century and the twentieth is a mere difference of fashion.
Now, we pretend to be immaculate; then, they bragged of being vile. Much
of the literature of the fifteenth century is most suitably presented in
the original. Poets and historians, especially historians, allowed
little scope for exercise of the imagination. The convention of
concealment, of suggestion, had not been invented. Messeri Stefano
Infessura and Benedetto Varchi rank among the most eminent chroniclers
of their day; certainly the Latin of the one, and the Tuscan of the
other, would serve for models: but a complete unbowdlerised translation
of the former’s Journal of Roman Affairs (_Diarium Rerum Romanum_), or
of the latter’s Florentine History (_Storia Fiorentina_), incontinently
would be suppressed by the police. Yet it would be absurd to conclude
that these writers, or others of their kidney, have given a just account
of the morals of their age. “The divorce court and the police news do
not reflect the state of morality in England. No more do Juvenal’s
Satires give us a complete or impartial picture of Roman society. We
must read side by side with them the contemporary letters of Pliny,
which give a very different picture, and also weigh the evidence offered
by inscriptions.” (E. G. Hardy. Satires of Juvenal, p. xliv.) That is
the spirit in which the student of the fifteenth century should approach
his task. He will read all, and hear all sides, and form his own
conclusion, which, at best, must be a faulty one, until the secrets of
all hearts are known.
The Vicechancellor-Cardinal-Archdeacon was a human being. If he were, as
Gaspar Veronensis describes him at a later date, “a comely man, of
cheerful countenance and honeyed discourse, who gains the affections of
all the women he admires, and attracts them as the loadstone attracts
iron,” what must he have been in the glow of his superb youth? This is
not by any means a suitable reputation for a churchman; and only its
non-singularity prevents it from being a disgraceful one. Viewed from a
theological stand-point, Cardinal Rodrigo’s carnal lusts are, of course,
wholly indefensible: but this work is an attempt at the study of certain
human beings prominent in history; and not a theological treatise nor an
act of the _advocatus diaboli_. The Lord Pius P.P. II has said, “If
there are good reasons for enjoining celibacy of the clergy, there are
better and stronger auguments for insisting on their marriage”; and that
Supreme Pontiff was far and away the wisest and most observing man of
His Own (or perhaps of any) time.
Therefore, it is suggested that, knowing of the proclivities of Cardinal
Rodrigo, being in truth his firm friend, desirous that he should live up
to the obligations of his rank, and, above all, actuated by a sense of
duty as Christ’s Vicar, the Pope’s Holiness set him to supervise the
buildings at Pienza—to keep him out of mischief.
In 1460 was born Don Pedro Luis de Borja, bastard of the said
Cardinal-Archdeacon and a spinster (soluta). The child was openly
acknowledged and honourably reared.
About this time the Lord Pius P.P. II wrote a letter, to remonstrate
with Cardinal Rodrigo and with the Lord Giacopo Ammanati,
Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Crisogono, concerning their
divergences from ecclesiastical discipline. It is a genial and paternal
letter, in which frank hatred of Sin is displayed with affection for the
sinners. Cardinal Rodrigo replied, correcting some mis-statements of
fact: but, that the Pope’s Holiness was not satisfied, appears from a
second letter of a firmer and more admonitory nature. Much has been made
of this correspondence by some writers, whose pose is to think
ungenerously of ecclesiastics. It should be noted, however, that the
Lord Pius P.P. II took exception to certain long visits which those
cardinals paid to ladies of their acquaintance, and to nothing more.
Apparently there was nothing more of which to complain; and the fact
that the Pope’s Holiness should deem these visits to be indiscretions on
the part of ecclesiastics, goes to prove rather the extreme and strict
solicitude of the Holy Father for the spiritual welfare of his flock,
than any dissolute conduct of the two cardinals. But the defamers of
Cardinal Rodrigo misrepresent the said visits in the worst possible
light, as nocturnal orgies and debaucheries; and long night visits
obviously would constitute a grave and serious scandal. The
misrepresentation very likely is due to careless ignorance. The fact is,
that the Italian method of computing time in the fifteenth century is
deceptive to the superficial student. Something is known of the dials of
Italy which count the hours up to 24 o’clock; and when it is said that
Cardinal Rodrigo paid visits to ladies in their gardens “from the 17th
to the 22nd hour,” instantly cynical carelessness predicates nocturnal
orgies. But when it is understood that, in the fifteenth century, the
first hour began at half an hour after sunset, and that the visits took
place in time of summer, it will be realised that Cardinal Rodrigo
simply went to the mid-day dinner, and left his friends an hour and a
half before sunset: which may have been indiscreet, but certainly was
not essentially criminal, as some would have us believe. But when the
careless or wilful calumniator sets out to ruin a reputation, he finds
it an easy thing to twist a fault into a crime.
The Vicechancellor-Cardinal-Archdeacon is recorded to have astonished
Rome with the splendour of the arras adorning the outside of his palace
on the Festival of Corpus Domini, 1461. The buildings at Pienza occupied
him through 1462. Of 1463 there is no history with which he is
connected.
In 1464 “an aged man, with head of snow and trembling limbs,” took the
rose-red cross in the Basilica of St. Peter at Rome. This was no other
than the Sovereign Pontiff, the Lord Pius P.P. II, unique in all
history, Who, as an example to the apathetic potentates of Christendom,
went, dying as He was, a crusader against the Muslim Infidel. Cardinal
Rodrigo was in attendance upon His Holiness in that terrible journey in
parching summer heat across Italy to the Adriatic; where, while waiting
for the fleet, at Ancona, in August, the Lord Pius P.P. II died.
Cardinal Rodrigo, stricken by fever there, unable to return to Rome for
the Conclave, was obliged to forego his official privilege as
Cardinal-Archdeacon, the crowning of the Lord Paul P.P. II on the
sixteenth of September.
This Pontiff (lately the Lord Pietro Barbo, Cardinal of Venice) wished,
on His election, to take the name Formosus, in allusion to His handsome
person. It was a naïve age, when men hid neither their vices nor their
virtues; and the story possibly may be true: but it is very likely to be
one of the spiteful little distortions of motive, which ecclesiastics of
all ages are wont to ascribe each to other. The Popes, after the first
six centuries, have never shown much originality in choosing Their
pontifical names, and generally fall back upon the name of one of Their
immediate predecessors. At present the changes are rung upon Pius, Leo,
and Gregory; the fifteenth century had a wider range: but many of the
lovely old names, such as Anacletus, Fabian, Felix, Silvester, Hadrian,
Victor, Evaristus, were buried in oblivion. It is far more kind to
suppose that the Lord Cardinal of Venice had the idea of reviving the
beautiful name of the Lord Formosus P.P., Who reigned from 891 to 896,
and was the hundred and twelfth Pope from the Lord St. Peter P.P.
Persuaded against this course by the cardinals, He spent two hundred
thousand fiorini d’oro on a triregno set with sapphires; built St.
Mark’s Palace (Palazzo Venezia) at the end of the Corso in Rome; and
instituted carnival races of riderless horses (called Bárberi, as a pun
upon his name), and of Jews heavily clothed in garments of thick wool
and stuffed to the throat with cake. In 1467 was born Madonna Girolama
de Borja, bastard of the Vicechancellor-Cardinal-Archdeacon, by an
unknown mother. The child was openly acknowledged and honourably reared.
During this reign Cardinal Rodrigo remained in favour; and, on account
of his fine presence and habitude to curial manners, he was chosen to
receive, at Viterbo, Caesar Friedrich IV, The Pacific, coming on a
state-visit to the Pope in 1469.
At the death of the Lord Paul P.P. II, Cardinal Rodrigo de Lançol y
Borja, Cardinal Guillaume d’ Estouteville, and Cardinal Ioannes
Bessarione were the only foreigners in the Conclave of 1471. Once more
the Vicechancellor-Cardinal-Archdeacon was clever enough to put a Pope
under an obligation, by leading an accession to Cardinal Francesco della
Rovere, who thereby was elected, and chose to be called the Lord Xystus
P.P. IV. All the chroniclers save one allege that this Pope owed His
election to the accession of Cardinals de Borja, Orsini, and Gonzaga of
Mantua, who reaped rich rewards in the shape of benefices and
preferments. The Pope’s Holiness gave to Cardinal Rodrigo the wealthy
Abbey of Subjaco _in commendam_; who left a memorial of his abbatial
tenure in the tower which he added to the castle of Subjaco, where the
armorials of the House of Borgia still remain. The last official act of
Cardinal Rodrigo, as Archdeacon of the Holy Roman Church, appears to
have been the coronation of the Lord Xystus P.P. IV on the twenty-fifth
of August 1471. After that he was ordained priest, and consecrated
bishop, and elevated to the rank of Cardinal-Bishop of Albano, one of
the seven sub-urban sees. He continued to hold the Vicechancellorship;
and, in this capacity, he built for himself in Rome a palace on Banchi
Vecchi, which, even in that sumptuous epoch, excited extravagant
admiration. A little less than a third of it is now the huge Palazzo
Sforza-Cesarini on Piazza Sforza-Cesarini, nearly opposite to the
Oratory, called Chiesa Nuova. Since the unification of Italy in 1870, a
new wide street (Corso Vittoremanuele) has been driven through the city,
necessitating the demolition of more than two-thirds of Cardinal
Rodrigo’s building, and the construction of an undistinguished modern
façade on the modern street: but the remaining courts, whose frontage is
still on Banchi Vecchi, are more or less _in statu quo_. The history of
the passing of this palace into the hands of Sforza-Cesarini belongs to
a later page.
On the twenty-third of December 1471 Cardinal Rodrigo was sent as Legate
_a latere_ to Spain, to preach a new Crusade against the Muslim Infidel.
It is a curious thing that while he was unpopular in Italy on account of
his Spanish origin, he was unpopular also in Spain where they considered
him an Italian; a most ridiculous confusion, for Don Rodrigo de Lançol y
Borja was a pure Spaniard by birth, descent, aspect, character, tastes,
and habit, and so continued until his life’s end, in no way influenced
or modified by his long residence in Italy. During his absence, the Lord
Xystus P.P. IV built the Xystine Chapel of the Vatican; and called to
Rome, from the gardens at Florence of Lorenzo de’ Medici his patron, the
vivacious and bizarre Messer Alessandro Filipepi (nicknamed Botticelli),
wondrous pupil of Fra Lippo Lippi, of Masaccio, of Beato Giovangelico da
Fiesole, to decorate its walls with frescoes _in tempera_, the colours
of which are mixed with the yelks of country-laid eggs for the deeper
tints, and of town-laid eggs for the paler tints, according to the rules
of Messer Cennino Cennini who wrote in 1437. In 1471 the bronze antique,
known as _Il Spinario_, was found on the Capitol.
About this time the Lord Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja, now Cardinal-Bishop
of Porto, Vicechancellor of the Holy Roman Church, and of the age of
three and forty years, maintained irregular relations with Madonna
Giovanna de’ Catanei, a Roman lady, born the thirteenth of July 1442,
and of the age of thirty-two years, wife to one Don Giorgio della Croce.
Whether her husband was used to trade in his wife’s favours (like the
criminal who, as late as 1780, was marched through Rome wearing a
pasteboard mitre labelled _cornuto voluntario contento_), is a matter
for conjecture. But, in 1474, Madonna Giovanna gave birth to a son, Don
Cesare, who is called Borgia; and it is claimed that Cardinal Rodrigo
was his father. As far as historical research has gone, no evidence has
been found to prove that Cardinal Rodrigo ever directly denied
paternity; and, as he was undoubtedly deeply in love with Madonna
Giovanna, and intimate with her during ten subsequent years, it is
probable that his reticence was actuated by kindly feelings. But there
is a very strong suspicion that another cardinal, in every way the
notorious and life-long rival of Cardinal Rodrigo, was the father of
this child; and many mysterious historical inconsistencies would be
explained by the establishment of the truth of this suspicion. However,
for the present, merely the birth in 1474 of Don Cesare (detto Borgia)
is recorded, and the question of his paternity will be examined at a
proper place.
In 1475 Madonna Giovanna de’ Catanei bore, to Cardinal Rodrigo, Don Juan
Francisco de Borja, to whom (after the death in 1481 of Don Pedro Luis
de Borja) his father ever gave the honours and the affection which are
due to an eldest son and heir. This is the most important circumstantial
evidence against Don Cesare’s right to the name of Borgia.
In January of the same year, Cardinal Rodrigo was deputed, with a nephew
of the Lord Xystus P.P. IV, one Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, who, as
a lad, had peddled onions in a boat between Arbisola and Genoa, to
welcome King Don Ferrando I of Naples at Tarracina, on the occasion of
his state-visit to the Holy See. Three days later, Cardinal Rodrigo said
mass for his Majesty at San Paolo _extra muros_ when the king was
leaving for Colonna’s fief at Marino, where English envoys from King
Edward IV Plantagenet, who had just conferred the Most Noble Order of
the Garter upon Duke Francesco Sforza-Visconti of Milan, were waiting
with a similar attention for the King of Naples.
On the tenth of June 1476 the plague appeared in Rome, and the Lord
Xystus P.P. IV, attended by Cardinal Rodrigo, removed His court to
Viterbo, where cooler air lessened the danger of contagion.
In 1478 was the hideous Conspiracy of the Pazzi at Florence, which
created no small stir in all Italy. Also in this year Madonna Giovanna
de’ Catanei bore, to Cardinal Rodrigo, Madonna Lucrezia Borgia.
On the first of October 1480, “Xystus, Bishop, Servant of the servants
of God, to His beloved son Cesare (de Borja), a scholar of the age of
six years,” sent “greeting and the Apostolic Benediction,” and dispensed
him from the necessity of proving the legitimacy of his birth; a rule
which must be observed (in the absence of a dispensation) by whoever
shall wish to become eligible for ecclesiastical benefices.
In 1481 died Don Pedro Luis de Borja, the eldest bastard of the
Vicechancellor-Cardinal Rodrigo. He was of the age of twenty-one years,
and betrothed to a mere child, the Princess Doña Maria de Aragona. Also,
in 1481, Madonna Giovanna de’ Catanei bore, to Cardinal Rodrigo, Don
Gioffredo Borgia.
On the twenty-fourth of January 1482, Madonna Girolama Borgia, bastard
of the Vicechancellor-Cardinal by an unknown mother, was married, at the
age of fifteen years, to Don Giovandrea Cesarini, scion of a Roman
baronial house of Imperial origin. The same year, on the sixteenth of
August, the Lord Xystus P.P. IV named Cardinal Rodrigo administrator of
all benefices that should be conferred upon Don Cesare (detto Borgia)
until the latter reached the age of fourteen years. There is a second
brief of this date, from “Xystus, Bishop, Servant of the servants of
God, to His beloved son Master Cesare (de Borgia),” naming the child
Canon of Valencia and “Our Notary”; little bits of preferment producing
sufficient revenues for his education. These three briefs relating to
Don Cesare, are found in the Secret Archives of the Dukes of Osuña and
Infantado, whose line was extinguished in 1882 at the death of Don
Mariano (v. suggested genealogical tree).
* * * * *
In 1484 died the Lord Xystus P.P. IV, and the Genoese Cardinal Cibo
ascended the papal throne under the title of the Lord Innocent P.P.
VIII.
During the six and twenty years that had elapsed between the death of
the Lord Calixtus P.P. III and the accession of the Lord Innocent P.P.
VIII, the position of the Vicechancellor-Cardinal Rodrigo considerably
was changed. Then, he was a young man with only two friends; a junior
Cardinal-Deacon surrounded by a host of enemies. Now he was in his ripe
maturity, senior member of the Sacred College, Dean of the
Cardinal-Bishops, Vicechancellor of the Church, powerful enough to be
able to command as many friends as he might choose to have—and rich
enough to buy; rich beyond the richest of that rich age, from the
revenues of his numerous benefices; and in rank second only to the Pope
Himself. To such a man, with the paramount ambition and magnificence of
Cardinal Rodrigo, only one thing in all the world remained for him to
do. He deliberately set himself to capture the triregno.
There is no chronicle of his history during the eight years’ reign of
the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII. Evidently he withdrew himself from the
public life of the curia, from the splendour of legations, to nurse his
revenues, to ingratiate himself with those who, in the next Conclave,
would have the crowning or the crushing of his hopes. With the wisdom of
the serpent and the harmlessness of the dove he was to build his house:
but, first, like the prudent man, he counted the cost. Cardinal Rodrigo
was far too polished a diplomatist, far too keen a man of business, to
neglect long and meticulous preparation. He perfectly knew his
century—indeed, as an organiser, he would have been illustrious in any
century—; and, with wisest generalship, he made ready his forces against
the striking of the hour for action. The smoothness with which the
machinery ran in the Conclave of 1492, makes it plain, to the least
experienced student of human affairs, that a master-mind had designed
the gear, to ensure a minimum of friction and an exact performance.
* * * * *
In September 1484 the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII named Don Cesare (detto
Borgia), who was now of the age of ten years, Treasurer of the Cathedral
of Cartagena (Carthago Nova).
In 1485, the year of the supposed murder in England of King Edward V
Plantagenet and of his brother Duke Richard of York, there died in Rome
Don Giorgio della Croce, husband of Madonna Giovanna de’ Catanei. On the
seventh of June 1486 she married Don Carlo de Canale, a noble of Mantua,
and from this time her irregular relations with Cardinal Rodrigo ceased.
In an age when trade was not considered disgraceful, except for
patricians, when even the greatest artists kept shops (not studios by
way of compromise, but regular shops, _botteghe_, like the blacksmiths
or the cobblers), it is not shocking to know that Madonna Giovanna owned
an inn in the Region of Ponte. This does not mean that she performed the
duties of a female boniface. She was a very great lady, bien-vue in
Roman society, with a lovely villa near San Pietro _ad Vincula_; but she
certainly drew a comfortable income from the Lion Inn (Albergo di
Leone), opposite the Tordinona, in the Via del Orso, which was then a
street of inns for foreigners. The Tordinona, from whose upper window
dangled a permanent and generally tenanted noose for evildoers, has now
disappeared: but the cavernous cellars of the Lion Inn, formerly filled
with wine on which, by pontifical favour, no tax was levied, remain
exactly as they were when the Spanish cardinal’s mistress was their
owner.
Deprived of the society of Madonna Giovanna de’ Catanei, Cardinal
Rodrigo, in the fifty-fifth year of his age, amused himself with the
high-born maiden, Madonna Giulia Farnese, nicknamed in Rome _La Bella_,
who was betrothed and afterwards married to Don Orso Orsini, himself of
Borgian descent (v. suggestion for a genealogical tree). A faded
representment of her marvellously brilliant beauty may be seen in the
mannered fresco by Messer Bernardo Betti (detto Pinturicchio) in the
Borgia Tower of the Vatican, where she was painted as Madonna; or on the
tomb of her brother Alessandro (afterwards the Lord Paul P.P. III) in
the Basilica of St. Peter, where she was sculptured in marble by Messer
Guglielmo della Porta as a naked Truth (clumsily draped, after an
erotomaniac Spanish student of theology had taken the statue for
Lucian’s goddess Kuthereia). The fruit of her early intrigue with
Cardinal Rodrigo was Madonna Laura, detto Orsini, born in 1489, and
adopted by Don Orso Orsini, the husband of Madonna Giulia.
The reign of the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII is notable for the extreme of
lawlessness into which lax government had let Rome fall. The Sovereign
Pontiff was a family man, Who openly acknowledged the paternity of seven
bastards, and Whose chief concern appears to have been their settlement
in life. A son, Don Franciotto Cibo, a silly avaricious weakling, He
married to Madonna Maddalena, daughter of Lorenzo de’ Medici; His
daughter He married to Messer Gheraldo Usodimare, a rich merchant of
Genoa; the wedding-feast took place at the Vatican, the Pope’s Holiness
presiding; and so the world was made to lose sight of the high ideals of
the Papacy, as exemplified by the Lord Pius P.P. II, and to regard the
Supreme Pontiff in the light of a mere monarch, a mere man. Cardinal
Piero Riario, in 1473, had bargained with Duke Galeazzo Maria
Sforza-Visconti of Milan to create him King of Lombardy, in return for
money and troops, by the aid of which he himself might ascend the papal
throne, his uncle, the Lord Xystus P.P. IV being willing to abdicate in
his favour: and, but for the sudden death of Cardinal Piero, this
abominable scheme would not have lacked completion.
Nicholas had been a scholar and a gentleman; Calixtus, a zealous
strenuous champion of an impractical cause; Pius, a gentle saintly
genius and skilful statesman; Paul, a noble figure-head; Xystus, a
plebeian nepotist; and Innocent was a lethargic paterfamilias. Naturally
the condition of a kingdom, under such a series of sovereigns
(considering the Popes in their temporal, and not in their spiritual
capacity), would go from bad to worse.
Yet Letters and the Arts were flourishing, as in the golden reign of the
Lord Nicholas P.P. V. Canon Angelo Ambrogini (detto Poliziano) was
showing, in his fine hymn _In Divam Virginem_, that it is possible to
write Christian verse in Latin good as Golden; and in his ‘Ερωτικὸν
Δωριστί and Ἐρωτικὸν περι του χρυσοκομου that a clergyman of the
fifteenth century, whose Greek was not learned at school or college,
could indite as dainty verses as Theokritos. Can the twentieth century
visualise the fifteenth? Can the twentieth century realise how poor the
fifteenth was in material which every board-school boy may have to-day
for the asking? The title of the book “De Omnibus Rebus et Quibusdam
Aliis,” provokes a guffaw now. Then it was used in sober earnest; for,
then, it was possible for one man to know all that was known—so little
was there known in the fifteenth century. Dante Alighieri knew all, at
the beginning of the fourteenth. Lionardo da Vinci knew all at the
beginning of the sixteenth—literally all. Go and look at his manuscript
note-books, and see what divers things he knew, to what depth of
knowledge he had delved, how ingenious an application he made of the
wisdom that he had gained; his inventions of conical bullets, of boats
with paddle-wheels, of flying machines, of a cork-apparatus for walking
on water. Consider that he was machinist, engineer, architect, and
mathematician, constructor of artillery, fortifications, canals, and
drains; and that, incidentally, he painted pictures, the lost “Cenacolo”
at Milan, which the whole world knows—lost, because Messer Lionardo made
the experiment of painting fresco in oil. Mark, too, in the note-books,
how artfully and easily he wrote from right to left, to keep his
knowledge from vulgar superficial eyes that pried. Mark his fluent
gesture, his decisive master-strokes, and the little illuminating
diagrams with which he illustrated every page. Can the twentieth century
understand that the Italian mind of the fifteenth, in the absence of
material, was concentrated on workmanship? Hence the marvels of
handicraft which we use for models now, carving, metalwork, and textile
design. The workmanship was everything then, in Art and in Letters also.
“So long as the form was elegant, according to their standard of taste,
the latinity copious and sound, the subject-matter of a book raised no
scruples. Students of eminent sobriety, like Guarino da Verona, thought
it no harm to welcome Boccadelli’s _Hermaphroditus_ with admiration;
while the excellent Nicholas V. spent nine days perusing the filthy
satires of Filelfo.” (_Symonds’ Renascence_ II. 574.) The workmanship
was everything. The civilisation of the fifteenth century was as high as
that of the twentieth, in conception and production of the beautiful.
But clearly let it be realised that “civilisation has nothing to do with
morality or immorality”; that “great reformers generally destroy the
beautiful”; that “high civilisation is generally immoral.” The age of
the Renascence, which found nothing shameful in the profession of the
ἑταίρα (if we may judge from the epitaph of one, _Imperia, Cortisana
Romana, quae digna tanto nomine, rarae inter homines formae specimen
dedit. Vixit a. XXVI. d. XII. Objit MDXL. die XV. Aug._), though free
from the hypocrisy engendered by the German Reformation of a later date
(which the maxim “Si non caste tamen caute” so admirably describes), was
frankly and unblushingly unmoral, as far as a proportion of its leaders
was concerned. Yet its unmorality was kept within certain bounds, and
circumscribed by a force which, now, is no restraint. Printing was in
its infancy. Written books were few, and very costly. In Milan, a city
of two hundred thousand inhabitants, there were only fifty copyists. Not
till 1465, in the reign of the Lord Paul P.P. II, was there a
printing-press in Italy, at Subjaco in the Sabine Hills; while Florence
had no press till 1471. And, at first, printed books were regarded with
disfavour by reason of their cheapness. One rich man said that he would
be ashamed to have them in his library, as now a rich man would be
ashamed to have Brummagem electro instead of hall-marked silver. Yet, by
means of ambulant printers, who printed only one page at a time on a
hand-press in a mule-cart (and who were the pioneers of that curse to
real civilization, the printed book), before 1500 no fewer than 4987
works had been printed in Italy alone. Here again the fifteenth century
passion for perfect workmanship came into play. Look at an Aldine
Classic, and mark its exquisite form. Messer Aldo Manuzio of Venice set
a great artist, Messer Francesco Raibolini (detto II Francia), who
painted the dulcet Pietá in the National Gallery, to cut a fount of type
after the lovely handwriting of the poet Petrarch. That is the Aldine,
or original Italic type; the script of a fourteenth-century singer. Can
the twentieth century, with its manifold appliances, its labour-saving
machinery, better that handiwork, or approach that design; or would a
Royal Academician condescend to cut types for a printer! Look at the
portrait-medals and pictures of the day to see of what fashion were
these elaborately simple men of the fifteenth century:—The English type,
sturdy, recondite, and simple; the French type, simple and light and
vain; the Italian, subtle and simple and strong—an English Hospitaller,
a French cardinal, an Italian scholar called, The Phoenix of Genius;
John Kendal, Grand Prior of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem in
England; Cardinal-Archbishop Georges d’Amboise; and Messer Giovanni Pico
della Mirandola; on their medals in the British, and Victoria and
Albert, Museums. The painters of this era, after Giotto, had emancipated
themselves from the domination of the Church. They refused any longer to
be bound by that decree of the Council of Nicaea (a.d. 787), which
calmly, inexorably, and altogether justifiably ordained:—_It is not the
invention of the painter which creates the picture; but an inviolable
law, a tradition of the Church. It is not the painter, but the holy
fathers, who have to invent and dictate. To them, manifestly, belongs
the composition; to the painter, only the execution._ The fifteenth
century was the century of broken bonds—bonds of discipline, bonds of
morality. Men tasted liberty, had discovered Man; and, like schoolboys
breaking bounds, playing truant, dazed in some rich orchard, they
revelled and rollicked among fruits hitherto forbidden, potentialities
long-dormant now alive. Unaccustomed sight had yet but imperfect
impressions. Men saw “men as trees walking”; but as far as they went the
impressions were vivid, life-like, true. Study the mercilessly precise
drawings of Cavaliere Andrea Mantegna, the Lombard, pupil of Squarcione,
who painted for the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII that chapel on the Belvedere
which was destroyed by the Lord Pius P.P. VI, and who won his knighthood
by painting for the Marquess Don Francesco de Gonzaga of Mantua. Study
the works of Messer Luca Signorelli, “the first and last painter except
Michelangelo to use the body without sentiment, without voluptuousness,
without any secondary intention whatsoever, as the supreme decorative
principle” (_Symonds’ Renascence_); who, having had killed at Cortona
his young and splendid son, stripped the body naked, and, with iron
nerve, painted from it during a day and a night, “that he might be able,
through the work of his own hand, to contemplate that which nature had
given him, but which an adverse fortune had taken away.” (_Vasari._)
Above all, study Messer Alessandro Filipepi (detto Botticelli), who,
having finished the chapel of the Lord Xystus P. P. IV, was back again
in Florence, painting for Lorenzo de’ Medici. How many of the Medici he
put into his pictures we never shall know; but if ever a painter painted
from the life Alessandro Filipepi was that painter; and, with a little
sympathetic ingenuity, one can trace at least a single precious portrait
through his pictures, and into the pictures of another and more
conventional painter; and, in this way, learn what like was one very
prominent personality of the Borgian Era, as παίς, μειράκιον, σιδεύνης,
ἐφήβος, ανδρός· Study the angel-boys and San Giambattista in the round
Madonna of the National Gallery and the round Coronation of Madonna at
the Uffizi. Study the Hermes Ptenopedilos in the Primavera that
Botticelli painted on the verses of Lucretius Carus (737–740) as a
setting for a portrait of an unknown lady of the House of Medici. And
study the limber San Sebastiano at Berlin. Then study murdered
Giuliano’s bastard, the Lord Giulio de’ Medici, Archbishop of Florence,
Knight of St. John of Jerusalem, and Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria _in
Domnica_, in the portrait of the myopic Lord Leo P.P. X by Messer
Rafaele Sanzio da Urbino. So shall a lean, muscular, vivid, thoughtful,
pious, unmoral, voluptuous yet hardy, typical, young Italian of the
Borgian Era be clearly, intimately, seen and known. And the medals:—Note
how that the medallists have not learned to flatter or idealise; that,
what they saw in their model, that they chiselled in perennial bronze.
Note the character, the distinguished individuality, here preserved; the
Sforza medals, for example, with their clean, compelling, vigorous,
venomous, Greek profiles, which that illustrious House got (and
preserves to this day in Prince Guido Sforza and his sister Princess
Carolina Corsini) from Countess Polissena Russa of Montalto, who married
Duke Francesco. Observe, from their manner of clothing him, how these
people worshipped Man. Not for them was the concealment of his grace in
dented fractured cylinders. Every natural line must be preserved, every
contour displayed, in that age of unconventional realism. The frescoes
of Messer Bernardo Betti (detto Pinturicchio), in the cathedral library
of Siena, are said to be the fashion-plates of the day and month
(1503–1507), done by an eminent artist. And the fabrics of which they
made their clothes were fine and simple; for the uses of shoddy were not
known. Sumptuous brocades, fairest linen of flax, furs from the East,
and delicate enduring leather, adorned those men and women who had not
learned to change their garments as often as they changed their minds;
and who went to bed at night simply as nature made them. That they were
meticulously clean, is witnessed by the embossed basins and ewers for
frequent washings, the hanging lavabo on the wall of every room (when
washing was a ceremonial habit), the elaborate supplies of water, the
baths of macerated sweet herbs, glasswort, white lily, marsh-mallow, and
lupin-meal, alkaline, mucilaginous, emollient, demulcent, which were the
substitute for soap. Care for the personal appearance was extreme.
Little signs show this. For example, the twentieth century man,
confection of his hosier and his tailor, plays with watch-chain, stick,
or card-case; the writer, hesitating over the turning of a phrase or
waiting for the just word, rolls a cigarette; the painter, considering
an effect, dabbles in a tobacco-jar and lights a pipe. Man has a natural
craving to employ his hands. In similar situations, Messer Lionardo da
Vinci’s model and studio-boy, the curly-headed Salaino, would bring
rosewater and towel to refresh his master’s fingers; Canon Angelo
Ambrogini (detto Poliziano) would take out an ivory comb and comb his
long straight hair; and a dandy anxiously would study his image in
polished metal mirrors set like bosses on his dagger sheath, or chew
comfits of coriander-seeds, steeped in marjoram vinegar and crusted with
sugar, to bring a special commodity to the memory. In an age when
personal and private functions were pursued after the methods of cats or
dogs according to the temperament of the pursuer, when that which is now
called sanitation was unknown, great and incessant efforts in the way of
cleanliness were imperative; and he who insistently displayed, who
publicly exhibited, his cleanly habits, naturally enjoyed the
consideration and approval of his equally modish contemporaries. And
they were practically pious too, these hardy ardent exquisites, who shed
an enemy’s blood as remorselessly as though murder were a natural
function. They would weep real tears of devotion over the drama of the
Passion of our Divine Redeemer enacted in the ruined Colosseo of Rome;
and, afterwards, zealously adjourn with knives to the houses of known
Jews, or perfervidly hunt the dark lanes of the city for any of the
accursed race who was so misguided as to show his yellowpatched jerkin
on the street. The Venetians had a penchant for holy relics, and deemed
no sacrifice too great for increasing their collection. In 1455, the
republic made a bid of ten thousand ducats for the Seamless Coat, now at
Treves, and ordained days of humiliation when the offer was refused. The
Doge of Venice was obliged officially to assist at twelve public
processions in each year. To please the piety and vanity of Florence,
Lorenzo de’ Medici personally applied to the city of Spoleto for the
corpse of the painter Fra Lippo Lippi; but Spoleto answered that it had
none too many ornaments as a city, especially in the shape of the
cadavers of distinguished people, and begged to be excused. “The men of
the Renascence were so constituted that, to turn, from vice and cruelty
and crime, from the deliberate corruption and enslavement of a people by
licentious pleasures, from the persecution of an enemy in secret, with a
fervid and impassioned movement of the soul to God, was nowise
impossible. Their temper admitted of this anomaly, as we may plainly see
from Cellini’s autobiography.” (_Symonds’ Renascence._)
* * * * *
The Lord Innocent P.P. VIII made no impression on His age; as a despot,
He was an accented failure. “The Patrimony of St. Peter would be the
most delightful country in the world if it were not for Colonna and
Orsini,” said the Sieur Philippe de Comines, Orator of the Christian
King Louis XI of France. The States of the Church became a seething
cauldron of lawlessness and licence. Rome herself, “where everything
that is shameful or horrible collects and is practised” (_Tacitus_),
swarmed with assassins, professional and amateur. Every man who valued
his personal safety put on a mail-shirt when he left his naked bed, and
set no foot in the streets till he had buckled a sword, or at least a
dagger, by his side. The very perfection of these fifteenth century
mail-shirts, which could be hidden in two hands, and yet were proof
against a thrust or cut at closest quarters, tells its own tale. The
trade of an armourer became an honourable art and mystery, when men
staked their lives at every turn, as men callously stake money now on
their convictions or opinions. A whole embassage from Maximilian, King
of the Romans, as the heir of Caesar Friedrich IV was styled, was
assailed by brigands and stripped to the shirts in sight of Rome.
In July 1492 the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII showed signs of decay, the
feebleness of age increased, and He was only kept alive by women’s milk.
Modern chroniclers of His last hours have fallen into serious error, in
relating that the operation for transfusion of blood was performed by a
Hebrew chirurgeon upon the Holiness of the Pope without accomplishing
its end. The error arises from forgetfulness of the facts: (α) that the
idea of the operation for transfusion could not occur to any one to whom
the circulation of the blood was unknown; (β) that the phenomenon of the
circulation of the blood was not discovered by Harvey until the
seventeenth century. Before the circulation of the blood was known, the
visible veins were taken for sinews. Verrochio thought them to be sinews
when he carved them on the lean young arms of his alert David. The blood
was conceived of as stagnant in the flesh; the heartbeats as a pulsing
of the bowels. If the idea of transferring blood from a healthy to a
feeble body had occurred to any one of them, the ordinary fifteenth
century chirurgeons would not have been contented with a single
incision, but would have filled up the weak body through numerous
apertures, to be closed with the red hot cautery as usual; and the
patient most certainly would have died under the operation, of syncope,
caused, not by loss, but by acquisition of blood. Modern historians have
misunderstood the words with which Infessura and Raynaldus describe the
death of this Pope: and their misunderstanding further is caused by a
casual and superficial knowledge of the pharmacy of the fifteenth
century. Infessura and Raynaldus say that a certain Jewish physician
promised to the Pope’s Holiness the restoration of His health; that he
took three boys of the age of ten years, giving to them a ducat a-piece,
saying that he wished to restore the Pope’s health, and that he required
for that purpose a certain quantity of human blood, which must be young;
that he drew all the blood out of those three boys; that the said boys
incontinently died; that, when the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII knew, He
execrated the crime of the Jew and gave order for his arrest; that the
Jew had taken himself by flight out of the reach of the torturers; and
that the Pope received no cure. This, Dr. Mandell Creighton and Mr. John
Addington Symonds call transfusion of blood. They appear to be unaware
of the fifteenth century passion for sublimation and distillation: and
they appear to have missed this sentence of Raynaldus, _ut ex eo_ (the
young blood) _pharmacum stillicidium chimica arte paratum propinandum
Pontifici conficeret_; which plainly shows that it was a draught, a
drink,[21] the quintessence of the boys’ blood, prepared by his
alchymical art, with which the Hebrew physician was going to fail to
save the life of the Pope.
* * * * *
These were the times, and the men, which the Vicechancellor-Cardinal
Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja had to deal.
* * * * *
=Book the Second=
The Roaring Blaze
“_A fire that is kindled begins with smoke and hissing, while it lays
hold upon the faggots; bursts into a roaring blaze with raging
tongues of flame, devouring all in reach_;
The subject of this book has furnished occasion for liars of all
ages—reckless liars, venal liars, raving liars, careless liars, clever
liars, and futile liars, to perform their functions.
The Lord Innocent P.P. VIII died on the twenty-fifth of July 1492. The
Lord Rafaele Galeotti Sansoni-Riarjo, Cardinal-Deacon of San Giorgio _in
Velum Aureum_, Cardinal-Chamberlain of the Holy Roman Church, sent
guards to seize and hold the gates of Rome. _Caporioni_, priors of the
fourteen Regions, patrolled the city to deal with seditions and
disorders. Patarina, the great bell on Capitol, that only tolls when the
Pope is dead, knelled unceasingly.
At this time the Sacred College consisted of seven and twenty cardinals.
Four of these were absent in distant sees, and were unable to reach the
Eternal City in the nine days at their disposal. They were:—
(α) The Lord Luis Juan de Mila y Borja, Cardinal-Prior-Presbyter of
the Title of Santi Quattro Coronati;
(β) The Lord Pedro Gonsalvo de Mendoza, Cardinal-Presbyter of the
Title of Santa Croce _in Gerusalemme_;
(γ) The Lord André Spinay, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San
Martino _in Monte t.t. Equitii_;
(δ) Frère Pierre d’Aubusson, Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes,
Cardinal-Deacon of Sant’ Adriano.
Twenty-one cardinals entered the Conclave. They were:—
(α) The Lord Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja, Cardinal-Bishop of Porto and
Santa Rufina, Dean of the Sacred College, Vicechancellor of the
Holy Roman Church, etc.;
(β) The Lord Giovanni Michele, Cardinal-Bishop of Praeneste, Bishop of
Verona;
(γ) The Lord Oliviero Carafa, Cardinal-Bishop of Sabina, Archbishop of
Naples;
(δ) The Lord Giorgio Costa, Cardinal-Bishop of Albano.
(ε) The Lord Antoniotto Pallavicini, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title
of Sant’ Anastasia;
(ζ) The Lord Girolamo Basso della Rovere, Cardinal-Presbyter of the
Title of San Crisogono, Bishop of Recanata;
(η) The Lord Domenico della Rovere, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of
San Clemente, Archbishop of Taranto;
(θ) The Lord Giuliano della Rovere, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of
San Pietro _ad Vincula_;
(ι) The Lord Paolo Fregosio, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San
Sisto, Archbishop of Genoa;
(κ) The Lord Giovanni de’ Conti, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of
San Vitale, Archbishop of Consano;
(λ) The Lord Giangiacomo Sclafenati, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title
of San Stefano _in Monte Celio_, Bishop of Parma;
(μ) The Lord Ardicino della Porta, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of
San Giovanni e San Paolo, Bishop of Alba;
(ν) The Lord Lorenzo Cibo, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa
Cecilia, Archbishop of Benevento;
(ξ) The Lord Francesco de’ Piccolhuomini, Cardinal-Archdeacon of Sant’
Eustachio, Archbishop of Siena;
(ο) The Lord Rafaele Galeotti Sansoni-Riarjo, Cardinal-Deacon of San
Giorgio _in Velum Aureum_, Cardinal-Chamberlain of the Holy
Roman Church;
(π) The Lord Giovanni Colonna, Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria _in
Aquiro_;
(ρ) The Lord Giambattista Orsini, Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria
_Nuova_;
(σ) The Lord Giovanni de’ Medici, Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria _in
Domnica_;
(τ) The Lord Giovanni Savelli, Cardinal-Deacon of San Niccolo _in
Carcere Tulliano_;
(υ) The Lord Giambattista Zeno, Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria _in
Portico_;
(φ) The Lord Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti, Cardinal-Deacon of San
Vito e San Modesto _in Macello_, Martiri.
At the last moment, before the Conclave finally was immured, there
came:—
(χ) Fra Mafeo Gheraldo, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Nereo e
Sant’ Achilleo, Patriarch of Venice;
(ψ) The Lord Friderico Sanseverini, Cardinal-Deacon of San Teodoro.
On the sixth of August 1492, this Conclave of twenty-three cardinals
listened to the preliminary exhortations of Fra Bernardino Lopez de
Caravajal, and the business of election was begun.
* * * * *
Man mercifully has been left unable to foresee the effect which his
actions will have upon the future. Many of these cardinals had assisted
before at the election of a Pope; it was a routine with which they were
acquainted. But by no means could they know what a mark upon the world’s
history they would make with this election. Subsequent events, however,
have shewn that the seed of tremendous issues here was sown, issues as
great as the consolidation of a European kingdom under a sovereign
dynasty that endured until 1870. As such, the Conclave of 1492 must be
regarded as one of the most pregnant that ever have occurred; and its
details, as worthy of intent consideration.
There was a faction and a shadow of a faction among the cardinals. The
candidate of the first was the Dean and Vicechancellor-Cardinal Rodrigo
de Lançol y Borja, nephew of the Lord Calixtus P.P. III. He actively was
supported by the very influential cardinals Sforza-Visconti, Colonna,
and Riarjo, whose friendship he is said to have cultivated during the
reign of the late Pope, by promises of preferment and by gifts. He also
is said to have won the alliance of fourteen other cardinals by similar
inducements, and so to have placed himself at the head of a faction of
eighteen. His supporters were led to believe that his Spanish
nationality would make him neutral to the political parties of Italy;
and much stress was laid upon the fact that Spain was now the rising
power in Europe, with whom the Church would do well to be allied. The
standard of morality of the day prevented objections to the character of
Cardinal Rodrigo; and it was made clear to all that he was by far the
richest cardinal, holding all the most lucrative appointments, which
last would have to be vacated, and would be his to give away, in the
event of his election.
The candidate of the second faction was Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere,
a nephew of the Lord Xystus P.P. IV. He was the life-long disappointed
rival, in more senses than one, of Cardinal Rodrigo. His candidature was
an attempt on the part of the Christian King Charles VIII of France to
set up a Pontiff devoted to French, and not to Spanish, interests; to
which end the King’s Majesty deposited two hundred thousand ducats with
a Roman bank for the purchase of cardinalitial votes.
There was an independent candidate, Cardinal Lorenzo Cibo, a nephew of
the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII, to whom Cardinal Pallavicini was bound by
ties of gratitude: but he had no other supporter, and became submerged
in the majority.
Of the two contestants, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere had the poorer
chance. His own cousins, Cardinals Girolamo and Domenico della Rovere,
would not support him. His personality was universally antipathetic; his
opponent’s was universally sympathetic. The French money which he had
taken, was but as a drop in the ocean compared with the enormous wealth
and desperate determination of the Spaniard. Also, there were no votes
for sale. Four cardinals—the Lords Oliviero Carafa, Giorgio Costa,
Francesco de’ Piccolhuomini, and Giambattista Zeno—announced that they
would vote independently and under no influence; while the remnant of
the Sacred College, consisting of seventeen cardinals, having been
fiercely canvassed by Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti,
representative of the reigning House of Milan and hereditary foe of
France, were already in the pocket of the Vicechancellor-Cardinal-Dean.
The third night of the Conclave concluded the preliminary discussions;
and at dawn, on the eleventh of August 1492, Cardinal Rodrigo was
elected Pope, by the large majority of twenty-two out of twenty-three,
consisting of his own vote with those of the Cardinal-Bishops Giovanni
Michele, Oliviero Carafa, Giorgio Costa, the Cardinal-Presbyters
Antoniotto Pallavicini, Lorenzo Cibo, Mafeo Gheraldo, Girolamo Basso
della Rovere, Domenico della Rovere, Paolo Fregosio, Giovanni de’ Conti,
Giangiacomo Sclafenati, Ardicino della Porta, the Cardinal-Archdeacon
Francesco de’ Piccolhuomini, the Cardinal-Deacons Rafaele Galeotti
Sansoni-Riarjo, Giovanni Colonna, Giambattista Orsini, Giovanni de’
Medici, Giovanni Savelli, Friderico Sanseverini, Giambattista Zeno, and
Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti.
Rome was exciting herself about this election. Four mule loads of silver
had been taken from the palace of Cardinal Rodrigo to the house of
Cardinal Sforza-Visconti before the immuring of the Conclave, most
conceivably to be guarded there more safely. Rome guessed that the
Spaniard was so certain of his own election as to be preparing for the
pleasant custom, which the citizens used, of pillaging the palace of the
cardinal who was elected Pope. Some of the silver perhaps may have
passed into Sforza’s possession; but there is no direct evidence to
prove the absurd statement of Monsignor Burchard that it was the price
of his vote. In the first instance, the security of the silver, was most
probably the motive for its transference. After the election the Pope
would naturally wish to reward his most useful supporter; and no doubt
left the silver[22] with Cardinal Sforza-Visconti while bestowing on him
other and more proportionate acknowledgments.
In the Conclave, if one can believe reports, there was no less
excitement. All the sombre dignity of Spain left Cardinal Rodrigo at the
supreme moment of his life. He showed himself as just a human man,
successful in the most daring, most immense, of all ambitions, when his
quondam colleagues lowered their green or purple canopies to his, as he
joyfully cried: “We are Pope and Vicar of Christ!”
The cardinals knelt at His feet, and Cardinal Sforza-Visconti said that
undoubtedly the election was the work of God. Then the new Pope
recovered at least decorum of speech, replying that He was conscious of
His Own weakness, and relied entirely upon Divine Guidance; but His
order to Monsignor Burchard, the Caerimonarius, to write His name on
little slips of paper, and fling them from a window for the satisfaction
of the citizens who swarmed impatiently outside the Vatican; and His
haste to retire behind the altar for the purpose of changing His
cardinalitial scarlet for the papal habit of white taffetas with
cincture, rochet of fair linen, embroidered crimson stola, house-cap,
almuce, and shoes of ermine and crimson velvet (of which vestments three
sizes are prepared, to suit the stature of any Pope); this order and
this haste shew that the Pope’s Holiness was most deeply moved, as any
human being well might be.
Outside, Rome rejoiced. Inside, the cardinals asked what name the Pope
would choose, suggesting Calixtus as a compliment to His dead Uncle and
Creator, Who had brought Him first to Rome. But, now, the Pontiff had
regained His magnificent composure, and He answered mightily: “We desire
the name of the Invincible Alexander.” Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici, a
clever, serious boy of the age of seventeen years, whispered to Cardinal
Cibo: “Now we are in the jaws of a ravening wolf, and if we do not flee
he will devour us.” But the gigantic Cardinal Sanseverini lifted the
Lord Alexander P.P. VI in his strong arms and throned Him on the altar;
and the Sacred College paid Him the first adoration, kissing the cross
embroidered on His shoe and on the ends of the stola at His knee, and
the Ring of the Fisherman on His right forefinger, while
Cardinal-Archdeacon Franceso de’ Piccolhuomini and the second
Cardinal-Deacon made proclamation to the crowd at the re-opened door of
the Conclave:
“I announce to you great joy. We have for a Pope the
Vicechancellor-Cardinal-Dean Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja, Who wills to be
called Alexander the Sixth.”
[23]And, incontinent, says Monsignor Hans Burchard the vulgar
tittle-tattling Caerimonarius, (wilfully misquoting the Vulgate Psalm
cxi. 9,) having assumed the papal power, _dispersit et dedit pauperibus
bona sua_, He hath dispersed, He hath given to the poor, his goods.
(_Authorised Version_, _Psalm_ cxii. 9.) To Cardinal Orsini He gave the
Vicechancellor’s palace of San Lorenzo _in Damaso_, the fortalices of
Soria and Monticelli, the revenues of the cathedral of Cartagena in
Spain, worth five thousand ducats (which He had been administering for
Don Cesare (detto Borgia) in accordance with the Breves of the Lords
Xystus P.P. IV and Innocent P.P. VIII), and the legation of the Mark of
Ancona. To Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti He gave His new palace
on Banchi Vecchi (_v._ p. 67), the town of Nepi, the revenues of the
cathedral of Agria in Hungary, worth ten thousand ducats, and named him,
at the age of thirty-seven years, Vicechancellor of the Holy Roman
Church. To Cardinal Colonna He gave the Abbacy of Subjaco with all its
fortresses and rights of patronage, confirming the same to his house for
ever. To Cardinal Riarjo He gave the huge palace in Trastevere (now
Corsini) vacated by Cardinal Sforza-Visconti, benefices in Spain
producing four thousand ducats yearly revenue, and confirmed him in his
office of Cardinal-Chamberlain. To Cardinal Savelli He gave the
legations of Perugia and Civita Castellana, including twenty towns and a
revenue of three thousand ducats; and to other cardinals the remainder
of the preferments which He now vacated.
If these gifts were given and taken as the price of votes, then an
enormous act of Simony technically was committed, the buying and selling
of ecclesiastical power. Afterwards, His enemies continually were
charging Him with Simony; but, at the time, no serious accusation was
made. Even the four cardinals, who had announced that they did not
intend to be bribed, voted for the Lord Alexander P.P. VI. And here it
may be noticed, that though Simony, by the Bull of the Lord Julius P.P.
II _De Simoniaca Electione_, is held to invalidate an ecclesiastical
election; yet the said Bull was not issued until after the death of the
Lord Alexander P.P. VI, and was not retrospective in effect, although
the vehement personal hatred of Julius for Alexander, hatred worthy
rather of Carthaginian Hannibal than of the Vicar of the Prince of
Peace, leaves no doubt whatever of the intention to defile the memory of
the preceding Pontiff with an insinuation which never has been made
valid. Under these circumstances, it perhaps may be permitted to those
irrational persons who habitually usurp the functions of the Eternal
Judge, and who already have condemned the Borgia Pontiff, to remember
that, if this election was invalidated and annulled by Simony, He never
was a Pope at all, and therefore cannot be blamed, attacked, condemned,
in a papal capacity. Much satisfaction of a kind may be derived from
that reflection. At the same time, though the theory might be allowed
for private consumption, as a “pious opinion” distinguished from a
“dogma,” it would be highly injudicious to court collision with another
Bull—the Bull _Execrabilis_ of the Lord Pius P.P. II—which provides all
proclaimed aspersions of the Popes with pains and penalties. But when
all has been considered, no evidence is forthcoming to prove that a
single cardinal sold—_sold_—his vote to Cardinal Rodrigo buying. None
but a purchased or unpurchased cardinal can testify that he sold, or did
not sell; and none of these have testified. That the new Pope gave great
gifts is not denied. Popes always do. They cannot help Themselves. The
Lord Alexander P.P. VI vacated so much preferment, that He had much to
give. To give that preferment was one of the duties of His office; and,
naturally, He gave it to His friends, and not to His single enemy and
envious rival, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, who, in revenge, alleged
Simony.
* * * * *
The Lord Innocent P.P. VIII died on the twenty-fifth of July 1492. The
Lord Alexander P.P. VI began to reign on the eleventh of August. During
the seventeen days that intervened, while the city was under the rigid
rule of the white-faced Cardinal-Chamberlain Riarjo, a matter of some
two hundred and twenty assassinations took place: in such order had the
deceased Pope left His capital that more than nine murders were
committed every day among a population of a mere five and eighty
thousand. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI acted with decision to end this
abominable state of lawlessness. An assassin was caught redhanded—there
was no difficulty about that—he and his brother were forced to look on
while their house was rased to the ground (the worst disgrace possible
to a Roman); and then they were ceremoniously hanged among the ruins. A
commission was established to decide all quarrels, which, formerly, had
been settled by cold steel. Official inspectors of prisons were
appointed; arrears of official salaries paid up to date; and a bench of
four judges established for dealing with capital crimes. So the first
act of this pontificate was the restoration, at least provisionally, of
public order. The admiring Romans said that this vigorous administration
of justice was due to the direct disposing of the Almighty.
The coronation, on the steps before the Basilica of St. Peter in the
Vatican, of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI by the Cardinal-Archdeacon on the
twenty-sixth of August was a scene of unlimited magnificence, attended
by the Orators of the Powers who hailed the Pope with the most laudatory
congratulations. Canon Angelo Ambrogini (detto Poliziano), who spoke for
Siena, said :—
“Præstans animi magnitudo quae mortales crederes omnes
antecellere—Magna quaedam de te, rara, ardua, singularia,
incredibilia, inaudita, pollicentur.[24]
The Orator of Lucca said:—
“Quid iste tuus divinus, et maiestate plenus, aspectus?
The Orator of Genoa said:—
“Adeo virtutum gloria et disciplinarum laude, et vitae sanctimonia
decoraris, et adeo singularum ac omnium rerum ornamento dotaris, quae
talem summam ac venerandam dignitatem praebeant ut valde ab omnibus
ambigendum sit, tu ne magis pontificatui, an illa tibi sacratissima et
gloriosissima Papatus dignitas offerenda fuerit.
The Venetian Senate rejoiced:—
“propter divinas virtutes ac dotes quibus Ipsum insignitum et ornatum
conspiciebamus, videbatur a Divina Providentia talem Pastorem gregi,
dominio et sacrosancto Romanae Ecclesiae Vicarium Suum fuisse delectum
et praeordinatum.
Manfredi, the Ferrarese Orator at Florence, wrote to his Duchess:—
“Dicesi che sara glorioso pontifice!
[Illustration: _Alexander P.P. VI._]
Those words were re-echoed from Milan, from Naples, even from far
Germany, “They say that this will be a glorious Pontiff!” All who were
permitted to approach Him were enchanted by His magnificent presence and
His honeyed tongue; every one praised His talents, His notable mastery
of affairs, His active benevolence and beneficence. He was admired
because His habits were of the simplest kind, and His magnificence free
from prodigal ostentation: though it must be added that the Ferrarese
Orator said that people disliked dining with the Lord Alexander P.P. VI
because His meals consisted of a single dish. But Rome and Italy
generally were very proud of Him, because, at sixty-one years of age, He
combined the vigour of manhood’s prime with the wisdom of experience of
life. If peace could be maintained, while a strong hand guided politics,
the auspices were all propitious.
On the thirty-first of August, at the First Consistory, the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI named his nephew, Don Juan de Borja y Lançol (Giovanni
Borgia, detto Seniore) Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Susanna.
This Most Worshipful Purpled One was the son of the Pope’s sister, Doña
Juana. He had been Apostolic Prothonotary, Corrector of Pontifical
Breves, and Archbishop of Monreale, under the Lord Xystus P.P. IV; and
powerless Governor of Rome under the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII. He was a
great man of business, dexterous and capable with plenary powers, and
competent to deal with grave matters. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI, like
His August Uncle, lost no time in securing the services of blood
relation near to His Own person.
The chorus of flattery was not altogether free from discords. The
sinister Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, every day becoming more and
more aggrieved by the success of his abhorred rival, called for a
General Council (according to the ridiculous custom of his age) to
adjudge the Lord Alexander P.P. VI guilty of Simony. In Florence the
eccentric Fra Girolamo Savonarola, a friar of the Religion of St.
Dominic, was prophesying evil days. Lorenzo de’ Medici, “that monster of
genius,” was dead; and he, literally, had been the Keeper of the Peace.
His sons, Don Piero and Don Lorenzo Secondo, brothers to Cardinal
Giovanni, were no fit successors to their renowned father. Fra Girolamo
really ruled in Florence; and his rule was baneful, because he let his
personality over-ride his principles. Starting, a few years before, to
convert the sinners of Florence, he had preached naked Christianity.
When he had smitten many souls to penitence, his converts (in the manner
of converts) leaned upon him. He allowed himself to become a director.
From director it naturally was but a step to dictator: and there is the
human error of Fra Girolamo Savonarola. That is the point from which he
went astray. As dictator, he brought not peace but a sword—privilege of
not a human man. He ordained what the world calls eccentricities; he
became impatient of opinion, of resistance, of control; his penitents
were the Salvation Army of the fifteenth century, making singular
exhibitions of frenetic benevolence. He had made himself, by perfectly
legal means, independent of his local Dominican superiors; the
Archbishop of the province had no jurisdiction over him; he was subject
only to the General of Dominicans and to the Pope in Rome. He was
absolutely sincere; he was a fervent Catholic; of his bonafides there
can be no doubt whatever. He had no attraction of manner; his personal
aspect was vulgar, terrible, appalling. Yet there must have been some
charm in his teaching, for great and holy men left all to follow him;
Messer Alessandro Filipepi (detto Botticelli) joined him. And now he
claimed to be the prophet of the Most High, prophesying of evils at the
door.
* * * * *
Milan menaced the peace of Italy. By the assassination of Duke Galeazzo
Maria Sforza-Visconti in 1476, the duchy passed to his infant son Duke
Giangaleazzo; whose widowed mother, the Duchess Bona of Savoja, ruled as
Regent. Four brothers of her dead husband conspired against her; and in
1479, the eldest, Don Ludovico Maria Sforza-Visconti (detto Il Moro),
took possession of her child and deprived her of the regency. Cardinal
Ascanio Maria, brother of Il Moro, exerted himself in Rome to obtain
confirmation of this heartless deed. Duchess Bona, distracted when she
found her young son torn from her arms, knowing his infant life to be
the only bar between his uncle Don Ludovico Maria and the throne of
Milan, made frantic appeals for the intervention of France. But the
Christian King Louis XI died before he could reply to that poor mother:
and Don Ludovico Maria, as Regent, thrived, keeping the boy-duke at
Pavia in a palace that was, in fact, a prison, in conditions not cruel
nor fatal but assuredly not ducal, nor suited to the enjoyment and
maintenance of life. In 1489 Duke Giangaleazzo reached the age of twenty
years; and then it was remembered that his mother; the Duchess Bona, had
affianced him in his infancy to Madonna Isabella, daughter of the heir
of Naples, Duke Don Alonso de Aragona of Calabria. There appeared to be
no reason why Don Ludovico Maria should exacerbate the royal House of
Naples by interference with the keeping of this contract; the boy was
eager, the girl was marriageable; and the wedding was celebrated with
appropriate pomp. The usurping Regent insisted, however, that, as the
young Duke was a minor, he should still remain in the condition of a
ward; and the newly-wedded children retired to try conjugal life at
Pavia. A year later, 1492, a son was born; and then Duke Giangaleazzo,
by paternity emboldened into manlihood, became restive against his
uncle’s yoke, protesting that he no longer would submit to the treatment
of a boy. But Don Ludovico was well aware that long confinement shortens
life; and he had kept his nephew a prisoner for ten years. He was not
precisely of the stuff of which murderers are made; or a knife-blade
delicately pushed between the youngster’s neck and spine long ago would
have made the sceptre of Milan his. As Regent he had absolute power; and
he was well content to wait. So he took no notice of Duke Giangaleazzo’s
remonstrances; and, to pass the time, he practised marriage in his
proper person, wedding the lovely Madonna Beatrice d’Este of Ferrara in
1491. (Don Francesco Sforza, son of Don Bosio Sforza and Madonna Cecilia
Aldobrandeschi, heiress of Santafiora, the kinsman of Don Ludovico
Maria, who arranged this marriage, was the Orator of Milan at the
coronation of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI in 1492.) After the nuptials of
the usurping Regent, the young Duke Giangaleazzo resigned himself to
bear his lot. But his wife was furious, and thought of the interests of
her baby son. “In real truth,” cried Madonna Isabella to her feeble
spouse, “thou art Duke of Milan, and I thy Duchess. But thou art content
to abide in Pavia while that Black, Don Ludovico, ruleth in thy duchy,
and seateth Madonna Beatrice near him in my place on thy throne. I will
have that girl to know that she is no duchess, and that I, I Isabella,
am Duchess of Milan.” And the lady wrote to her father, Don Alonso de
Aragona Duke of Calabria, who was heir to the crown of the Regno,
inciting him to resent the insult put upon her, his daughter, to end the
usurpation of Don Ludovico Maria, and to restore Duke Giangaleazzo to
his duchy.
Duke Don Alonso was not unwilling. War was imminent between Naples and
Milan. Then the Pope died; the Lord Alexander P.P. VI succeeded Him;
and, it being an age when the Pope frankly was admitted to be Ruler of
the World, Father of princes and of kings, etc., all Italy and
Christendom waited to know the new Pope’s pleasure.
This was the first of a series of extremely delicate positions in which
the Lord Alexander P.P. VI found Himself involved. On the one hand, the
Papacy was at peace with Naples. On the other, the Pope’s Holiness found
His brilliant young Vicechancellor-Cardinal Ascanio Maria
Sforza-Visconti to be exceedingly valuable; and he was own brother to
that Don Ludovico Maria (detto Il Moro) against whom Naples was invoked.
Momentous consequences waited on His action.
* * * * *
On the eleventh of December 1492, there arrived in Rome Don Federigo de
Aragona, Prince of Altamura, second son of King Don Ferrando I,
ostensibly to offer to the Pope’s Holiness the obedience of Naples, with
congratulations on His coronation. The royal envoy sumptuously was
entertained by Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, whose chief occupations
at this period appear to have been the feeling of the pulses of the
Powers, and the search for a potentate willing to be used against the
Borgia.
Manifestations of goodwill between Papacy and Regno pleased the Romans.
The frontier of Naples was but a day’s ride from Rome; and the Romans
liked to feel that beyond that frontier flourished a friend, not lurked
a foe. In private audience, however, Don Federigo said that the
assistance of the Pope’s Holiness was required in a family affair; and
he made it clear that the attitude of Regno to Papacy would be
determined by the extent to which the Lord Alexander P.P. VI would go on
behalf of Naples.
This was the case in question. King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary had
married Madonna Beatrice, a bastard of King Don Ferrando I. On the death
of King Matthias Corvinus, his childless widow Queen Beatrice had
intrigued to get the Hungarian crown settled upon King Wladislaw of
Bohemia, who, in return for her Majesty’s services, had promised to
marry her. Such a promise of marriage was equivalent to a betrothal, and
a betrothal was only less binding than an actual marriage in that it was
capable of being dissolved; whereas a marriage was, and is,
indissoluble. King Wladislaw of Bohemia had been crowned King of Hungary
through the exertions of Queen Beatrice. She, preferring the situation
of Queen Regnant to that of Queen Dowager, had performed her part of the
contract; and now King Wladislaw had changed his mind, and was about to
ask the Pope for a dispensation from the obligation of fulfilling his
promise of marriage. This was a grievous insult to the bastard of the
King of Naples, whose counterpetition to the Lord Alexander P.P. VI was
that no such dispensation should be granted to King Wladislaw, and that
he should be compelled to perform his part of the bargain. Nothing was
said at this time regarding the affair of the Duchess Isabella of Milan,
in which the Regno also was interested. The cases of queens take
precedence of those of duchesses.
The Lord Alexander P.P. VI, with the experience of seven and thirty
years of curial diplomacy behind Him, required time in which to reflect
upon His answer; and would enter into no immediate engagement with the
Neapolitan prince. Don Federigo, who imagined that the Regno had but to
ask and have, was much aggrieved; and his host, Cardinal Giuliano della
Rovere, inflamed him with sardonic sympathy, and eyed the Regno, for a
purpose, from that day forward. An uncouth pugnacious schemer was this
Most Illustrious Lord Cardinal. As a captain of condottieri he might
have captured a kingdom: but as an ecclesiastic he was at all times
utterly disedifying. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI seems to have treated
him with admirable forbearance, with contemptuous indifference, than
which no attitude is more calculated to sting and irritate an angry
mediocrity. He had been allowed to proceed in his turn to the
cardinal-bishopric of Ostia without let or hindrance: he had rank,
riches, and power. But he was discontented, jealous, filled with envy,
hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness.
* * * * *
It is imperatively important to be able to distinguish between the
Office and the Man; and to avoid the excessively vulgar error of
confounding the general with the particular. The pontifical acts of
Rodrigo, Who is called Alexander P.P. VI, will compare favourably with
those of any Supreme Pontiff, from Simon, Who is called Peter P.P., to
Gioacchino Vincenzo Rafaele Luigi, Who is called Leo P.P. XIII. His
comportment as man, and Italian despot, is another matter. The just
necessity of the distinction insistently is laid upon the student of His
history.
Man does not yearn to please a person who is playing ugly tricks upon
him. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI particularly did not yearn to please the
King of Naples. While the envoy of the Regno was displaying his royal
father’s petition at the feet of the Father of princes and of kings, the
Pope’s Holiness was digesting news of a trick which had been played upon
Him by the intrigues of King Don Ferrando I.
Don Franciotto Cibo, bastard of the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII, had been
enriched by his Father with the lordships of Cervetri and Anguillara.
These were pontifical fiefs, held by feudal tenure from the Pope. Being
a silly avaricious weakling, rather frightened of the responsibility of
baronage, Don Franciotto Cibo sold the said lordships to Don Virginio
Orsini for forty thousand ducats; and went to live at Florence under the
protection of his brother-in-law Don Piero de’ Medici. Now Don Virginio
Orsini had borrowed those forty thousand ducats from the King of Naples,
who was his firm friend, and perfectly qualified to understand the loan
to be a super-excellent investment. The lordships of Cervetri and
Anguillara lay between the Regno and the territories of the Republic of
Florence; and their transference into the hands of Orsini, Naples’
friend, signified the opening of a road from Naples into Tuscany, along
which a Neapolitan army easily might travel, should King Don Ferrando be
pleased to campaign in a northerly direction.
It was Don Ludovico Maria Sforza-Visconti (detto Il Moro), the usurping
Regent of Milan, who first saw the serious portent of this move: but,
though he communicated his discovery to the Holiness of the Pope, he
laboured under a slight misapprehension; for usurpers are the most
touchy of mankind, and see an enemy in everything which they do not
understand. The northern frontier of Tuscany impinged upon the southern
frontier of Milan. Now that the southern frontier of Tuscany was
connected, by Cervetri and Anguillara, with the Regno, Don Ludovico
Maria suspected an alliance between Don Piero de’ Medici and King Don
Ferrando I, between Tuscany and Naples, an alliance which most possibly
implied designs detrimental to the duchy of Milan—after all the real
Duchess Isabella was Naples’ bastard, thought Don Ludovico Maria, the
usurper—; and he envoyed swift couriers to his brother the
Vicechancellor-Cardinal in Rome, with instructions to advise the Pope’s
Holiness of the imbroglio.
That was the news of which the Lord Alexander P.P. VI chewed the cud at
the time when He gave audience to the Prince of Altamura. With His
magnificent talent for resolving diplomatic problems into their
elements, from which He could discard those that He deemed useless while
reserving those possessing salient features, the Pope’s Holiness
concluded that the politics of Milan, of Tuscany, of the Regno, and the
affairs of their respective rulers, were of secondary importance and
altogether negligeable; but that the secret unauthorised transfer of
papal fiefs into the hands of dangerous malcontents of the very powerful
House of Orsini, required prompt decisive assertion of the rights of the
Pontifical Suzerain.
At the beginning of 1493, Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti was
found to be urging the Supreme Pontiff to act against the illegal
transfer of Cervetri and Anguillara. Loyalty to his brother, the
usurping Regent of Milan, and his duty as Vicechancellor bound to
maintain the paramountcy of the Holy Roman Church—these make clear his
point of view.
A clashing of interests between Papacy and Regno was an opportunity
which Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere greatly relished. He did not
hesitate to take the part of Naples. If he had one enemy whom he hated
as perfervidly as he hated the Pope, that enemy was Cardinal Ascanio
Maria Sforza-Visconti whose exertions on behalf of his rival had
deprived him of the tiara or triregno; and, having sworn that either he
or Sforza-Visconti should quit the Sacred College, he avidly seized the
present chance of belabouring the cardinal as well as the Pope. He had
the support of Orsini, naturally. Colonna, always more Ghibelline than
Guelf, was not unwilling to espouse the cause of a man who went about
saying that the Pope’s Holiness was plotting to ruin his reputation—his
reputation!—and to deprive him of his dignities: and hence arose a very
singular and unusual combination.
The Papacy generally has been allied with Colonna or with Orsini. Such
was the importance of these houses, that during many hundred years all
European treaties and concordats contained their names on one side or
the other. But here, for once in their mysterious and interminable feud,
these mighty barons of Rome, with all their collateral branches and
their myriads of armed retainers, were found united in a common cause.
The phenomenon may be explained by the rise of other baronial houses,
who were becoming quite as numerous and quite as potent as Colonna or
Orsini; and who were equally desirable as allies. The most prominent of
these, in 1493, were the Sforza and the Cesarini. The Sforza descended
from Don Giovanni Muzio Attendolo (detto Sforza); and included the
Sovereign-Duchy of Milan, by the marriage of the great Francesco with
the heiress of Duke Giangaleazzo Visconti; the Sovereign-County of
Santafiora, by the marriage of Francesco’s brother Bosio with the
heiress of Aldobrandeschi; and the Tyrannies of Pesaro, Chotignuola,
Imola and Forli. The Sforza blazon the lion rampant with the holy flower
of the quince for Santafiora, and the salvage boy couped at the thighs
issuant from a serpent statant for Milan. The Cesarini were a Roman
house of enormous wealth and distinction, claiming a Cesarian origin. It
was already allied with the Lord Alexander P.P. VI by the marriage in
1482 of His bastard Madonna Girolama Borgia with Don Giovandrea
Cesarini. Its representative, Don Gabriele Cesarini, was the
Gonfaloniere of Rome, who fought the Prior of the Caporioni for
precedence at the coronation of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, Who, in
person, accorded the first place to Cesarini. Don Giangiorgio Cesarini,
the heir, was allied with Sforza by marriage with Madonna Maria Sforza
di Guido di Santafiora; and Don Giuliano Cesarini held office in the
Apostolic Chamber. It was a house which, during centuries, had been
content with secondary rank, while accumulating immense reserves of
power, now to be brought into action. These were the two patrician
Houses which the Pope’s Holiness found ready to His hand when Colonna
leagued with Orsini against His peace. In fact, Sforza and Cesarini were
the right and left hands of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, as Colonna or
Orsini were of His predecessors and successors.
Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, after relieving himself of some
treasonable speeches, considered Rome to be unsafe; and fled down Tiber
to his bishopric of Ostia, where he fortified himself and advertised for
mercenaries.
The word war, to the bloody men of valour of the end of the fifteenth
century, signified a game like that of chess. The sole object of war was
profit. It was undertaken simply to deprive an enemy of his goods.
Prisoners were captured, and held to ransom. Cities and fortresses were
reduced by starvation, or by a display of overwhelming force. But
bloodshed—and this is noteworthy—was avoided as far as possible; and the
game chiefly was played by strategic marches, counter-marches, and
manœuvres. It was a business, a profession, “not more hazardous than
that of a professional football-player.” The superfluous men of Europe,
and the temperamental fighters, served as hired mercenaries under the
captains and the princes who could pay their price and afford them a
roystering life. Patriotism, the honour of the fatherland, were unknown.
Except in the case of England, there was no national army. When a
position had been won, a city captured, the conquerors satisfied
themselves with the ransoms and the richest spoils. If the citizens
wished to avoid the inconvenience of a sack, they collected a sum
sufficient to pay off the rank and file. Otherwise the mercenaries took
the women, and had licence to recoup themselves by pillage. Resistance
meant torture and death: but bloodshed was an accident, not an essential
of war.
The action of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere was an invitation to the
Lord Alexander P.P. VI to engage in war. He had thrown down the
gauntlet. He had made the first move in the game; and his gambit was a
very fine one, for the fortress of Ostia dominated Tiber mouth, and
enabled him to paralyse Rome by stopping sea-borne supplies.
Like all important characters, the Pope’s Holiness was neurotic; not by
any means a coward, but quick to scent danger, susceptible of momentary
fright. Early in the spring of 1493 He was going to a picnic, at the
villa which the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII had built for pontifical
refreshment at La Magliana, outside the walls; and when a cannon saluted
His approach He was stricken with a sudden panic, and galloped back to
the Vatican amid the frank execrations of His escort disappointed of
their dinner.
Here was the situation. The Pope was comfortably embroiled with Cardinal
Giuliano della Rovere and his allies of Naples, of Colonna, of Orsini.
To some extent His interests tied Him to Sforza and Milan. Tuscany was
undecided between the Pope and Naples. The other Powers looked on.
While Don Ludovico Maria Sforza-Visconti was suggesting an alliance
between the Pope, the duchy of Milan, and the Republic of Venice, to
overawe the Neapolitan Bond, King Don Ferrando was intriguing with a
view to discover whether he could make a better bargain with the
Sovereign Pontiff than with Colonna + Orsini + della Rovere. This was
not treachery. It was merely the Neapolitan method, of which all Italy
was fully cognizant. The King’s Majesty sent envoys to Rome, to Milan,
and to Tuscany, to try to settle the Cervetri-Anguillara affair by
pacific means.
The Lord Alexander P.P. VI was well aware that no confidence could be
placed in King Don Ferrando I: but by way of giving him a chance He
proposed a marriage between His bastard, Don Gioffredo Borgia, now of
the age of twelve years, and Madonna Lucrezia, a grand-daughter of the
Majesty of Naples. At the same time He gathered troops and fortified the
Vatican and the Mola of Hadrian, with the gallery-passage, called Lo
Andare, which connects them, enabling Pope and cardinals to run, in time
of danger, from the Apostolic Palace to the impregnable fortress tomb by
Tiber.
The Republic of Venice flung itself into the arms of Don Ludovico Maria
Sforza-Visconti; for the Doge and Senate were dreadfully afraid lest the
impassioned appeals of the Duchess Isabella on behalf of her husband,
the pathetic Duke Giangaleazzo, should receive the attention of Naples.
If the said Duke Giangaleazzo should come to owe his throne to King Don
Ferrando I, then Milan would be, to all intents and purposes, a fief of
the Regno; and to have Naples lording it in Northern Italy would by no
means satisfy Venice, which, on this account, preferred alliance with
the usurping Regent, even at the cost of winking at his usurpation of
the Regency of Milan. Now Milan and Venice in alliance were a menace to
their own neighbours; and, acting on the principle that made those two
Powers one, the duchies of Mantua and Ferrara, and the Republic of
Siena, hastened to fall into line with them. This concatenation, being
superior to anything that Naples could exhibit, also caused the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI to arrive at a decision: and, on the twenty-fifth of
April 1493, accompanied by an armed cavalcade of Sforza and Cesarini for
the ocular instruction of Colonna and Orsini, the Holiness of the Pope
proceeded through Rome to the Venetian church of San Marco, on Piazza
Venezia, where He ceremonially published the Bull of League between the
Papacy, the duchies of Milan, Mantua, and Ferrara, and the Republics of
Venice and Siena; after which, the river-port of Rome at Ostia being in
His enemies’ hands, He began to fortify the land-port of Rome at Civita
Vecchia, by way of giving effect to His warlike proclamation.
At this call of check, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere howled aloud for a
General Council to depose the Lord Alexander P.P. VI; and Don Alonso de
Aragona, Duke of Calabria, wanted immediately to unite with Don Piero
de’ Medici and the Signoria of Florence, and, aided by the Colonna of
Paliano and Marino and the Orsini of Gravina and Bracciano, to assault
Rome from the outer side, while Colonna + Orsini, who were in the city,
engaged in similar diversions. But King Don Ferrando was too sly. He had
yet another piece to play. He knew, and none knew better, that the
territories of the Holy See during a long course of centuries had been
distributed among pontifical relatives and favourites; that, at present,
the States of the Church were smaller than an ordinary duchy; and he had
heard of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI as a singularly affectionate father,
devoted to His children’s interests. Wherefore the Majesty of Naples
conceived, and with absolute correctness, that the Pope’s Holiness
intended, by hook or by crook, by diplomacy, by marriages, or by war, to
recover the possessions of the Papacy, and to use them to promote the
fortunes of His family. Secondly, King Don Ferrando I knew France to be
Milan’s northern neighbour; and he saw the exceeding possibility of an
alliance between the usurping Regent, Don Ludovico Maria
Sforza-Visconti, and the Christian King Charles VIII of France; a
combination which, with the Papacy, the duchies, and republics, already
joined in league, would be absolutely and permanently overwhelming and
disintegrating to the very Regno itself. To turn the flank, as it were,
to give France occupation in another direction, he resolved on courting
an alliance with Spain.
To this end he indited an invective against the Lord Alexander P.P. VI,
adopting all the gratuitous insults and lying babble foamed out by the
malignant Cardinal-Bishop Giuliano della Rovere. “He leads a life that
is abhorred by all, without respect to the seat He holds.” [Compare the
speeches of the Orators and contemporary dispatches.] “He cares for
nothing save to aggrandise His children by fair means or by foul.” [So
far He had done nothing at all, by foul means or by fair, for His
children; except to deprive His reputed bastard Don Cesare (detto
Borgia) of the revenues of the cathedral of Cartagena, in favour of that
very Cardinal Giambattista Orsini who now deserted Him.] “From the
beginning of His pontificate He has done nothing but disturb the peace.”
[This is partly true. The Pope’s Holiness wonderfully had done more than
any preceding Pontiff to restore good government and order and security
to Rome. But He had behaved, in a certain instance, in a way that was
extremely offensive to the Spanish ideal of peace. According to the
notions of King Don Ferrando I de Aragona, himself a Spaniard—according
to Spanish notions, and the Majesty of Naples was a Spaniard writing to
Spaniards—the Lord Alexander P.P. VI was indeed a disturber of the
peace. But the facts are these. In 1492, the horrible Spanish
Inquisition—that frightful and diabolical atrocity constantly condemned
by Rome—under the guidance of the Grand Inquisitor Torquemada, had
procured the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. The Spaniards have much
of the Moor, a touch of the oriental, the element of the human devil, in
their blood. Throughout Christendom the Jews were looked upon with
horror, by no means undeserved. Many long years before, England had cast
them out; and now they were forced from Spain. The sufferings, with
which the fiendish Spaniard visited them, were so fearful as to excite
pity even in Papal Italy, whose loathing of Jews was a habit of mind, an
article of faith, not an inhuman vice. Messer Giovanni Pico della
Mirandola (detto Fenice degli Ingegni) said:—
“The sufferings of the Jews, in which the glory of Divine Justice
delights, were so extreme as to fill us Christians with commiseration.
Senarega said:—
“The matter (_i.e._, the expulsion of the Jews) at first sight seemed
praiseworthy as regarding the honour done to our religion; yet it
involved some amount of cruelty, if we look upon them (the Jews) not
as beasts but as men, the handiwork of God.
Many of this miserable race came to Rome, where, under the expressed
order of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, they were protected, and allowed to
share in that security of life and limb which He, at the beginning of
His pontificate, had ordained. The Romans did not like these Marañas, as
the Moorish Jews were called, any more than they liked, or like,
Catalans, or Franks, or Goths, or any other foreigners save the
English-speaking race; and, following hereditary instinct, there were
occasional attempts at persecution, the rigorous stamping out of which,
by the justice of the Pope, caused intermittent rioting and disaffection
of the citizens who only could look upon the Jews as fair game. That was
the only disturbance of the peace with which King Don Ferrando could
charge the Holy Father; and it was an act of justice and humanity. But
the fifteenth century, in common with the nineteenth (the twentieth is
too young yet to be judged), was very wont to give a bad name to the dog
that it had failed to hang.]
* * * * *
Any success that might have attended the rabid calumnies of the Majesty
of Naples was prevented by an occurrence of the most startling species.
A mariner of Genoa, called Messer Cristoforo Colombi, announced to the
Spanish Court, in March 1493, the astounding news of his discovery of a
continent. An explorer’s ardour, combined with religious zeal, had made
him seek to extend the boundaries of Christendom. He had set out in the
hope of finding a few islands. He returned to Europe solemnly asserting
that he had found a world. Universal curiosity was awakened, and a fresh
expedition planned, with which the intrepid mariner set forth on a
second voyage to prove, and to secure, his prize. Meanwhile, Don
Hernando and Doña Isabella, the Catholic King and Queen of Spain,
thought it would be prudent to bind this new world to their domain by a
bond that easily could not be broken. The Pope, as Ruler of the World
and Earthly Vicar of Jesus Christ, was held to have authority over all
heathen lands, and to His Holiness an envoy went from Spain commissioned
to announce the discovery, and to pray Him graciously to confirm it to
the Catholic King and Queen.
_Precipitevolissimevolmente_ (no other word describes the act) was
issued a Bull, dated “At Rome by St. Peter’s, the year of our Lord’s
Incarnation, 1493, the fourth day of the nones of May, and the first
year of Our pontificate,” giving to Don Hernando and to Doña Isabella,
and to their heirs and successors, all islands and continents,
discovered or yet to be discovered, in the western ocean, west and south
of a line to be drawn from the North Pole to the South Pole, one hundred
leagues west of the Açores and Cape Verde Islands. The language of this
Bull is exquisitely touching; strong, pregnant, earnest, and majestic,
as the Authorised Version of the Epistles of St. Paul. The motive
undoubtedly is the motive of an Apostle to convert a world to Christ.
The grant is made to the Majesty of Spain, with commands to send honest
God-fearing learned and expert men to teach the Christian Faith; and the
penalty of excommunication _latae sententiae_ is imposed upon anyone,
even royal or imperial, who shall interfere. This supremely beautiful
Pontifical Act, the Bull _Inter caetera_ of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI,
is given verbatim in Raynaldus, sub anno 1493. So in return for the
Borgia, which Spain gave to Italy, Italy and the Borgia gave Messer
Cristoforo Colombi and the New World to Spain.
Don Hernando and Doña Isabella, the Catholic King and Queen, were
Spaniards. And when that is said all is said; and all the hideous
history of the New World under Spanish domination is explained. Those
sovereigns bore no goodwill for the Lord Alexander P.P. VI although He
was a Spaniard. They, like every other sovereign of Europe, were quite
prepared to harass and to flout an unobliging Pope up to the verge of
excommunications and interdicts; when they, of course, would cringe and
cower like the villainous usurper John Plantagenet: but the quick
granting of their petition in this matter of the New World, the immense
distinction which the Bull _Inter caetera_ conferred on them and on
Spain, turned them, from suitors prepared with impertinence, into the
abjectly devoted adherents of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, at least for
the time; and absolutely prevented King Don Ferrando’s application for
an anti-pontifical alliance from meeting with success. This, no doubt,
is that on which the Pope’s Holiness counted. Very seldom in life does a
man so clearly see his duty with the certainty of reward for its prompt
performance. And very rarely, in the pontificate of the Lord Alexander
P.P. VI, did He deign, so immediately and so unreservedly, to grant a
favour. He must have perceived, with that marvellous instinct of His,
which led Him inevitably to the very roots of matters, that for once the
paths of duty and of pleasure coincided. Certainly He unhesitatingly
walked therein.
* * * * *
On the twelfth of June the Lord Alexander P.P. VI married His bastard,
Madonna Lucrezia Borgia, of the age of fifteen years, to the Tyrant of
Pesaro, Don Giovanni Sforza, of the age of twenty-six years, with all
the magnificence due to His secular rank as an Italian despot; and
thereby set wagging the tongues of those who lamented the decay of
ecclesiastical discipline, and who could not distinguish between the
dual and contradictory offices which the Pope was expected to reconcile;
as well as the pens of professional manufacturers of squibs and
lampoons. The wedding-banquet took place at the Vatican, in the presence
of the Pope, ten cardinals, and fifteen Roman patricians with their
wives. The Holy Father presented to the ladies silver cups filled with
sweetmeats, throwing them into their bosoms _ad honorem et laudem
Omnipotentis Dei et Ecclesiae Romanae_, says the golden-mouthed,
venomous, untrustworthy historian, Messer Stefano Infessura. In the
evening there was dancing, with comedies of the conventional coarse but
common type. This event is one of the bases from which disgusting
charges have been levelled against the Lord Alexander P.P. VI. It
summarily may be stated that those charges consist entirely of the
unprintable gossip of enemies or inferiors, and that not one of them
satisfactorily can be proved. That the Vicar of Christ should have
condescended so far is impossible; that a temporal sovereign should have
condescended so far is probable, and, perhaps, regrettable; but the
status of the guests, the ten cardinals, and the fifteen Roman
patricians with their wives, guarantees the utter respectability of the
Despot’s little private party from a contemporary point of view.
* * * * *
In June, also, arrived in Rome Don Diego Lopez de Haro to offer to the
Holiness of the Pope the homage and obedience of Spain. These having
been accepted, the Orator proceeded to remonstrate with the Pope, in the
name of the Catholic King and Queen, regarding the asylum extended to
the Marañas who were fled from the Spanish Inquisition to Rome.
Thousands of these unfortunates were encamped among the tombs on the
Appian Way, and had brought the plague with them. Spain execrated the
Papal tolerance, and wondered that the Holy Father, as the Head of
Christianity, should protect those whom Spain had driven away as being
enemies of the Christian Faith. Further, the Spanish Orator said that
the Christian King Charles VIII of France was threatening to invade
Italy and to take advantage of the quarrels of the Italian Powers;
wherefore he urged the necessity of peace, and an agreement among the
sovereigns of whom the Pope was chief. By way of showing that
concessions would ensure the unanimity of Italy, he set forth a list of
ecclesiastical grievances that needed remedies; grievances “which, since
the days of the Council of Constance, had been standing complaints
against the Papacy, to be urged in all negotiations for other purposes.”
(_Creighton_ iv. 199.)
* * * * *
Publicly Don Ludovico Maria Sforza-Visconti harped upon the league
between Venice, Milan, and the Papacy. Privately he entered into a
secret treaty with the Christian King Charles VIII through Belgioso,
Orator of Milan. Being an usurper he trusted not even his allies:
preferring to have two strings to his bow, he believed that he could
consolidate his position only by disturbing the peace of Italy.
Publicly, from his fortress of Ostia, that psychic epileptic, Cardinal
Giuliano della Rovere, continued to shout for a General Council to
depose his Rival. The abominable character of this cardinal well may be
exposed by stating that he was endeavouring to rend the Church and
Christendom with a Fortieth Schism, in order to satiate his personal
revenge.
And, like Gallio, the Pope’s Holiness cared for none of these things—for
Spain, for Milan, for the contemptible cardinal. He believed in Himself,
and in His Own power to rule. At least, He officially had been saluted
as Ruler of the World.
The intrigues and invectives of the King of Naples deservedly having
failed, his Majesty made the experiment of a hostile demonstration. His
second son, Prince Don Federigo of Altamura appeared with eleven galleys
at Ostia on Tiber mouth; and rapturously was hailed by that
traitor-cardinal-bishop, with the Colonna and Don Virginio Orsini.
The Lord Alexander P.P. VI was willing to negotiate. Borgian
negotiations invariably meant that Borgia would give its opponents
something, but not the something that they wanted, and always in such a
way that it could not be refused. The Naples + Colonna + Orsini +
Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere conspiracy had demanded Cervetri and
Anguillara for Orsini (and Naples) and the disgrace of the
Vicechancellor-Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti to satisfy the
spleen of him of Ostia. On the twenty-fourth of July the cardinal, the
Neapolitan prince, and Don Virginio Orsini came to Rome to hear the
pontifical terms, which were:—
(α) That the Pope’s Holiness would confirm Cervetri and Anguillara to
Don Virginio for life; at his death they would revert to the
Holy See: but he must pay into the pontifical treasury their
price of forty thousand ducats, which he previously had paid to
Don Franciotto Cibo:
(β) That the Pope’s Holiness was willing to forgive and to show favour
to Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere: but He refused to disgrace
the Vicechancellor-Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti:
(γ) That the Pope’s Holiness would consent to ally Himself with the
Royal House of Naples by the marriage of His bastard, Don
Gioffredo Borgia, to Madonna Sancia, bastard of Don Alonso de
Aragona, Duke of Calabria and heir of King Don Ferrando I. This
agreement was ratified by betrothal; and Don Gioffredo set out
for Naples to see the girl, and to receive her dowry with the
title Prince of Squillace. The marriage was postponed for the
present, because neither bride nor bridegroom had completed
their thirteenth year.
No sooner was the treaty of peace signed, than the Sieur Perron de
Basche, Orator of the Christian King Charles VIII of France, arrived in
Rome, armed with instructions to prevent an alliance between Papacy and
Regno, and to obtain pontifical confirmation of the election, by the
Rouen chapter, of Messire Georges d’Amboise as Archbishop. The Supreme
Pontiff, by way of emphasising His independent attitude to France,
refused to receive the Orator in audience, annulled the election of
Messire Georges d’Amboise, and named one of His Own court to the
Archbishopric of Rouen. This was what the twentieth century timidly
calls an “unfriendly act”; and the Christian King forthwith began to
sympathise with Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere’s recent clamour for a
General Council to depose the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, and to meditate
thereon day and night.[25]
* * * * *
To strengthen His influence in the Sacred College by adding creatures of
His Own, at the Second Consistory of the twentieth of September 1493,
the Lord Alexander P.P. VI named twelve new cardinals.
These were:—
(α) The Lord John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord High
Chancellor of England, whose virtues have been praised
by another English Chancellor, the Blessed Sir Thomas
More;—Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Anastasia;
(β) The Lord Giovantonio di Sangiorgio;—Cardinal-Presbyter of the
Title of San Nereo e Sant’ Achilleo;
(γ) Frère Jean Villiers de la Grolaye, Lord Abbot of Saint Denys by
Paris;—Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Sabina;
(δ) The Lord Bernardino Lopez de Caravajal, Apostolic Legate to Caesar
Friedrich IV, the eloquent preacher at the Conclave of
1492;—Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Marcellino e San
Pietro:
(ε) The Lord Raymond Perauld,[26] a Frenchman, Apostolic Nuncio in
Germany;—Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Giovanni e San
Paolo:
(ζ) The Lord Cesare (detto Borgia), reputed bastard of the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI, and of the age of eighteen
years;—Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria _Nuova_:
(η) The Lord Ippolito d’Este, of the age of fifteen years, a great
athlete and fighter from boyhood to youth, and a prince of the
Royal House of Ferrara; “tall he was of frame, brawny of
sinew, mighty of limb, strengthening his robustitude with
exercises, archery, and hurling javelins; grace and charm
bloomed on the face of him; his bright eyes beamed with grave
tranquillity, worthy of all praise; most royal was his whole
aspect; he was an expert swimmer; and with whatsoever weapons
he adroitly strove he innured himself to heat and cold and
night-long vigils”;—Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Lucia _in Silice,
alias in Orfea_:
(θ) The Lord Fryderyk Kasimierz Jagelone di Polonia, son of King
Kasimierz of Poland, Bishop of Cracow;—Cardinal-Deacon of Santa
Lucia _in Septisolio, alias in Septizonio_:
(ι) The Lord Giuliano Cesarini (detto Giuniore), Apostolic
Prothonotary, Canon of the Vatican Basilica;—Cardinal-Deacon of
San Sergio e San Bacco:
(κ) The Lord Domenico Grimani, Apostolic Prothonotary;—Cardinal-Deacon
of San Niccolo _inter Imagines_:
(λ) The Lord Alessandro Farnese, Apostolic Prothonotary (nicknamed
“Cardinal Petticoat,” on account of the Pope’s partiality for
his sister, Madonna Giulia Orsini nata Farnese);—Cardinal-Deacon
of San Cosma e San Damiano:
(μ) The Lord Bernardino de’ Lunati, Apostolic Prothonotary, friend of
the Cardinal-Vicechancellor;—Cardinal-Deacon of San Ciriaco
_alle Terme Diocleziane_.[27]
The vigour of this deed struck Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere and his
friend King Don Ferrando into frantic silence. By a mere act of His
Sovereign Will the Holiness of the Pope immensely had increased His Own
potentiality. Two of the new creatures were scions of reigning
dynasties, whose loyalty thereby was secured. The virtue and eloquence
of the English cardinal were as twin towers of strength. The two French
creatures were as a sop to France. The minor diaconate conferred on Don
Cesare (detto Borgia) gave him a standing, from which the splendour of
his youth might do great things. And the other cardinals were proved
adherents, who, by being made to owe their promotion to the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI, became bound (in so far as human foresight went) to
His interests by the bond of gratitude. It was a most paralysing and
disheartening stroke for the enemies of the Sovereign Pontiff; and the
year 1493 ended amid renewed demands for a General Council from Cardinal
Giuliano della Rovere, and renewed invectives from the Majesty of
Naples.
* * * * *
On the twenty-fifth of January 1494, King Don Ferrando I died, in the
seventieth year of his age and the thirty-fifth of his reign. He was a
cautious and experienced politician; and, since the Lord Pius P.P. II,
Lorenzo de’ Medici, and the great Duke Francesco Sforza-Visconti, the
greatest secular statesman of his century. His policy was directed to
the preservation of Italy from French invasion, and to the destruction
of the Papal States. He was not harsh in his dealings with his
subjects: but to his barons and to his opponents he behaved with
cruelty and treachery. He liked to have his enemies always near him,
either alive in the dungeons of his palace, or dead, and embalmed, and
clothed in their habits as they lived. Yet he died regretted; for his
heir, the thick-haired, thin-lipped, narrow-eyed, fat-jowled,
asymmetrically-featured Don Alonso de Aragona, Duke of Calabria,
enjoyed a reputation for violence and brutality the bare idea of which
created universal terror.
The game of politics entered on a new phase. The Christian King
Charles VIII of France was burning for an opportunity of asserting
himself; and had collected an army, ostensibly for a Crusade against
the Great Turk, the Sultán Bajazet, really for purposes of French
aggrandisement—purposes yet undefined. He was a self-conceited little
abortion, this Christian King, of the loosest morals even for a king,
of gross semitic type, with a fiery birth-flare round his left eye,
and twelve toes on his feet hidden in splayed shoes, which set the
fashion in foot-gear for the end of the fifteenth century in Italy;
and, like all vain little men, he was anxious to cut a romantic and
considerable figure. He announced a claim to the crown of Naples.
This made it necessary for the Lord Alexander P.P. VI to compare the
advantages of France as an ally with the Regno; and, in the meantime,
that He might lead the Christian King to declare himself with more
particularity, the Pope’s Holiness addressed a Brief to him in which the
subject of Naples was not named: but which assured him of pontifical
favour, and gave him leave to pass through Rome with his army on the way
to his contemplated Crusade. There was dissatisfaction in the Sacred
College about the matter of the Archbishopric of Rouen; and some of the
cardinals were beginning to think that the time was come for turning
coats, especially as it was known that the Orator of France had made
overtures of friendship on the part of his sovereign to Cardinal
Giuliano della Rovere.
The Supreme Pontiff finally concluded that He would rather have an ally
on His frontier, than an ally whose territories were separated from His
by the domains of other princes. He decided to leave France out of the
question; and to recognize the heir of the late King Don Ferrando I.
Accordingly He conveyed this news to Don Alonso de Aragona Duke of
Calabria, adding that He would envoy a Legate to Naples to concede
investiture and to perform the ceremony of coronation. At the same time,
the Pope’s Holiness sent the Golden Rose to the Christian King; and it
is hard to know whether this gift symbolized consolation or contempt. If
the former, then the gift should have been a sword; for the Sword is the
pontifical gift to kings. If the latter, then it was bitterly
appropriate, for the Golden Rose is the pontifical gift to queens. Yet
only with difficulty one can conceive of the Pope as deliberately
setting himself to provoke a reigning sovereign who heads a mobilized
army; and the act may have been merely one of those slipshod
performances which the greatest geniuses, from time to time, provide to
remind mankind of the maxim _non semper arcum tendit Apollo_. But all
the same the Lord Alexander P.P. VI was a very strong man, guilty of
hiding none of His human weaknesses.
When the Pope issued His Bull on this matter of the Investiture in
Public Consistory, storms ensued. Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, again
diplomatically deprived of his Neapolitan friends, flitted from Rome to
Ostia with the pontifical condottieri at his heels. From Ostia, he
shipped to Genoa, and made haste to present himself to the pink-eyed
Majesty of France. The French Orators in Rome shrieked “We are betrayed”
in the consecrated formula; and hurried to safe places. And the fortress
of Ostia capitulated to the Pope.
In May, the Lord Giovanni Borgia, Archbishop of Monreale and
Cardinal-Priest of the Title of Santa Susanna, received his Brief as
Apostolic Ablegate, and went to Naples to crown the new king. The
fourteen-year-old Don Gioffredo Borgia accompanied his Most Worshipful
cousin; and was married on the coronation-day, the seventh of May.
Madonna Sancia, bastard of King Don Alonso II, who confirmed to him the
title of Prince of Squillace with a revenue of forty thousand ducats.
Also, as an earnest of his gratitude to the Pope, the King of Naples
conferred the Principalities of Teano and Tricarico on Don Juan
Francisco de Lançol y Borja, eldest surviving bastard of the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI (who already had procured for him the Spanish duchy of
Gandia;) and enriched Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) with Neapolitan
benefices. The Papacy and the Regno now were a Dual Alliance.
* * * * *
In Italy of the fifteenth century, men’s minds chiefly were occupied
with the accumulation and disposition of matters connected with the
intellect and the tastes. The Elect-Emperor Maximilian, who in 1493
succeeded the Pacific Caesar Friedrich IV on the throne of Central
Europe (called the Holy Roman Empire) was adding outlying territories to
the possessions of his dynasty, the Habsburg House of Austria. Spain was
freeing herself, by means of steel and faggot, from her brain, _i.e._,
the Moors and Jews; and in exploiting her New World. England was
enjoying peace and a new dynasty, since the close of the War of the
Roses in 1485. France had made peace, at a price, with King Henry VII
Tudor in 1492; and with Spain, at the cost of her frontier provinces of
Cerdogne and Rouissillion, in 1493. Lastly, the Christian King Charles
VIII of France had pacified the rage of the Elect-Emperor Maximilian,
whom he had robbed of his betrothed the Duchess Anne of Bretagne, by
ceding to him the greater part of Burgundy. For the rest, nearly all the
kingdoms, duchies, and fiefs of France had fallen into the hands of the
vaunting Charles, by conquest, inheritance, lapse or marriage. Finding
himself at the head of a great army experienced in the art of war, and
with a domain smiling with prosperity, he looked for fresh fields to
conquer. The chivalric glamour of the Crusade had by no means faded: it
dazzled the pink eye of France: and, at one time, undoubtedly the
Christian King intended to march on the Muslim Infidel, now settled in
Europe and unmolested. But, with the death of King Don Ferrando I, the
fickle Frenchman revived an old claim of the House of Anjou to the crown
of Naples, intrigued with Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, and brought
his veteran army south to Lyons; where he spent his time in lubricity,
until he should have felt the pulses of the Italian Powers with
reference to his undertaking. French envoys reported to him that the
Papacy was allied with Naples, and Naples with Don Piero de’ Medici of
Tuscany; that Don Filiberto the Fair, (the boy-duke of Savoja, married
to the Elect-Emperor’s daughter Anne,) with Duke Ercole d’Este of
Ferrara, the Marquesses of Monserrat and Saluzzo, and the Republic of
Venice, were neutral. The auguries were not propitious for France; but
the Christian King, emboldened by the presence, and attentive to the
rhodomontades of, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, and stupidly believing
it possible to reduce a Pope by fear, joined in the duet and cried for a
General Council. Indeed, he placed more confidence in the virtue of this
threat than in his army; for he definitely threatened the Lord Alexander
P.P. VI with deposition and deprivation of the Apostolic dignity, not by
force of arms, but by canonical proof of His simoniacal election—unless
He would concede to France the crown of Naples. (Corio, Storie di
Milano. III 525)
It is very difficult to understand these shouters for a General Council.
They were so clever, so logical, in other matters, that it is perfectly
impossible for them to have been unaware of the extreme futility of
their cry. They could not have been ignorant: then they must have been
malignant. Suppose that an assemblage calling itself a General Council
had been convened by the Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia and the Majesty of
France, and had proved to its own satisfaction that Cardinal Rodrigo de
Lançol y Borja had bought, by bribery, the votes of his
brother-cardinals, raising himself by these means to the throne of God’s
Vicegerent; what end would have been served? There was a moral but no
legal prohibition then, as already has been shewn, to prevent a cardinal
from buying votes, if he could find cardinals criminal enough to sell.
The money-changers were, as now, in possession of the Temple; and the
whip of small cords still on the Knees of God.
Suppose that a self-called General Council had decreed the deposition of
the Pope on the ground of simony; the decrees of a General Council are
ineffective until they have been promulgated with the expressed sanction
of the Roman Pontiff. Is it probable that the Lord Alexander P.P. VI,
that the sanctimonious Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, that any human
man, would sanction the promulgation of the decree that ordained his own
deposition? If he did so declare himself to be no Pope, what would be
the value of such a declaration? If he were Pope, he would not; if he
were not Pope he could not, depose himself. Then what would have been
the good, (if the Sokratic method be so far permitted,) of a self-called
General Council which only could compile ineffectual decrees?
We are dealing with this matter in its human aspect only. Humanity was
master of the mighty then, as now; Morality of the humble and meek.
Suppose that a self-called General Council had decreed the deposition of
the Pope: what would have happened? This—the Sacred College would have
split into two or more factions; let us say two, to keep the argument in
reasonable bounds. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI would have headed one
faction; the envious Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere the other. Both
would have gone into Conclave; the one in Rome, the other in France. The
Roman Conclave would have affirmed the Lord Alexander P.P. VI to be the
Pontiff-Regnant. The French conclave would have elected Cardinal
Giuliano della Rovere, who incontinently would have blossomed forth as
Pseudopontiff Julius II. Each would have created cardinals. Each would
have administered as much of the Church and Christendom as he could have
persuaded to submit to his administration. There would have been a
Pontiff in Rome, a pseudopontiff in France. The sheep of Christ’s Flock
would have been neglected, while the shepherds exchanged anathemas. It
all had happened before—many times before. It would have been the
Fortieth Schism. In course of time, death would claim the Pontiff or the
pseudopontiff. His party would replace him. In course of time
subdivision would take place, a schism in a schism. A section of
cardinals would secede from Pontiff, or from pseudopontiff; call
themselves the Sacred College in Conclave, and elect a second
pseudopontiff. Christendom would have been torn asunder. The crime would
have been capable of infinite development. All had been seen before,
many times before—last, in this identical Fifteenth Century—the century
of the Thirty-ninth Schism of the Holy Roman Church, the Thirty-ninth
Rending of the Seamless Robe of Christ.
And that was the atrocious turpitude to which Revenge was leading
Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, and Vanity was leading the Christian
King Charles VIII, all light-heartedly.
* * * * *
Being now in amity with Colonna and Orsini through the Neapolitan
alliance, as well as with Sforza and Cesarini, the Holiness of the Pope
proceeded to the Regno for the purpose of concerting a plan of campaign
with King Don Alonso II, whom He met at Vicovaro on the fourteenth of
July. There it was arranged that the King should hold the Abruzzi
provinces with part of the Neapolitan army, while his son, Don
Ferrandino de Aragona, with another part should make a swift advance on
Milan by way of the Romagna, sending out flying columns to sweep the
country free from rebels; and, after expelling the usurping Regent, Don
Ludovico Maria Sforza-Visconti, and restoring Duke Giangaleazzo to the
throne of Milan, he should force the French to engage in Lombardy.
Meanwhile, Don Virginio Orsini with the pontifical condottieri was to
protect the Papal States; and Don Federigo de Aragona, brother to King
Don Alonso II, was to take the Neapolitan fleet, capture Genoa, and
command the northern coast.
No better plan could have been invented for a war of the chess-game
species: but in two places it was weak. It would occupy too long in
performance; for the French army was on Milan’s frontier which half the
length of Italy separated from Naples. It caused the defection of some
Sforza: it alienated the Supreme Pontiff from His vicechancellor, His
closest friend, for the Neapolitan scheme involved the expulsion from
Milan of the brother of Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti, who
thereupon became neutral, Sforza holding by Sforza.
Before the Regno was ready, the French fleet reached Genoa, and the
French army crossed the Alps to Milan. Admiral Don Federigo de Aragona,
finding Genoa in his enemy’s hand, led the Neapolitan galleys to Porto
Venere on the Gulf of Spezzia, only to sustain a repulse which caused
him to retire to Livorno to repair his fleet. Seeing from which
direction he might expect attack, the Christian King garrisoned Genoa
with Swiss mercenaries under Duke Louis d’Orleans. On the eighth of
September, the Admiral of Naples took Rapallo, a little city six leagues
from Genoa, and landed troops. The French commander made an accipitrine
swoop from Genoa, cut up the squadrons of Naples, and put Rapallo to
sack and pillage for entertaining them. All Italy was amazed, paralyzed
with horror, at war conducted on these bloodthirsty lines. The idea of
being killed, except perhaps accidentally by being trampled underfoot in
a rout, or in a simple personal quarrel, was terrible to people
accustomed to battles which were processions, and sieges which were
decorative occupations for gentlemen of leisure. Admiral Don Federigo
led the remnant of his fleet to Naples without an hour’s delay.
Vicechancellor-Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti now became
aggressive, and successfully detached from the Pope the Houses of
Colonna and Savelli; (the last, until their dynasty became extinct, held
the office of Hereditary Marshal of the Holy Roman Church.) Colonna and
Savelli then collected their retainers and menaced the Eternal City. On
the eighteenth of September Don Fabrizio Colonna recaptured Ostia, and
held it in the name of its renegade Cardinal-Bishop. French galleys
transporting troops anchored in the mouth of Tiber. Crippled Naples
dared not to advance on Milan leaving Rome unprotected. Then Madonna
Caterina Sforza-Riario, countess and witch, (daughter of the great
Francesco, and widow of the infamous Count Girolamo Riario of the Pazzi
Conspiracy,) declared for France in her citadel of Imola, and made
things worse for Naples and the Papacy by showing them that an enemy was
in their midst. In this strait, and having no sovereign friend in Europe
save the Majesty of Naples, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI applied to the
Great Turk, the Sultán Bajazet. That wily oriental agreed to help, on
condition that his brother and rival, the Sultán Djim, long years held
hostage by the Papacy, should be delivered to his tender mercies. This
the Pope’s Holiness refused, not caring to connive at fratricide; and so
completed the isolation of Himself and King Don Alonso II.
On the sixth of October, the Supreme Pontiff thundered from the Vatican
a demand for the restitution of Ostia, (held by Don Pierfrancesco
Colonna (?)) on pain of the Greater Excommunication. He “fills a great
place in history because he so blended his spiritual and temporal
authority as to apply the resources of the one to the purposes of the
other.” (_North British Review._) At the same time, having intelligence
of a Colonna plot to capture the Sultán Djim on behalf of France, He
moved His mysterious ward from the Vatican by way of Lo Andare to the
Mola of Hadrian on Tiber; and sent the Lord Francesco de’ Piccolhuomini,
Cardinal of Siena, as Apostolic Envoy to the Majesty of France. But the
Christian King would not receive him, saying that he was coming to Rome
to see the Pope Himself.[28]
* * * * *
The Sultán Djim was a Mystery—the Fifteenth Century equivalent for the
Man in the Iron Mask. The brother and rival of the Great Turk, the
Sultán Bajazet, who reigned at Constantinople, he was given as a hostage
to the Knights of Rhodes at a time when Bajazet wished to win the good
graces of the Christian Powers, and to rid himself of a dangerous menace
to his throne’s security. The Great Turk offered to pay forty thousand
ducats every year, so long as the Sultán Djim was kept away from
Byzantium; and he sent also the celebrated emerald, on which is carved
an Image of our Divine Redeemer, to the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII. After a
long detention, Frère Pierre d’Aubusson, Grand Master of the Knights of
Rhodes and Cardinal-Deacon of Sant’ Adriano, transferred this valuable
hostage to the Pope for greater security. The Sultán Djim was accorded
apartments in the Vatican Palace, and kept a court of his own there in
oriental luxury. The crumpled roseleaf of his existence was his constant
fear lest his brother should envenom him; and envoys from the Great Turk
were only allowed to enter his presence when rigorous and ceremonial
precautions had been taken;—for example, an envoy bringing a letter from
Bajazet was compelled to lick it all over, outside and inside, under
Djim’s own eyes, before the last would touch it. The Lord Innocent P.P.
VIII, and His successor the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, regarded the Sultán
Djim as a precious guarantee for the good conduct of the Great Turk. “As
long as Djim is in Our hands, Bajazet continually will be uneasy, and
neither raise armies, nor molest the Christians;” wrote the Lord
Innocent P.P. VIII. Later, the Great Turk conceived an alarm lest his
discontented mamelukes should depose him in favour of his brother; and
he proposed to pay a hundred and twenty thousand ducats to the Pope for
the restoration of the Sultán Djim: undoubtedly intending to put him out
of the way according to the methods observed by oriental potentates in
reference to their rivals. But the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII refused to
have art or part in crime, though He would have been very glad of the
money for His family; and the Sultan Djim continued to remain in Rome.
The same policy was pursued by the Lord Alexander P.P. VI,
notwithstanding that the Great Turk had ceased to send the yearly forty
thousand ducats, thus making his brother the pensioner, as well as the
ward, of the Papacy. Then in October 1494, when the Eternal City was
about to be the scene of war and tumult, the Pope’s Holiness placed His
ward for safety in the Mola of Hadrian, the fortress tomb which also was
His own refuge.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Charles VIII of France_]
On the same day when Admiral Don Federigo de Aragona fled with the
Neapolitan fleet from Rapallo to Naples, the Christian King followed his
army across the Alps. Being but a shallow-pated Frenchman, enervated
with the most horrible of all diseases, he already was in a quandary: he
had no money wherewith to pay his troops; his march for some weeks would
lie through friendly territory, and, until he reached the pontifical
states, he could find no cities to sack for the appeasing and
encouragement of his mercenaries. To meet him, hurried Don Ludovico
Maria Sforza-Visconti, also in a quandary: he was an usurping regent,
with his legitimate sovereign under lock and key; and he was going to
meet a legitimate sovereign-regnant. Whether Don Ludovico Maria would
complete a little loan, was the question agitating the mind of the
Christian King. Whether the Majesty of France would want to champion his
Order, to release his brother sovereign and place him on his throne, and
to behave severely and unpleasantly to an usurping regent, was the
difficulty of Don Ludovico Maria. The two met at Asti. The Christian
King at once broached his trouble; and Don Ludovico Maria, with his
capacious Sforza brain-pan and his determined Sforza jaw, instantly
perceived that he could recommend himself by being useful. He advised
France rapidly to advance southward through the Romagna where rich
spoils awaited him. And he found the means. Of the man who will lend
money at the very moment when it is urgently required, none but the very
best opinion can be formed. The Christian King was quite prepared to
accept Don Ludovico Maria’s own estimation of himself, now. It was even
safe to let him see the pathetic sovereign of Milan in his prison.
After being detained a few weeks by that which Italians call the French
disease, because it was introduced into Italy by this Christian King,
Charles VIII dawdled on to Pavia; and visited Duke Giangaleazzo
Sforza-Visconti. The condition of that luckless prince was scandalous in
the extreme. He was of the age of five and twenty years. He had been a
prisoner during fifteen years. He was decrepid of body, helpless and
dull of mind. His only joy in life was in his Duchess Isabella and in
his four-year-old son, for whose protection he piteously entreated the
Christian King. France put on a sympathetic aspect—it was perhaps the
most gracious moment in the little creature’s life—; the nostrils of his
ham-shaped nose wore an air of disgust at Duke Giangaleazzo’s suffering;
the glare of his boiled eyes in their congenital flush, and the severe
fat line of his mouth, horrified the usurping Regent. Had the money of
Don Ludovico Maria been in the coffers of any one just then except the
Christian King’s, undoubtedly right would have been done by the might of
France. But, with promises to return, with excellent intentions to
attend to the affairs of Milan when Naples should have been reduced with
Milan’s money, the Christian King was persuaded to hasten on to
Piacenza.
There, on the twenty-first of October, news came to him that the prince
whom he had left in his prison, Duke Giangaleazzo Sforza-Visconti, was
dead; and that Don Ludovico Maria had proclaimed himself, and had been
accepted as, Duke of Milan. It was also said that the uncle had
envenomed the nephew, having observed him to have gained the sympathy of
France, and fearing lest that sympathy should restore him to his throne.
It may have been so: but there is no evidence whatever on the subject
beyond the mere assertion. But it equally might have been the effect of
concentrated despair, at seeing deliverance come and pass away, acting
on a body, naturally weak, worn by passion and imprisonment, which
killed Duke Giangaleazzo Sforza-Visconti of Milan. The Fifteenth Century
(and also the first decades of the Sixteenth) was so radically ignorant
of the art and science, as well of venoms, as of their practical
exhibition, that, unless direct in addition to circumstantial evidence
be forthcoming, mere unproved charges based on “on dit,” “aiunt,”
“fertur,” or “dicant,” may be disregarded and a natural cause of death
assigned.
* * * * *
Florence, capital city of Tuscany and ancient friend of France, was in a
critical condition. Lorenzo de’ Medici was just dead. His son, Don Piero
had succeeded him. Don Piero’s brother Messer Giovanni, raised to the
purple at the age of thirteen years, red-hatted at seventeen, was a
Cardinal of Rome. The genius of the great Lorenzo had made him disguise
his power. He had married at his own mother’s bidding Madonna Clarice
Orsini, a patrician of Rome. His sons, educated by Canon Angelo
Ambrogini (detto Poliziano), had grown up intellectual, grand, and gay,
with an overweening sense of their own consequence; and, when the
sceptre fell into his young inexperienced hands, Don Piero forgot his
father’s advice, “Remember that thou art but a citizen of Florence, even
as am I;” and he behaved autocratically, despotically, independently, to
the immense antipathy of the Lily-City.
When the Majesty of France began his interference with Italian politics,
Don Piero de’ Medici and Florence, being contracted to the Regno,
declined the offer of a French alliance. The Christian King retorted by
banishing Florentine merchants from France. This gave occasion for the
enemies, (which, in common with all great Houses, Medici had) to
blaspheme, muttering of the evils of a tyranny, of the advantages of a
republic: and Don Piero’s cousins, Don Giovanni and Don Lorenzino, fled
to the Christian King at Piacenza; saying that not Florence, but Don
Piero only, was the foe of France.
Fra Girolamo Savonarola, friar of the Religion of St. Dominic, became a
prominent and responsible figure in this imbroglio. Ecclesiastically he
was a subject of the Dominican Congregation of Lombardy, who was led to
desire independence and a pied à terre in Florence. Don Piero de’
Medici, seeing naught amiss, supported his application to Rome for the
separation of the Tuscan Dominicans from allegiance to the Lombard
Congregation; for, it was urged, the erection of a separate Congregation
for Lombardy would add to the dignity of Florence, and would be a slight
to Milan. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI, when the case was laid before Him
in 1493, was inclined to favour Milan on account of the
Vicechancellor-Cardinal who was brother to the usurping Regent: but, on
the advice of Cardinal Oliviero Carafa, who officially had examined the
matter on its merits, and who reported in favour of Don Piero de’ Medici
and the weird friar, the Pope’s Holiness issued the Bull of Separation
on the twenty-second of May that same year. Fra Girolamo Savonarola then
transferred himself to the new Tuscan Congregation, was elected Prior of
San Marco and Vicar-General; and so became the absolute ruler of the
Dominicans in Florence, and subject only to the General of the Religion
of St. Dominic, and to the Pope, in Rome.
He was a truly pious man, of the hard ascetic type, and very masterful.
He used his independence rigorously to reform his Convent of San Marco,
with, for a wonder, the complete concurrence of his friars; and so he
formed a centre of the exclusively religious life. He would make no
compromise whatever. He would have God entirely served; and countenanced
no paltering with Mammon. He utterly spat upon and defied the World. He
burned every pretty worldly thing. Lewd lovely Florence executed a quick
change, and followed him in sackcloth and ashes. The alluring melody of
Lorenzo de’ Medici’s Canti Carnaleschi was drowned in the chaunting of
the _Miserere mei Deus_ and the Seven Penitential Psalms with Litanies;
while disciplines and scourges in the public streets fell like flails on
youth’s white flesh. Fra Girolamo preached penance in the Advent of
1493. In the Lent of 1494, he preached from the book of Genesis. When he
arrived at Noe’s Ark, he dwelled upon it; his subject fascinated him;
each plank, each nail, became a symbol: but the moral of his allegory
was, “Enter the Ark of Salvation that ye may escape the wrath to come.”
Florence was disturbed by expectation of the French invasion; which,
said Fra Girolamo, (mixing his metaphors in the only way that the
vulgar really understand) was the Scourge of God for the Purification
of the Church. In September, he preached again. Visions came to him;
and he preached of them in parables. His success, his ever-growing
power, produced in him an effect like inebriation. Not yet having lost
his self-control, he was able to see his danger. He made an effort,
and ceased to preach. His brain was in a ferment; sleeplessness gnawed
the remnant of his physical strength. Again he mounted the pulpit of
San Marco, and thundered like a prophet, like a seer, not his own
words now, but “Thus saith The Lord.” He claimed εἰσπνοή—Divine
Afflatus—Inspiration. Humanly speaking, he had gone out of his
mind—was mad.
The excitement of Florence became a frenzy. “Behold,” Fra Girolamo
Savonarola tremendously declaimed, “Behold I bring a flood of waters on
the earth!” And the French army entered Italy.
Florence was half-dead with terror, terror of the French, terror of the
Wrath to Come. She had exasperated the Christian King, was disunited in
herself, and she had no troops. Yet—she might resist. On her frontier
were the strong fortresses of Sarzanella and Pietrasanta. A few resolute
patriots might hold the mountain-passes on the road through Lunigiana;
and an initial check which ruined French prestige would restore
self-confidence to Florence. This was the time of the trial of the stuff
of Don Piero de’ Medici; who, being in three minds, failed to stand.
First, he sent his brother-in-law, Don Paolo Orsini, to garrison
Sarzanella. Secondly, he quavered, because the Florentines appeared
sulkily to him. Thirdly, he dallied with the notion of submission to the
Christian King. From the fortress of Pietrasanta he whined for a
safe-conduct. Arrived in the French camp he collapsed: lying prostrate
at the twelve-toed feet of the Majesty of France, he implored pardon for
his impertinence in thinking to defend his fatherland; and he offered
reparation. He assented to the French demand for the withdrawal of the
Tuscan army from the Romagna; for the castles of Sarzana, Sarzanella,
Pietrasanta, Pisa, and Livorno, to be held as pledges until Naples
should capitulate; for a forced-loan of two hundred thousand ducats; the
pledges immediately to be delivered and a treaty signed at Florence. The
French had never dreamed that the road should open to them as though by
miracle; and by simplest Induction they said that God was on their side.
Florence was dismayed. Don Piero de’ Medici stayed with the French: his
brothers were in the vast Medici Palace (now Palazzo Riccardi) at the
corner of Via Larga, which Michellozzo built for mighty Cosmo. “It is
time to make an end of this government by children and to recover our
liberty,” said the grave and sterling Don Piero Capponi; and the
Signoria sent out an embassage to undo the mischief. There were five
ambassadors, including Fra Girolamo Savonarola whom Florence loved, and
Don Piero Capponi whom she admired. They left the city on the sixth of
November with plenary powers to modify the disgraceful conditions of
surrender. On the seventh, they found the Christian King at Lucca; and
followed him to Pisa. He received them very coldly, saying that he would
arrange no terms except in Florence. To diseased France the degenerate
Fra Girolamo forthwith prophesied, “Know thyself for an instrument in
the hands of the Lord, Who hath sent thee to heal the woes of Italy and
to reform the prostrate Church. But if thou dost not shew thyself just
and pitiful, if thou respectest not Florence and her people, if thou
forgettest the work for which the Lord hath sent thee, then He will
choose another in Thy place, and in His Wrath engulph thee. I speak in
the name of the Lord.” (_Savonarola’s Compendium Revelationum._)
On the eighth of November, Don Piero de’ Medici reappeared in Florence.
The City of Lilies knew that Don Paolo Orsini held the Porta di San
Gallo for him, with troops disposed about the district; and suspected
that he would summon her citizens and force himself upon them as
Dictator. On the ninth, suspicion redoubled, because he went with an
imposing retinue to the Palace of the Signoria where the magistrates
were in conclave. The door was shut: a voice bade him enter by the
postern, but alone. Don Piero de’ Medici turned away. A partisan of
Medici in the Signoria followed him, and brought him back. In attempting
the little gate, there was some scuffle, some dispute; and the gate was
slammed upon him in a gathering crowd which cried “Away—away—and leave
the Signoria in peace.” In a storm of hissing where stones were flying
Don Piero de’ Medici flashed out his sword,—and—irresolutely—let it
fall. His escort closed him in, and hurried him to old Cosmo’s palace,
where all of the few Medici were arming. Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici,
not nineteen years of age, risked his sacred person—risked, because a
Florentine mob had flung an archbishop in pontificals (Archbishop
Salviati of Pisa) at a rope’s end from a window; and bleached with
mortal terror the visage of a boy-cardinal (the Lord Rafaele Galeotto
Sanzoni-Riario Cardinal-Deacon of San Giorgio _in Velum Aureum_, aet
16,) not sixteen years before,—his sacred person, because he who
_suadente diabolo_ lifts hand against the person of one tonsured _ipso
facto_ incurs the Greater Excommunication,—he risked his sacred person
among a Florentine mob, endeavouring to rouse them as of old to follow
Medici with the war-cry “Palle—Palle—Palle.”[29] All was in vain.
The well-worn cry had lost magnetic virtue; and none in Florence now
dared to own himself a friend of Medici. Don Piero rushed to the Porta
di San Gallo, where Medici had never cried in vain. None answered him.
His courage left him there. He infected with fear Don Paolo Orsini and
his bands; and all fled to Bologna. At night Cardinal Giovanni and his
sixteen-year-old cousin, Messer Giuliano Knight of St John of Jerusalem
of Malta, escaped in the frocks of Friars Minor; and from Bologna these
three Medici journeyed on to Venice where Italian exiles always found a
home: while Florence sacked the Medici Palace, plundered the priceless
Medici Library of Manuscripts, and set a price upon the head of
Lorenzo’s son Don Piero.
This revolt was the work of Fra Girolamo Savonarola. For sixty years
Florence had enjoyed prosperity under Medici. She was the centre of
learning, the mediating power of Italy with influence in every state; in
fact, as the Lord Boniface P.P. VIII said on receiving the Orators of
the Powers in Rome at the Jubilee of 1300, “_i fiorentini sono il quinto
elemento_.” But the Dominican Friar had roused in Her those moral
aspirations which Medici had lulled to atrophy; and the contemptible
blunders of Don Piero had proved a final exasperation. The newly-formed
republic set up Donatello’s statue of Judith with the Head of Holofernes
on a pedestal before Palazzo Vecchio, with this inscription for the
benefit of budding despots, EXEMPLUM SALUTIS PUBLICAE CIVES POSUERE
MCCCCXCV. And on the day of the expulsion of the Medici, little Pisa
revolted also, and threw off the yoke of Florence.
* * * * *
The fortune of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI appeared to be in serious
danger. The French unhindered were advancing, and sedition was sown in
Rome. One more overture the Supreme Pontiff made, sending Cardinal
Raymond Perrauld, a creature of His Own, to treat with the Christian
King, who with no difficulty persuaded the French Cardinal to turn
traitor to the Pope. A Brief, appealing to the Elect-Emperor Maximilian
for help proved ineffectual. The forces of Colonna beleaguered the
Eternal city. Within the walls, three disaffected cardinals, the Lords
Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti, Friderico Sanseverini, and Bernardino de’
Lunati, were interned with the Pope in the Mola for the sake of safety.
When the pontifical citadel of Civita Vecchia fell, the loyalists became
yet more disheartened. Orsini turned its coats and joined the French.
Cesarini alone of all the patricians of Rome continued to be staunch and
true. Resistance was useless, things being as they were; and the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI gave leave to the Christian King to enter Rome. He
came. He humanly was master of the City and of the situation, face to
face with the Holiness of the Pope, practically having His person in his
power. The Majesty of France demanded the calling of a General Council;
and God’s Vicegerent opposed him with a blunt and unconditional _Non
Possumus_. Whenever the World has driven the Church against the wall,
She has become inexorably invincible.
The year 1495 opened with Rome in panic and disorder, in the clutch of a
foreign army bringing desolation and a new disease. The Christian King,
who had come to accomplish the conquest of the Regno by means of the
deposition of the Pope, found the way completely blocked. He had
strutted on his twelve-toed feet to Rome, prepared to crow so very
gallically. The decree of deposition actually was prepared, and only
required confirmation by a competent authority. Inflated with gigantic
megalomaniacal illusions, he had believed that an evil conscience would
have made the Lord Alexander P.P. VI obedient to him. He thought by the
threat of a General Council (which he intended to convoke at Ferrara,)
to blackmail the Pope into conceding the investiture of Naples. He
ineffectually had battered the defences of the Pope with cannon. And now
his Frenchmen would fight no longer, as some say; but others, like
Briçonnet and de Commines, assert that it was the king who blenched. At
last, with his shallow mind congested with half-thought thoughts and
uncompleted facts like these, he became aware that a General Council was
not a General council unless it had the Pope’s authority, which last he
was not likely to obtain; and that, without some means of bending the
pontifical will, he could not hope to win the crown of Naples.
Evidently, he could not depose the Pope. He might, however, conquer
Naples by force of arms; and, perhaps, the question of investiture by
the Ruler of the World, the Father of princes and of kings, the Earthly
Vicar of Jesus Christ our Saviour, which he realized to be imperative,
would wear a different aspect when he should ask for it as a conqueror
with the Regno in his hand.
While the Christian King was stumbling to these conclusions, the
invincible Lord Alexander P.P. VI remained with His little court in the
Mola of Hadrian where He had His hostages secure, viz., the Sultán Djim,
earnestly desired by France as a weapon against the Great Turk, and the
renegade cardinals, friends of Colonna and the French. Here, He was
practically impregnable. The Papal States might go to wrack and ruin:
Rome Herself might be crushed by an alien heel, but from the Mola of
Hadrian a Pope, surrounded by His faithful few, could, and often did,
defy blockade as long as provisions held out; could, and often did,
launch the lightnings of the Church, censures, excommunications,
interdicts; and force acknowledgment, and reluctant obedience, from
rebellious sovereigns who, after all, believed and admitted Him to be
Ruler of the World, Father of princes and of kings, Earthly Vicar of
Jesus Christ our Saviour, titles, in defence of which (so very glorious
are they) Pontiffs of these clear ages did not hesitate to court the
death, admitting of no compromise of no rebate. Our potency, said they,
if worth having, is worth fighting for, is worth dying for. And, as
invariably is the case, when a man shews that he wishes nothing better
than to lose his life for a cause, he saves both cause, and life.
From the Mola of Hadrian then, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI deigned to
make these terms with the Christian King:—The French army was to be
withdrawn from Rome. The Pope’s Holiness would not interfere; and would
lend to France as hostages for six months, the Sultán Djim with whom to
menace the Great Turk Bajazet, and Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia). The
question of the investiture of Naples was not even named. Having secured
Himself by this agreement, in which He had conceded neither of the two
French claims, the Supreme Pontiff received in formal audience the
Christian King, who shortly after marched his troops southward along the
Appian Way by Albano, Ariccia, and Genzano, toward the Neapolitan
frontier.
* * * * *
At the Third Consistory of the sixteenth of January 1495, the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI named one cardinal, who was the Lord Guillaume
Briçonnet, Overseer of the Treasury to the Christian King Charles VIII,
editor of a book of prayers dedicated to the said king (Encheiridion
precum); Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Pudentiana.
* * * * *
At Velletri there lived a certain Don Pietro Gregario Borgia, son of
that Don Niccolo Borgia of the Junior Branch, Regent of Velletri and
Familiar of King Don Alonso V, by his marriage with the Noble Giovanna
Lamberti. In 1495 this Don Pietrogorio was about the age of twenty-one
years (the age in fact of Cardinal Cesare;) and, when the French king
halted for the night at Velletri, he found means to exchange habits with
the said Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) and to help him to disappear,
remaining as hostage in his place. It was a daring act, and soon
discovered: but the cardinal was safe in Rome concerting new schemes
with the Pope. The Majesty of France grave instant orders for the
hanging of Don Pietrogorio and for the firing of the city; and hurried
on to Naples. But the king’s first secretary, who had been commissioned
to execute his master’s vengeance, out of sheer admiration for the
courage of Velletri’s Regent’s son, gave him a swift horse and leave to
reclaim his own clothes from Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) in Rome; nor
did he give Velletri to the flames.
Immediately on hearing of the French approach, King Don Alonso II
abdicated in favour of his son Don Ferrandino de Aragona. Envoys from
the Catholick King Don Hernando of Spain embarrassed the Christian King
Charles VIII of France with remonstrances on his invasion of the
territories of the House of Aragon: but the latter was not to be
rebuffed. The fortress of Monte San Giovanni capitulated to him. His
march through the Regno was a series of victories; and, in the capital,
he announced his intention altogether to relinquish the Crusade, and to
add Naples as a fief to France.
But three causes prevented this from becoming more than a French
boast:—the action of the Pope, the action of the Powers, the action of
Providence. Directly after the French had quitted Rome, the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI retired to the pontifical castle of Viterbo, a mighty
fortress in a cool air, and pleasant as a summer residence; where He was
joined by Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) with Don Pietro Gregorio Borgia
(now the last Most Worshipful Lord’s lieutenant and standard-bearer);
and whence He commenced vigorous diplomatic negotiations directed
against the French.
The Powers of Italy had taken alarm. It had never been contemplated that
France would meet submission all along the line, and actually become
arbiter of the whole country. Milan, Florence the Papal States, and now
the Regno, had fallen: with the French in France in the north, and the
French in Naples in the south, these intermediate duchies, states and
republics found themselves in the position of an uncracked nut in a
monkey’s jaw: wherefore Italy gave way to fear. Also, Spain was the
enemy of France, so was the Holy Roman Empire; and the Elect-Emperor
Maximilian and the Catholic King realized the arrival of a unique
opportunity for invading France by south and east, seeing that the
French army was in Naples, cut off from its base by the Italian states.
All these circumstances and considerations, skilfully perceived and
engineered by the Pope’s Holiness from His eyrie at Viterbo, quite
naturally resulted in the conclusion of a Holy League, consisting of the
Papacy, the Empire, Spain, and the Italian Powers, against France.
His position having become untenable, the Christian King resolved upon
retreat. Half his army he left in Naples; and marched northward with the
rest. His coming had been a triumphal procession. His going was a flight
through hostile territory. A second time he entered Rome with the hope
of retrieving his lost prestige: but the Pope again retired, this time
to Orvieto, and refused to meet him. Enraged by the slight, the polite
chivalry of France to pain the Pope avenged itself on women, pillaging
the house of Madonna Giovanna de’ Catanei, and making Madonna Giulia
Orsini (nata Farnese) a prisoner. Onward, northward, went the Christian
King, conferring with the mattoid Fra Girolamo Savonarola at Poggibonzi;
fighting a desperate battle at Fornuovo, where he lost his army stores;
reaching France with his forces disgraced and in disorder; and he
himself disabled by the sentence of the Greater Excommunication which
the thoroughly angry and triumphant Pontiff fulminated after him.
* * * * *
In Florence, Fra Girolamo ceased not to labour on behalf of the
Christian King, sowing seeds of political discord, and preparing the
germs of certain calumnies which, in later years were used by Florentine
friends of France. His sermons were French manifestoes, and
denunciations of Medici. He had stepped from the pulpit of the pastor to
the platform of the politician. His power was admirable and admired, his
sincerity unquestionable; and earnest efforts were made to reclaim him
from the doubtful practices in which he was embarked. The Lord Alexander
P.P. VI summoned him by a kindly and paternal Brief to Rome; saying that
He wished to hear him personally, and to confer with him as to the
methods which he advocated. How revoltingly inconsistent are the writers
who rail against the Pope for His treatment of this degenerate friar!
Leaving out of the question matters of dogma, articles of Faith, in
reference to which the Founder of Christianity definitely promised to
permit no error, it must be admitted that, regarding ordinary affairs of
government and discipline, a Pope-well-advised is superior to a
Pope-ill-advised. Well, here is the Pope having heard many hard things
of Savonarola, definitely and gently offering to hear that madman’s own
defence, definitely trying every means, every most intimate and
stringent means, to render Himself well-advised before proceeding to
judgment. If the subsequent actions of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI
deserve to be called ill advised, it is not He Who should be blamed, but
Fra Girolamo Savonarola, who with inconsequent evasion, excused himself
and continued his traitorous machinations against the peace of his
country, in defiance of the law, and in contempt of the powers that be.
Order issued from Rome, inhibiting him from public preaching, and
placing his Convent of San Marco again under the rule of the Lombard
Congregation. Then, Fra Girolamo professed ready obedience to the Pope;
but begged for the independence of his convent, a prayer which he
supported with such arguments as to obtain a favouring response, though
the inhibition was repeated. Before the formal Brief arrived Don Piero
de Medici attempted to return to Florence from Venetian exile; being
foiled solely by a violent diatribe in which Fra Girolamo denounced him.
As time passed, the friar intrigued with Ferrara, gained over and
cultivated many influential Florentines; and then the Signoria took up
his cause and formally appealed to Rome for the removal of his
inhibition.
* * * * *
The passage of the French through the Papal States, like a blight of
caterpillars, brought famine into the country districts. In the
Fifteenth Century, armies were not encumbered by a commissariat. They
robbed right and left, living on the produce of the land in which they
were, paying for nothing, and invariably leaving utter desolation and
destitution in their rear. Distress and discontent ravaged Rome. Winter
storms brought Tiber down in flood and the City was under water. So the
year 1495 ended.
At the beginning of the new year, Don Virginio Orsini joined the French
in Naples, against the King Don Ferrandino II, the Pope and Venice. At
Atella the French were defeated, and the Holy League grew powerful.
England joined it. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI, who, with His magnificent
ability for doing many things, had been superintending the decoration of
the quire of Santa Maria _del Populo_ by the Flaminian Gate which opens
on the great north road, (the nearest gate to England), went, with a
solemn cavalcade, to hold a papal chapel for publishing the Bull of
Alliance with King Henry VII Tudor. France had no friend save Florence,
where the Signoria had taken upon itself to remove the inhibition from
Fra Girolamo Savonarola. That incontinent friar preached a course of
Lenten sermons defending himself, violently denouncing Rome,
particularizing certain vices which everywhere were general. His
incorrigible attitude appears like “the rage of a man who knows that he
has chosen the lower when he might have chosen the higher.” He was in
open revolt, not against the Catholic Faith, but against the laws of the
land, and the Rule of the Religion of St Dominic to which, voluntarily,
under no compulsion whatever, he had chosen to swear allegiance on the
Sacrament of the Lord’s Body. To make things easy for him, the Pope’s
Holiness proposed to erect a new Dominican Congregation which he might
be willing to obey, under Cardinal Carafa who already had given evidence
of his sympathy with the friar. But Fra Girolamo intractably refused to
hear: and it must be said that the minacity and violence, with which he
attacked his superiors, form a bitter contrast to the patience and
moderation which the Lord Alexander P.P. VI extended to him, in this—and
let this be noted—the third year of his disgraceful extravagance and
disloyalty.
* * * * *
At the Fourth Consistory of the twenty-first of January 1496, the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI named one cardinal, who was
The Lord Philippe de Luxembourg; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of
San Marcellino e San Pietro.
* * * * *
The condition of the country improved as the year 1496 expanded. An
ill-advised attempt of the Elect-Emperor Maximilian to revive the waning
Imperial power by a progress through the Italian realms, was averted by
the opposition of Venice and the remonstrances of the Sovereign Pontiff.
The Elect-Emperor having withdrawn into the Tyrol, the Lord Alexander
P.P. VI was free to deal with the Pontifical States. The Regno
flourished under the young King Don Ferrandino II, and the French
occupation was becoming a thing of the past. Only the rebellious vassals
of the Holy See remained; and, of these, Colonna and Savelli appear to
have made their submission; but the Orsini were still in arms, and
Malatesta, Riario, Manfredi, and Sforza, were fortified at Cesena, Imola
and Forli, Faenza and Pesaro.
* * * * *
At the Fifth Consistory of the nineteenth of February 1496, the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI named four Spanish cardinals, who were
(α) The Lord Don Bartolomeo Martino, Bishop of Segovia;
Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Sant’ Agata _in Suburra_:
(β) The Lord Don Juan de Castro, Prefect of Santangelo, Bishop of
Girgenti, (Άκραγαντῖνος) in Sicily; Cardinal-Presbyter of the
Title of Santa Prisca:
(γ) The Lord Don Juan Lopez, Canon of the Vatican Basilica, Apostolic
Datary; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Maria _in
Trastevere, tit. Callisto_:
(δ) The Lord Giovanni Borgia (detto Giuniore), a Pontifical Nephew,
Bishop of Melfi; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Maria
_in Via Lata_.
* * * * *
Appointing His bastard, Don Juan Francisco de Lançol y Borja, as
Captain-General of the pontifical army, and assisted by the Majesty of
Naples, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI proceeded to reduce Orsini. At the
opening of the campaign, Don Virginio Orsini was captured by the
Neapolitans; but when Orsini’s stronghold of Bracciano was relieved by
Don Vitellozzo Vitelli of Città di Castello, the papal condottieri were
forced to raise the siege. And before the end of the year the Pope lost
His ally King Don Ferrandino II, who died at the age of twenty-eight
“worn out with fatigue and with the pleasures of his marriage to his
aunt Joanna whom he loved too passionately.” (Symonds, Renascence, I.
513.) The year 1497 began with the defeat of the papal troops by Orsini
at the battle of Soviano, a reverse which was counterbalanced by the
success of Don Gonsalvo de Cordova. This captain was at the head of a
band of mercenaries sent by Spain in aid of the Papacy; he took the
fortress of Ostia from Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, whose five years
of treachery and recalcitrancy were now punished by the Holiness of the
Pope, with deprivation of his benefices (which took from him the “sinews
of war”) and the deposition of his brother, Don Giovanni della Rovere,
from the Prefecture of Rome. As for the French Orators who made protest
at this unaccountably long-delayed act of precautionary
justice,—unaccountably-long-delayed, except on the hypothesis of this
Pope’s singular patience, long-suffering, and dislike of proceeding to
extremities,—the Supreme Pontiff contemptuously remarked that they were
come from an Excommunicated King; and that it was well for them that
Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) did not hear them. This, by the bye, is
the first instance of the amazing influence which that young Porporato
was beginning to attain, an influence which within the next few years
increased by leaps and bounds until the name of Cesare (detto Borgia)
stood among the most important names in Europe.
Further to emphasize the slight to France by shewing His appreciation of
Spain’s support, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI decorated His bastard, Don
Juan Francisco de Lançol y Borja Duke of Gandia and Prince of Teano and
Tricarico, as representing the Spanish branch of His House, with the
titles of Count of Chiaramonte, Lauria, and Cerignuola, Tyrant of
Benevento and Tarracina, and Grand Constable of Naples.
* * * * *
In honour of her son’s good fortune, Madonna Giovanna de’ Catanei gave a
supper at her villa by San Pietro _ad Vincula_, where were present the
young Duke of Gandia of the age of twenty-two years, and Cardinal Cesare
(detto Borgia) his senior by a year. Their sister Madonna Lucrezia, who
had had much unpleasantness with her husband, Don Giovanni Sforza the
Tyrant of Pesaro, had left him; and was living in the Convent of San
Sisto in Rome, as noble ladies do who wish to guard their reputations in
delicate circumstances.
When supper was over, and the night advancing, the Cardinal advised
Don Juan that it was time to return to the Vatican where they lodged.
In view of the popular delusions concerning this occurrence, it may be
advisable to refer to the fact that sunset was taken to end a
twenty-four hours day; that “one hour of the night,” _i.e._, one hour
after sunset, was the fashionable supper-time, which at this time of
the year (the fourteenth of June) would be about 9 P.M. Before
midnight then, at a generous computation, the Cardinal and the Duke of
Gandia mounted their horses and rode through Rome together as far as
the palace of the Vicechancellor attended by a small escort. It is
worth noting that the palace of the Vicechancellor was not the
Cancelleria, the palace of the Chancery at San Lorenzo _in Damaso_,
perhaps the most beautiful palace in the world, which Messer Bramante
Lazzari built for the white-faced Cardinal Rafaele Galeotto
Sanzoni-Riario: but the new palace built by Cardinal Rodrigo de Lançol
y Borja, and given by him after His election to the Supreme
Pontificate, to the Vicechancellor-Cardinal Ascanio Maria
Sforza-Visconti; (now Palazzo Sforza-Cesarini on Banchi Vecchi).
There, the ardent Duke (he already was married to a princess of Spain,
and the father of two children,) said to the Cardinal that, before going
home, he wanted to amuse himself somewhere; and, taking leave of the
said Most Worshipful Lord, and dismissing his suite with the exception
of a certain bully whom he kept, he took on his crupper an unknown man
in a mask who waited there, and who daily during a month had come to see
him at the Vatican, as well as on this very night during the supper in
the garden of his mother. Then he turned his horse in the direction of
the Jews’ Quarter, (there was no Ghetto till 1556), and disappeared in
the twilight of a midsummer night. He never again was seen alive.
When the City awoke in the morning, (Romans always were early risers,)
the Duke of Gandia’s bully was found on Piazza Giudei, wounded by the
steel of an assassin; and all efforts to obtain information from him
proved futile. He died without having spoken.
The news trickled into the Vatican, and was mentioned to the Pope; who
thought that perhaps Don Juan was staying with some courtesan, wishing
out of consideration for his Father to avoid the scandal of being seen
to issue from such a house in open day. But when night came again, and
the Duke did not appear, the Pope’s Holiness took alarm; and ordered an
inquisition and the usual dragging of Tiber. The wags of Rome instantly
said that, notwithstanding all that Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere had
alleged concerning the election of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI as being
simoniacal, it was now certain that He was a true Successor of St. Peter
as a Fisher of men.
Among other bearers of news, there came to the inquisitors a certain
Giorgio, of the Schiavoni, a waterman, asserting that, while guarding
his boat on Tiber during the night, he had seen two men, who came to the
shore to look whether any one was there; behind them came two others
making the same inspection. He, the speaker, being in the shadow of his
beached boat escaped all notice. When these four had assured themselves
that the place was empty, there came one on a white horse, conveying
behind him a dead man, whose feet and arms hung down, held by two
foot-men. Having come to the water’s edge, they turned the crupper of
the horse to the river; and, lifting the corpse, swung it into the
stream. The rider looked on: but seeing a dark object which floated,—it
was the dead man’s cloak,—he ordered the others to throw stones at it
until it sank.
After hearing this tale, the Pope groaned, and reproached the waterman
in that he did not give immediate notice to the bargelli (police) of the
crime which he had witnessed. The man impudently answered that he had
seen such sights a thousand times: but never had he known of any one who
cared to hear about them.
The Vicechancellor-Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti wrote to his
brother the Duke of Milan, relating the deposition of Giorgio the
waterman, and the disquietude of the Pope.
Later, the corpse was found in Tiber, completely clothed in the
sumptuous garments of the Duke of Gandia, the dagger in its sheath, the
pouch intact adorned with jewels of great value. Eleven—some say
fourteen—wounds, of which an enormous one was in the throat, were the
cause of death. The unfortunate young Duke was buried at Santa Maria del
Popolo. (_Maricont._) That, actually, is all that is known of the murder
of the Duke of Gandia.
The only person, except the murderer or murderers, who could give any
salient information, was the bully; and he expired without uttering a
word. The mystery of the unknown man in a mask has never been solved
(nor the archives of a Roman patrician House published); and, for a
time, the matter rested there.
* * * * *
The effect upon the Lord Alexander P.P. VI was terrible. He had loved
Don Juan Francisco with a very great love. Notwithstanding the fact that
Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) was a year older than the Duke of Gandia,
the Pope had always treated the latter as His heir[30]; and had foreseen
in his vigorous manlihood the foundation of a dynasty of Grandees of
Spain who would render more illustrious the House of Borja. The founding
of a family has always been an object very near to the hearts of great
men.
And now the irruption of hideous and ruthless Death turned the Pope’s
Holiness, for a moment, from a spiritual and temporal sovereign and
despot into a very human man. At such a moment, when man most poignantly
is reminded of the Inevitable Universal waiting in the background, he
feels his utter helplessness, his entire unworthiness, and would
appease, make satisfaction. Broken-hearted, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI
spoke of abdication, and a change of life; as other famous men have
done, whom trouble, or fear, have driven to La Trappe. He made good
resolutions. He gave munificent gifts to churches; for His revived piety
manifested itself in practical form. He appointed a Commission of six
cardinals, including Cardinals Carafa and Costa, to reform
ecclesiastical abuses. He named Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) as
Apostolic Legate for the pacification of Umbria. By way of restoring
unity to Italy, He endeavoured to persuade Florence to annul her
alliance with excommunicate France: in which admirable intent He was
thwarted solely by the indescribable efforts of Fra Girolamo Savonarola,
who, during the Lent of this year, had preached in favour of unswerving
subservience to the Christian King. The Powers of Europe, especially
England, the Holy Roman Empire, Venice, Naples, and Spain, who formed
the Holy League with the Papacy, on receiving official intimation of the
Pope’s bereavement and His bitter sorrow, sent Orators with suitable
expressions of condolence.
During summer and autumn, which should have been occupied in drafting
the Bull of Reform (a task subsequently performed by the Council of
Trent,) the Reform Commission had to study, and deal with, and advise
the Pontiff in, the more urgent case of the friar of Florence. Riots and
affrays between the partisans and opponents of Fra Girolamo Savonarola
disgraced the Lily-City of Tuscany: and, at last, after more than four
years forbearance, all gentler measures having failed, he was placed
under sentence of excommunication.
Meanwhile, Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) proceeded to Naples as
Apostolic Ablegate for the coronation of King Don Federigo de Aragona.
(The Sword of State which was borne before His Worship on this occasion
is in possession of Caïetani Duke of Sermoneta: but the scabbard of
embossed leather is in the Victoria and Albert Museum.)
* * * * *
In September 1497 the Lord Alexander P.P. VI published the creation of
one cardinal, whose name, for political reasons, He had reserved _in
petto_ since the Second Consistory of September 1493, who was
The Lord Don Luis de Aragona, son of King Don Ferrando I;
Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Maria _in Cosmediv_. (He
was commonly called “The Cardinal of Aragon.”)
* * * * *
At the incoming of winter arrived an opportunity for the enemies of the
Lord Alexander P.P. VI to blaspheme.
Madonna Lucrezia Borgia was living in the Convent of San Sisto,
separated from her husband, Don Giovanni Sforza the Tyrant of Pesaro;
and seeking a decree of nullity of marriage, alleging a canonical
impediment. This young man was cousin to the Duke of Milan, very
handsome in person, and intelligent. He already had been married to
Madonna Maddalena Gonzaga, who in 1490 had died _di cattivo parto_
(Gregorovius). In 1493, being then in his twenty-sixth year, he had
married Madonna Lucrezia, from whose Father he held his Tyranny of
Pesaro by way of fief, consolidating the alliance of Sforza and Borgia.
He had most of the advantages of life, illustrious birth, rank, youth,
health, a splendid position, intimate relationship with his feudal lord,
and a wife acknowledged by all contemporaries as the most beautiful
woman of her time: and now, after little more than three years, he was
to be held up to the derision of all by the annulment of his marriage on
the score of αδῆνᾶμία.
Nothing, at any time is more certain to enrage a man than this; and, in
the Fifteenth Century, the Century of the Discovery of Man, when ἀvδpeίa
was prized and worshipped, a charge which made him look ridiculous in
the estimation of his species, which struck at the very root of his
manlihood, was sure to be furiously resented. When his wife left him to
enter her petition, Don Giovanni Sforza sped to Milan invoking the
support of his kin, the Vicechancellor-Cardinal Ascanio Maria
Sforza-Visconti and the Duke Ludovico Maria (detto Il Moro). On news
reaching them to the effect that evidence had been given before the
legal tribunal in Rome, which proved the marriage to lack consummation
and Madonna Lucrezia to be παρθένος ἀδμήτη, he violently protested, and
with unrestrained rancour. Don Beltrando Costabili, the Orator of
Ferrara, writing from Milan to his government, asserted that Don
Giovanni said to Duke Ludovico Maria, “Anzi haverla conosciuta infinite
volte, ma chel Papa non gliela tolta per altro se non per usare con
lei.” It is most improbable that a reigning sovereign would admit a
foreign ambassador to a discussion of his family affairs; and unless
Costabili actually heard those words, they can only be accepted as a
piece of gossip reported, not as legal evidence. Duke Ludovico Maria
ingenuously proposed to Don Giovanni an ordeal which, in that naive age,
was usual in similar cases, of submitting formally and publicly to the
judgment of a jury of men of bonafides and the papal legate: and, on his
refusal, his own relations, the Duke and the thin-faced clear-witted
Vicechancellor-Cardinal, obtained from him a written confession that
Madonna Lucrezia was justified in her petition, and advised him to let
the law take its course. The case of a man temporarily άδύνατος at the
age of Don Giovanni physiologically is no uncommon one. Much has been
made of the circumstances under which his first wife died, and of the
fact that his third, Madonna Ginevra de’ Tiepoli, bore him a son, Don
Costanzo Sforza, eight years later (1505). As for the infernal calumny
against the Pope’s Holiness, Don Giovanni Sforza was its inventor, says
the Orator of Ferrara, and the mortifying humiliation of a libidinous
laughing-stock its proximate occasion. On the twentieth of December
1497, the decree of nullity of the marriage was published in Rome, the
Tyrant of Pesaro refunded the lady’s dowry of thirty thousand ducats;
and Madonna Lucrezia Borgia was free.
* * * * *
The cause of the visit to Milan of the Vicechancellor-Cardinal Ascanio
Maria Sforza-Visconti, at this time, was that he had come under most
undeserved suspicion of having been connected with the murder of the
Duke of Gandia. Bitter as it must have been to the Pope’s Holiness to
suspect his oldest friend, at least the latter’s recent treachery with
Colonna made estrangement unavoidable. The Vicechancellor retired to
Gennazano by Praeneste, (Palestrina), a fief of Colonna, ostensibly to
worship Madonna of Good Counsel. An investigation of his Roman palace
during his absence was without fruit; and, angered at the suspicion, he
had retired to Milan, where his unprejudiced and straightforward action
in the matter of the nullity, at a time when he naturally went in
disgust of Borgia, should go a long way in favour, not only of his own
bonafides, but also of that of the Lord Alexander P. P. VI.
* * * * *
Savonarola’s attitude toward the sentence of excommunication that had
been launched against him, was incorrigible. His influence caused the
Signoria of Florence unsuccessfully to appeal to the Pope’s Holiness for
the withdrawal of the Brief; and the friar accompanied this appeal with
an open defiance. On Christmas Day he sang the three high masses at San
Marco, and announced the resumption of his frenzied discourses. The
physiognomy of this mattoid is the key to the secret of his
misbehaviour. He was cast in the mould of the animal-man. He had the
long head with immense hinder development, the great thick nose, the
enormous lower lip, coarse mouth, and heavy jowl, of a ram. Above all,
in him the little lateral muscles of the nose-root were of opulent
growth, a sign which is unmistakable. But, contrariwise, the narrow
temples with their overhanging brows pointed in the middle, struck the
note of ideality, and conquered the animalism of the man. It was this
cataclysmal violence of difference, this trenchant contrast, that made
him what he was. In him there were two inimical characters, the
character of the saint, the character of the ram. That of the saint
vanquished that of the ram: but the poignant struggle overthrew the
mental balance of the saint. His proper place was not the Convent of San
Marco in Florence: but the Hospital of Santo Spirito in Rome.[31]
So in sorrow, in anger, in horrid uncertainty, the year 1497 ended.
* * * * *
After the coronation of Don Federigo de Aragona as King of Naples,
Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) announced a determination which he had
nourished since the murder of the Duke of Gandia. Whether he was the
Pope’s bastard or another’s, it was his pose to aggrandise the House of
Borgia; moreover he was young, only twenty-four years of age, and of an
ardent and forceful habit of mind and body. Don Gioffredo Borgia was
occupied with his wife Madonna Sancia de Aragona and his principality of
Squillace; and his age of seventeen years did not render him a capable
representative of his illustrious House. Cardinal Cesare felt that his
scarlet hat debarred him from the pursuits for which Nature had devised
him. The foes of Borgia were active on all sides: the territories of the
Holy See were a hot-bed of revolt. Sforza sulked in Milan; Orsini, never
forgetful of injury, entrenched themselves in their strongholds; their
fierce brigands ravaged the country far and wide: and there was no
Borgia to hold them in check. Wherefore Cardinal Cesare requested leave
to renounce his cardinalate, to receive secular rank, to marry a royal
princess, that he might be free to adopt a military career, and to
perpetuate the Borgia dynasty. It was an extraordinary plan: but, though
it presented advantages of high political value, it was opposed and
shelved by the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, whose behaviour to Cardinal
Cesare was never that of a father, but of a patron and benefactor who
patronized, and benefited, him for the sake of another than himself.
Yet, though the attitude of the Pope to the Cardinal was one of
life-long distinct antipathy, He set immense value on his advancement,
and incurred peril and made sacrifices to promote it. What was the
motive of conduct which presents such contradictory features? Is it
possible that Cardinal Cesare was the son of Madonna Giovanna de’
Catanei, not by Cardinal Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja, but by the eternal
rival of the last, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere? It is extremely
possible and extremely probable. Cardinal Rodrigo undoubtedly had loved
Madonna Giovanna very greatly since 1474. She undoubtedly was the mother
of Cardinal Cesare, who was born in 1474. She had had relations with
Cardinal Giuliano before that. And Cardinal Rodrigo never acknowledged
the paternity of Cardinal Cesare, although he never denied it. The
theory, which lacks not some proof (to be given in a proper place),
would explain the unconquerable malice of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere
towards the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, Who had deprived him of his mistress
as well as of the triregno, the object of his ultimate ambition; and the
loathing of the Pope’s Holiness for His enemy’s bastard, whom He, at the
same time held as a hostage to be used against Cardinal Giuliano in an
extremity, feared for his incorrigible and antipathetic disposition, and
advanced and enriched for the love which He had borne to his mother.
That is the only rational explanation of certain mysteries which,
otherwise, remain inexplicable.
The proposal of Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) had many recommendations.
The lax and feeble government of the late Pope, the Lord Innocent P.P.
VIII, had played havoc with order in the vast domain of Umbria, of the
Mark of Ancona, of the Romagna, that splendid realm in north-eastern
Italy verging on the Adriatic Sea. A few strong men, tyrants of petty
fiefs, threw off allegiance to the Pope as their Over-Lord. Don
Oliverotto da Fermo, a brigand of the worst kind, made himself Tyrant of
Fermo by the simple process of assassinating his uncle, Don Giovanni
Fogliani, and all the chief citizens, at a banquet. Don Vitellozzo
Vitelli garrisoned Citta di Castello, Don Paolo Orsini was fortified at
Sinigaglia, Madonna Caterina Sforza-Riario at Imola and Forli, the Oddi
and Baglioni at Perugia, the Manfredi at Faenza, the Varani at Camerino,
the Bentivogli at Bologna. Safe in their strongholds these Tyrants paid
no dues, no feudal tribute to their Lord Paramount. From time to time
they sallied forth with armed condottieri to replenish their stores from
the pillage of towns and villages. The province was ravaged from end to
end by their excesses. In the Library of San Marco at Venice may be read
letters (Lat. Cl. x. 176) which report on the condition of Umbria when
the Lord Alexander P.P. VI began His reign; a condition of horror
unspeakable, which He was determined to abolish.
To this end, He had sent Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) as Apostolic
Legate into Umbria, in the summer of 1497, just a month after the murder
of the Duke of Gandia. The Legate went unarmed save by his sacred
office, and with too small an escort for offence. The idea was to test
the moral authority of the Suzerain of Umbria, the Roman Pontiff, in a
place where the civil power practically was helpless, and where a man’s
life depended only on the fear which he inspired.
On the day of his arrival at Narni, the sixteenth of July 1497, Cardinal
Cesare already had formed an opinion which he communicated to the Pope’s
Holiness in these words: “It is very necessary to provide me with an
army against these kakodaimones; for they go not out by holy water.”[32]
The brigand Don Bartolomeo d’Alviano seized a town belonging to the Pope
in despite of the Legate, and sacked it before his face. Cardinal Cesare
summoned him to keep the peace: he refused; and matters went from bad to
worse.
“They offend as they did at first, and will not hearken unto my
commandments”;[33] he wrote to the Pope eleven days later.
The inhabitants of Todi fled from their town to save their lives.
Brigandage was in its hey-day. “Your Holiness can well understand that
the only remedy for these evils lies in the coming of men of arms, whose
delay has caused Todi to be desolated and the city, from my departure
till now, totally derelict and left empty.”[34] At Perugia, the Legate
took the bull by the horns in a singularly daring manner and with
singular success; putting the more uproarious of the ringleaders under
the ban of expulsion, “which thing was done with such obedience and calm
that nothing better could be desired.”[35]
But he did better than that. He caught a murderer in flagrante delicto.
“I captured two robbers and murderers; and with no tumult, but to the
delight of the people, they were put in gaol—a thing long unknown in
this city—and this morning I hanged one.”[36]
’Twas immense. There was no tumult, and the people were pleased. That a
murderer should pay a penalty for his crime was a charming and fantastic
novelty to Perugia. The strong arm of the law struck the city with
consternation, and deeds of violence ceased as though by magic. In this
manner Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) gave a taste of his quality; and
came before the world, for the first time, in the rôle which Nature
intended him to fill, with his splendid personality, and swift unerring
pitiless masterfulness of action.
The prosecution of this work was prevented by the condition of affairs
in Rome. It was impossible for the Holiness of the Pope to gather an
army while the marriage of Madonna Lucrezia was before the courts, and
the frenzy of Fra Girolamo Savonarola before the Reform Commission.
Cardinal Cesare, also, was required for other service.
But now, at the beginning of 1498, after the coronation of King Don
Federigo, at the close of his legation to Naples, Cardinal Cesare
reverted to the work begun the year before; and preferred his petition
for leave to doff the scarlet of an ecclesiastic, and to embark on a
secular career. The news was bruited about Rome on the eighth of
February. Four days later, on the twelfth, the Ferrarese Orator at
Venice heard it said that Cardinal Cesare was the murderer of the Duke
of Gandia, and that His Worship and Madonna Lucrezia Borgia were seeking
matrimonial alliances with the Royal House of Naples. Four days would be
exceedingly quick travelling for a piece of gossip from Rome to Venice,
when news was carried by mounted couriers, or a-foot, and would have to
pass through the Romagna hell: and it is also most important to note
that this suspicion was not published till eight months after the
murder; and, then, in Venice. No evidence was offered to support it. It
emanated from the numerous Orsini whom Venice sheltered, and who said
that Cardinal Cesare had killed the Duke in order that he might take his
place as the Pope’s soldier-son. Once started, the accusation was
repeated by Cappello the twenty-eighth of September 1500; and by Don
Silvio Savelli in November 1501; three and four years after the event:
nor does it lack repetition by cheap and showy panderers to a guileless
public fond of having its flesh made to creep at the present day. All
that is known of the murder already has been set down here. But one
vital consideration remains to be stated, one new point of view to be
described; and it is due to the rumour of Orsini invention mentioned
above.
According to Monsignor Hans Burchard the Caerimonarius, Cardinal Cesare
and the Duke of Gandia parted, on the night of the fourteenth of June
1497, by the Vicechancellor’s palace (Palazzo Sforza-Cesarini) on Banchi
Vecchi; whence the latter, saying that he was going to amuse himself,
etc., went in the direction of the Jews’ Quarter with his two
attendants, the bully, and the unknown mask who undeniably had come by
appointment.
Rome of 1497 was divided for purposes of government into fourteen
Regions (Rioni) ruled by captains (caporioni) under a prior. The
Vicechancellor’s palace on Banchi Vecchi is in the Region called Ponte,
which extends from the church of San Giovanni de’ Fiorentini to the
Region called Santangelo after the church of that dedication in the
Fishmarket (Pescheria). Now this Region of Ponte was inhabited chiefly
by the Orsini faction; as the region of Trevi and the Region of Ripa
were inhabited by the Colonna and Savelli factions respectively. In this
Region of Ponte lived also Jews: it was the quarter of the bankers and
the money-changers, as well as of the prisons, public and private
torture-chambers, (no evidence was taken from commoners except under
torture,) all under the official protection of the House of Orsini. Here
is Cord Lane (Vicolo della Corda), where the ordinary Question or
Torture of the Cord[37] was applied. Here is Old Pillory Square, (Piazza
della Berlèna Vecchia.) Here is Executioner Lane, (Vicolo dello Mastro.)
And here were four Orsini fortresses, Monte Giordano, Tor Millina, Tor
Sanguigna, and Torre di Nona. The Region of Santangelo, also, almost
exclusively was inhabited by Jews under the protection of Orsini who
held yet another palace-fortress here in the Theatre of Marcellus,
(formerly the stronghold of the great mediæval Jewish House of
Pierleoni,) near by the site on which the Ghetto was built in 1556 under
the Lord Paul P.P. IV, and abolished in 1890 under the Lord Leo P.P.
XIII.
These topographical facts appear to point in one direction. A conclusion
may be reached by the following degrees.
(α) The Duke of Gandia took eleven (or fourteen) wounds.
(β) His pouch with its precious jewels was intact.
(γ) He had parted from Cardinal Cesare before witnesses in Banchi
Vecchi.
(δ) He said that he was going to amuse himself.
(ε) He went towards the Jews’ Quarter.
(ζ) Cardinal Cesare returned to the Vatican.
(η) Banchi Vecchi is in Ponte, the Region of Jews and of Orsini.
(θ) The Jews’ Quarter _stricte dicte_ was in Santangelo, a Region also
dominated by Orsini.
(ι) The Orsini were in mortal strife with the Lord Alexander P.P. VI,
Who had visited them with appalling disaster, Who was likely to
cause them infinite loss of life and spoil in the near future,
Whose favourite son, heir, _and military right hand_, was the
Duke of Gandia.
(κ) It was Orsini who started the rumour, eight months later, that
Cardinal Cesare (of whom Orsini went in horrid fear by reason of
his exploits in the Romagna) had murdered the Duke of Gandia.
The human and natural conclusion would seem to be that Don Juan
Francisco de Lançol y Borja, Duke of Gandia, Prince of Teano and of
Tricarico, Count of Chiaramonte of Lauria of Cerignuola, Tyrant of
Benevento of Tarracina, Grand Constable of Naples, _and Captain-General
of the pontifical army against Orsini_, living apart from his wife Doña
Maria de Aragona who was with his two children at his duchy in Spain,
being a handsome pleasure-loving youth of twenty-two years, went to keep
an assignation on that night of the fourteenth of June 1497; and fell by
the furious dagger of one of Orsini’s Jews, a rival? a father? an
outraged husband?—or by the vengeful poignards of his own and his
Father’s deadly foes, the Orsini.
The great number of his wounds, the safety of his valuables, may be thus
accounted for. The unknown mask would be the decoy, disguised as pandar.
The murder of the bully speaks of more assassins than one.
Then, did not Orsini strike at the heart of the Pope in the slaughter of
His eldest son?
At all events, no formal accusation of the guilt of this most foul and
treacherous crime has ever been laid against Cardinal Cesare (detto
Borgia.) There is absolutely no evidence against him—only suspicion,
rumour and conjecture. And the three spring from a tainted source—the
lair of the Bear—Orsini.
* * * * *
Plans for the settlement of the Romagna had to be set aside. The affair
of Fra Girolamo Savonarola monopolized the attention of the moment.
That friar began the year 1498 by preaching a fierce defence of his
disobedience to the inhibition and to the sentence of excommunication;
and by a frenetic onslaught on the Roman as distinguished from the
Tuscan clergy. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI, the acknowledged Head of the
Christian Church, (indeed He was the _only_ representative of
Christianity in Authority at that time) found Himself in the position of
a commander-in-chief dealing with a mutinous mad sergeant whom captains,
colonels, and generals have failed to reduce to order. The Pope’s
moderation and long-suffering, prior to his allowing the law to take its
course, are perfectly marvellous. Fra Girolamo had been in a state of
mutiny for more than four years. Preaching the duty of obedience, he
would not practise it. He was totally insensible to the many graces with
which he had been indulged; and he met all overtures for peace with
evasion or with insolence. After all, he was “a man under authority,”
under authority to which voluntarily he had vowed, and refused,
submission while admitting the right of that authority to claim it:—an
anomalous position, illogical, scandalous,—the position of a mad man. To
the Signoria of Florence, then, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI issued a
Brief commanding the withdrawal of support from the excommunicated
friar; threatening Florence with an Interdict (a hideous lash that
invariably brought curs to heel) if His commandment were disobeyed: but,
at the same time, offering to absolve the rebellious son of St. Dominic,
upon submission. The Signoria replied, defending Savonarola; and the
Pope’s Holiness replied that, either he must be imprisoned, or be sent
to Rome: a decision which was explained at greater length to the
Signoria by the Florentine Orator in Rome, who also described the Pope’s
natural feelings of embitterment at finding His reasonable demands so
spurned and set aside. Half measures only were taken. The Lord Alexander
P.P. VI justly was dissatisfied when the Signoria simply forbade the
friar to preach. His Holiness commanded, then, the entire vindication of
His supreme authority.
Here, Fra Girolamo Savonarola committed his final sin. He joined in the
stale howl appealing to the Powers of Europe for the convocation of a
General Council; and he redoubled his treacherous intrigues with the
Christian King Charles VIII: completing the exasperation of the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI.
Events moved swiftly then. Defying the commands of his acknowledged
superior, the Pope, as well as the injunctions of the Signoria, he fell
on disrepute. His influence in Florence waned and withered; his
prophecies fell thick and fast on no believers: and then the Signoria
insisted on his submission to the Pope.
He replied by demanding the Ordeal Of Fire; offering to walk through a
blazing furnace with one of the many who opposed him, the person who
should take no hurt from that Ordeal to be adjudged innocent and under
the special protection of God.
Fra Francesco of Apulia a Friar Minor (a Religion always bitterly
antipathetic to the Religion of St. Dominic) accepted the challenge thus
thrown down. He said that he knew that both parties to the Ordeal would
be burned to death: but it would be better so, than that one heresiarch
should be left free to carry on his treasons to Christ’s Church and
State.
Again Fra Girolamo Savonarola put forth an evasion. He refused, after
challenging—he refused the Ordeal in his proper person: but he offered
one of his friars of San Marco, one Fra Domenico, as his representative.
From Rome the practical common sense of the Pope’s Holiness fulminated
disapproval: but the Ordeal went on. Faggots were piled in the great
square of Florence, and set in flame. The skin of the faces of the crowd
grew hot and scarlet and crackled in the glare. The Friar Minor came
forward in readiness to die for the good of the people. Fra Girolamo
made delays—delays—he said that Fra Domenico must bear our
Lord-in-the-Sacrament, the Sacred Host, Gesù Sagramentato, in an
ostensorium through the raging flames. The pious simple souls of the
Signoria knew this for irreverence, for sacrilege; retired to discuss
the point; returned; refused permission. Fra Girolamo persisted while
the fire burned lower. The long slow day was passing. Already his
dictatorship, the day when he ruled Florence with a word, had passed.
The fire was dying: and then, finally, except upon his own mad terms,
Fra Girolamo refused the Ordeal which he had challenged, evaded,
delayed, denied.
[Illustration: _Fra Girolamo Savonarola_]
All faith in him was gone. Objurgated by a thousand raucous throats,
torn at by a thousand furious hands, the people’s broken idol sought
refuge in his Convent of San Marco. Florence rose in riot, blood was
shed, the blood of Francesco Valori in cold murder. The Convent of San
Marco suffered storm; and the friars with their mattoid Prior were cast
in prison.
In the interests of justice and of mercy, the Pope’s Holiness strove to
have their trial held in Rome: but events had roused the Signoria to
vindicate the honour of Florence “to satisfy the people who so long had
been duped and trained in sacrilege and rebellion.” Wherefore, from Rome
came Commissioners for the trial of Fra Girolamo Savonarola and his
accomplices. Put to the legal torture, he confessed himself charlatan
and criminal. He and his lieutenants, Frati Domenico and Silvestro, were
found guilty as heretics, schismatics, and rebels against the Holy See,
of political fanaticism amounting to high treason and mutiny against his
lawful rulers. Handed to the secular judges for sentence, he was
condemned, with the two friars, to death by hanging and the burning of
their bodies after death. Handed back to the ecclesiastical power the
three were degraded from their priesthood, to enable them to undergo the
death penalty, avoiding the sacrilege of violence to the persons of
those tonsured and anointed. At the very last, by the express
commandment of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI there was offered to the
condemned a Plenary Indulgence-in-the-article-of-death, with release
from all Canonical Censures and Excommunications. Gratefully,
thankfully, it was accepted; and the prisoners paid the legal
retribution of their crimes.
Had he been an Englishman of the Twentieth Century, instead of a
Florentine of the Fifteenth, Fra Girolamo Savonarola would not have been
hanged or burned: but censured; suspended, from the exercise of
sacerdotal functions, by ecclesiastical authority; and, at last, by
medical authority, interned at Broadmoor during the Pleasure of the
King’s Majesty, as a criminal lunatic.
* * * * *
This year 1498, was born Don Giovanni Borgia, called “Infans Romanus”;
who was said to be a bastard of Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) by “a
Roman spinster.”
This year also, died the twelve-toed chin-tufted excommunicated little
Christian King Charles VIII of France; and was succeeded by his cousin
Louis XII, a thin man with a fat neck and lip, and an Ethiopic nose, and
exquisite attire, who immediately made two startling claims—for the
nullification of his marriage with Madame Jeanne de Valois, and for the
confirmation of his claim to the Duchy of Milan. The Lord Alexander P.P.
VI always preferred friends to enemies; and, now that Charles VIII was
gone to his own place, He gladly welcomed an opportunity of winning the
allegiance of France. A commission of jurists went from Rome, who, on
the legal facts, declared the marriage between the King and Madame
Jeanne to be null and void. A papal dispensation legalized the marriage
of the Christian King Louis XII and Queen Anne, his predecessor’s widow,
whereby her duchy of Bretagne was retained to the crown of France. The
claim to the Duchy of Milan was a matter which required consideration.
* * * * *
At the Sixth Consistory of the twelfth of September 1498, the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI named one cardinal, who was
the Lord Georges d’Amboise, Gentleman of the Bedchamber to the
Christian Kings Charles VIII and Louis XII; Cardinal-Presbyter of
the Title of San Sisto.
* * * * *
At last, the Pope’s Holiness consented to allow Cardinal Cesare (detto
Borgia) to renounce the scarlet cardinalitial hat and the sapphire
cardinalitial ring, for a secular duchy, a royal wife, and a military
career; saying that his presence among the clergy was sufficient to
prevent reformation.[38] A marriage was proposed for him with Doña
Carlotta de Aragona Princess of Naples; but rejected by King Don
Federigo, who at the same time favoured the marriage which took place
between Madonna Lucrezia Borgia and Don Alonso de Aragona Prince of
Bisceglia. The plan of Cardinal Cesare was aided by fresh outbreaks at
the pontifical baronage, especially by a new league of Colonna and
Orsini on behalf of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere. Now, no more time
was lost. Don Cesare (detto Borgia) renounced his cardinalate in full
consistory; and journeyed into France to cultivate the friendship of the
Christian King on behalf of the Papacy. New alliances were in the air.
King Louis XII saw no reason why he should remain in the ridiculous and
paralysing isolation which the braggadocio of his predecessor had won.
The Pope’s Holiness was by no means secure with Naples whose King Don
Federigo, though owing all to Him, was inclined to be obstreperous and
to show contempt, and to whose dominions the Catholic King and Queen
were reaching. An alliance with the Papacy would suit the plans of
France. An alliance with France would be of eminent service to the
Papacy, at this moment when Colonna and Orsini were on the war-path, and
the Muslim Infidel stirring the East. So, the mission of Don Cesare
(detto Borgia) met with great success; a working understanding was
arranged by his diplomacy; and the Christian King conferred on him the
French Duchy of Valentinois.
It became evident that Milan must cede to France, the new ally of the
Lord Alexander P.P. VI; and this signified the final rupture of the
alliance of Borgia and Sforza. First, firm friends; next, strong
supporters of the House of Borgia; then, indifferent neutrals; later,
declared traitors; last, negligeable quantities; the conduct of the
House of Sforza was influenced by one idea—loyalty to their name. It was
the head of the House who was responsible, Duke Ludovico Maria
Sforza-Visconti, a coward, a scoundrel, a traitor, a murderer in
intention, the wretch who brought invading Frenchmen into Italy to aid
his usurpation of the throne of Milan—to him be all the blame. The
Vicechancellor-Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti and all the Sforza
of Pesaro, Santafiora, Chotignuola, Imola and Forli, followed the head
of their House; and, as he led them astray, so he must be decried.
Sforza has produced cardinals a many; but never a Pope. Sforza was never
nearer to the pontificate than in this reign. Ascanio was more than
likely to succeed the Lord Alexander—far more likely than the diabolical
plebeian who did succeed. But Sforza followed the head of its House;
committing political suicide. Loyalty in any age is rare: under all
circumstances it is heroic, admirable.
From the Catholic King and Queen of Spain, Don Hernando and Doña
Isabella, came the sometime pontifical captain Don Gonsalvo de Cordoba,
charged to scold the Holiness of the Pope because of His new alliance
with France. A very old weapon again was refurbished, and Catholic
Spain, in fear or envy, menaced a Spanish Pontiff, Who had given her the
New World, with Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere’s stupid General Council.
So, in the shuffling of the cards, misery made strange bed-fellows
acquainted.
Then the Orient blazed with sudden war, and the Muslim Infidel began
hostilities with Venice. Christendom had lost Lepanto[39]; the Turks
were intoxicated with success; and in Rome the Lord Alexander was deep
in the scheme of a new Crusade when the year 1498 died.
* * * * *
Naples looked with sallow eyes on the amicable relations of the Papacy
and France. The Christian King Louis XII married Duke Cesare de
Valentinois to Madame Charlotte, daughter of Sieur Alain d’Albret and
sister of King Jean of Navarre; and then entered into a treaty with the
Venetian Senate for the partition of the duchy of Milan. These acts were
discomfiting to the Regno, which could only regard the triumph of its
enemy and the ruin of its friend as auguries of evil fortune. For Duke
Cesare de Valentinois undoubtedly was the enemy of Naples now after the
rejection of his suit to Doña Carlotta de Aragona, and in despite of the
fact that his mother’s daughter, Madonna Lucrezia Borgia, was allied by
marriage to the Neapolitan Prince Don Alonso of Bisceglia. The fruit of
this last union was a son, born in November 1499, baptized in the
Xystine Chapel by the name Roderico after the August Father of Madonna
Lucrezia.
Troubles were brewing for the Sforza. The Vicechancellor-Cardinal left
Rome, and the French invaded his brother’s duchy of Milan, driving Duke
Ludovico Maria Sforza-Visconti (detto Il Moro) to ignominious flight.
Ever ready to take advantage of the weakness of another Power, also ever
ready to be jealous of another Power’s success, Europe eyed the triumph
of France with apprehension and disgust. And when the Lord Alexander
P.P. VI shewed pleasure at the fall of Milan, Spain and Portugal in
their chagrin sent Orators to annoy His Holiness with invectives against
His morals,[40] (as Satan sometimes denounces Sin,) and the validity of
His election,[41] demanding impossible reforms, and a General Council at
the Lateran. These petty incidents met the fate which they deserved. The
Lord Alexander P.P. VI magnificently and magnanimously received the
envoys in a public consistory, and made no efforts to prevent them from
reciting their lessons. His Holiness invariably treated personalities
with good-humoured scorn; and bore the vented spleen of kings as a mere
essential inconvenience of His rank, to be brushed away and forgotten
with the little muscarial nuisances of a Roman summer.
* * * * *
The year 1499, being the penultimate year of the Fifteenth Century, was
occupied as far as the City was concerned with preparations for the
Jubilee; that curious ceremony wherewith the Church affords an
opportunity to the faithful to cleanse their souls from stain of sin by
penitence and pious works. Penitence is an affair entirely personal, to
be entreated of between a sinner and his Judge: but the Church, who
(according to the Thirty Nine Articles) “hath power to ordain its rites
and ceremonies,” prescribes the ceremonial works to be performed. In
brief, these works consist in certain visits to certain basilicas of
Rome, which must be entered by certain doors, and where certain prayers
must be prayed. The Church, being a system, is systematic. In return for
these works always supposing them to be accompanied by the appropriate
penitence, She promises, from the infinite treasury of the Merits of our
Divine Redeemer remission of the canonical punishment incurred, during
his past life, by the sinner now penitent and purposing amendment. This
Complaisance on the part of the Church technically is called an
Indulgence; and the Jubilee Indulgence is in high esteem and eager
acceptation. It is not in any sense a licence to sin; as, by a
singularly silly misconception of its name,[42] it has been supposed to
be: but, absolutely, a formal wiping of the slate, a ceremonial enabling
of the soul to start anew. The Jubilee begins on Christmas Day with the
opening, by the Supreme Pontiff, of a certain door in the Vatican
Basilica, which remains an ingress until the Christmas Day of the
century-end; and vast pilgrimages are used to flock into the City at
such times. The year 1499 saw erected accommodation for visitors in the
Borgo Nuovo, and numerous improvements on the Vatican side of Tiber.
Churches were restored and furbished, the Mola of Hadrian strengthened;
and the new wing of the Apostolic Palace of the Vatican called the
Borgia Tower, which the Lord Alexander P.P. VI had built, was decorated
in fresco by the brush of Messer Bernardino Betti (detto Il
Pinturicchio).
In his book on the lives of artists which Giovanni Vasari wrote half a
century later it is said that Il Pinturicchio painted on a wall of the
Borgia Tower a picture of the Blessed Virgin Mary before whom the Borgia
Pontiff kneels in adoration. Vasari also says that the painter used, as
his model for Deipara, Madonna Giulia Orsini (nate Farnese) who was the
Pope’s mistress: and this statement is repeated by many, to this day,
including the German historian Herr Gregorovius (who pretends to have
been guided by documents and by documents alone), as an example of the
flagitious profligacy and profanity of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI.
Painters of the Fifteenth Century, in the manner of painters of the
Twentieth, took their models as they found them. If the perpetuation of
the world’s loveliness be no sin,—and on that point there are
diversities of human opinion, and one Law,—then the person who is graced
with natural beauty incurs, not disgrace, but honour in allowing it to
be preserved by painting or by sculpture. Perfect beauty does not seek
concealment, but simply admits the world to share its joy, without
emotion of vanity or shame, without regard to rank or dignity. Pauline
Buonaparte Princess Borghese was the model for Canova’s Venus. Bernini
modelled his David (in Villa Borghese) from his own yυμνότης, while
Cardinal Barberini (afterwards the Lord Urban PP. VIII) held the mirror.
That amiable rake Messer Rafael Sanzio da Urbino painted his baker’s
daughter as Madonna. Messer Jacopo Sansovino sculptured his Dionusos
from a lad called Lippo Fabri, who, from long posing bare, took cold and
died of fever; and, in his last delirium, continually leaped from his
bed to pose as the god to whom his life was sacrificed. Messer
Michelangelo Buonarroti, lost in admiration of his model the son of
Messer Francesco Raibolini of Bologna (detto Il Francia), with his naif
and customary depreciation of his brother-painters, told the boy that
his father made better men by night than by day. Messer Andrea
Verrocchio did his slim lean David from one of his alert apprentices.
Messer Luca Signorelli painted his own dead son. Messer Rafaele Sanzio
himself, times without number, sat for his master Il Pinturicchio. The
beautiful Simoneta of Florence was the Venus of Messer Alessandro
Filipepi (detto Botticelli); and the sons of Lorenzo and Giuliano de’
Medici (two of whom in after years wore the Triregno) did not disdain to
sit as models for this master. All the works of art of the Borgian Era,
representing saints and sinners, gods and demigods, eudaimones and
kakadaimones, all obviously were portraits; the very imperfections,
which the century of the Discovery of Man was too eager and too
unsophisticated to plane away to fit arbitrary conventions, shew this:
and volumes might be written of the models of great masters, who let
their youth or beauty be set down for all time, and then achieved fame
as Rafaele did, or Messer Simone Fiorentini’s (detto Donatello) nitid
David or superb Saint George, or Messer Andrea del Sarto’s wistful Young
Saint John.
Wherefore, not only may it be admitted, but defended, that Madonna
Giulia Orsini (nata Farnese), who had come to share with Madonna
Lucrezia Borgia the distinction of being the fairest young mother in
Rome, sat as model to Il Pinturicchio for the Θεοτόκος of the Borgia
Tower.
But, in proof of the ghastly ignorance or devilish malice which has
sought to introduce an element of lubricity into this affair, it is
necessary that three important facts should not go unconsidered. They
are
(α) that the Borgia Tower contained three or four large halls:
(β) that the portrait of Madonna Giulia Orsini (nata Farnese), detta
La Bella, in the character of the Blessed Virgin Mary with her
Child, is a round picture over the door of the third hall; She
is encircled by angels, and there are no other figures in the
composition:
(γ) that the portrait of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI is a square
picture in the second hall; and the Holiness of the Pope is
presented in His pontifical habits but bare-headed and without
the triregno, devoutly kneeling before the Apparition of our
Divine Redeemer Who rises from the tomb.
That is the little matter of the calumny, in support of which the German
historian with others of like mind have solved the problem of the
squaring of the circle![43]
* * * * *
Now that the French alliance was secure, with the help of the Christian
King Louis XII, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI proceeded with the conquest
of the Romagna and the reduction of the rebellious vassals of the Holy
See. Duke Cesare de Valentinois was named Generalissimo of the
pontifical army; and a Papal Bull declared the fiefs of Rimini, Pesaro,
Imola, Forli, Camerino, Faenza, etc., to have forfeited their rights
until they should have made satisfaction, paying the arrears of annual
tribute into the chancery of their paramount lord. The fact was fully
realised that it was useless to attempt to pacify “these kakodaimones”
with “holy water”; as, as a last resort, after seven years forbearance,
force was to be used against Sforza of Pesaro, Sforza-Riario of Imola
and Forli, Manfredi of Faenza and the rest. The glowing splendour of the
personality of Duke Cesare de Valentinois, without emotion and without
remorse, fitted him for his task. He was a perfect egoist, splendidly
indifferent to all the world. During his life, his enormous talents, his
swift success, his summary acts gained him the reputation of being
superhuman, inevitable as Fate. On the eleventh of November 1499, he
left Rome with four thousand condottieri and three hundred lancers. His
lieutenant and standard-bearer was the same noble and vigorous knight,
Don Pietro Gregorio Borgia, of the Veliternian Branch, who had changed
clothes with him in 1495, enabling him to cheat the Christian King. On
the seventeenth of December, he stormed and captured Imola, whence
Madonna Caterina Sforza, widow of Count Girolamo Riario, had fled,
refusing obedience or tribute to her suzerain, and anew entrenching
herself at Forli, her other fief. She left at Imola such an odious
memory of her rule, that in after years the citizens would blush for
shame of it, while blessing Duke Cesare de Valentinois, who, as the
minister of Divine Justice, made an end.
The encounter between Madonna Caterina and Duke Cesare caused
extraordinary exhibitions of vigour and agility on both sides. When a
desperate unscrupulous woman struggles with a strong and ruthless man,
she will do much damage: but, in the end, she must succumb. Directly
after the fall of Imola, Duke Cesare received letters from Rome
announcing that the Pope’s Holiness narrowly had escaped violent death:
for Madonna Caterina, to save herself and her fiefs, believing that Duke
Cesare would be compelled to relinquish his expedition if the Pope were
dead, had tried to slay the Holy Father by means of venom. To this end,
she had sent two Orators charged with proposed conditions of peace; and
also she sent a letter (enclosed in a hollow stick, say some) which
would cause the Supreme Pontiff to fall dead as soon as He should open
it. When the plot was discovered, Tommaso da Forli, a papal chamberlain
who had brought the missive, admitted his guilt; (under the Question
guilt was commonly admitted); and said that he hoped, by the death of
the Pope, to raise the siege of Imola and Forli. This extraordinary
story is recorded by several chroniclers, including Monsignor Hans
Burchard the Caerimonarius, the dull and stupid defamer of the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI. The name of the chamberlain gives rise to curious
speculations. Tommaso da Forli presumably might be a bastard of the city
of Forli of insufficient birth to warrant the adoption of the
appellation of his unknown father or mother; and who might very well
have taken the name of his native city with the preposition “da” (not
“de’,” be it noted) as a surname. Papal chamberlains are nothing more
than pontifical flunkeys, and “Thomas from Forli,” being a lackey with
access to the Pontifical Person, might have been employed by Madonna
Caterina to stab the Pope. That is not unlikely: but the story of the
envenomed letter obviously is false; and interesting only as shewing the
trend of men’s minds in 1499; and as a proof, perhaps, that if, as has
been alleged in the purest ignorance, the envenoming of its foes was a
custom of the House of Borgia, at least one other Italian court indulged
in the same horrible habit upon occasion.
Madonna Caterina’s second recorded act of treachery took place after she
had surrendered the city of Forli to Duke Cesare. She retained
possession of the castle, and refused to give it up. As soon as the
pontifical artillery began to bombard her fortress on Christmas Day, she
flew, from one of the fortalices, a banner bearing the Lion of St. Mark,
to make believe that she was leagued with Venice, a republic then at
peace with the Holy See. It was a Venetian attached to the staff of Duke
Cesare who exposed the ruse, with the affirmation that his Senate had no
alliance with Madonna Caterina. The day following, she gave signs of
weakening; and requested a parley with her beleaguerer. When Duke Cesare
approached, and just was about to put his foot on the drawbridge over
the moat by which the castle was surrounded, suddenly and without
warning the machine swung up and in. Madonna Caterina indignantly
disclaimed any perfidious intent, and threw all blame on the castellan,
Don Giovanni Casale: but all beholders were aware of a deliberate
attempt to capture and hideously to kill the Generalissimo, which only
had failed through too eager precipitancy. No parley took place; the
siege continued; and, in time, this audacious war-wife was compelled to
capitulate. Duke Cesare sent her to Rome as a prisoner-of-state, with
every chivalrous consideration for her sex as well as for her
illustrious birth as daughter of the great Duke Francesco
Sforza-Visconti of Milan: and on her arrival in the City she was lodged
in the Belvedere Apartment of the Vatican, whence, after a futile
attempt at escape, she was transferred to honourable captivity in the
Mola of Hadrian.
During the siege of Forli an event occurred, of secondary importance,
except as evidence of the mystery surrounding the paternity of Duke
Cesare. The Most Worshipful Lord Giovanni Borgia (detto Giuniore)
Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Maria _in Via Lata_ died at
Urbino. He was one of the bastards of that beautiful splendid sneak and
coward Don Pedro Luis de Lançol y Borgia, (Duke of Spoleto, younger
brother of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, who had been named Prefect of
Rome and Castellan of Santangelo by his Uncle, the Lord Calixtus P.P.
III, and who died in his flight from Rome in 1458). The said Most
Worshipful Lord Cardinal Giovanni Giuniore had been Bishop of Melfi
since 1492. In 1496, he was elevated to the Sacred College, and given
command of the condottieri which the Lord Alexander P.P. VI was
preparing against France; and, when Duke Cesare renounced his scarlet
early in 1499, he had ceded to this cardinal his Metropolitan
Archbishopric of Valencia. The Lord Giovanni Giuniore had held Legations
to Umbria, Bologna, Ravenna and France, and was acting as Legate to
Umbria when he died at Urbino. Duke Cesare himself announced this death
to the Pope in a letter written from Forli, and dated the sixteenth of
January 1500, in these words: “I have news of the death of Cardinal
Borgia, _my brother_, who died at Urbino.” Duke Cesare wrote a kind of
Latin neither Golden nor Silvern but particular to himself, as also was
his Italian and there is no known instance of his using “frater” or
“fratello” in the tertiary sense of “cousin.” If the dead Cardinal and
the Duke were uterine brothers, then Don Pedro Luis was their father;
and Duke Cesare was not the son, but the nephew, of the Lord Alexander
P.P. VI. The death of the Cardinal, however, has been alleged by some
chroniclers to have been caused by venom administered by Duke Cesare.
The charge is essentially absurd. There was no motive; for Cardinal and
Duke were comrades, _brothers-in-arms_, equally engaged in the reduction
of the rebellious Romagna; there could have been no jealousy, for they
occupied separate and independent ranks, (of which Duke Cesare had
chosen his,) the Cardinal Giovanni Giuniore as Legate, being the older
man (41), and Duke Cesare the younger (26) as Generalissimo: nor was the
Cardinal rich enough to make his death desirable. But, at all events, it
was impossible that Duke Cesare should envenom him for the simple
reasons that the two were many miles apart during seventeen days before
the death, and that no venom of slow action was known to the Fifteenth
Century any more than it is to the Twentieth.
* * * * *
At the Seventh Consistory of the sixteenth (or twentieth) of March 1500,
the Lord Alexander P.P. VI named three cardinals, who were
(α) the Lord Don Didaco Hurtado de Mendoza, a Spaniard;
Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Sabina: (he was
afterwards called “The Cardinal of Spain:”)
(β) the Lord Amaneus (Amanateus) d’Albret, of Navarre; Cardinal-Deacon
of San Niccolo _in Carcere Tulliano_:
(γ) the Lord Don Pedro Luis de Borja, a Pontifical Nephew, brother of
the Cardinal of Monreale (Giovanni Seniore); succeeded his
deceased cousin Cardinal Giovanni Giuniore as Cardinal-Deacon of
Santa Maria in _Via Lata_.
* * * * *
The Christian King Louis XII, now calling himself the “Second Caesar,”
was not idle during this year 1500. Duke Ludovico Maria Sforza-Visconti
certainly recovered his duchy of Milan; but, after the Triumph given to
Duke Cesare de Valentinois in Rome on his return from the Romagna with
Madonna Caterina Sforza-Riario as his prisoner-of-war, the prestige of
the Papacy was so increased that the French took heart and gained a
notable victory at Novara, capturing Duke Ludovico Maria and his brother
the Vicechancellor, who then were incarcerated safely in France.
* * * * *
In July, Don Alonso de Aragona, Prince of Bisceglia, Quadrata, and
Salerno, and husband of Madonna Lucrezia Borgia was murdered; and the
opinion carefully and carelessly has been cultivated that this was one
of the crimes of Duke Cesare de Valentinois and the Lord Alexander P.P.
VI.
According to the account of Don Paolo Cappello the Orator of Venice, as
given by Herr Gregorovius, Prince Don Alonso, going to the Vatican at
eleven o’clock at night on the fifteenth of July, was assaulted on the
steps of St. Peter’s by masked men armed with poignards, and wounded in
the head and arms and thighs. Weak from loss of blood, he dragged
himself into the Apostolic Palace, where his wife Madonna Lucrezia
swooned at the sight of him. He was carried into one of the rooms; and a
cardinal, believing him to be in the article of death, imparted the
usual absolution. But his youthful vigour enabled him to progress on the
road to recovery, under the nursing of his wife and of his sister-in-law
Madonna Sancia, who, with their own hands, prepared his food (they were
royal princesses), while the Pope’s Holiness provided a body-guard of
men-at-arms. No one knew who had wounded the prince: but gossip said
that it was the same hand that had slain the Duke of Gaudia. Duke Cesare
de Valentinois had issued an edict forbidding any one bearing arms to
pass between the Mola of Hadrian and the Vatican. Don Paolo Cappello
further records that Duke Cesare had said, “I did not wound the prince:
but, if I had “done so, he had well deserved it.” Duke Cesare was not
ashamed to visit the invalid; and, in coming away, he had said, “That,
which is not done at noon, can be done at sunset.” More than a month
later, at nine o’clock on the night of the eighteenth of August, Duke
Cesare again visited Prince Don Alonso; and, having driven Madonna
Sancia and Madonna Lucrezia from the room, he introduced his captain Don
Michelotto who strangled the wounded man. After this, Duke Cesare
publicly declared that he had killed the Prince of Bisceglia, because
the latter had tried to murder him by setting an archer to shoot him
silently in the Vatican gardens:—so far Don Paolo Cappello.
Monsignor Hans Burchard the Caerimonarius says, that, at eleven o’clock
on the night of the fifteenth of July, Prince Don Alonso the husband of
Madonna Lucrezia Borgia was found on the steps of St. Peter’s, wounded
by assassins in the head, the knee, and the right arm. After the
assault, the assassins were escorted by forty knights beyond the
City-gate called Porta Pertusa. Prince Don Alonso lived near the Vatican
in the palace of the Cardinal of Santa Maria _in Portico_; but, owing to
the serious nature of his wounds, he was carried into the pontifical
palace, and lodged in a room of the Borgia Tower. When King Don Federigo
heard of the attempt upon his nephew, he sent Messer Galieno his own
leech to cure him. Later the prince was strangled; and the leeches with
a certain hunchback servant were put to the Question in the Mola of
Hadrian, and afterwards released as innocent.
A chronicle of Pavia of much later date says that Duke Cesare killed
Prince Don Alonso at a time when he was in bed with his own wife Madonna
Lucrezia.
Before examining the divergences of this evidence, it may as well be
said that the original despatches of Don Paolo Cappello the Orator of
Venice are not attainable. Many years later, a learned patrician of
Venice, Don Marino Sanuto, wrote the History of the Venetian Republic
from 1496 to 1533 in fifty-six folio volumes. He cited the
state-archives, despatches of orators, etc., and his work is
marvellously well done: but when all is said, the fact remains that the
despatches of Don Paolo Cappello, with those of many others, have been
edited by a stranger to the writers, and to the circumstances under
which they wrote. Monsignor Burchard held an important office at the
Vatican. He was German, and inimical to Borgia. On matters connected
with his office of Caerimonarius, _i.e._, the superintendence of public
functions, he might speak with some authority: but beyond that he is an
inveterate gossip and scandalmonger. In his case, also, it is impossible
to know what he really wrote, because the original holograph of his
Diarium (with the Diarium of Infessura and other similar works) even now
awaits discovery by students of ancient archives.
What charges lie against Duke Cesare de Valentinois? It is Cappello who
states that he drove away the women, and caused Prince Don Alonso to be
strangled by Don Michelotto. Burchard appears ignorant of these details.
It is Cappello who states that Duke Cesare admitted and defended the
murder. Of this Burchard says nothing: he relates that the prince was
strangled; and, from his mention of the interrogation of the leeches and
of the hunchback, it would appear that others beside Duke Cesare were
suspected. Cappello says that the prince was poignarded in head, arms,
and thighs; Burchard, in head, right arm, and knee. Cappello speaks of a
guard appointed by the Pope to watch the wounded man. Burchard does not
record this. There are discrepancies between the two accounts; some, of
reasonable importance: _e.g._, Burchard’s account of the forty knights
who escorted the assassins from the City; and of the sending of the
royal leech without mentioning any suspicions on the part of King Don
Federigo. But nowhere can be found a proved accusation against Duke
Cesare de Valentinois, or against the Holiness of the Pope.
From a study of the various statements, (derisable though to some extent
they be,) and of known facts, a reasonable enough history of the affair
may be compiled, and one which happens to be exculpatory of Borgia.
Don Alonso de Aragona Prince of Bisceglia, Salerno, etc., was a nephew
of King Don Federigo of Naples. At the age of nineteen, he married
Madonna Lucrezia Borgia, on political grounds to consolidate friendly
relations then existing between Papacy and Regno. All accounts agree
that this was a genuine love-match as well; and the chronicler Talini
says of the prince, “he was the most beautiful youth that I have ever
seen in Rome.”
A year after the marriage Madonna Lucrezia bore him an heir, Don
Roderico; who immediately was provided-for with the duchy of Sermoneta.
The young Prince and Princess of Bisceglia lived in the palace of the
Cardinal of Sante Maria _in Portico_ by the Vatican, in order to be near
to the Pope.
In the year 1500, the relations of Papacy and Regno had undergone a
change. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI was now allied with France, the old
and still-distrusted enemy of Naples; and King Don Federigo had joined
the unmitigable handful of men who were blackmailing the Pope’s Holiness
with threats of a General Council. The Prince of Bisceglia as a
Neapolitan, therefore, would not be persona gratissima to the supporters
of Borgia.
When it was desired to reward and exalt a subject, the sovereigns of the
Borgian Era had the naïve habit of dispossessing one of their enemies,
and conferring the vacated fief on their new protégé. In order to enrich
Prince Don Alonso with the principality of Salerno, the Majesty of
Naples had deprived the noble Neapolitan House of Sanseverini. In order
to enrich His grandson the baby Don Roderico with the duchy of
Sermoneta, the Holiness of the Pope had despoiled the noble Roman House
of Caïetani. And it readily will be understood that Caïetani and
Sanseverini were extremely likely to view these losses with anything but
resignation.
Regarding the edict of Duke Cesare de Valentinois, that none should go
armed between the Mola and the Vatican, it must be admitted that this
was only a very ordinary precautionary measure. The district named is
the immediate precincts of the pontifical palaces of peace and war,
which were connected by the fortified gallery-passage, through the
Region of Borgo, called Lo Andare; and the baring of arms within the
presence of royalty was, at all times, and in all courts, a capital
crime. Duke Cesare as Generalissimo was responsible for the maintenance
of order; and he was no laggard in any official capacity. If then, the
truth of the stabbing on the steps of St. Peter’s and the strangulation
in the Borgia Tower be granted, they might be defended as an execution
of the death penalty prescribed for a breach of the law, such as the
fiery Neapolitan prince is extremely likely to have committed. Royal or
patrician criminals were frequently done to death in private, by
quasi-assassination, to avoid the degradation of the touch of the public
carnifex.
Again, granting the said stabbing and strangling, and regarding them as
an act of private vengeance on the part of Duke Cesare against the
prince; it should be remembered that people had the custom of defending
their lives by slaughtering an enemy who set archers to shoot at them in
the garden.
But, during the pontificate of the Lord Julius P.P. II (Giuliano della
Rovere) the eternal enemy of the House of Borgia, (whose not mean
portrait by Messer Rafaele Sanzio da Urbino may be seen at the National
Gallery,) the captain Don Michelotto, who is supposed to have strangled
the Prince of Bisceglia by order of Duke Cesare, was seized and put to
the Question in the usual manner. It was attempted to find out, by means
of this rigour, the truth about the various crimes which he was said to
have committed for his master; and particularly the murder of Prince Don
Alonso. But although he was in the hands of a ruthless despot, who,
legally could have broiled him alive like a forger or could have broken
with iron bars every bone of every limb of his body on the Wheel, with
none to hinder, Don Michelotto soon was set at liberty as having given
no evidence of guilt, either on his own part or of that of Duke Cesare.
It will appear from this fairly convincing test that there is a strong
reason for regarding the story of strangulation as a piece of fiction.
As a last contribution to the theory, it is suggested that contortions
caused by _tetanus_, which might have set in by reason of the poignard
wounds, may have simulated, to the ignorant and casual observer, the
appearance of strangulation. The bacillus of tetanus is of earth origin,
and every one knows the vulgar method of wiping a dagger. Otherwise the
strangulation theory may be dismissed.
Of the stabbing on the steps of St. Peter’s there is no such room for
doubt. The discrepancy between Cappello (edited by Sanuto, understood,)
and Burchard, (a copy of him by an unknown hand, also understood,) as to
the position of the wounds has no material significance. Head, arms, and
thighs, says Cappello; head, right arm, and knee, says Burchard. It is
quite clear that the unfortunate youth (he was just of the age of
twenty-one years) wore beneath his doublet one of the fashionable
mail-shirts of the day, strong enough to turn a tempered blade at
closest quarters and yet so fine that it could be hidden in two hands;
and which caused him to be wounded anywhere except in his handsome
trunk.
The number of wounds and their wide distribution speak of more than one
occasion. The frightful loss of blood (the wound in the thigh), the
delusions of Fifteenth Century chirurgeons, the elementary condition of
the pharmacopœia, the time of year—Sol in Leone—when Rome fizzles in
fevers and insanitary stenches, preclude possibility of recovery: and it
is only reasonable to conceive that Prince Don Alonso died, after a
month’s lingering weakness and fever, of the poignard wounds and the
attentions of the leeches, unassisted by a problematic noose, or the
compression of his windpipe by strong thumbs.
Then who were the masked men with poignards, and who is responsible for
them?
In this connection, Duke Cesare de Valentinois has not been named. The
Pope’s Holiness did not alter His behaviour to him. He found him
antipathetic as always: some said He was afraid of him.[44] But He did
not cease to use him, to allow him access to His person, to decorate him
with titles; and the Lord Alexander P.P. VI was far too magnificently
invincible and too conscious of His power, not to have resented the
murder of the beloved husband of His charming and favourite daughter. A
Pontiff Who could, and did, crush reigning sovereigns at His will, was
not likely to fear a mere duke. The clergy treated Duke Cesare, as
always, with profound respect. And—Madonna Lucrezia Borgia, until the
very end of his life, maintained friendly relations with him; and it was
to her that the death of the Prince of Bisceglia brought most grievous
trouble. Evidently the people most intimately concerned with Duke Cesare
did not look upon him as an assassin: at any rate, the legend of his
guilt subsequently emanated, not from them but, from his foes.
There was a total absence of motive on the part of Duke Cesare, unless
the theory of legal but private execution, or the theory of justifiable
homicide, be maintained. And for want of proof of strangulation, these
can be dismissed with deserved contempt.
But—there was a very strong motive for the stabbing present in the
Neapolitan House of Sanseverini, and in the Roman House of Caïetani, who
had suffered loss of the principality of Salerno, and of the duchy of
Sermoneta, in order to the enrichment of Prince Don Alonso of Bisceglia
and Salerno and his infant son Duke Roderico of Sermoneta. Is it
probable that great barons of the Fifteenth Century, or of any other
century, calmly would submit to deprivation of their choicest fiefs,
without at least an attempt to gain satisfaction of one or another kind?
It may be concluded, then, that in all human probability Prince Don
Alonso was the victim of a vendetta. His assassination was a private
affair. The assassins were professionals in the pay of Sanseverini, or
Caïetani, or both together; who, when the deed apparently was done,
(here Burchard recording probability is valuable,) were surrounded by
forty knights (Sanseverini or Caïetani of course) and escorted out of
the City by the nearest gate, Porta Pertusa behind St. Peter’s, (the
nearest gate to avoid attracting the attention of the bargelli in Borgo
or Trastevere), whence, by a short circuit to the south, they would
attain the Via Portuense, sixteen miles of which would bring them to
Porto on the right bank of Tiber, opposite to the fortress at Ostia on
the left bank belonging to Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere.
* * * * *
At the Eighth Consistory of the twenty-eighth of September 1500, the
Lord Alexander P.P. VI named ten cardinals, who were,
(α) the Lord Don Jaime Serra, a Catalan, Vicegerent of Rome;
Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Vitale:
(β) the Lord ... Bacocz, an Hungarian, Chancellor of Hungary;
Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Martino _ai Monti_:
(γ) the Lord Don Pedro Isualles, a Sicilian; Cardinal-Presbyter of the
Title of San Ciriaco _alle Terme Diocleziane_:
(δ) the Lord Don Francisco de Borja, bastard of the Lord Calixtus P.P.
III; who had lived obscurely from his birth in 1441 until now;
Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Lucia _in Silice_ alias
_in Orfea_:
(ε) the Lord Don Juan Vera, a Spaniard, Archbishop of Saliterno;
Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Balbina:
(ζ) the Lord Alois Podachatarios, a noble of Cyprus, the Pontifical
Greek Secretary; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Sant’ Agata
_in Suburra_:
(η) the Lord Giovantonio Trivulzio, a noble of Milan, elevated to
oblige the Christian King Louis XII; Cardinal-Presbyter of the
Title of Santa Anastasia:
(θ) the Lord Giambattista Ferrari, Bishop of Modena;
Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Crisogono:
(κ) the Lord Gianstefano Ferreri, Abbot of San Stefano di Vercello;
Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Sergio e San Bacco:
(ι) the Lord Marco Cornaro, brother of Madonna Caterina Cornaro, Queen
of Cyprus; Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria _in Portico_.
* * * * *
In view of the danger looming in the near East, the Lord Alexander P.P.
VI issued a Bull proclaiming a new Crusade; and addressed a Brief in the
same sense to the Christian King Louis XII. Venice being in serious and
immediate peril received His help in the shape of money and troops.
Nevertheless though Modon fell to the Muslim Infidel, even this
disaster, giving point to the Pope’s exordium, failed to arouse the
Christian Princes of Europe from their disgraceful apathy. The Lord
Alexander P.P. VI now imposed a graduated crusade tax on the revenues of
the Sacred College, each cardinal being mulcted on the value of his
benefices. This, though a righteous and elevating ensample, was looked
upon with extreme disgust; for, like other men, cardinals are very
sensitive in the pouch. Cardinal Raymond Perauld, forgiven for his
treachery with Charles VIII, was named Apostolic Ablegate to Germany
charged with authority to reform the abuses, which avarice and ambition
on the part of German prelates were causing, to the shame of all
right-minded men. But the Elect-Emperor Maximilian—(who, in a picture by
Albrecht Durer in the British Museum, modestly is styled _Imperator
Caesar Divus Maximilianus Pius Felix Augustus_;[45] and, in another, on
vellum in the same collection, bears, after the imperial titles, the
styles of all sovereigns of Europe, including _Rex Angliæ_, in despite
of King Henry VII Tudor then happily reigning,)—the Elect-Emperor
Maximilian remembered that in 1496 his ill-advised advance into Venetia
had been opposed and not received with obsequious adulation; and he now
refused to allow the Papal Ablegate to enter his Empire. In such
pettiness did the Holy Roman Emperor of the Habsburg House of Austria
have continual joy.
This year in Rome was the Holy Year, the last of the Fifteenth Century,
the year of Jubilee. The Holy Father extended the privilege to
Christendom; and huge pilgrimages of persons of rank and distinction
from all Christian countries save Germany and Switzerland flocked to the
Eternal City throughout the year. The pilgrims’ alms considerably added
to the papal treasury; and, by order of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI,
these exclusively were set aside for the pacification of the States of
the Church in the Romagna; a magnificent example of the political
foresight which secured the temporal possessions of the Holy See during
three hundred and seventy years, till 1870. Before the end of the year
1500 the splendour of Duke Cesare de Valentinois was increased by the
title of Gonfaloniere of the Holy Roman Church: and, with the ample
funds of the Jubilee, he had enlarged his army by the acquisition of
several squadrons of French mercenaries, for a new expedition into the
rebellious provinces.
During the first year of the Sixteenth Century, A.D. 1501, the Apostolic
Ablegate Cardinal Raymond Perauld came to an agreement with the Diet at
Nürnberg: and the project of a Crusade was improved by the formation of
a new league of the Papacy with Venice and Hungary, (the two countries
which lay at the mercy of the Muslim Infidel;) and by some naval
successes with the conquest of Santa Maura by Bishop Giacopo da Pesaro.
* * * * *
In the spring, Duke Cesare marched his reinforced army to beleaguer
Faenza. There, the citizens had constructed a bastion during the winter
at the convent of the Friars Minor-of-the-Observance outside the walls.
On the twelfth of April, this defence was taken by Duke Cesare, who
installed a park of artillery to breach the citadel. The brave Faenzesi
made sorties from their city for grain and cattle: but the effect of
famine soon began to tell. (This account of the siege is Canon
Sebastiano di Zaccaria’s.) The rich shared their bread and wine with the
poor. When money for paying the soldiers failed, the priests and monks
gave the sacred vessels. Women took part in the defence, throwing stones
from the walls, or strengthening the gabions with earthworks; while the
most daring fought, with casque and pike and harquebus, when their men
slept. Matrons prayed in the churches. Barefooted boys and girls ran
about the streets praying for Divine Assistance for their fathers on the
ramparts. On the eighteenth of April, the sixth day of siege, the
assault was made. Duke Cesare had advised the neighbouring princes; and
Don Alfonso d’Este, heir of Ferrara, with his heraklean brother the
athletic young Cardinal Ippolito were come post-haste to see the sight.
(It is worth noting that advantage was taken of this visit to plan a
marriage between the young widow Madonna Lucrezia Borgia and Don Alfonso
d’Este.) The assault lasted from one o’clock in the afternoon till four.
The assailants severely suffered from harquebuses, and flaming darts,
and showers of stones, with which the beleaguered greeted them,
intrepidly fighting on the smoking débris of their walls. Nothing was
seen to equal Faenza’s valour: but Duke Cesare’s condottieri also gave
signal proof of bravery. Don Taddeo della Volpe of Imola, on being
struck in the eye by an arrow, tore it out and went on fighting, saying
that he was fortunate enough to see but half the danger now. Duke Cesare
conceived so great an admiration for the courage of his enemies, as to
say that, with an army of Faenzesi, he cheerfully would undertake the
conquest of all Italy. During seven hours on the twenty-first of April,
artillery bombarded the citadel, which now was little more than a heap
of ruins. Every night, some of the beleaguered slid over the walls, and
escaped into the camp of Duke Cesare, worn by famine and the fatigue of
the siege. On the night of the twenty-second, one Bartolomeo Grammante,
a dyer, fled from a fortalice where he was on guard and came to the
Duke, saying that there was mutiny in Faenza, that ammunition was
exhausted, and offering to point out a moment favourable for assault.
Incontinently Duke Cesare hanged this traitorous felon near the
city-wall, out of respect for the brave Faenzesi and their admirable
resistance. Three days later, the end came. The conqueror offered most
honourable terms: complete liberty for the Tyrant Don Astorgio Manfredi,
and his relations, to go and come at will; the integrity of his property
and payment of his debts; confirmation of all rights and privileges for
the citizens.
On the twenty-sixth of April, the municipal officers came to the convent
of the Observantines where Duke Cesare lodged; and swore between his
hands the feudal oath of fidelity to the over-lord, the Holiness of the
Pope. At three o’clock in the afternoon, came also Don Astorgio Manfredi
with his kin. This unfortunate youth was only of the age of sixteen
years, the servant of his own subjects, and an orphan whose father, Don
Galeotto Manfredi, had been murdered by his mother, Madonna Francesca
Bentivogli. A Venetian chronicler says of him that he was “a sickly lad
(_puto mal san_) but beautiful fair and rosy,” obviously rotten with
struma; and as such he appears in his portrait in the Palazzo
Zauli-Naldi of Faenza, wearing an expression of profound melancholy. The
young Tyrant and his bastard brother, Don Gianevangelista Manfredi, (who
was of the age of fourteen years, and had had a command during the
siege,) received so courteous a reception from Duke Cesare that they
decided to remain with him. So far, the behaviour of the Generalissimo
appears to have been inspired by noble magnanimity.
And here, there is a lacuna. The history of Don Astorgio becomes blank.
Research so far has failed to discover any trace of him for months.
Some time after his capitulation, Don Astorgio and his brother were
found incarcerated in the Mola of Hadrian, in the royal apartment which
Madonna Caterina Sforza-Riario had vacated on going into exile in
France: and of this, also, there has been no explanation yet discovered.
It is permissible to suppose that after Duke Cesare generously had
granted their unconditional liberty, some imperious political necessity
intervened; such as that Don Astorgio and Don Gianevangelista, held as
hostages, would guarantee the tranquillity of Faenza, preventing further
rebellion. Duke Cesare’s apparent breach of faith is not without its
parallels in ancient, modern, and contemporary history; a political
crime, perhaps necessary, but for which there is neither extenuation nor
excuse.
But later still, the story ends in tragedy. The two boys are said to
have been killed, and their bodies cast in Tiber. The only two
chronicles which have the slightest value are those of Don Antonio
Giustiniani the Orator of Venice, who was in Rome; and of Monsignor Hans
Burchard the Papal Caerimonarius, who might have been there: though the
originals of these chronicles, be it remembered, are yet to seek.
The former wrote to his government,
“_They say_ that this night those two young lords of Faenza with their
steward have been slain and thrown in Tiber.”
The latter records in his journal,
“There were found in Tiber, suffocated and dead, the lord of Faenza, a
youth of about the age of eighteen years, beautiful and well-shaped,
with a stone at his neck; and two youths bound together by the arms,
the one of fifteen and the other of twenty-five years; and near them a
certain woman, and several others.”
It is said also that the victims were floating in Tiber in the sight of
all.
The affair is the occasion of another of the calumnies which have been
cast upon the House of Borgia. Not one word is said by contemporaries
implicating Borgia in this crime: yet the modern fiction-monger or
quoad-historian who without hesitation did not place it to Borgia’s
debit would consider himself guilty of dereliction of duty.
The statements of the Venetian and the German, quoted above, will not
bear examination in the light of common sense. A rational and
unprejudiced observer will have noticed that Giustiniani does not speak
of having seen with his own eyes. He is not imparting official
information: he reports a mere _on dit_. But Burchard’s account is a
miracle of Teutonic completeness at all costs, and lack of sense of the
ridiculous. He does not say that he has seen the show. He gives no
authority for his statements. But he adds, to Don Astorgio and Don
Gianevangelista, a youth of twenty-five, a certain woman, and several
others! Is any reliance to be placed on Burchard, uncorroborated and
unashamed? He says that the corpse of Don Astorgio had a stone at his
neck, yet he was floating on Tiber in the sight of all! How can a
cadaver float when weighted with a stone? The density of Tiber is not
like that of the Dead Sea or Droitwich Brine Baths. Also, Tiber
notoriously is a swift current, far too turbid to permit a crowd of
corpses placidly to float in the sight of all. Also, Tiber exclusively
was used for drinking and household purposes, and constantly by all
Romans, high and low, for swimming: the heraklean Lord Cardinal Prince
Ippolito d’Este swam there. Also, the Borgia were pre-eminently
clever—cunning, their calumniators say. Then, is it probable that men of
any common sense would offer a hecatomb of assassinations to Tiber, and
to the sight of all, weighted only by Burchard’s single stone? Finally,
how is it that in the history of Faenza, and of the relations of these
young lords, there is not a single allusion to the manner of their
death? The learned Padre Leonetti justly contends that the story of the
murder is a mere fabrication; that the scribes, with Burchard and
Giustiniani, have seen no floating bodies; but that they have contented
themselves, according to their custom, with fresh vilifications of the
Lord Alexander P.P. VI and of Duke Cesare de Valentinois.
Let it be remembered that Don Astorgio Manfredi was “un puto mal san,” a
sickly or strumous lad. Let it be remembered how extremely easy it is to
kill strong boys off, between their fourteenth and their eighteenth
year, simply by depriving them of hope and joy. Let the most pathetic
history of Don Astorgio Manfredi, of which the barest briefest extract
has been given, let his situation, and that of his young brother Don
Gianevangelista, be realized with care; and the humanly natural
supposition will arise, that these two died natural deaths due to
constitutional defects aggravated by hopeless imprisonment in the Mola
of Hadrian.
It would be hard, however, if the enemies of Borgia could find nothing
worse to say; and the abominable Messer Francesco Guicciardini of
Florence, pandar of France, minion of Ghibelline Colonna, does not fail
to make use of that curiously common and invariably inconsequent calumny
which mediocrity, in all ages, hurls at genius. He writes, “Astorgio was
not deprived of life before having first been used, _they say_, to
satiate the passions of a certain person.” Under the pen of historians
who followed Guicciardini, this “certain person” quite naturally has
become the Lord Alexander P.P. VI. It is on the authority of this
Guicciardini that writers, far from the scene, and long after the deed,
have allowed them to assail an old man, a priest, the Head of the
Church, with a shameful and execrable accusation. Did Guicciardini make
the very difficult examinations of this problematic corpse which
medical-law ordains? He was inspired, and very badly, by his hatred. He
has not proved the crimes of the Pope. He has only exhibited the
fertility of a monstrously unclean and salacious imagination, the
dévergondage of a mind stuffed with reminiscences of Tiberius, of Nero,
of Elagabalus! (_Réné, Comte de Maricourt._)
* * * * *
The Lord Alexander P.P. VI had now reached the summit of His magnificent
pontificate. With the States of the Church slowly but surely being
brought under domination by the splendid gains of Duke Cesare de
Valentinois, with the interested support of the Christian King of France
and the Catholic King of Spain, (for the latter had the sense to cease
from annoying a powerful pontiff), and with His neighbour the Regno
under its weak King Don Federigo of no importance, there was nothing
that He might not do for the enrichment of the Papacy or the
aggrandisement of the House of Borgia. His policy was beginning to take
shape. The enormous and magnificent project, which appears to have
dictated all His actions, was assuming a concrete form. Difficulties of
every kind had beset Him from the beginning; and difficulties, He
doubtless knew, would be His constant portion: but by patience, agility
of mind, diplomatic skill, singleness of purpose, and His invincible
indomitable will, He had beaten down His opponents one by one, or had
turned their opposition into support which now enabled Him to act
independently and upon His own initiative.
He made short work with the rebellious barons of Rome. He blasted Don
Pierfrancesco Colonna with excommunication. He confiscated the fiefs of
the Houses of Colonna and Savelli, both of the Ghibelline faction, who
had defied Him by secession to Charles VIII and the unmitigable Cardinal
Giuliano della Rovere in 1494. He distributed the titles and estates so
acquired among members of the House of Borgia.
On the first of September 1501, He issued a Brief legitimating that
bastard of Duke Cesare de Valentinois and a Roman spinster, who had been
born in 1498, and was known as Infans Romanus; to whom He gave the name
Giovanni, after His favourite son the murdered Duke of Gandia, as well
as the duchy of Nepi. But, by a second Brief of the same date (in the
Archives of Modena) He declares this Don Giovanni Borgia to be the son
_not of the aforesaid Duke (Cesare) but of_ US _and the said
spinster_.[46]
There exists no explanation of the contradiction in these two Briefs. It
is, however, certain that no human temptation could induce a Pope to
publish such a statement as that of the second, unless the thing were
true; and, in the case of a Pope as powerful as the Lord Alexander P.P.
VI, there was no superior power which could force Him against His will.
As to one of the Briefs being truth and the other falsehood, it may be
remembered that there is a general law, a Necessary Proposition, “The
lesser is contained in the greater.” The thing was true. The Lord
Alexander P.P. VI, at the age of sixty-seven years, was the father of
Don Giovanni Borgia, whom He created Duke of Nepi in 1501.
The Lord Alexander P.P. VI was a very great man; guilty of hiding none
of his human weakness: and on this account a Terror to hypocrites of all
ensuing ages. Nothing in the world is so unpleasant, so disconcerting,
so utterly abhorred, as the plain and naked truth.
* * * * *
After the spoliation of the Houses of Colonna and Savelli—an act which
reduced them from that of premier barons of the Holy See to a position
of such insignificance that they no more appear in the history of this
pontificate,—the Pope’s Holiness married Madonna Lucrezia Borgia to Don
Alfonso d’Este, the heir of Duke Ercole of Ferrara. This was after her
year of widowhood. She was now the wife of royalty, with a near prospect
of a throne, worshipped by the poor for her boundless and sympathetic
charity, by the learned for her intelligence, by her kin for her loving
loyalty, by her husband for her perfect wifehood and motherhood, by all
for her transcendent beauty and her spotless name. Why it has pleased
modern writers and painters to depict this pearl among women as a
“poison-bearing maenad” a “veneficous bacchante” stained with revolting
and unnatural turpitude, is one of those riddles to which there is no
key. If physiognomy be an index to character, the most superficial
inspection of the effigy of Madonna Lucrezia Borgia must put her
calumniators to endless shame. In that simple profile, of features
clean-cut, delicate, refined; in those chaste contours so gently
rounded, so sweetly fresh and feminine; in the carriage of that flavian
head well-poised and nobly frank, there can lurk no taint of decadent
degeneracy. In the Ambrosian Library at Milan, is a long tress of her
beautiful yellow hair, shining and pale; with her scholarly letters to a
learned poet and cardinal the Lord Pietro Bembo, who had dedicated to
her a genial Dialogue on platonics in Italian; an Elegy in Latin, in
praise of her singing and recitation,
“_quicquid agis, quicquid loqueris, delectat: et omnes
“praecedunt Charites, subsequiturque decor_;
with an Epigram on a gold serpent bracelet that she wore,
ARMILLA AUREA LUCRETIAE BORGIAE FERRARIAE DUCIS IN SERPENTIS EFFIGIEM
FORMATA
“_Dypsas eram: sum facta, Tago dum perluor, aurum
“tortile nympharum manibus decus; at memor dim
“Eridani, auditaque tua Lucretia forma,
“Eliadum ne te caperent electra tuarum,
“gestandum carae fluvius transmisit alumnae._”
Another poet of even greater fame, the limpid Ariosto, praised Madonna
Lucrezia as “a second Lucrece, brighter for her virtues than the star of
regal Rome.” And even a modern writer of the eminence of John Addington
Symonds, (who, in his “Renascence” habitually credits calumnies against
Borgia in his text, half-heartedly refuting the same in footnotes,)—even
he says, “Were they (the calumnies) true, or were they a malevolent lie?
Physiological speculation will help but little. _Lucrezia shewed all
signs of a clear conscience._” Precisely. Then it is right and
reasonable to presume that this much-maligned lady had a clear
conscience; and to surcease from shouting any longer in the ordure which
has been cast upon, and falls from, her fair memory. Let the fact that
Herr Gregorovius, brilliant writer, painstaking scholar, German
Protestant, fierce and unscrupulous foe of the papacy and of the House
of Borgia, has destroyed all accusations against Madonna Lucrezia,
silence all suspicion. In his huge work,[47] devoted entirely to her
history he has shewn her to be the victim of inventions due to the paid
pens of her Father’s enemies.
* * * * *
It would be contrary to human nature, had Colonna and Savelli meekly
submitted to the confiscation of their fiefs. Armed resistance was out
of the question. The heads of those Houses only saved their lives by
flight into exile in discontented Germany: but they were not left
without one weapon, the last refuge of the unscrupulous. The anonymous
libellous pamphlet or epigram lay to their hands.
[Illustration: _Lucrezia Borgia Duchess of Ferrara_]
In the Region of Monti, (the largest district of Rome, including three
of the seven hills, Quirinal, Esquiline, Caelian,) which was inhabited
by the faction of Colonna, there stood an antique statue of some
river-god whom the Romans called Marforio. In the Region of Parione by
Piazza Navona, which was the heart of the mediæval City, near Palazzo
Braschi, there stood another antique statue whom the Romans called
Pasquino and said that under him the Book of Wisdom for all time was
buried. And it was the fashion to pretend that these two statues
conversed on current topics, emitting epigrams in the darkness of the
night, which were found in writing on their pedestals in the morning.
All persons who had an axe to grind at an enemy’s expense made use of
this convention: and a folio volume would not contain the witty caustic
cynical pasquinades (ecce nomen,) which from the Fifteenth to the
Twentieth Century have been found at Pasquino and Marforio. This method
of spleen-splitting was not neglected by Colonna and Savelli. Pasquino
became loquacious, bitter, oh and smart—but, smart! One epigram may be
quoted as a specimen of the railing accusations brought against the
Holiness of the Pope by way of reflection on His alleged simoniacal
election, at times when He levied taxes or forced loans for the Crusade,
or gave no remission of the chancery fees on promotion to fiefs and
benefices.
“ALEXANDER SELLS THE KEYS, THE ALTARS, CHRIST.
“HE BOUGHT THEM; AND HE HAS THE RIGHT TO SELL.
But the most virulent of all anonymous attacks, was a pamphlet called _A
Letter to Silvio Savelli_ which pretended to have come from the Spanish
camp at Taranto. It proclaimed to the Elect-Emperor Maximilian and the
sovereigns of Europe the crimes which were said to have been committed
by the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, Duke Cesare de Valentinois and Madonna
Lucrezia Borgia d’Este: perfidy, carnage, rapine, adultery, incest, the
heresy of Bulgaria, simony, assassination. Men who have noticed the
rabid inconsequence, the grotesque impossibility and filthiness, which
characterises certain foreign abuse of England at the present time, will
understand the extent to which envious rage will go. Men of the
Twenty-fifth Century, who read that degenerate literature, may attach to
it an importance as undeserved as that which the Twentieth Century
attaches to the _Letter to Silvio Savelli_ of the Fifteenth. Humanity,
with slight external differences, is identical in all ages. The Borgia
were only men and women, boys and girls, when all is said; and the
charges made against them are infinitely too monstrously inhuman to be
true. Nature terribly would have avenged Herself on such infringements
of Her law.
The Lord Alexander P.P. VI read the _Letter to Silvio Savelli_. It is
recorded that His Holiness deigned heartily to laugh with His courtiers
over the exaggerated absurdity of the satire. As for its coarseness—the
Romans always value _simplicitas_ and _urbanitas_ of speech, _i.e._,
hideous grossness and brutal jest. As for taking offence—well, Consul
Caius Julius Caesar laughed at the crabbed little couplet of Caius
Valerius Catullus, and invited him to supper; and the Lord Alexander
P.P. VI had lived too many years in Italy not to have taken the correct
measure of Milanese, Florentines, Venetians, Neapolitans; and He was
well able to apportion its just value to extravagance of praise or to
extravagance of blame. With His magnificent dignity of temper, He said
that in Rome there was liberty of speech: and that He cared nothing for
libels against Himself. (Costabili to Duke of Ferrara, 1 Feb. 1502).
They amused Him, if they were witty; they pleased Him, if their language
shewed distinction: and that was all.
Duke Cesare de Valentinois was not of so gracious a humour. Towards the
end of November after the publication of the _Letter to Silvio Savelli_,
a certain Messer Girolamo Manciani, a Neapolitan, was taken in the
Region of Borgo on a charge of publishing calumnious epigrams against
the Duke which proved him to be the author of the famous _Letter_. His
right hand and tongue were promptly cut off and out. Two other defamers
employed by the Aragonese Dynasty (as Pontano had been, and Sannazar
“the Christian Vergil” was) to flout the Borgia underwent a similar
mutilation; and when the Orator of Ferrara spoke of them to the Pope, it
is said that He answered, “What can We do? The Duke means well; but he
does not know how to bear insults. We often have advised him to follow
Our ensample, and to let the mob say what it will: but he answered Us
with choler that he intended to give those scribblers a lesson in good
manners.” The good heart of the Pope spoke there. The Duke was only
carrying out the law by this severity; laws, which it would ill-become
the Lawgiver to set aside. Still, the offence being against the person
of that Lawgiver, it was open to Him privately to recommend leniency:
and that He did. No man could do more.
* * * * *
Florence, having cast off the despotic rule of the House of Medici, and
settled herself as a true republic, was at peace with the Holy See.
After the capitulation of Faenza Duke Cesare de Valentinois was created
Duke of the Romagna. King Don Federigo of Naples, apprehensive of danger
from the alliance of the Papacy and France set abroad the rumour that
the Duke intended to conquer Florence and add it to the pontifical
state; and, to curry favour with the Holiness of the Pope, he suggested
that Tuscany should be erected into a kingdom, with Duke Cesare de
Valentinois della Romagna as its crowned king. This attempt to deflect
the wave of conquest into North Italy, and away from his own dominions,
met with no success. If Duke Cesare ever had entertained the notion of
proceeding against Tuscany, he made no efforts whatever in that
direction. On the contrary, it was the Regno that was the object of
attention. Chance after chance had been given, alliances diplomatic and
matrimonial had been made with it: but it continued to be as a thorn in
the eye of the papacy, its sovereigns vicious, treacherous, its people
dangerous, degenerate. It was cankered to the core; and its time was
come. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI signed a treaty with the Christian and
Catholic Kings of France and Spain for the division of Naples. The three
signatories each had a claim of sorts: the Pope’s Holiness as suzerain
of certain fiefs and tyrannies, such as Benevento and Tarracina; the
Christian King Louis XII as representative of the Angevin dynasty; the
Catholic King Don Hernando as legitimate head of the House of Aragon.
And incontinently King Don Federigo de Aragona fled into exile, while
his kingdom was divided and given to France and Spain.
In 1502 the plans of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI for the defence of
Christendom met with success and rebuff. The Elect-Emperor Maximilian
sulkily withdrew his prohibition; and Cardinal Raymond Perauld, as Papal
Legate, passed through the Empire preaching the Crusade. But Hungary
played traitor to the League which she had formed with Venice and the
Papacy a year before; and the Majesty of England, King Henry VII Tudor,
refused to help. The last perhaps may be explained by the uneasy
condition which the realm owed to rebellions fomented by Burgundy for
the affliction of the House of Tudor—those of Lambert Simnel in 1487 and
Duke Richard Plantagenet of York (vulgarly called Perkyn Werbecke) in
1494–1499.
The movement in the direction of ecclesiastical reform slowly
progressed. Germany was still reiterating the cry which, as long ago as
the reign of the Lord Calixtus P.P. III, she had raised anent the
extortions of the Papal Chancery; and not by any means without some
reason. But then, as now, the cry for reform arose from tainted sources.
It was not genuine, or sincere; but only a species of blackmail. However
the Lord Alexander P.P. VI was willing enough and he gave the idea due
consideration, by the advice of Cardinal Francesco de’ Piccolhuomini.
But, remembering that this Most Illustrious Lord was a nephew of the
Lord Pius P.P. II (who, in His earlier years, had assisted at the
Council of Basilea); and had the reputation of being a “concilionista,”
i.e., one whose remedy for ecclesiastical ills is not a Pope, but a
Council; the Supreme Pontiff resolved to delay, until that He should see
His way more clearly. In a sense the Pope’s Holiness deceived Himself;
for Cardinal Francesco de’ Piccolhuomini (who succeeded Him as the Lord
Pius P.P. III) was, as Caesar’s wife was not, “above suspicion.” In
ordinary matters, when suitable advice is not forthcoming, a Pope is
liable to hesitate. Of course, in matters of teaching, His position is
secure; but, as has been said, in worldly affairs the Pope-well-advised
is superior to the Pope-ill-advised. Seeing no present method of
securing permanent reform, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI waited. The fruit
was not ripe. The psychological moment had not come. It was well to
wait; and to let the movement shape itself: for, later, when the hour of
reform sounded there arose the majestic Council of Trent. To the Borgia
the world greatly owes the Tridentine Decrees—decrees that govern the
Church at this day.
* * * * *
In this year 1502, Duke Cesare de Valentinois della Romagna escorted the
Lord Alexander P.P. VI to Piombino when he made a state-progress through
the conquered states; shewing Him that from that city He could threaten
the Republics of Venice, Siena, and Florence, with the tyrannies of
Bologna and Ravenna, the last with its interminable feud of the Sforza
and the Pasolini dell’ Onda.[48] The chief independent states paid
tribute to him. By hideous treachery, he captured the duchies of Urbino
and Camerino, drove the Duke into exile, proclaimed an amnesty, and
observed it against his worst enemies: but he hanged all those who
betrayed to him, loving the treachery, hating the traitors.[49] The
duchy of Camerino was conferred upon the four-year-old Duke Giovanni
Borgia of Nepi and Camerino.
The Christian King Louis XII had a spasm of envy this year, in
consequence of Duke Cesare’s phenomenal triumphs; and shewed some signs
of interrupting the policy of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI with cries for
a General Council. A model of his, bearing his effigy with the lilies of
France and the legend _Perdam Babylonis Nomen_, made a great sensation
in Rome.[50] But French motives never are disinterested. The moment
another Power wins a success by expenditure of blood and treasure, that
is the time for pretentious incompetent France, _cane che abbaia non
morde_, to clamour for a share of what she never won, never could hope
to win,—for what, with inconsequent impertinence, she calls
“compensation”! The Holy Roman Church was not worse off, under the rule
of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, but better off than it had been before:
but the election of His Holiness was always useful as a means of
blackmail. However, Duke Cesare was Generalissimo of an enormous army.
In addition to the four thousand condottieri and three hundred lancers
with which he had begun the campaign, he had enlisted the many thousand
mercenaries of the Tyrants whom he had dispossessed, and also recruited
far and wide throughout Italy, where all the temperamental fighters
gladly took service under the most successful general. And to these he
added a foreign battalion of three thousand five hundred fantassini
(infantry), pikemen and arbalisters, all Frenchmen, of whose quality the
Christian King was well aware; and, therefore, sensible enough to
refrain himself before a worse thing happened to him. Indeed, such was
his anxiety to give evidence of his desire for peace that he actually
offered,—he, the Christian King of France, the representative of the
Angevin dynasty, offered to resign his claim to the kingdom of Naples in
favour of Duke Cesare de Valentinois della Romagna. He was painfully
anxious not to purchase a General Council at the cost of the conquest of
France; and preferred that a Borgia sovereign, (if such a personage were
to be,) should reign in Naples rather than in Paris.
The Romagna immensely was benefited by a strong and decent government
where law—martial law, certainly; but law—at last was observed. Duke
Cesare’s army was the only great Italian army. He, representing the
Pope, was absolute in Central Italy, where no Pope had had direct
authority for centuries. He was hated; hated by the great baronial
Houses which he had ruined, whose heirs he had slain: but he was not
even disliked by the people whom he ruled.[51] It was not extraordinary;
for the mob always adores the strong bowelless man, the rigid fearless
despot, the conquering autocrat who brings peace with security. He took
no different measures against rebellious vassals than those taken by his
contemporaries, Louis XII of France, Hernando of Spain, Henry VII Tudor
of England. He was more precise, more systematic: that is all. All the
sovereigns who were his contemporaries congratulated him. The Duke was
cruel; almost as cruel as his splendid parallel of the Nineteenth
Century; and as fervently disliked and decried: but he was just, with a
justice as far above the mawkish humanitarian system of compromise,
(which, nowadays it is the mode to applaud,) as the sun is above the
stars. Through the length and breadth of his dominions he continually
went, to oversee the restoration of order, to consolidate his victories.
The slightest spark of opposition he relentlessly crushed out. It was a
hundred-headed hydra with which he had to deal. As he passed from city
to city of his provinces, he left governours in charge of each, bloody
men, ruthless giants, equal to the work in hand; for the work was
dangerous; and men, whose hearts were triply-cased in hardened bronze,
were needed, where each man’s life was in his own hands until it was in
his enemy’s. Messer Lionardo da Vinci, that “scientific sceptic,” was
his engineer in chief and designer of fortifications: and Messer Niccolo
Machiavelli said that, of all Princes, he could discover no ensample
more blooming and more vigorous than Duke Cesare. The headquarters of
the Duke were at Cesena; and that same Messer Niccolo Machiavelli—the
only man who ever knew the real Cesare (detto Borgia) naked face to
naked face, naked soul to naked soul,—advised the Signoria of Florence
that an Orator kept at Cesena would profit the republic more than an
Orator at Rome.[52] In his absences from headquarters, Duke Cesare left
Messer Ramiro d’Orco there as governor. Cesena was a nest of would-be
brigands. Messer Ramiro d’Orco was a governor who made these quail with
the steel of his garrison and his own iron will.
It was the winter of 1502. Snow lay deeply round Cesena. In the Citadel
the governor was at supper by the hearth, where huge logs blazed and
crackled. Halberdiers were standing in attendance; and, on the walls wax
torches flamed in their sockets, for the sun was set and the first hour
of the night was come. Messer Ramiro d’Orco called for wine; and a page
brought a fresh flagon from the buffet. He stumbled among the rushes on
the floor in coming, tripped over the feet of a guard; and the falling
flagon spilled the wine on the ankle of Messer Ramiro d’Orco. That
monster made no more ado. He took the lad by the belt, and slung him
into the fire, seizing the nearest halberd and pinning the twitching
body to the flaming logs. The hair, in a flash, was gone. The slim legs
violently writhed outward, and fell still. Hose and leathern jerkin
peeled, and the white flesh hissed and blackened. Then, naught but small
ash showed where a boy had died; and the smell of roasted human flesh
mingled with the smell of the meats. Again, Messer Ramiro d’Orco called
for wine, unmoved, only inconvenienced. He was the governor of Cesena:
he had but punished a clumsy serving-boy.
That is the kind of man who could rule in the Romagna: and it easily
will be understood that acting in this way, armed with plenipotentiary
authority, Messer Ramiro d’Orco froze his district into a state of
comparative tranquillity—a state which gave him the opportunity of
looking further afield, and, so it happened, fatally for himself. A very
little cruelty of this callosity goes far. Even truculent Cesena grew
faint with horror of this fiend.
Duke Cesare acted upon the principle that it is better to be feared than
loved—_if one must choose_: but he knew that there is a point beyond
which no wise ruler goes: he knew the supreme art of making an end.
Murmured rumours of atrocities reached his ears. Sooner or later he
would have to bear the odium of the ill-deeds of his deputy. He never
shirked responsibility. To shine in the reflected glare of Messer Ramiro
d’Orco’s evil fame would not suit his purpose. And there were other
things.
On the twenty-second of December, when the setting sun cast long
blood-red lights across the snow, without warning Duke Cesare gallopped
into Cesena with an armed escort of lancers. The cowed Cesenesi, turning
out of doors to do him reverence, caught bare glimpses of flashing mail
and the bull-bannerols of Borgia passing over the drawbridge of the
citadel. Presently, from that citadel came Messer Cipriano di Numai, the
Duke’s secretary, to the house of Messer Domenico d’Ugolini, the
treasurer; seeking the governor in the city. Messer Ramiro d’Orco was
arrested, and conducted to the presence of his chief.
Surmise that night was rife as to the import of these acts. New
vengeance? New taxes? New horror? None could say.
The next morning, letters-patent went to all cities of the Romagna
proclaiming that Duke Cesare had arrested his governor Messer Ramiro
d’Orco, on the charge of numberless frauds, illegal cruelties, and other
crimes. The plaints of the oppressed had grieved the Duke, natural enemy
of exaction, avarice, and cruelty, who, having freed the citizens from
the ancient terror, wished to impose no new charges on them. The
letters-patent concluded, “for the doing of justice to Ourself and to
all persons who have been injured, and for a salutary example to all Our
servants present and future, Messer Ramiro d’Orco will stand his trial
on depositions against him collected.”
The trial was not a long one. Legally put to the Torture of the
Question, that frightful ruffian admitted the truth of the said
depositions; and, chiefly he accused himself of having sold the store of
corn belonging to the province, applying the price to his own purposes,
to such an extent that Duke Cesare only averted a famine by importing a
fresh supply from foreign countries. Lastly, Messer Ramiro d’Orco
confessed that he was conspiring with the Orsini to betray to them the
city of Cesena; and with Don Vitellozzo Vitelli, Tyrant of Citta di
Castello, and Don Oliverotto da Fermo, to pose an arbalister[53] to
assassinate Duke Cesare with a bolt from his arbalist.[54] Citizens of
Cesena who passed the little square before the citadel, going to the
dawn-mass of Christmas Day, saw a joyful sight—the Justice of the Duke.
They saw a glittering axe, fixed in a block upon the snow. They saw on
the one side a headless body in rich garments, exposed on a
blood-stained mat upon the snow. They saw on the other side the bodiless
head of Messer Ramiro d’Orco on a pike.
All chroniclers of the period congratulate Duke Cesare on having
delivered his subjects from a tyrannous subaltern as cruel as he was
rapacious; and Machiavelli records that His Excellency was pleased to
shew that he had the power to make men—and to mar them. Duke Cesare in
teaching made use of the sense of sight. He made the peoples of the
Romagna see his power, see his justice, see his ever-present
indefatigable energy. What wonder then that he was looked upon as
superhuman. In the citadel of Cesena a milder governor reigned.
Leaving Cesena on the Festival of St. Stephen, Duke Cesare reached
Pesaro on the twenty-eighth of December, where he learned that the
conspirators whom Messer Ramiro d’Orco had betrayed, (except the
Baglioni of Perugia, and Don Giulio and Don Giovanni Orsini who were in
Rome with Cardinal Giambattista Orsini and other prelates of their
faction) were at Sinigaglia, which place they were supposed to be
besieging on the Duke’s behalf; and they sent to him to announce that
they had captured the city, but that the governor refused to surrender
the citadel save to the Generalissimo in person. Duke Cesare sent avant
couriers heralding his arrival with artillery.
At dawn on the Festival of St. Sylvester, the thirty-first of December,
he appeared before Sinigaglia. His trusty confidant and captain Don
Michelotto led the van with two hundred lancers. Behind these Duke
Cesare rode, accompanied by three and a half thousand Italian
condottieri and as many foreigners. At the city-gate, Don Michelotto
halted his cavalry on the bridge, and the infantry defiled between their
ranks, entering the city where the forces of Don Oliverotto da Fermo
were paraded. Don Paolo and Don Francesco Orsini, Duke of Gravina, also
were present, with Don Vitellozzo Vitelli who wore an ermine mantle and
rode a mule like any cardinal. Duke Cesare appeared to be pleased at
seeing them and allowed them to kiss his hand in the French style. The
atrocious character of these brigands already has been described.
Duke Cesare engaged them in conversation, siding with Don Francesco
Orsini and Don Vitellozzo Vitelli. When they reached the palace which he
was to occupy, the four prepared to take their leave; but he begged them
to stay and dine, and to assist him in certain deliberations. As soon as
they had crossed the threshold, the Duke’s gentlemen made them
prisoners.
Messer Niccolo Machiavelli, the official representative of the Signoria
of Florence on the staff of Duke Cesare, (a capacity equivalent to that
of foreign attaché with an army in the field,) reached Sinigaglia later
in the day; and found the city filled with the Ducal mercenaries, who
were engaged in stripping the troops of the conspirators and in doing a
little pillage of some Venetian merchants. He was going to the palace to
get the news, when Duke Cesare, rode out, armed cap-à-pie, and said to
him, “I have had a chance, and I have taken it; and I have done a
service that should cause your Signoria to rejoice.” Then he rode away
and reduced his turbulent troops to order.
During the night the fate of the conspirators was decided. In deference
to their rank, the two Orsini were to be sent to Rome and judged there
according to law: meanwhile they were detained at the palace of
Sinigaglia under guard. The trial of the others began at once. Put to
the Torture of the Question in the usual manner, they soon shewed of
what poor stuff they were made. The lily-livered assassin Don Oliverotto
da Fermo wept and groaned and reproached Don Vitellozzo Vitelli with
having led him—innocent lamb as he was—into mischief by inducing him to
intrigue against Duke Cesare. On the first day of the new year 1503, at
four o’clock in the morning, they were ceremonially strangled in the
courtyard of the palace. While Don Vitellozzo was struggling with the
carnefex, dying by slow degrees, with blackening face and bulging eyes,
he screamed continually to Duke Cesare begging hard that he would
implore the Lord Alexander P.P. VI to grant him absolution after death
and a plenary indulgence, until the red cord (which was his baronial
privilege) cut into his gullet, and stilled his swollen tongue.
An ensample of this kind can leave no doubt in the mind but that, in
spite of all to the contrary, the Pontifex Maximus of Rome, simoniacally
elected or not, implicitly and explicitly was regarded then as God’s
Vicegerent, as Earthly Vicar of Christ, by the most flagitious of men.
Then what can be thought of the good and clean-living majority?
The bodies were buried in the chapel of the hospice of the Misericordia,
the Brotherhood of Pity, one of whose obligations is the care of
criminals condemned on the capital charge.
This account of the _colpo-di-stato_ of Sinigaglia differs from that to
which the world is accustomed. It is said that, when Messer Niccolo
Machiavelli returned to Florence, he was induced to make a different
statement to the one which he previously had made from personal
observation in his first dispatches. According to this second version,
there was no conspiracy; and the brigands Vitelli and da Fermo were
simply massacred by order of Duke Cesare. It is the execrable Messer
Francesco Guicciardini who has prostituted his golden pen to record this
so-called version of Machiavelli, which has come to be regarded as
veracious history.
“Duke Cesare de Valentinois, acknowledged sovereign of the Romagna,
judged his subjects who were guilty of high treason: as chief of the
State, he condemned the assassins who sought his life: as
generalissimo, he punished treacherous and rebellious subalterns. It
is known from other sources, that these two barons were only brigands
stained with murders, and that their death was a deliverance for
Italy. Without insisting on this point, and if it be said that the
procedure of Duke Cesare was odious,—the capture by a ruse and the
summary execution,—it may be pointed out that everywhere and in all
ages criminals are taken by whatever method may be possible, and that
military tribunals have never wasted time in long formalities. There
was accusation, trial, and execution, all in regular though rapid
form. We well may call the action of Duke Cesare a coup-d’-Etat. He is
not more blameworthy than the Emperor Napoleon III who in 1852 was
loudly applauded. Neither is it necessary for his justification to
urge the barbarous customs of his age; for we should be forced to
remember that, in the Nineteenth Century, our (French) national hero,
in a time of peace, caused to be seized on foreign territory, to be
carried to Vincennes, and, after the mockery of a trial, to be shot
like a dog in the castle-ditch, an innocent man who was a prince of
the blood-royal of France. [Duc d’Enghien?] Yet no man has ever dared
to liken the Emperor Napoleon I to a Borgia! (_Réné, Comte de
Maricourt._)
The news reached Rome on the night of the second of January. The blow
had been struck with such rapidity as to put complicity of the Lord
Alexander beyond the dimensions of time and space.
In the Eternal City, the year had opened with the ceremony called
L’Ubbedienza, in which the cardinals renew their vow of fidelity to the
Pope, as, formerly, Roman Senators vowed fidelity to the Princeps on
each New Year’s Day. A cardinal, who would omit this duty except for a
valid reason, would cause precisely such a scandal as P. Thrasea Paetus
caused to Tacitus by neglecting to swear to Nero. Notwithstanding this
renewal of allegiance on the first of January, only three days later the
Pope’s Holiness found reason to arrest Cardinal Giambattista Orsini,
with Archbishop Alviano of Florence, and Don Giacomo Poplicola di
Santacroce, Orsini’s partisans, being determined once for all to crush
that House of incorrigible rebels. This Don Giacomo Poplicola di
Santacroce had only himself to blame. His House, the most illustrious of
all the sixty conscript families of Rome, had been outlawed in 1482 by
the Lord Xystus P.P. IV by reason of the furious feud between Santacroce
and Dellavalle which had turned the Eternal City for months together
into shambles. He should have known better than to put his head in the
lion’s mouth. Giustiniani, the Orator of Venice, received an account of
what had happened from the Pope’s Own mobile lips; and embodied the same
in a dispatch to his government dated the fourth of January 1503. It
appears to be perfectly logical on the part of the Pope’s Holiness,
that, in view of the coming trial of the two Orsini whom Duke Cesare was
bringing to Rome, evidence should be sought among the members of their
faction.
The behaviour of Orsini was impolitic and suspicious to the last degree.
They were under the shadow. Two of their alleged accomplices had been
executed at Sinigaglia. The cardinal was detained in the Mola of
Hadrian. Don Paolo Orsini and Duke Francesco Orsini of Gravina were
prisoners of Duke Cesare. Their circumstances required a patient policy
of inaction pending coming trial, the result of which they needed not to
fear supposing them to be innocent of conspiracy. On the contrary, they
gave clear evidence of guilt, desperately maintaining an armed rebellion
in pontifical territory, ravaging the Viterbo country, and continuing to
make leagues with other rebels whether these were Roman barons or chiefs
of independent banditti.
The Orator of Venice wrote to his government on the seventeenth of
January: “The Pontiff is much disturbed, and more than ever on his
guard. They say that Colonna and Savelli and all the discontented barons
have joined Orsini. This night there was a panic at the Vatican: no one
knows the cause. The captain of the guard called out his troops and
watched all night under arms.”
Prince Gioffredo Borgia of Squillace, now in his twenty-second year and
father of four children, raised a squadron of condottieri and attacked
his August Father’s enemies: but on the night of the twentieth of
January, the Orsini cavalry captured the Bridge of Nomentano where a
fortress was; and all the Borgo rose in tumult. Messer Francesco
Remolino Bishop of Sorrento, and the Orator of Siena, left the City for
the camp of Duke Cesare carrying orders that he should leave everything
and advance on Rome, which was in imminent peril. But before the envoys
reached him, on the night of the seventeenth of January, at Citta di
Pieve he suddenly had beheaded Don Paolo Orsini and Duke Francesco
Orsini of Gravina, the two prisoners to whom he had promised a legal
trial in Rome. The attitude of Orsini perfectly justified Duke Cesare in
exercising his rights as sovereign justiciary and breaking his promise.
His camp was surrounded by Orsini castles, the two barons undoubtedly
were caught in the article of conspiracy; and their summary decapitation
became a sudden necessity to intimidate the Orsini conspirators in and
about Rome. It was not the custom of the Sixteenth Century to mince
matters, from any silly humanitarian motives, by sacrificing thousands
of proletariat lives when the fierce slaughter of a brace of
notabilities would serve the purpose. The modern accusation, that the
Lord Alexander P.P. VI was privy to the execution of these two Orsini,
falls to the ground when the dates of His dispatches to Duke Cesare, and
of their deaths, are compared.
Cardinal Giambattista Orsini remained a state-prisoner in the Mola of
Hadrian, within whose walls he had full liberty. By his own request, his
food was sent in daily from his own House; and also he received visits
from his relations. There he lived, attended by his own physicians,
until the twenty-second of February when he died, and was buried in the
church of San Salvatore _in Lauro_. Soon it was said that the Pope’s
Holiness had envenomed him; and this is a charge which it is utterly
difficult to prove.
Giustiniani, the Orator of Venice, who was a friend of the House of
Orsini, and always inimical to the Borgia, said without explanation or
remark in a dispatch to his government dated the fifteenth of February:
“The Lord Cardinal Orsini in prison shews signs of frenzy.”
In the dispatch dated the twenty-second of February, he said: “The Lord
Cardinal Orsini is reduced to the last extremity, and his physicians say
that there is no hope of saving his life.”
In the dispatch dated the twenty-third of February, he said: “I give
notice that, yesterday, after the departure of my courier, the Lord
Cardinal Orsini died; and this evening, with an honourable escort, he
was taken to the church of San Salvatore, and there interred.”
Brancatalini, in his Diarium, wrote: “This day XXII February 1503,
Cardinal Orsini left the Castle of Santangelo dead, at a half-hour of
the night; (5.30–6 P.M.) and Mariano di Stefano with many other Romans
accompanied him; and he was borne to San Salvatore _in Lauro_.”
Soderini, Orator of the Signoria of Florence, in a dispatch dated the
twenty-third of February 1503 wrote to his government:
“Cardinal Orsini died yesterday: and was buried at the twenty-fourth
hour (5–5.30 P.M.) at San Salvatore the church of the House of Orsini;
and, by order of the Pope, the body was escorted by his relations, and
by the cardinals of the Curia, uncovered and resting on a bier draped
with cloth-of-gold, vested in a red chasuble brocaded with golden
flowers, on the head was a white mitre, and at the feet were two hats
in token of his cardinalitial rank. The monks performed the funeral
service; and there were about sixty or seventy lighted torches. May he
rest in peace.”
Obviously, the Orators of the Powers had no suspicion of venom.
Giustiniani gladly would have reported such a rumour had he found
himself in a position to do so which would have been consistent with his
dignity and duty to the Venetian Senate. When He heard what His enemies
were saying, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI took prompt action. On the day
after the obsequies He convoked the physicians who had attended the dead
Cardinal during his illness and agony; and required them to certify that
death was owed to natural causes without any violence due to venom or
other means; He made them swear on the Sacrament to the truth of their
depositions, which were recorded with the facts of the case in the usual
form.
It was customary to consider certain signs as indicating venom; _e.g._,
the spots, the colour, the odour of the corpse. There is no mention made
of these. The Pope’s Holiness ordered a public funeral, the body was
uncovered; and carried openly through Rome. Every one might see it; and,
had the Orsini faction discovered any signs which pointed to an
unnatural death, they surely would have proclaimed their suspicions. The
interment on the day after death was, and is, the wholesome Roman
custom. The hour, after sunset, was, and is, the hour of burial.
It has been said by modern idealists that the Lord Alexander P.P. VI
envenomed Cardinal Orsini in order to inherit his riches. The idea is
absurd and ridiculous; for the Orsini would have been the heirs of their
dead kinsman. In fact they were. The imputation discredits itself by
reason of the gross ignorance on which it is based. It is alleged that
the Pope is the heir-at-law of cardinals. He is. But He was not, in the
reign of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI. It was the Lord Julius P.P. II
(1503–1513) who cupidinously issued the Bull which names the Roman
Pontiff heir-at-law of all cardinals, and of all clergy dying in Rome;
and this Pope (as Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere) was no friend to
Borgia. And this fact ought to dispose of all allegations of cupidinal
motive in this, as in other cases.
The Lord Alexander P.P. VI had the Orsini at His mercy. Duke Cesare had
executed two chiefs of that House. The Cardinal was secure in the
impregnable Mola of Hadrian. If the Pope’s Holiness had wished to rid
Himself of this one He was quite strong enough to do so, without resort
to venom, by a regular execution in public, or in private if preferred,
and so defy the odium which inevitably attends the exhibition of venom.
But that He had no intention of visiting His prisoners with death, or
with anything more than incarceration to keep them out of mischief, may
be seen from the fact that a few months later (August 1503) Archbishop
Alviano of Florence was released alive and well from the Mola of
Hadrian.
As there appears to have been no motive and no necessity for the alleged
crime, so also there appears to have been no possibility of its
commission. Cardinal Giambattista Orsini was visited daily by his
people, and his food was brought to him by them. His physicians also
made deposition on oath that his death was not caused by venom.
It is only reasonable to conjecture, then, that being a very old man,
_conscius criminis sui_ (conspiracy), alarmed by the execution of his
accomplices, terrified at his own peril, he succumbed to an entirely
natural collapse. The dysentery, which carried him off, goes to support
this theory,
* * * * *
The French in the Regno were not prospering; and the favour of the
papacy appeared to be leaning towards Spain. The Crusade languished, not
for lack of funds (for the Pope’s Holiness envoyed a grant of money to
Hungary); but because of the want of martial spirit on the part of, and
the customary disgraceful dissensions among the Christian Powers. Venice
and Hungary threw up the sponge, and came to terms with the Muslim
Infidel. The conquest of Eastern Europe and the settlement of the Turks
therein was an accomplished fact.
* * * * *
Duke Cesare de Valentinois della Romagna occupied Pesaro. This was the
fief of that young Tyrant, Don Giovanni Sforza, whose marriage with
Madonna Lucrezia Borgia had been annulled by a canonical impediment. The
spoliation of his appanage was a ground of fresh offence. The rupture
between the Houses of Borgia and Sforza was irremediable. People spoke
of Duke Cesare, now, as the Caesar Augustus of a new Roman Empire,
independent, and ruled by the sceptre of a Princeps of the House of
Borgia. After the execution of the conspirators at Sinigaglia, the
Venetian chronicler Priuli, who loathed the very name of Borgia, wrote
on the eleventh of January 1503: “Some wish to make and crown him King
of Italy; others wish to make him Emperor: for he prospers so that no
one dare forbid him anything.”[55]
The establishment of a Borgia Dynasty would have been no treason against
the rights of the Papacy. The rebellious tyrants whom Duke Cesare had
overthrown were unprofitable and even menacing. In their place was the
Duke who brought law, order, and prosperity. Of course Duke Cesare
derived benefit from his victories. The labourer is worthy of his hire,
and even successful English generals are not begrudged their peerages.
Duke Cesare’s duchy of Romagna, his commanding position, his power to
enrich himself by the taxation of his subjects, were a fair reward for
the immense services which he had rendered. The Papacy had now, instead
of a lost territory infested by the scum of European ruffianry refusing
to acknowledge authority or natural law, a vast province inhabited by
law-abiding prosperous contented vassals ready and glad to pay the
traditional tribute to their over-lord, in return for the unwonted
safety of their lives and property. Duke Cesare was in the position of a
viceroy. He held office at the pleasure of the Roman Pontiff. He was
persona ingrata to the rulers of the other Italian states, who were
envious of his splendid beauty, of his imperious character, of his
extraordinary success, and of his tremendous potentiality. And they
feared this tawny prince who had the tiger-strength to crush them one
and all. Backed by the spiritual and temporal influence and wealth of
the Pontiff, he could keep his irresistible army of veterans always on a
war-footing, and himself its generalissimo; and so the Papacy itself
acquired, through him, and in him, and for the first time, a material
basis of independence: while, in opposition to the Pope, he could not
exist.
There was the policy of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI.
He planned it with deliberation. He spared no pains to put it into
effect. He did not want to ruin the Church, because She was the
foundation upon which He would build His dynasty. Something of the kind
was of absolute and imperious necessity. The Forged Decretals and
Donation of Constantine, (which foist had been put forth in a Brief of
the Lord Hadrian P.P. I to the Emperor Charlemagne,) “the magic pillars
of the spiritual and temporal monarchy of the Popes,” severely had been
criticized as early as the Twelfth Century. It was left, however, to
Messer Lorenzo della Valla mercilessly to denounce them as forgeries in
1440, as already has been shewn here. When the Lord Alexander P.P. VI
ascended the pontifical throne fifty-two years later, both Decretals and
Donation had been thrown overboard from the Barque of Peter, to lighten
the ship: and the Pope had no title-deeds to shew, forged or otherwise,
for Peter’s Patrimony. Any diplomatist would see that a right, of some
kind more inexpugnable than Prescription, was desirable. The Lord
Alexander P.P. VI chose Conquest, and the Founding of a Borgia Dynasty.
The office of the Church He magnified, that She the better might help
the state. He intended that His descendants, members of the House of
Borgia, though nominally the vassals should be the suzerains of His
Successors: that Borgia should wear the double-crown of Princeps, as
well as, and by means of the triple crown of Pontifex Maximus,—that a
dynasty of Borgia should occupy both pontifical and imperial thrones.
There was ruin in the scheme: but not that ruin which vulgarly might be
supposed.
It was an intelligent enough policy—of a worldly sort. Only—it was not
inspired by religion, nor restrained by morality. When it fell to
pieces, the Lord Julius P.P. II was able of its fragments alone to build
the Papal States which lasted more than three centuries and a half until
1870.
The power of the House of Borgia was so well founded that the mere death
of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI would not have affected it. There was a
strong party of Spanish cardinals in the Sacred College, and three of
these were of the House of Borgia. The Vicegerent of Rome, the Lord
Jaime Serra, Cardinal-Priest of the Title of San Vitale, was a Spaniard
also. The Roman barons, Colonna, Orsini, Savelli, Dellavalle were
broken; Poplicola di Santacroce outlawed; Sforza-Visconti of Milan,
Sforza of Santafiora, Sforza of Chotignuola, Sforza of Pesaro,
Sforza-Riario of Imola and Forli, all were exiled. The Roman Cesarini
were loyal to Borgia, and had their Cardinal (Giuliano) in the Curia.
Spain was friendly, and occupied in the New World. France was friendly,
and feeble. Germany was feeble and internally distracted. England was
only a fifth-rate power. And the invincible army of Duke Cesare de
Valentinois della Romagna was ready to carry into effect its leader’s
will. But chance, molecules, Providence,—the reader will
choose,—disabled Duke Cesare, made him unable to act, or unwilling to
act,—the reader again will choose,—at the very moment when his action
was imperatively necessary. If, on the death of the Lord Alexander P.P.
VI he had had his health, he easily might have done anything, said
Machiavelli.[56]
“The Worldly Hope Men set their Hearts upon
Turns Ashes—or it prospers; and, anon,
Like Snow upon the Desert’s dusty Face,
Lighting a little Hour or two—is gone.[57]
* * * * *
At the Ninth Consistory of the thirtieth (or thirty-first) of May (or
June) 1503, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI named nine cardinals; five of
whom were Spaniards, three Italians, and one German. They were:
(α) the Lord Don Juan de Castellar, Bishop of Oleron;
Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Maria _in Trastevere
tit. Calixtus_:
(β) the Lord Don Francisco Remolino, Bishop of Sorrento, a friend of
Duke Cesare; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Giovanni e
San Paolo:
(γ) the Lord Don Francisco de Sprata, Bishop of Leon;
Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Sergio e San Bacco:
(δ) the Lord Francesco Soderini da Volterra, Canon of the Vatican
Basilica; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Susanna
_inter Duas Domos_:
(ε) the Lord Niccolo da Flisco, Bishop of Forli, Orator of the
Republic of Genoa to the Christian King; Cardinal-Presbyter of
the Title of Santa Prisca:
(ζ) the Lord Adriano Castellense di Corneto, Orator of the Lord
Innocent P.P. VIII to Britannia Barbara (Scotland);
Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Crisogono:
(η) the Lord Melchior Copis, Bishop of Brixen; Cardinal-Presbyter of
the Title of San Niccolo _inter Imagines_:
(θ) the Lord Don Jaime Casanova, Apostolic Prothonotary;
Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Stefano _in Monte Celio_:
(ι) the Lord Don Francisco Iloris, Apostolic Treasurer,
Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria Nuova.
Why a learned Catholic historian[58] should go out of his way to call
this a simoniacal creation, and his English editor to repeat the
calumny, is hard to say. It is bad policy to cry stinking fish, at all
times; it is especially silly to do so when the fish are fresh. The Bull
_De Simoniaca Electione_ directed against Simony was not issued until
1505, in the reign of the Lord Julius P.P. II; and it was not
retrospective. In 1503, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI was actually a
temporal sovereign, “an Italian Despot with certain sacerdotal
additions.” The cardinals were the highest degree of His peerage. No
doubt they paid for their promotion in the usual way; fees to officials,
the crusade tax on the revenues of their Titles, perhaps even a handsome
contribution to the Treasury: but why call this Simony, when it was not
Simony _stricte dicte_ till two years later? A Red Hat no more can be
bought than Strawberry Leaves. A man may use his gold to recommend
himself for these head-gears. A man may present £25,000 to the best of
all princesses’ Hospital Fund, or land worth a quarter of a million to
the proletariat; he may “bang a saxpence” in fees to officials for his
knighthood, he even may pay pounds sterling in fees to officials for his
barony: but he righteously would be enraged if people said that he had
bought his knighthood or his barony. The word Simony must be taken as
belonging to the Genus _Blessed_, (_e.g._, Mesopotamia;) or as the bark
of a dog who dare not bite. Either it is a mere incantation; or a
war-whoop “full of sound and fury signifying nothing.” In sober logical
earnest, it is inapplicable here.
* * * * *
As the heat of summer increased, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, now of the
age of seventy-two years, used to sit and take the air in the shady
gardens of the Vatican, and amuse Himself by watching two little boys at
play. They were His bastard and his grandson; Duke Giovanni Borgia of
Nepi and Camerino, of the age of five years; and Duke Roderico of
Sermoneta, Madonna Lucrezia’s son, of the age of four years.
* * * * *
When the sun entered the constellation of Leo—Sol in Leone, the
dog-days—the heat became abnormal; and plague and fevers appeared in
Rome.[59] The Orators of the Powers promptly made arrangements to quit
the City, for a cool and wholesome villegiatura.
Don Antonio Giustiniani, the Orator of Venice, sent to his Senate a
dispatch dated the eleventh of July 1503, in which he wrote: “I went to
the palace; and, on entering His apartment, I found our Lord the Pope in
His habits reclining on a couch. He received me with good humour, saying
that for three days He had been inconvenienced by a slight dysentery,
but that He hoped it would be unimportant.”
On the next day Giustiniani wrote: “The Pope’s Holiness reviewed His
troops from a balcony.”
On the fourteenth of July, he wrote again: “I went to the palace; and,
on entering, I found His Holiness on His throne in the Hall of Pontiffs.
He was a little depressed: but looked well.”
Messer Francesco Fortucci, the Orator of Florence, sent to his Signoria
a dispatch dated the twentieth of July, in which he wrote: “There are
many people sick of fevers, and many have died.”
On the twenty-second of July, he wrote: “I thank the Signoria for leave
of absence, because I myself am uneasy, and almost out of my mind with
fright; for so many people are dying of fever, and there is also
something like the Pest.”
On the evening of the fifth of August, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI rode
with Duke Cesare and several prelates to a supper _al fresco_ at the
villa of the Cardinal of San Crisogono outside the walls. Rome and the
surrounding country are particularly unwholesome, though cool, during
the hour after sunset. It is said that the Holiness of the Pope was much
heated by the exertion of riding there; and that, while He was in this
condition, He drank a cup of wine for the sake of coolness. No more
hazardous action can be imagined; except on the part of one desiring to
court a malarial fever.
Two days later, on the seventh of August, the Orator Giustiniani wrote
to his government: “I found the Pope less cheerful and more dull than
usual. He said to me _Sir Orator, all these sick people in Rome, all
these daily deaths, make Us fearful, and persuade Us to take more care
of Our person._”
Monsignor Hans Burchard, the Caerimonarius, wrote in his Diarium: “On
the twelfth of August, after vespers, between the twenty-first and
twenty-second hour, (5–6 P.M.) He (the Pope’s Holiness) shewed signs of
a fever which does not abate.”
It should be noted that this is seven days after the garden-supper.
On the thirteenth of August, Giustiniani wrote to his sovereign the Doge
of Venice, that the Pope had vomited after eating, and had been feverish
all night; that Duke Cesare also was sick: and that no one was admitted
to the Vatican. He tells about the supper in the garden of the Cardinal
of San Crisogono; and adds: “To-morrow morning I will try to have
precise information to send to Your Sublimity.”
These dispatches give an excellent idea of some of the duties of a
Sixteenth Century ambassador, to hang about doors of palaces, to
chronicle performances of natural functions, to bribe royal flunkeys and
report their gossip in state-dispatches.
On the fourteenth of August, the same Orator wrote that the Pope had
been phlebotomized,—“some speak of fourteen, some of sixteen ounces:
perhaps it will be true to say ten; and that is an enormous quantity for
a man of seventy-three years, which is the age of His Blessedness.”
(The Lord Alexander P.P. VI was born in 1431; and was of the age of
seventy-two years in 1503.)
“Still the fever does not abate. The Pope has it yet; though less
violently than yesterday. To-day the Duke is worse.”
The same day, the fourteenth of August, Don Beltrando Costabili, the
Orator of Duke Ercole of Ferrara wrote at some length, no doubt because
Madonna Lucrezia Borgia, the consort of Ferrara’s heir, would expect
detailed information when the health of her august and affectionate
Father was concerned. He said:
“Yesterday morning, I was informed on good authority that His Holiness
has commanded the attendance of the Bishop of Venosa who was sick at
home, and of another physician of the City; and that these are not
allowed to leave him. I was informed that the Pope had vomitings and
fever yesterday: and that they have relieved him of nine ounces of
blood. During the day, His Holiness caused some cardinals to play at
cards before Him while He rested. I was informed also that last night
He slept fairly well. But to-day between the eighteenth and nineteenth
hour, (2–3 P.M.) there was a crisis like that of Saturday, of a kind
which makes His courtiers uneasy; and every one is unwilling to speak
of His condition. I have sought by all means to obtain information:
but the more I seek, the less I learn; for the physicians, the
chirurgeons, and the apothecaries are not allowed to quit the
Presence: from which I conclude that the malady is grave. The Duke of
the Romagna also, is very sick with fever, vomitings, and disorder of
the stomach. _It is not astonishing that His Holiness, and His
Excellency should be ill; for all the courtiers, especially those who
are in the palace, are in the same state, by reason of the unwholesome
conditions of the air, which, there, they breathe._”
The last sentence, in italics, is of exceedingly great importance. The
operation of venesection did not effect a lysis, as appears from the
dispatches of Giustiniani which continue the tale. On the fifteenth of
August, he wrote to the Venetian Senate that it was difficult to get
positive information: but that the affair was serious; and, that there
was likely to be disorder in the City if the Pope died.
On the sixteenth of August, he wrote that the Pope and the Duke
continued to be tormented with fevers, and that the Duke’s was the more
violent. He added that the condition of the Pope must be aggravated by
His anxieties and cares, and by the sickness of the Duke.
On the seventeenth of August, Giustiniani wrote again:
“Yesterday I wrote to Your Sublimity by Girolamo Passamonte the
courier, who arrived here. To-day I inform you that our Lord the Pope
has taken medicine. The fever continually torments Him, not without
danger. I am informed by a sure authority that the Bishop of Venosa,
chief-physician of His Blessedness and a familiar of the Cardinal
Giovantonio di Sangiorgio, (or, perhaps, the Cardinal of San Giorgio
_in Velum Aureum_, Rafaele Galeotto Sansoni-Riario,) has told his
steward that the sickness of the Pope is very dangerous, and that he
ought to make the said cardinal hasten hither; which thing has been
done.”
He adds that the partisans of Duke Cesare, expecting a riot on the death
of the Pope, have made secure their property and have taken precautions
to prevent ill news from being bruited abroad. This was ordinary
political prudence.
On the eighteenth of August, the same Orator wrote,
“Early this morning, our Lord the Pope, knowing of the danger of His
sickness, has received His rites; and some cardinals have been
admitted into the presence of His Blessedness. The Viaticum was given
in secret; for His familiars try to conceal His condition as much as
possible. They say, that the Bishop of Venosa, early this morning
before the Communion, came from the Pope’s Chamber, weeping, and
saying to one of his people that the danger was very grave, and
complaining with chagrin of the inefficacy of some potions which,
yesterday, he had administered.... The Duke also is very sick. It has
been said to my secretary, _Sir Secretary, this is no time for
ceremonies or fine words. Tell the Orator to hasten to inform the
Senate of Venice that the Pope_ GRAVITER LABORAT. Also, the same
informant said that the Pope cannot live much longer without a
miracle.”
On the eighteenth of August, Giustiniani also wrote a second dispatch to
the Doge of Venice, in which he said:
“To-day I sent the latest news to Your Sublimity by Lorenzo da
Camerino. After he was gone, Messer Scipione, a physician from the
palace, came to tell me that yesterday at the sixteenth hour (noon),
the Pope, wishing to rise for a certain need, was taken with a fit of
choking, and is in evil plight, going from bad to worse; and that in
his opinion His Holiness will die to-night:—and, from what he says, I
judge the malady to be an apoplexy. Such also is the opinion of this
physician so excellent is his art.”
The Orator adds that, now, Duke Cesare is neglected; and is preparing
secretly to take refuge in the Mola of Hadrian.
Monsignor Burchard makes the following entry in his Diarium, a work of
which the original is undiscovered, and copies only accessible to the
student. He was perfectly qualified to speak on this subject from
personal knowledge; the demise of the Pope being a ceremonial function
which he would have to arrange and superintend. He says:
“On Wednesday the eighteenth of August between the twelfth and
thirteenth hour (8–9 A.M.) He (the Lord Alexander P.P. VI) confessed
Himself to the Lord Bishop Pietro of Culen who said mass in His
presence; and, after his Communion, administered the Sacrament of the
Eucharist to the Pope, who was seated on His bed; and then finished
the mass. Five cardinals were present, d’Oristano, di Cosenza, di
Monreale,[60] Casanueva, and di Constantinople, to whom the Pope said
that He felt ill. At the hour of vespers the said Bishop of Culen
administered the Sacrament of Extreme Unction to Him; and He died in
the presence of the datary and the bishop.”
This event took place in the third room of the Borgia Tower occupied by
the Library counting from the Library side.
On the nineteenth of August, Giustiniani announced the news to the
Senate, and added, “to-day He was carried _de moro_,[61] and shewn to
the people; but His corpse was more hideous and monstrous than words can
tell, and without human form. For decency, it was kept for some time
covered; and before sunset they buried it in the presence of two of the
cardinal-deacons attached to the palace.”
In reading this dispatch, it must be remembered that Giustiniani hated
the Borgia; and that the Lord Alexander P.P. VI was an old man of an
obese habit of body, Who had died of a fever in the height of summer, in
a most unwholesome quarter of the City, and at a time when antiseptic
treatment was unknown.
The Notary of Orvieto, on his return from Rome four days later, publicly
described to his municipality all that he had seen of the _novendiali_;
and added that he had kissed the feet of His Holiness in St.
Peter’s[62]: but said nothing of any hideous or monstrous appearance of
the corpse.
Soon after death, a rumour was heard to the effect that the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI and Duke Cesare de Valentinois della Romagna had died
envenomed.
For three months it was only a rumour. A new Pope was elected—Cardinal
Francesco de’ Piccolhuomini of Siena, who took the name of the Lord Pius
P.P. III out of respect to His Uncle, the Lord Pius P.P. II,[63]—and was
dead after a two months’ reign.
Then Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, irreconcileable enemy of Borgia,
attained the object of his ambition; and was elected Pope by the name of
the Lord Julius P.P. II. And then the rumour took a concrete form.
On the tenth of November it definitely was said that, at the
garden-supper of the fifth of August venom had been put into some wine
by order of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI; that by a butler’s blunder that
envenomed wine had been served to the Pope’s Holiness and to Duke
Cesare: that the former being old had died therefrom; that the latter
being young had endured heroic treatment for a cure. Some said that he
had been plunged into the ripped-up belly of a live mule or bull amid
the steaming palpitating entrails profusely to sweat the venom out of
him: others, that he had been dipped in iced-water, and so cured.
Writing several years later, Messer Francesco Guicciardini and Messer
Paolo Giovio added new details. Guicciardini definitely settled the
falsehood in the form in which it generally appears. He gave a list of
cardinals, also, and prelates who were to have been envenomed by the
Lord Alexander P.P. VI that He might inherit their wealth. Giovio named
and described the venom which, he said, the Borgia commonly used. He
called it _Cantarella_[64]; and said it was a sugared powder, or a
powder under the guise of sugar, which was of a wonderful whiteness, and
of a rather pleasant taste. It did not overwhelm the vital forces in the
manner of the active venoms by sudden and energetic action: but, by
penetrating insensibly the veins, it slowly worked with mortal effect.
(Paolo Giovio, Hist. II. 47. VIII. 205.) Is there any toxicological
chymist who from this description can give the formula of this
extraordinary venom?
The testimony of these two men is tainted. Messer Francesco
Guicciardini, who wrote long after the event and solely from hearsay,
was a Florentine. Whatever is, and was, of Florence, is cultured,
pedantic, artificial, in the highest degree: whatever is, and was, of
Rome, is nakedly natural, original, free, and absolute, in the highest
degree. It was, and is, a habit of mind in the Florentine to decry Rome
and all things Roman. Politically, Messer Francesco Guicciardini was an
adherent of the House of Medici; and Medici were naturally the mortal
foes of Borgia, seeing that Borgia had acquiesced in and profited by
their expulsion from Florence. And he was in the pay of the Roman
Colonna, who were Ghibelline by inherited tradition, _i.e._, upholders
of the imperial against the papal prerogative. He was born in 1482; and
was of the age of twenty-one years at the death of the Lord Alexander
P.P. VI. In 1530, having exhorted the Lord Clement P.P. VII to punish
Florence for insults which he (Guicciardini) had received in 1527, he
turned traitor against the Medici, writing invectives against them till
his death in 1540. He divinely wrote at all times a sonorous and courtly
Tuscan, which makes his reader believe that one who could write so
exquisitely must needs write truly. Yet he did not hesitate to boast
that he had a pen of gold for his friends, and a pen of iron for his
foes. Regretfully then it must be said that Messer Francesco
Guicciardini does not deserve belief unless his statements can be
corroborated.
Touching the matter of the Borgia venom, and especially of the
envenoming of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI and Duke Cesare, he is
corroborated by Messer Paolo Giovio.
Messer Paolo Giovio was born in 1483, and was of the age of twenty years
at the death of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI. He issued no books till
twenty-one years later. His first was a quoad-scientific treatise on
Roman Fishes (_De Piscibus Romanis_), published in 1524. He was a
_dilettante_ of a kind. He practised amniomancy, or the art of
divination by inspection of the membrane, Amnios, in which the unborn
child is wrapped—fantastic effort of a seeker after Truth. He was one of
those double-faced historians, who wrote one set of memoirs for the
highest bidder; (Popes whom they despised, Dukes whom they privately
reviled,) and a second set of memoirs for the enemies of the patrons of
the first. His Life of the Lord Leo P.P. X (Giovanni de’ Medici) is a
specimen. Even during his life, he was considered to be a flagrant liar.
He used to say, with a dog-like knowledge of his masters the “people”
who “desire to be deceived,” that the centuries would give his written
lies the force of truth. He used an affected and flamboyant rather than
a pure style; and was the inferior of Guicciardini. The Lord Clement
P.P. VII (Giulio de’ Medici), to be rid of his incessant importunity,
gave him the bishopric of Nocera; and he died in 1552.
Who, therefore, wishes to believe Messer Francesco Guicciardini
uncorroborated, or corroborated by Messer Paolo Giovio, will do so on
his own responsibility.
Let it be noted that both Giovio and Guicciardini were Roman Catholics.
Their calumnies against the Lord Alexander P.P. VI are their own; and
were not invented by dissenters from their creed. The said calumnies
very naturally have been adopted by these last as articles of faith; and
repeated usque ad nauseam; or resented, with the most unconvincing and
inane half-heartedness, by a majority of modern and soi-disant
enlightened Roman Catholics, who fear (positively they shew every sign
of fear) to credit their own learned clergy of the present day,
Leonetti, Velron, Cerri, and Ollivier, to say nothing of the laity,
_e.g._, Comte Réné de Maricourt, who have laboured for justice to the
maligned Borgia. Will these astonishingly inconsistent persons prefer to
believe the opinion of an atheist, who was incidentally a man of common
sense? It is Voltaire who, in speaking of Guicciardini’s statement,
(that the Lord Alexander P.P. VI was the victim of venom which He had
set for his cardinals, that, having killed them, He might take their
treasure,) says,
“All the enemies of the Holy See have welcomed this horrible anecdote.
I myself do not believe it at all; and my chief reason lies in its
extreme improbability. It is evident that the envenoming of a dozen
cardinals at supper would have caused the Father and the son[65] to
become so execrable, that nothing could have saved them from the fury
of the Roman people, and of the whole of Italy. Such a crime never
could have been concealed. Even supposing that it had not been avenged
by all Italy leagued together, it was directly contrary to the
interests of Cesare (detto) Borgia. The Pope was on the verge of the
grave. The Borgia faction was powerful enough to elect one of its own
creatures: was it likely that the votes of cardinals would be gained
by envenoming a dozen of them? I make bold to say to Guicciardini,
‘Europe has been deceived by you, and you have been deceived by your
feelings. You were the enemy of the Pope; you have followed the advice
of your hatred. It is true that He had used vengeance cruel and
perfidious, against foes perfidious and cruel as Himself. Hence you
conclude that a Pope of the age of seventy-two years could not die a
natural death. You maintain, on vague rumour, that an aged sovereign,
whose coffers at that time contained more than a million of gold
ducats,[66] desired to envenom several cardinals that He might seize
their treasures. But were these treasures so important? The treasures
of cardinals nearly always were removed by their gentlemen before the
Popes could seize them. Why do you think that so prudent a Pope cared
to risk the doing of so very infamous a deed for so very small a gain;
a deed that could not be done without accomplices; and that sooner or
later must have been discovered? May I not trust the official accounts
of the Pope’s sickness, more than the mere rumours of the mob? That
official account declares the Pope to have died of a double-tertian
fever. There is not the slightest vestige of proof in favour of the
accusation which you have brought against His memory. His son
Borgia[67] happened to fall sick at the time when his Father died.
That is the sole foundation for the story of the venom.’”
It will appear that the death of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, from venom,
is improbable. It may also be said that it was impossible, for reasons
here forthcoming.
The Legend of the Borgia Venom
One of the stock phrases used by biographers and historians of the
Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries was “he (or she)—died in the odour of
sanctity.” Another was “he (or she)—died not without suspicion of
venom.” Both phrases are the merest expression of private opinion, the
importance of which depends upon the integrity and knowledge of the
user: but in no case do they amount to a dogmatic, final, infallible, or
authoritative, decision.
When a person is said to have departed this life in the odour of
sanctity, (a purely technical phrase, insusceptible of literal
translation,) sooner or later the process of ecclesiastical law is begun
for obtaining for the deceased the successive titles, _Venerable Servant
of God_, _the Blessed ——_, and _Saint ——_. These titles, only being
conferred after stringent examination of quality lasting many years and
sometimes many centuries,[68] are taken to prove the pious opinion “died
in the odour of sanctity” to have been founded on a verity.
But when a person is said to have died “not without suspicion of venom,”
it is very rarely that steps are taken, juridically to examine that
suspicion with a view to proving it to be founded on fact or falsehood.
The world deliberately prefers to believe the worst of man, deliberately
prefers suspicion. The expression in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth
Centuries was as randomly and as inconsequently used as the cry for a
General Council, by every one who found occasion to go “against the
government”; and it certainly does not command respect by reason of its
absurdly frequent repetition. It was the fashion for their enemies to
accuse the Borgia of compassing the death of some by venom. It was also
the fashion for the Borgia to retort upon their enemies in the same
formula. There can be no human doubt that the Borgia and their enemies
would have envenomed each the other, had they known how to do so with
security and certainty. It was a habit of the Latin Races to see no
distinction between venom and steel when the idea was to get rid of a
foe. Cold northern nations, the English in particular, always have had a
horror of venom, preferring boots, fists, bullet, or blade; indeed one
of the most hideous penances ordained by English and Post-Reformation
law was awarded to criminals who had envenomed the lieges. They were
boiled alive. “This year, the XVII March, was boyled in Smithfield one
Margaret Davis, a maiden which had poisoned three households that she
dwelled in.” (Wriothesley’s Chronicle, 1542.)
Perhaps to this habit, of regarding the use of venom as so horrible a
crime, is due the fascination which those, who are supposed to have
attained high eminence in its practice, have for Englishmen.
Undoubtedly, Lord Alexander P.P. VI and Duke Cesare de Valentinois della
Romagna are regarded as having been artists in venom, possessing
knowledge far surpassing that of modern alchymists. They are believed to
have envenomed their foes, named and unnamed, by the score; and, at
last, to have fallen into the pit that they have digged for others.
Of the cases named, Cardinal Giovanni Borgia (detto Giuniore), the
Sultan Djim, and Cardinal Orsini, are the most important. The
improbability in the case of the first already has been shewn: Duke
Cesare and he were friendly; their interests were asymptotic; and they
were apart during the seventeen days before the cardinal died. The
improbability in the case of the Sultan Djim lies in the fact that the
Pope lost 40,000 ducats annually, and the only means of keeping the
Turks from Christendom, by his death which was due to natural causes,
and took place when he was in the hands of the Christian King Charles
VIII at Naples, some weeks after he had left Rome. The improbability in
the case of Cardinal Orsini is proved by the tainted source from which
the charge emanated; by the publicity of all proceedings before and
after his death; and by the sworn testimony of his leeches. Cases of
this kind must be considered together; and rejected or accepted
together; for rumours do not gain credibility from vociferous
repetition: nor does it avail to plead that because advantages accrue
from the death of such a one, therefore, the person benefited by the
death is likely to have envenomed the deceased. Death is always
advantageous to some one living: but in no case named did the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI and Duke Cesare reap any gain whatever, but
contrariwise loss. As for the statement, that the venom of the Borgia
was a slow venom, slow in action, dirigible in absence, it safely may be
said that no such venom existed then any more than it does now.
This slow venom is an invention of purveyors of a certain class of
fiction, doing vast credit to their imaginative powers, but possessing
no tangible existence. These writers of fiction are merchants who must
supply their customers with goods upon demand. The Legend of the Borgia
Venom is a department of their trade. The public has read it and cried
for more according to the sample. The public is pleased to amuse itself.
At other times the public has the humour to inform itself; and takes
spiritual pastors, and masters, cunning in all learning, in all verities
of past and present. From these, the truth is required for mental
profit; from the others invention and imagination for mental recreation.
The public pays and has the right to choose what it will buy. A grocer,
who would venture to supply pickles instead of pepper ordered, would
encounter his patron’s discontent. A teacher, who would venture to
purvey fiction instead of fact required, would meet with similar
disaster, one would think. But in sober earnest, the Legend of the
Borgia Venom so very industriously has been propagated, that modern
serious writers have adopted it as one of the items which safely may be
included in their serious writings: and the public finding it there, in
places where truth is expected to be, looks upon the false as true
because it comes with the imprimatur of authority.
Herr Eugene Burckhardt’s very learned modern work, _The Civilization of
the Renaissance in Italy_, of which an English Translation is
accessible, is a case in point. It purports to be gravely written, and
is a mine of accurate information. Yet, among continuous ropes of pearls
of wisdom, occasionally one is startled by the discovery of a bead so
base, that one wonders how it has escaped detection and damnation. Here
is an example,
“Strictly speaking, as we are now discussing phases of Italian
civilization, this pontificate (1492–1503) might be passed over, since
the Borgia are no more Italian than the House of Naples. Alexander
spoke Spanish in public with Caesar; Lucrezia at her entry into
Ferrara, where she wore a Spanish costume, was sung to by Spanish
Buffoons: their confidential servants consisted of Spaniards, as did
most of the ill-famed company of the troops of Caesar in the war of
1500; and even his Hangman Don Michelotto, _and his Poisoner Sebastian
Pinzon_, seem to have been of the same nation.”
That is a specimen of the slipshod way in which serious writers are
false to their trust, of the half-truths which they make to serve for
the truth about the Borgia. It is exceedingly necessary to lay great
stress upon the Spanish origin of the Borgia, lest odium undeserved
should light on their adopted country Italy. They were very fine
examples of their race: but never let it be forgotten that their vices,
(for, being men, they had their vices) were Spanish and not Italian
vices. Herr Burckhardt does well to emphasize this fact, and to enrich
and illuminate it with a wealth of illustration: but when he comes to
speak of Don Michelotto as Duke Cesare’s Hangman, and of Sebastian
Pinzon as his Poisoner, with the light and easy freedom which one uses
in speaking of “the unquestioned things that are”; then one is compelled
to conjure up the horrible and fantastic picture of the Generalissimo of
the Pontifical Army stalking about the continent of Europe with an
official Hangman and an official Poisoner in his entourage. Don
Michelotto was a captain of Duke Cesare’s condottieri, a valued
confidential servant, perhaps, on sudden occasion, as at Sinigaglia, his
_executeur des hautes œuvres_: but never a professional Hangman. And
Sebastian Pinzon? Is it to be believed that Duke Cesare—for this really
is what Herr Burckhardt’s amazing statement implies—did so much
venenation in the way of business, that it was as necessary to have a
Lord High Poisoner attached to his staff as a Groom of the Stola or a
Clerk of the Hanaper?[69] The thing is absurd; worthy of comic opera,
not of serious history. But the origin of Herr Burckhardt’s error shall
be traced.
Giustiniani the Orator of Venice, to whom the Borgia were intensely
antipathetic, and who neglected no opportunity of relating rumours
detrimental to them, sent to his government a dispatch dated the
twentieth of July 1502, stating, that the Most Illustrious Lord
Giambattista Ferrari, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Crisogono,
vulgarly called the Cardinal of Modena, had died; that, in accordance
with his testament, his goods and benefices had been distributed; that
his archbishopric of Capua had been given to the young and lusty Lord
Cardinal Prince Ippolito d’Este (now of the age of twenty-four years and
a person of fashion;) that his bishopric of Modena had been given to his
brother; that the greater part of his goods had been given to his
secretary Messer Sebastiano Pinzoni; that this last bequest was called
“the price of blood” for the secretary had envenomed his master, to have
his goods; that the Pope had endowed the said secretary with a canonry
in Padua, the prefecture of Sant’ Agata in Cremona, a benefice in Rome,
another in Mantua valued at five hundred ducats, and had received him
_inter familiares_.
Now there is no word in that dispatch which implicates Duke Cesare. We
learn that Messer Sebastiano Pinzoni, secretary to the Cardinal of
Modena, was said, by rumour, to have envenomed his master in order to
profit thereby; and also that the said secretary had been patronised by
the Lord Alexander P.P. VI. That is all. It would be unpleasant to think
of the Pope’s Holiness as the patron of a murderer: yet that would be
the obvious conclusion, if the matter ended here. But it does not. There
is further record of Messer Sebastiano Pinzoni, which makes it clear
that his crime at first was unknown to the Pope; and that on its
discovery he was forced to take refuge in flight. It is Monsignor
Burchard who records in his Diarum under date Wednesday the twentieth of
November 1504, that the Ruota (the supreme secular tribunal of the Holy
Roman Church) delivered sentence against Sebastiano Pinzoni, Apostolic
Scribe, who was contumacious and absent, depriving him of all benefices
and offices, for that he had slain with venom the Lord Cardinal of
Modena his patron who had raised him from the dung-hill.[70] Ciacconi
says that the Cardinal of Modena was envenomed by Sebastiano Pinzoni,
his gentleman-of-the-bedchamber; who, being imprisoned on another charge
in the reign of the Lord Leo P.P. X, when put to the Question, confessed
this crime, which he before had denied.
Let it be admitted that Sebastiano Pinzoni envenomed his master, then.
But Herr Burckhardt brings no evidence to prove that he was connected
with Duke Cesare; nor is it established that he was employed by His
Excellency in any capacity, private, or official. But every crime of
every criminal in the Borgian Era is attributed to Borgia as a matter of
course; and Herr Burckhardt, writing serious history, introduces
fiction, and passes off Sebastiano Pinzoni as Duke Cesare’s Poisoner!
To turn from the historian to the novelist will afford a little
recreation in this quest of the Venom of the Borgia; and, also, the
diversion will not be unprofitable: for the novelist is an exceedingly
important person by reason that he commands an infinitely wider audience
than the historian, and influences, forms, or moulds, an infinitely
larger section of opinion. M. Alexandre Dumas in his Crimes Célèbres has
much to say about the Borgia. Knowing, as a practised hand, that the
best fiction is that which has a substratum of fact and an air of truth,
M. Dumas quotes the precious Messer Paolo Giovio and his _Cantarella_
which already has been mentioned here. Further, with a wealth of
“corroborative detail calculated to give verisimilitude to an otherwise
bald and unconvincing narrative,” he describes the preparation of a
liquid venom which, he says, the Borgia used. A bear was caught and made
to swallow a strong dose of arsenic. When this began to take effect, the
bear was suspended by his hind-legs head-downward; and incontinent he
would fall into convulsions, while from his throat there poured a
copious deadly stream of foam, which was collected on a silver plate,
bottled in vials hermetically sealed; and this was the liquid Venom of
the Borgia.
There were plenty of bears in the Apennines, perhaps, even in the Alban
Hills within twenty miles of Rome; so the bear is probable enough.
Having caught his bear, Duke Cesare would convey him to the Vatican—a
large palace truly, but rather too full of people to be desirable as a
private venom-factory. On a dark night in a lonely courtyard, the Pope’s
Holiness and the Duke’s Excellency would administer the arsenic to the
bear. The method of administration is not described, nor the slinging up
of the beast prior to his convulsions, nor the picture of the aged
Pontiff skipping round with the silver plate in His solicitude that no
drop of the fluid should be lost, nor the solemn bottling of the vials,
nor their hermetic sealing with what seal? The Ring of the Fisherman?
And M. Dumas carefully omits to say that the nasty mess so secretly and
arduously obtained would have been far less venomous than the original
dose of arsenic; which, administered neat, without the intervention of
an ill-used bear, certainly would have slain: but which would be
deprived of most, if not of all, of its venomous potency, by its
submission to the digestive processes of M. Dumas’ improbable and
impossible bear.
* * * * *
Undoubtedly, there were the same venomous substances in and on this
earth in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries, as there are now: some
few were known; but many more, and these the most sure and deadly, were
not even dreamed of, _e.g._, strychnine, prussic acid, or the hideous
bacilli, accessible as dust to any Twentieth Century medico who, on the
sole condition that he is not instigated by criminal motives, with
perfect security to himself can envenom and slay a street, a district,
or a city. In the year 1164, Abd-el-Mumin-ben-Ali the Moorish King of
Spain chased from his dominions all Jews and Christians who refused the
faith of Islam. Among these, to Egypt went the celebrated Moses
ben-Maimon. All that was known, he knew; and he knew sixteen venoms;
litharge, verdigris, opium, arsenic, spurge or milk-wort, cashew-nut,
hemlock, henbane, stramonium or thorn-apple, hemp, mandrake, venomous
fungi, plantain, black-nightshade or felon-wort, belladonna, and
cantharides. To these, were added in the Borgian Era four centuries
later, the tri-sulphite of arsenic, orpiment, antimony, corrosive
sublimate, aconite or wolfsbane or monkshood, and perhaps white
hellebore, and black or Christmas-Rose; making two and twenty substances
known to be venomous.
Undoubtedly, much damage might be done with this arsenal of venoms: but
only in the event of the existence of the will to use them, and of the
knowledge of the method of their exhibition.
Undoubtedly, there was the will. The fact that Madonna Caterina
Sforza-Riario (author of a wonderful collection of recipes, domestic and
medicinal, a good housewife as well as witch and warrior,) was said to
have attempted the envenoming of the Pope’s Holiness, as described in
Book II, speaks for the fact that venom was feared, and therefore likely
to be used. Governments experimented with venoms: for what purpose, who
can tell? M. Lamanshy published an interesting document dated 1432 which
he found in the Venetian Secret Archives.[71] “Trial has been made, on
three porcine animals, of certain venoms, found in the chancery, sent
very long ago from Vicenza, which have been proved not to be good.”
Undoubtedly, there was the will. Undoubtedly, also, there was not the
ability.
* * * * *
Strange and paradoxical though it may seem to be, alchymical knowledge,
alchymical art, was in a lower condition during the years succeeding the
Renascence of Learning, than it had been in the Middle Ages, the
so-called Dark Ages, which had gone before. The Dark Ages were the ages
of Simples. The Age of the Renascence was the age of Compounds. And, in
those compounds, virtue was changed, or lost, by sublimation, by
distillation, or annulled by heterogeneous admixture. The following will
make this plain.
In the Dark Ages, medicaments were made from single herbs exhibited in
the form of draughts, poultices, lotions, or unguents. The old herbaries
of Dioskorides, or of Appulejus, were used as text-books; and a few
extracts from these will be curious, perhaps valuable, certainly a help
to understanding.
(α) The herb Betony or Bishopwort (_Betonica officinalis_) must be
gathered in August without the help of iron, the mould shaken
from the roots, and dried in the shade. When triturated, two
drachms of it, mixed with hot beer or wine or honey, is an
antidote to venom, a digestive, a cure for hydrophobia,
constipation, toothache, and prevents monstrous nocturnal
visitors, or frightful sights and dreams. A lotion, made from
the herb seethed in fresh water till two-thirds are evaporated,
cures broken-head, epistaxis, fatigue, and rupture; or the
leaves may be used as a poultice. (As a matter of fact, Betony
is intoxicating, emetic, and purgative.)
(β) The herb Vervain or Ashthroat (_Verbena officinalis_) must be
pounded as a poultice for wounds and carbuncles. It is an
antidote to all venoms, and dogs may not bark at him who bears
it.
(γ) The herb Clovewort (_Ranunculus acris_), wreathed with red thread
on the neck during the waning of the April or October moon,
cures lunacy.
(δ) The herb Mugwort (_Artemisia dracunculus_), pounded to an unguent
with well-boiled olive-oil, will make strained sinews supple.
(This is excellent.)
(ε) The herb Ravensleek (_Orchis_, Σατύριον) will cure sore eyes when
they are smeared with its juice.
(ζ) The herb Watercress (_Nasturtium officinale_) will with its juice
stop hair from falling.
(η) The herb Madder (_Rubia tinctoria_) as a poultice cures sciatica.
(θ) The herb Clover (_Trifolium pratense_) prevents him who carries it
from suffering sore jaws.
(ι) The herb Rosemary (_Rosmarinus officinalis_) is good for the
teeth.
(κ) The herb Rue (_Ruta graveolens_), eaten green is an antifat; a
twig stops nose-bleeding; macerated in vinegar and soused on the
brow induces forgetfulness. Recommended for priests who wish to
observe their vow of continence.
(λ) The herb Dwarfdwostle or Pennyroyal (_Mentha pulegium_), as
unguent, cures sea-sickness; as a salve, or burned as incense,
cures fever and bellyache.
(μ) The herb Sage (_Salvia_), as a lotion, cures itch.
(ν) The herb Marjoram (_Origanum vulgare_), steeped in vinegar, cures
headache, or may be chewed for a cough.
(ξ) The herb Foxglove (_Digitalis purpurea_), as a poultice, cures
sores and pimples, ἕρπης. (Its venomous principle appears to be
unknown.)
(ο) The herb Wildthyme or Shepherdspurse (_Thymus campestris_) will
remove all inward foulness by the drinking of its ooze.
(π) The herb Violet (_Viola odorata_), made into an unguent with lard
or honey, cures wounds.
(ρ) The herb Wildgourd (_Cucumis colocynthus_, κολοκύνθος ἀγρía), its
inward neshness pounded in lithe beer without the churnels, will
stir the inward.
Those are Simples, _i.e._, medicaments derived from single herbs, easily
come-by, within the reach of all; suited to a simple, but by no means
silly, race of men content with simple things, gifted with faith and
sense, and unconcerned to dive below the surface and explore, or
experiment with, nature’s sacrosanct arcana.
* * * * *
The Renascence of Learning, when the works of ancient writers were
rediscovered, devoured, put in practice, filled men’s minds with new
ideas, and completely changed their point of view.
_The Most Salubrious Precepts of Medicine_ written by Quintus Serenus
Sermonicus in the Third Century; the Thirty Seven Books of _Natural
History_ by C. Plinius Secundus (Pliny Senior) which first saw light in
A.D. 77; the eighty-three _Treatises_ of Claudius Galenus, (A.D.
130–200); the thirty-four chapters of the _Animal Medicaments_ which
Sextus Placitus wrote in the Fourth Century after the Incarnation; the
eight books of Alexandros of Tralles in Lydia, _On Medicine_, first
given to the world in the Sixth Century;—these were the keys that opened
the door of speculation to the alert and eager men of the Fifteenth
Century, already intoxicated by the glorious Discovery of Man.
Weird and wonderful effects were produced by this flood of knowledge.
Weird and wonderful were the new significances given to natural things,
the combinations of natural objects projected, the doctrines evolved
from observation of natural phenomena. The study of nature became a
sacred thing, reserved for the reverent and wise. Its followers were
called magi, or magicians; their pursuit was magic. The magical art was
either white or black, for the good or ill of men. Great and holy
personages practised white magic: the black was damned by the Church,
and the bare suspicion of its practice sufficed to burn. The Lord
Alexander P.P. VI distinguished Himself by His severity to the black
magi. White magic included the art of healing; divination by
cheiromancy, amniomancy, lithomancy, astrology, and also experimented to
find out the hidden properties and virtues of all things strange, as
well as common. It was a vast field for research; and the men who walked
therein were just like boys, eager, sensible, ardent, inexperienced,
ready to assume and take for granted.
A most eminent mage was Messer Eurico Cornelio Agrippa. During the
pontificate of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI he wrote his learning in a
book which he called _The Book of Occult Philosophy_. In the year 1510
he shewed his work to a friend, the celebrated Abbot Trithemius, who was
charmed with it, added to it, and advised Messer Eurico to impart it to
the elect alone. The advice apparently was taken; for the book was not
published till 1531. The mage largely dealt with kabbalistic writing,
giving various mysterious alphabets for use in magical recipes. He set
forth the sigils planets and planet-signs of certain archangels, patrons
of the days of the week, Michael, Gabriel, Samael, Raphael, Sachael,
Anael, Cassiel, with their proper perfumes, red wheat, aloes, pepper,
mastic, saffron, pepperwort, sulphur. He placed great importance on
charms and periapts or amulets.
“St. Thomas Aquinas,” he wrote, “that holy Doctor, in his Book _De
Fato_ saith that even Garments, Buildings, and other artificial Works
whatsoever, do receive a certain Qualification from the Stars: and
Magicians affirm that, not only by the Mixture and Application of
natural Things, but also in Images, Seals, Rings, Glasses, and some
other Instruments, being opportunely framed under a certain
Constellation, some celestial illustration may be taken, and some
wonderful thing may be received.”
This being his idea, it is not surprising to find him prescribing for
the reduction of an intermittent fever, the following charm of Quintus
Serenus Sermonicus to be written on parchment and worn round the neck:
a b r a c a d a b r a
a b r a c a d a b r
a b r a c a d a b
a b r a c a d a
a b r a c a d
a b r a c a
a b r a c
a b r a
a b r
a b
a
or, as a protection against evil spirits and dangers of journey, water,
enemy, or arms, the beginning and end of the first five verses of
Genesis:
בוווו––צמרכד
written on virgin parchment, or on most pure gold, back and front, with
an ink made of the smoke, of incense, or of consecrated wax tapers,
mixed with holy water. This charm also must be worn round the neck, and
its efficacy is conditional upon the belief of the wearer in God the
Creator of All.
Men of the Borgian Era knew that the tail of an ibex, dried with its
flesh and skin and worn about the person, would ward off magic unless
the wearer should consent thereto. This they learned from St.
Hildegard’s treatise _De Animalibus_. They knew that the herb Heliotrope
or Turnsole (_Heliotropion Europaeum_), placed under the pillow of a man
who has been robbed, will bring him a vision of the thief and his spoil;
and that, when it was set up in a church, unfaithful wives would be
unable to go away until it was removed. Their faith in the virtue of
gems was very precious; and chiefly derived from the physician
Alexandros of Tralles. A cockatrice engraved on green jasper preserved
from the Evil Eye. A metal cross tied on the left arm cured epilepsy. A
live spider tied in a rag on the same arm cured ague. A metal ring,
engraved with the sacred tau =Τ= (the “_Mark on the Forehead_”), also
freed from epilepsy. A ring, set with ass-hoof, cured ἀδυναμία. A ring,
carved with a council of ravens for Apollo, conferred conjugal joy and
the gift of clear-seeing. A brownish-yellow jacinth gave sleep. An
agate, carved with St. John the Divine, protected from venom. Oriental
jasper or heliotrope (blood-stone), engraved with a youth wearing a
necklace of herbs, when anointed with marigold juice, conferred
invisibility. A copper ring, figured with a lion, a crescent, and a
star, and worn on the fourth finger, cured calculus. Amethyst kept the
wearer sober, and a papal bull ordained it for episcopal rings. Coral
delivered from incubi and succubi. Herakles strangling the lion of
Nemea, carved on a honey-coloured sard, cured colic. Carnelian carved
with a Hermes Psuchopompos gave cheerfulness and courage. A man might
live as long as he liked if he looked at a presentment of St.
Christopher (the Christian Herakles) every day.[72] The toad-stone or
bufonite (the fossil palatal tooth of the ray-fish _Pycnodus_) when set
in a ring was a most potent periapt against black magic. In the
University Galleries at Oxford, No. 691, there is a splendid specimen of
a double-toad-stone ring; _i.e._, the stones are set outward on opposite
sides of the ring so that the one always touches the closed hand, while
the other is free to dismay a magical enemy.
Cheiromancy was expounded by Messer Andrea Corvo da Carpi, whose deeply
religious little treatise adorned with diagrams was published at Venice
in 1500.
But the chief of the men of science of the Borgian Era was Messer
Giambattista della Porta of Naples. Born in 1445, dying in 1515, he was
an exact contemporary of Borgia. What he did not know of natural
science, no other man of his epoch knew. His house in Naples was a
resort of literary and scientific men of every nation. He established
public and private academies of science in all directions, the chief of
which were Gli Ozioni of Naples and one called Il Secreti which met in
his own house, and to which no mage was admitted unless he had made some
new and notable discovery of natural phenomena. This was the academy
whose name and air of mystery excited intense ecclesiastical suspicion
at Rome, which by hinting at black magic procured the order to close the
meetings of the mages.
Messer Giambattista della Porta was a copious writer. He gave to the
world a treatise On Physiognomy, in which he judges men’s characters by
comparing their faces to those of certain beasts; and a diffuse and
learned work on cyphers, De Occultis Literium Notis. His great work,
however, was The Book of Natural Magic. He says that he began it in
1460, when he barely was of the age of fifteen years;—these were the
precocious times when Messer Giovanni de Medici was a Lord Cardinal at
thirteen and Prince Gioffredo Borgia of Squillace a married man and
captain of condottieri at fourteen;—and thirty-five years later in 1495,
by the help of that lusty young Maecenas the Lord Cardinal Prince
Ippolito d’Este, he published the matured work from which the following
recipes are taken.
Very few English people realize the doctrine of Sympathy and Antipathy;
or admit that Attraction and Repulsion are Primary Forces. “I do not
love thee, Doctor Fell, the reason why I cannot tell,” says the
Englishman, and worries to find that reason instead of recognising the
Law. “She is simpatica and he is antipaticissimo,” says an Italian,
stating and admitting a natural law. Messer Giambattista della Porta is
very clear on the point of Antipathy, which he illustrates by saying
that Vine and Colewort are natural enemies, because Colewort cures
drunkenness; that Rue and Hemlock are natural enemies, because Hemlock
heals blisters raised by Rue: as well as on the point of Sympathy which
he illustrates by saying that a wild bull, tethered to a fig-tree, will
become tame and gentle; and a dog, laid to a diseased part of a man’s
body, will absorb the disease.
He says that beasts have knowledge all their own: that ravens use ivy,
eagles use maidenhair, herons use carrots, on their nests as natural
preservatives against enchantments: that cats eat grass, and pigeons
pellitory, for their ailments: that lions with quartan agues eat apes,
that dim-eyed hawks eat sow-thistle, that serpents rejuvenate on fennel,
and that partridges eat leeks to clear their voices.
To prove that he has not gone about the world with eyes closed, he
remarks that mice are generated of putrefaction, frogs of rotten dust
and rain, red toads of dirt and καταμήνια, and serpents of the hair of
horses’ manes or of a dead man’s back-marrow.
He advises the creation of new animals by crossbreeding; a hunting dog,
of a mastiff and a lioness or tigress; a trick dog, of a bitch and an
ape; and birds with delicious flesh for gourmets, of a cock and a
peahen, or of a cock pheasant and a plain hen. His method of making a
bird sociable and friendly is quaint and unique. He says that, before
the creature has got its feathers, you must break off its lower beak
even to the jaw. Then, having not the wherewithal to peck up food, it
must come to its master to be fed.
He advocates the creation of new fruits which sound most daintily, by
grafting a mulberry on a chestnut tree, a peach on a nut, a quince on a
pear, a citron on an apple, and a cherry on a bay. He advises the making
of bread with dates and walnuts; and of wine with quinces.
He will make precious stones—a jacinth by putting lead into an earthen
pot, and setting it in a glass-maker’s furnace until the lead is
vitrified: or an emerald by dissolving silver in aqua-fortis, casting in
plates of copper to which the composition will adhere, drying the plates
in the sun, setting them in an earthen pot for some days in a
glass-maker’s furnace.
He says that green and merry dreams may be procured by eating balm, or
bugloss, or bows of poplar; and black and melancholy dreams by eating
beans, lentils, onions, garlic, leeks.
He will cure toothache with roots of pellitory or of herbane, bruised.
For the care of the teeth he recommends a wash made of leaves of mastic,
rosemary, sage, and bramble, macerated in Greek wine, (_i.e._, a strong
rich wine grown in dry volcanic soil:) or a tooth-powder made of barley
bread-crumbs browned with salt. But his recipe for white and pearly
teeth is a master-piece.
“Take three handfuls each of flowers and leaves of sage, nettle,
rosemary, mallow, olive, plantain, and rind of walnut roots; two
handfuls each of rock-rose (κίστος), horehound, bramble-tops; a pound
of flower and half a pound of seed of myrtle; two handfuls of rose
buds; two drachms each of sandal-wood, coriander, and citron-pips;
three drachms of cinnamon; ten drachms of cypress nuts; five green
pine-cones; two drachms each of mastic and Armenian bole or clay.
Reduce all these to powder. Infuse them in sharp black wine. Macerate
them for three days. Slightly press out the wine. Put them in an
alembic and distil them on a gentle fire. Boil the distillation till
two ounces of alum is dissolved in it. Keep in a close-stopped vial:
and, for use, fill the mouth with the lotion, and rub the teeth with a
finger wrapped in fine linen.”
An excellent specimen this, of a Compound as distinguished from a
Simple; of the sophistication, and of the meticulous personal
cleanliness, of people of the Borgian Era.
To cure a man of Envy, says this mage, keep him in the fresh air, hang
carbuncles and jacinths and sapphires on his neck, let him wear a ring
made of ass-hoof and smell to hyssop and sweet lilies.
Messer Giambattista Porta’s ninth Book teaches how to make women
beautiful. There was a fashion which continued the forehead to the
middle of the skull; and a depilatory is recommended made of quicklime
four ounces, and orpiment two ounces, boiled until a hen’s feather
dipped into it is bared. This frightful compound must not long remain on
the skin; and the burns should be dressed with the gum of aspen-bark
(_Populus Tremula_) and oil of roses or of violets. Or, hair may be
removed by fomentation with hot water, plucking out with nippers one by
one, and anointing the holes with a saturated solution of saltpetre, or
with oil of brimstone or vitriol, the process being repeated once a
year. Where hair is only thin and downy, the roots of wild hyacinth
rubbed on will keep it back.
To dye the hair yellow, (in imitation of Madonna Lucrezia Borgia, whose
beautiful yellow hair was much admired,) add enough honey to soften the
lees of white wine and keep the hair wet with this all night. Then
bruise roots of celandine and greater-clivers-madder, mix them with oil
of cummin seed, box-shavings, and saffron; and keep this on the head for
four and twenty hours, when it should be washed off with a lye of
cabbage-stalks and ashes of rye-straw.
To make the hair grow it should be washed in the liquid that first
distils from honey by the fire: or it should be anointed with an unguent
made of marsh-mallow bruised in hog’s grease, boiled long in wine, added
to bruised cummin seed, mastic, yolk of egg, boiled again, and strained
through linen.
To make hair thick and curly, boil maidenhair with smallage seed in wine
and oil; or roots of daffydillies, or dwarf-elder, boiled with wine and
oil.
Water, in which the bulbous tops of lilies have been boiled, makes the
skin fair: and corrosive sublimate and cerusa (white lead) makes the
face white and shining.
For sunburn, white of egg and sugar-candy on the face at night, washed
off in barley-water in the morning, is prescribed: and a clear skin is
to be had by rubbing with the rind or bruised seeds of melons. It will
be obvious that there were “plain” as well as “coloured” women in the
Borgian Era; _i.e._, those who went about their duty (of cultivating
their charms) in a wholesome way, and those who used violent and nasty
methods.
Messer Giambattista della Porta appears to have used his science and
magical art to invent “Some Sports against Women”; which will show what
the Borgian Era regarded as permissible practical jokes. He says that,
if you wish to discover paint on a face, you must chew saffron before
breathing on her, and incontinently she yellows: or you may burn
brimstone near her, which will blacken mercury sublimate and cerusa
(white lead): or you may chew cummin or garlic and breathe on her, and
her cerusa or quicksilver will decay. But if that you yearn to dye a
woman green, you must decoct a chameleon in her bath.
His tenth book deals with interminable and elaborate processes of
distillation and sublimation; proving that what was said on a previous
page concerning Letters and Art, (viz., that the habit of the time was
to think all of the workmanship, and nothing of the material used,) was
perfectly true of Fifteenth Century pharmacy also. These mages sat and
boiled their alembics and crucibles; and distilled, and distilled, and
sublimed, and sublimed, till the nature of their stuff was lost, or
utterly changed, instead of being refined and concentrated as they
vainly hoped. They were just like boys, eager, sensible, ardent,
inexperienced. They made the inevitable blunders of adventurers. They
committed the extravagances of human nature in unwonted circumstances;
and the wisdom of the Twentieth Century is the fruit of the fooling of
the Fifteenth.
Messer Giambattista della Porta devotes his eleventh book to Perfumes;
his twelfth to the making of Greek Fire (from camphor, pitch, spirits
and brimstone) of gunpowder, and of rockets shells and mines; his
thirteenth to the tempering of steel.
His fourteenth book contains monstrous and characteristic recipes
connected with meats and drinks. If you want to make your guests
drunken, mix with their wine the filth of a dog’s ear. If you prefer to
make them mad-drunk, give them a camel’s froth in water. If you want to
avoid being overcome of wine, eat leeks and saffron, wear garlands of
roses, violets and ivy-berries, and carry an amethyst on your person. To
keep your boy sober, before he has tasted wine give him the boiled eggs
of an owl, to temper his natural heat. If you want delicately to drive
unwelcome guests from your table, you may disgust them with the viands
in five ways: first, a needle which has sewed dead men’s shrouds when
stuck under the table will cause all to loathe to eat: secondly, meat
secretly peppered with powdered root of wake-robin (_Arum maculatum_)
will fetch the skin off their mouths: thirdly, food sprinkled before
serving with powdered leaves of cuckoo-pine (—_gen. Arum_) will produce
copious salivation: fourthly, knives and napkins rubbed with wildgourd
juice (_Cucunis colocynthus_, κολοκύνθις ἀγρία) will give to all they
touch a horrible smack : lastly, harp-strings, cut small and strewed on
hot meat, will writhe like worms; and so you may rid your table of
unwelcome guests.
If you would bone a pigeon, draw, and soak in vinegar for four and
twenty hours; then pull out the bones, wash well, fill with herbs and
spices and roast or boil it. To make tender a tough capon, boil it
before roasting. But, if you desire to give your friends much joy,
entertain them to a goose cooked alive. In the courtyard, pluck your
goose except her head and neck, and cover her with lard and suet. Build
a ring of faggots round her; not too narrow, lest she evade the
roasting, nor too wide lest the smoke choke her, or the fire burn her.
Inside the ring of faggots, on the ground occupied by your plucked and
larded goose, place several pots of water mixed with salt and bearwort.
Light the faggots slowly. When the goose begins to roast she will walk
about; but she cannot escape; and you have her wings. When she grows
weary and very hot, she quenches her thirst with the medicated water,
and cools her heart and her inward parts. You continually must moisten
her head and her heart with a sponge at the end of a cane. At last, you
will see her run incontinently up and down; and presently stumble. Then
she is empty, and there is no more moisture in her heart. Wherefore you
may take her away, and set her on the table to your guests: she will cry
when you pull off her pieces; and you almost may eat her before she has
died.
The fifteenth and last book of Natural Magic treats of various modes of
conducting secret correspondence by invisible inks, writing on eggs or
naked backs of drugged couriers, counterfeit seals and writing, messages
by pigeon or by arrows.
Those are the things of which a sober learned and most eminent physician
of the Fifteenth Century seriously has written, and called Natural
Magic. He shews the innocent ingenuous mind of a child rampant among new
toys.
* * * * *
Having shewn something of this mage’s knowledge, it may be said, now,
that, scattered about his Book of Natural Magic, carelessly and
incidentally, there are allusions to certain venoms. He says:
I. that ἐζάμβλωσις may be procured by exhibiting the wine that Pliny
calls Phthorium (Φθόριος) (Plin. 4, 16, 19, § 110), made from
the grapes of a vine on which hellebore, wildgourd, and scamony
have been grafted:
II. that Mandrakes (Μανδραγόρας), _Mandragora_ (_Atropa Officinalis_)
growing by a vine, will make its grapes hypnotic:
III. that one drachm of belladonna (—_gen. Atropa_) or stramonium
(thorn-apple, _Datura stramonium_) in water, (which they will
infect without taste or smell,) “will make men mad without any
hurt, so that it is a most pleasant spectacle to behold such
mad whimsies and visions. It is very pleasant to behold. Pray
make trial,” he lightly says. But he adds that one ounce of
these drugs will make a man sleep four days.
IV. that one drachm of Nightshade rind (_Solanum nigrum_) in wine
will give sleep; a little more, madness; a large dose, death:
V. that Hemlock (_Conium maculatum_) in wine will cause death:
VI. that the drachm dose of belladonna, bruised in wine, is good for
driving away unwelcome guests.
It will be noticed that three of these six prescriptions contemplate
death.
Messer Giambattista della Porta emphatically states that no single venom
will kill all living creatures; “for what is venomous to one may serve
for the preservation of another, which comes not by reason of the
quality but of the distinct nature.” He gives a lengthy list of
substances with the animals to which they are fatal, _e.g._, wolfebane
kills wolves; henbane, hens; daffydillies, mice; black hellebore, oxen;
white hellebore, pigeons; ivy, bats; comfrey, eagles; pondweed, urchins;
mustard-seed, larks; vine-juice, cranes; willow, tom-tits;
pomegranate-churnels, falcons, vultures, sea-gulls, blackbirds; and nux
vomica, dogs. In regard to the last, it should be understood that the
Fifteenth Century called foxglove (_Digitalis purpurea_) nux vomica ;
and had not succeeded in extracting the vegetable alkaloid Strychnine,
in its modern isolated form, from the Javanese Στρύχνος _nux vomica_, of
which it is the active principle.
To complete the exposition of this typical Fifteenth Century man of
science, his chief Antidote to Venom is appended here.
“Take three pounds of old oil and two handfuls of St. John’s Wort,
(Balm of the Warrior’s Wound, _hypericum_.) Macerate for two months in
the sun. Strain off the old flowers, and add two ounces of fresh. Boil
in Balneo Mariae (a bain-marie) for six hours. Put in a close-stopped
bottle and keep in the sun for fifteen days. During July, add three
ounces of St. John’s Wort seed which gently has been stamped and
steeped in two glasses of white wine for three days. Add also two
drachms each of gentian, tormentil, dittany, zedoary, and carline,
(all of which must have been gathered in August,) sandal-wood and
long-aristolochie. Gently boil for six hours in Balneo Mariae. Strain
in a press. Add to the expression one ounce each of saffron, myrrh,
aloes, spikenard, and rhubarb, all bruised. Boil for a day in Balneo
Mariae. Add two ounces each of treacle and mithridate. Boil for six
hours in Balneo Mariae. And set it in the sun for forty days.
“In plague, or suspicion of venom, anoint the stomach, wrists, and
heart; and drink three drops in wine. It will work wonders,” says
Messer Giambattista della Porta.
* * * * *
The pharmacy of the Renascence, to quote the confession of the charlatan
Cagliostro, consisted _in herbs and words_, “in verbis et in herbis.”
The practice of medicine during the Borgian Era appears to have been
entirely empirical. Physicians experimented on the vile body of their
patient, trusting to luck, or chance, or faith, to work a cure. In
contracts it was expressly stated that physicians must have the
reputation of being _fortunate_ (felix). Chirugeons were totally unaware
of the circulation of the blood. So much stress here is laid upon the
art and craft and mystery of medicine and its exponents, because from
these, and from these alone, the knowledge and use of venoms could be
obtained; and, if the blind can lead the blind without both falling into
the same ditch, then there might be some foundation in fact for the
legend of the Borgia Venom. But while physicians and chirugeons and
apothecaries solemnly bought three little boys for a ducat each, drew
off their blood and sublimed it into a potion to save the life of a
senile pontiff; or did such monkey-tricks as Messer Juan de Vigo did to
the Lord Julius P.P. II a few years later, all with quite convincing
evidence of gravity and good faith, one must conclude that these mages
acted according to the very best of their knowledge and belief; but
that, in quantity as well as quality, their belief was vastly superior
to their knowledge. Nardaeus says[73]
“The famous chirugeon Juan de Vigo, perceiving that an ulcer of the
Lord Julius P.P. II became every day more stubborn, and that the Pope
persisted in refusing all manner of remedies, hit upon a new method of
cure: for he boiled together, in a brass kettle, for three hours, old
rags cut in pieces, crumbs of fine bread, plantain, and a fomentation
of arsenic sublimed in rosewater; after which, drying them, and
applying them by way of powder to the wound (to which he had sworn
that he would apply no more plaisters,) he cured the Pope in a very
short time, to the admiration of all concerned.”
Infantile as was the condition of medical science in regard to life, it
was not one jot more robust in its observations of death. The cases of
the suspicious demises of two cardinals, not during the reign of the
Lord Alexander P.P. VI, but a few years later, will illustrate this.
In 1508, during the reign of the eternal enemy of Borgia the Lord Julius
P.P. II, a nephew of His Holiness died, the Lord Galeotto Franciotto
della Rovere, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Pietro _ad
Vincula_. And, says Mgr. Paris de Grassis (Burchard’s inimical successor
as Caerimonarius,[74] “I saw on his face and on his body such spots as
seemed to be the effect of a dose of venom; and all the others formed
the same opinion.”
After autopsy, the chirugeons found no venom, but “certain bloody spots:
wherefore they judged him to have died of a superfluity of blood; and,
if he had been phlebotomized, he would have had no harm.”
The second case is that of the Lord Christopher Bainbridge,
Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Prassede, and Orator of King
Henry VII Tudor at the Court of the Lord Leo P.P. X. He died in Rome, in
1514; and, says Mgr. Paris de Grassis the Caerimonarius, “when his death
was ascribed to venom” (—_this surely ought to prove that the suspicion
was habitual, and no more appropriate to the Borgia than to any other
family of this period_,—) “by command of the Pope he was eviscerated,
and it was found that his heart was diseased on the right side.”
Now this Cardinal Bainbridge, whose death obviously was due to organic
disease, has come down to posterity as a victim of venom; while Cardinal
Dellarovere, whose _salma_ presented far more suspicious, in fact
distinctly suspicious, symptoms, is reputed to have died a natural
death!
Of all the wonderful and subtile recipes for venoms which are believed
to have been possessed by European potentates about this time, only one
now is accessible: but it is dated 1540, exactly thirty-seven years
after the Lord Alexander P.P. VI died of his double-tertian fever. It is
a Venetian recipe, and comes from the Secret Archives of the Council of
Ten.[75] Arsenic, antimony, orpiment, and aconite, are to be subjected
to a long long process of preparation, similar to those wondrous stews
in which Messer Giambattista della Porta, in company with every other
respectable mage, had his continual joy; and, when all is done, the
ignorant inventor of this horrible venom says that he cannot guarantee
its success. Why? The dose of any single one of those four venomous
ingredients alone would have been fatal. Why should their combination
bring uncertainty? For the simple reason that the boiling and the
sun-baking, the sublimation and the distillation, which so prolongedly
was practised, set up chemical change, reaction, decomposition,
destroyed the virtue or the nature, and effectually altered or annulled
the venomous properties originally possessed by the subject of so much
empiricism. As simples, they certainly would have been veneficous. As
compounds, they might have caused grave inconvenience. But,
heterogeneously compounded with alien matter, boiled to disintegration
for weeks and months together, their effect surely could not be
predicted. They might have been dangerous; or they might not: there is
no knowing.
* * * * *
There is no defined charge against the House of Borgia of having
compassed their enemies’ deaths by means of venomous rings. The vulgar
conception of a venomous ring is not unconnected with a needle-point,
(or point,) projecting from the bezel, along which a minute drop of
deadly venom can be made to flow; and which pierces the hand that grasps
it, inducing syncope and death. Or, another kind conceals a small box in
the bezel, containing a tiny capsule of glass wherein venom innocuously
lurks, until the glass is broken on the lips.
At the Victoria and Albert Museum of South Kensington, and at the
University Galleries of Oxford, there are very splendid collections of
rings. Neither collection contains a ring having the legendary
needle-point, (or point:) but each collection has a ring which may have
been a proximate occasion of the vulgar belief.
Nº 916 at South Kensington is a massive ring of brass, 1⁷⁄₁₆ inches in
diameter; and has an octagonal bezel externally armed with a quincunx of
spikes. It belongs to the Eighteenth Century, and is of the kind worn by
Bavarian peasant-lads on the right middle finger at the present day.
Nº 385 at Oxford is an Italian ring of the Fourteenth Century, of gold
_niello_, very beautiful. The bezel projects, and ends in the revolving
rowel of a Fiery spur.
Both of these rings are weapons, intended hideously to scratch and tear
an adversary’s face. There is no hollow in them that might harbour
venom; and they are in no sense venomous rings according to the popular
specification: but they are rings,—means of violence of another
species—; and, (men being what they are,) these rings may have formed
the germ of the tradition.
However, at Oxford and South Kensington, there were rings labelled
_Poison Rings_, at the close of the Nineteenth Century.
Nº 479 in the Fortnum Collection at Oxford, is an Italian ring of the
Sixteenth Century, of gold, and having a tiny χερούβ carved in cameo
projecting from the high gold bezel. This bezel is hollow, pierced by
two pinholes. Its capacity is under an eighth of a cubic inch. The
hollow bezel may have been used to contain perfume, introduced through
the pinholes: but it is more reasonable to conjecture that the hollow is
due to a desire to economise the precious metal.
Nº 533 in the same collection, is a German ring of the Seventeenth
Century, of gold, and having a large rough pearl set _in_, not on, its
bezel. Minute examination with microscope and probe proves that there is
absolutely no room in this ring for any venom whatever; and that neither
this, nor the foregoing, deserves the designation “_Poison Ring_,”
which, however, discreetly is queried on the actual official labels.
Apparently, the said labels purely are a concession to the unreasoning
vulgar, who expect as a right to find at least a specimen of venomous
rings in every respectable museum.
At South Kensington there is a massive ring of iron, plated and
damascened with gold. It is Italian, of the Seventeenth Century, ¹¹⁄₁₂
of an inch in diameter. Its octagonal bezel is a tiny box having a
hinged lid. This might have held a relic. There is no ground for
supposing that it ever concealed venom.
Of these three so-called Poison Rings, the South Kensington specimen,
and Nº 533 at Oxford, belong to a period at least a hundred years after
the demise of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI and Duke Cesare (detto Borgia).
Only Nº 479 in the Fortnum Collection, by any exercise of imagination,
can be planted in the Borgian Era. It is labelled “_Sixteenth Century_”;
and the Lord Alexander P.P. VI reigned in Rome, as God’s Vicegerent,
during the first two years, seven months, seventeen days, of that
century. There is no earthly cause to connect His Holiness with that
ring: but, for the purpose of the argument, let it be granted that Nº
479 with its cameo χερούβ belonged to the Borgia Pontiff, that the
hollow bezel was used as a receptacle for venom, and not for perfume.
What then?
If the venom were a powder, the Pope’s Holiness would have to poke it in
with a pin, and close the two tiny holes with wax. Then, when the time
came for envenoming the usual cardinal, He assiduously would pick out
the wax, and, by violent jerks and shaking, induce the venom to present
itself for application. If the venom were a liquid, (M. Dumas’
bear-juice for example,) the same process of waxing up and pin-picking
would be necessary.
But there was no venom known to the Borgia, or to any other man or woman
of that era, which would kill, with as small a dose as would go in that
ring. The venoms of the Fifteenth Century were administered (when they
were administered) by the drachm, or by the ounce—not by the grain. The
recipes have been displayed here. To harbour a fatal dose of the known
venoms, such as Messer Giambattista della Porta describes, a monstrous
and vast ring would be needed, more gigantic than those bronze-gilt
_anuli_ used as credentials by the pontifical couriers of the Lord Pius
P.P. II (1458–1464), N^{os} 665 and 666 in the South Kensington
Collection, two and three-eighths, and two inches, respectively, in
diameter. The processes of brewing and stewing, so dear to the mages,
without any doubt were a direct disposition of Providence for the
security of human life; for they effectually withdrew the sting from
venomous substances, and made it perfectly impossible for would-be
murderers (and they were more than many) to kill, except accidentally,
or with enormous doses and the disadvantages coincident thereto.
No doubt the Twentieth Century still has a little to learn. No doubt
that wisdom would wait upon research among the mountains of documents
stored in the archives of the Italian patriciate and baronage, Colonna,
(not Orsini, whose papers were destroyed by fire in 1702), Savelli,
Poplicola di Santacroce, Sforza-Cesarini, Carafa, Caïetani,
Piccolhuomini, Borgia of Milan and Velletri, etc. No doubt in the
Vatican Secret Archives (the Lord Alexander P.P. VI left one hundred and
thirteen volumes in large folio of His acts,) infinite fields of
information are white for harvest. There is nothing to prevent the
reaping, but the lack of reapers. No doors are shut. No secrets are
reserved. “The Popes have need of nothing except the truth.”
Meanwhile, this only can be said.
The empirical methods of the Borgian Era preclude the possibility of
anything approaching artistic venenation.
Not one of the definite accusations against the Borgia have been proved.
On the contrary they are shewn to lack valid foundation.
There is no authentic evidence regarding the Venom that the Borgia are
said to have employed.
In fact, there was no Venom of the Borgia.
Pontifex Maximus Alexander VI et Princeps
In reviewing the Pontificate of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI notice must
be taken of the fashion which represents Him as having been in continual
fear of deposition on account of the simony by which He is alleged to
have bought the papal power. It already has been shewn that no law
existed, which made simony an annulment of election to ecclesiastical
benefices, until the reign of the Lord Julius P.P. II. It remains to be
considered whether the distribution of offices, with which the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI signalized his election, in any case would give colour
to the charge of simony.
The Conclave for the election of a Pope begins with the Mass of the Holy
Spirit chaunted in the Chapel of St. Gregory. Afterwards, the cardinals
go in procession, singing _Veni Creator Spiritus_, to take possession of
the cells which they will have to occupy. These cells are erected in a
hall of the Vatican, communicating with the Xystine Chapel. They are
mere frameworks of wood hung with fringed curtains of baize, green in
the cases of cardinals who are creatures of previous pontiffs; violet in
the cases of cardinals who are creatures of the pontiffs just deceased.
On the front of each cell is a curtained doorway over which the
armorials of the occupant are shewn, surmounted by a little swinging
window. Each cardinal has a bed, a table, and a chair. His attendants
support life in discomfort as best they may. Three hours after
avemmaria, all doors and windows communicating with the outer world are
walled up. Guards on the outside watch every avenue of access, under
command of the Hereditary Marshal of the Church, now Prince Chigi, then
Prince Savelli. To every cardinal are allowed two conclavists for his
attendants, a chaplain and an esquire. A cardinal-prince, or one aged
and infirm, may add a third. In addition to the cardinals and the
conclavists, there are enclosed a sacristan with his subsacristans, a
secretary with his undersecretaries, five masters of ceremonies, a
confessor, two physicians, a chirugeon, two barbers, an apothecary, with
their respective boys, a mason, a carpenter, and servants for menial
work. Great care is taken that none of these lay-persons should be
agents of the orators of the secular powers; and they are made to swear
a stringent oath of secrecy. As a matter of fact, they are not allowed
to know anything of the proceedings in the Xystine Chapel. Meals are
served at stated hours, through a revolving cupboard (ruota) in the
outer wall, supervised by cardinals-inspectors. Flagons are of bare
glass, lumps of bread or meat are cut open, that no messages from the
outer world may pass in by these means. Nor may any single thing pass
out. Urgent private letters written in the Conclave are subject to
cardinals-censors. Cardinals, who have need, may speak to visitors, but
in presence of witnesses; and all communication must be open, and in a
language that all can understand. These interviews take place at a
window, the cardinal being on the inside, his visitor on the outside:
but the conclavists and others are forbidden to approach the window on
any pretext whatever.
In the Xystine Chapel, at the moment of the election, the cardinals
alone are ocular and auricular witnesses of what takes place. Certainly
all proceedings are recorded in the Acts of the Conclave. But the
original acts of the Conclave that elected the Lord Alexander P.P. VI
are not forthcoming: they very likely were lost in the Sack of Rome in
1527, when the Catholic Catalans and Lutheran Goths of the Elect-Emperor
Don Carlos V gambled in the gutters for nuns and for the wives and
daughters of Roman citizens. This then is the situation. All accounts of
the Conclave of 1492, including the dispatches of Orators to their
respective governments, are based on hearsay, or popular rumour.
Historians have no other material; for there is none.
The cry of simony always is raised at every election of a Pope. It is
only an exemplification of the law that Attraction and Repulsion are
Primary Forces. That the Lord Alexander P.P. VI on His election did
strip Himself of His new palace, and of His multitudinous benefices,
cannot be denied. Why need it be denied? It always is done; for a
cardinal who is elected Pope has no more need of these things: he leaves
them with his scarlet and ermine cappamagna when He is endued with the
plain white frock of Christ’s Vicar. The giving away of His cast-off
goods and offices cannot be twisted into an act of simony, unless there
is a distinct stipulation that they are given and taken as the price of
a vote. And no such distinct stipulation is extant. It is difficult to
see why cardinals should be considered likely to be guilty of such
degeneration. As a class of men they stand high: they generally are
possessed of illustrious birth; they generally are possessed of such
enormous wealth as to place them beyond the range of pecuniary
temptation; and invariably they are men of merit, the fine flower of
their profession. As far as mundane honours go, they have tasted all the
glory that the world can offer, except one glory. No layman may kneel on
the same bench with a cardinal, unless he be a reigning sovereign. No
layman may make a fourth in a carriage containing three cardinals, not
even a reigning sovereign. Their rank places them far above peers or
princes. They are not eligible for the Athenæum Club, but nothing that
the world can offer will improve their position except the Papacy; yet
they are suspected, as a class, of intrigues and cabals of the basest
kind, mere financial operations; and rarely, very rarely, is there any
ground for the suspicion, the prize for which they are said to struggle
generally being beneath their notice, the petty advantage which they are
thought to desire being unworthy even of their contempt; for cardinals
are tired men, tired of splendour, tired of the earthly things; and they
are not invariably vile.
When, therefore, the absurd people who wish to prove simoniacal the
election of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, or the stupid craven Catholics
who fatuously think to conciliate by joining rabidly in the hue and cry
against a Pope, can show a definite declaration from one or more of the
cardinals-assistant of the Conclave of 1492, couched in some such terms
as these, “_I acknowledge and confess that, seduced by the dignities and
the money that he offered me_, (or, _intimidated by the menaces of
Cardinal Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja_,) _I allowed myself to be corrupted;
and, against my will and better knowledge, I sold my vote to this
unworthy cardinal_: or, _I declare that I have resisted all his
promises, threats, and flatteries, and firmly have refused to sell my
vote to Cardinal Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja_ : then, and only then, can
this silly or malicious calumny be said to have any foundation in
fact.[76]
One thing is perfectly certain. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI, Who really
was the last man in the world _à S’ encanailler_, never behaved as
though He had gained the Triregno by illegitimate means. Not when all
Europe yelped around His footstool did He blench or quail or shew a sign
of fear. The heathen raged; and the people imagined a vain thing. The
kings of the earth set themselves; and the rulers took counsel together.
The Monarchs of Naples nagged; the Catholic King and Queen denounced;
the Christian Kings minced, grimaced, and gibbered; Caesar Semper
Augustus protested; Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere raved and nursed
sedition; the barons of Rome revolted; the dukes and tyrants and
republics of Italy took up arms; the dominions of the Pope’s Holiness
were invaded; the Eternal City suffered violence; the sacrosanctity of
the pontifical person was in imminent danger: but the invincible Lord
Alexander P.P. VI magnificently retired into the Mola of Hadrian, the
only spot in all Christendom where His rule remained; and held His Own,
inflexibly, implacably, with an enormous dignity impossible in one who
was a mere usurper, a venal simoniac. So much is sure. The demeanour of
the Lord Alexander P.P. VI in direst straits, was the demeanour of a man
who had no doubt regarding his own integrity.
* * * * *
The so-called scandals of His private life are shewn to have been based
upon the malice or the idle gossip of His enemies. He sat in “the fierce
light that beats upon a throne.” He was the father of a family. He was
not the first or the last Pope Who has been the father of a family. His
immediate predecessor, the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII, admitted the
paternity of seven children. A successor, the Lord Paul P.P. III, also
used Himself in a similar manner: nor are these all. If this be vicious,
it was only vicious in the Lord Alexander P.P. VI because He was the
Lord Alexander P.P. VI; for in other men the same thing was, and is,
tolerated, accepted, applauded. A patrician or a plebeian may steal a
horse: but a Pope may not look over the wall. _Ille crucem sceleris
pretium tulit, hic diadema._[77] However, as a father, He exhibited an
illustrious example of paternal virtue. He was kind, loving,
affectionate to his children; solicitous and self sacrificing for their
welfare and advancement. That He employed His spiritual power, to build
up the temporalities of His family, was a temptation, to avoid which He
would need to have been more than human. It was the custom of the time.
It was an imperious necessity of the situation.
* * * * *
The murders and venenations of which He has been accused, in company
with Duke Cesare, fail of proof; and indeed His guiltlessness as
instigator, principal, or accomplice, appears in every case to be beyond
question.
The murder of Don Juan Francisco de Lançol y Borja, Duke of Gandia,
remains a mystery: but what evidence there is distinctly points to a
vendetta of Orsini directed against the Pope through His
Captain-General.
The murder of the Prince of Bisceglia is referable rather to a vendetta
of Sanseverini and Caïetani, than to the Pope or Duke Cesare (detto
Borgia).
The deaths of Don Astorgio and Don Gianevangelista Manfredi are
susceptible of the Venetian Orator’s explanation, _puto mal san_; there
positively is nothing to connect the Pope or the Duke with them.
The death of the Sultán Djim was due to natural causes, while he was in
the hands of the Christian King; and the Pope’s Holiness was a pecuniary
loser (to the extent of about £80,000 a year) by his death.
The death of Cardinal Orsini was due to natural causes, according to the
sworn testimony of physicians provided by the House of Orsini.
Fra Girolamo Savonarola Ο.P. was executed on a capital charge by due
process of law; and the Pope was an unwilling agent for the
administration of that law.
(The crime of Fra Girolamo really was that of intriguing with a foreign
power with which his country was at war. General Booth committing
treachery with Mr. Kruger, or Mr. Ira D. Sankey with the Son of Heaven
Kwang Su, would be Twentieth Century parallels of Savonarola and Charles
VIII.)
Cardinal Giovanni Borgia (detto Giuniore) died a natural death.
Messer Ramiro d’ Orco, Don Vitellozzo Vitelli, and Don Oliverotto da
Fermo had a legal trial by court-martial, and paid the legal penalty of
crime.
Don Paolo and Duke Francesco Orsini of Gravina suffered merited death,
due to the exigencies of civil war in which they and their House were
the aggressors.
There remain two other violent deaths to be accounted for, which were
not of sufficient importance to treat of in the history of this
pontificate, the case of Calderon Perotto, and that of Messer Francesco
Trocces.
It is said by Don Paolo Capello, the Orator of Venice, in his Diarium,
(or rather in that edition of the said Diarium which was prepared forty
years later by Don Marino Sanuto,) that Calderon Perotto was a Spanish
lad of eighteen years, one of the Pontifical pages; and that he was
stabbed by Duke Cesare (detto Borgia) at the Pope’s feet. The fact is
related without comment or explanation. It would not be safe to attach
much importance to the statement, because Don Paolo Capello’s original
document is not forthcoming and Don Marino Sanuto’s version of what he
wrote is the only version accessible. But the alleged murder of the page
Perotto is not, like other calumnies, a posthumous invention; for it is
mentioned in the atrocious _Letter to Silvio Savelli_ described on an
earlier page. The Pope is not, and was not blamed. The murder, if it
were a murder at all, is attributed to Duke Cesare (detto Borgia); and
it was not an unusual thing for a lord to slay a servant in the Borgian
Era. That was common enough; but to do it in the presence of the
Holiness of the Pope certainly was sacrilege; and this last circumstance
makes it probable that the whole story is a pure invention; for the
guilt of sacrilege lightly was not incurred even by the most bloody and
abandoned villains: and Duke Cesare was not of that species.
The other death, that of Messer Francesco Trocces is more probable, and
mentioned in several dispatches of Orators. He was a papal chamberlain
(confidential flunkey of the cloak and sword,—minor situation dear to
_petits maîtres_ of the English and Keltic bourgeoisie now;) and was
employed as governmental courier. The Republic of Venice was playing
fast and loose with the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, disliking to see Duke
Cesare’s amazing success in the Romagna; and its Orator, Don Antonio
Giustiniani carried on relations of a doubtful kind with Messer
Francesco Trocces, in the usual manner of ambassadors who find that they
can buy state-secrets from a “crapule.” Suddenly, Messer Francesco fled
from Rome to Civita Vecchia. He had been complaining to the Venetians
about Duke Cesare; and all his treachery had come to light. The Duke’s
steel claws were far-reaching. The traitor was captured there and
brought to Rome, strangled, and his body hanged on Tor Savelli as an
example to others of his kind. Legally speaking he was executed for the
crime of high treason; and the formal exposure of his corpse gives the
lie to the idea of clandestine assassination. The practice of secret
trials and summary executions is odious to the Twentieth Century: but,
in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth, not only all civilized governments, but
even barons who had power of life and death over their retainers, used
these means as a matter of course; and that alone should be sufficient
to exonerate the Borgia from blame.
It has been said of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI that He habitually
envenomed his cardinals, that He might have their goods. The following
story is given, not in this connection, by Mr. F. Marion Crawford, and
is here inserted on account of its frequent significance. At the corner
of the Via Lata in the Corso of Rome, is the Palazzo Doria Pamphili, a
typical Roman palace of the Borgian Era, two-thirds the size of the
Vatican Basilica, and able to accommodate a thousand inhabitants. It was
built by Cardinal Santorio (?), who bought the site from the Chapter of
Santa Maria _Maggiore_, and expended thousands of gold ducats in the
erection of a House Beautiful. All through the reigns of the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI and of the Lord Pius P.P. III, he remained in
unmolested possession: but during the pontificate of the Lord Julius
P.P. II (Giuliano della Rovere) the Pope’s Holiness said to him that his
palace was “more suitable for a secular duke than for a prince of the
Church”; and forced him to make Him a free gift of it for His Own nephew
Don Francesco della Rovere, whom He had created Duke of Urbino. The
unfortunate Cardinal Santorio died soon after of a broken heart. It was
not Borgia who caused _his_ death, in order to have his palace: but
Borgia’s eternal enemy.
* * * * *
As a secular sovereign, no contemporary of His even deserves to be named
in comparison with the Lord Alexander P.P. VI. His reign broke the back
of the turbulent ambitious selfish baronage which had ravaged the papal
states for centuries. He was an independent Pope; willing to enter into
alliances, it is true, so long as they served His purpose: but just as
willing to throw over His allies and stand alone upon occasion. If His
interests leaned more in one direction than another, it may be taken
that He was a Sforza + Cesarini Pope, rather than a creature of Colonna
or Orsini as the custom was. His political policy entirely was directed
to the substitution of peace and order with security of life and
property, instead of the anarchy and desolation which He saw on His
accession. He fully lived up to His official title of RULER OF THE
WORLD; and the sovereigns of Europe at all times found Him sternly
rigorously just, amenable neither to fear nor flattery. He was an
admirable FATHER OF PRINCES AND OF KINGS. Notwithstanding all that
weakly has been said to the contrary, the Holy Roman Church and
Christendom owe a vast debt of gratitude to Him. He found feebleness and
war and tumult at His coming: at His going He left behind Him
differences removed, rebellions quelled, and a tradition of consolidated
strength. He was the Fosterer of Justice and of Peace. He was a great
and wise Princeps.
* * * * *
As Pontifex Maximus, EARTHLY VICAR OF JESUS CHRIST OUR SAVIOUR, He
merits reverent admiration. His habits and tastes were of the simplest
kind, in an age of singular luxury. He was temperate in His diet; and
the Orators of the Powers commented with disgust upon the fact that He
never had more than one dish upon His table. He slept but little. His
amusements occupied a mere fraction of His time: but, during recreation,
He unbent His awful dignity, and enjoyed Himself with the frank abandon
of a school boy. He was a patron of painters: but men of letters
incontinently drove their pens against Him; for the Lord Alexander P.P.
VI was confronted by the problem of dealing with a new enemy to Christ’s
flock and to civilization—He had to regulate the printing-press in the
interest of morals; and, as a duty of His office, He ordained the
censorship of printed books, He inaugurated the “Imprimatur,” He
“muzzled the printer’s devil.”
Yet He was a gentle and kindly-affectioned Shepherd. In 1492, the Jews
were expelled from Spain. He entertained them in security in Rome. In
1494, He was horrified by news of the diabolical atrocities of the Grand
Inquisitor of Spain; and, though He Himself was a Spaniard, He appointed
four assessors with equal power, to restrain the excesses of Torquemada.
The Spanish Inquisition never had the countenance of Rome, but Her
bitterest opposition. The wanton ingenious cruelty of that infamous
Tribunal was due to the fiendish strain of African black blood which
tinges and defiles the bluest blood of Spain; and was committed in
explicit defiance of the commands of God’s Vicegerent. It is true that
He gave America to Spain, and Africa to Portugal.[78] The Bulls of
Donation shew that He considered it to be the Pope’s duty to teach the
Gospel to all nations, and to compel the observance of natural laws. He
believed that, before the heathen could hear the Gospel, or observe
those laws, it was necessary to make them subjects of a Christian Power.
He knew that conquest makes more converts in one day, than preaching in
three hundred years. He took as abruptly practical and business-like a
view of things as though He had been fortunate enough to have been born
an Englishman. And He acted upon the extremely scriptural principle that
civil rights and civil authorities lawfully cannot obstruct the
propagation of the Faith. None knew better than He that the Treasure was
in an earthen vessel[79]: but, as the chief bishop of the Church far
above all principality and power and might and dominion,[80] He spoke,
exhorted, and rebuked, with an authority. Let no man despise Him.[81]
There was no other representative of Christianity; there was no other,
in all the world, who even claimed to be the representative of
Christianity, at that time. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI, magnificent and
invincible, was the only one. Let no man despise Him.
As Pastor, He was merciful; as Judge, severe and just. His laws against
witchcraft and Black Magic were of the most stringent kind. He used the
means which every other sovereign of Europe also used. “East of Suez,
some hold, the direct control of Providence ceases; Man being there
handed over to the power of the Gods and Devils of Asia—” the most
observant of modern English writers says. Men who have lived in the Far
East, where Christian influence is very feeble, will recognize the
singular correctness of Mr. Rudyard Kipling’s theory. Men, also, who at
first hand have studied modern recrudescences of devil-worship, modern
flirtations with kakodaimoniacal agencies, the Luciferianism of modern
France, will not mutter with patronizing superiority of superstitions
and old wives’ fables; but perfectly well will know that hideous
abnormity with which the Pope’s Holiness had to deal. Only the wilfully
ignorant deny the actuality of diabolic manifestations, called
witchcraft and Black Magic in the vulgar tongue. The ostrich who buries
her head in sand is like to these. By the side of high civilization
there always runs the impulse to savagery, the weird and radical
decadence which wanders on dark paths. Hellas and Rome pried into the
mysteries of Isis; Christendom entertains Turlupins, Rosicrucians,
Indian gumnosophists, and Mahatmas; the Borgian Era played with the
Roaring Lion; the Victorian Era with Sathanas and his sorrows.
“Perhaps”, “after all”, “audi alteram partem”,—hesitation, compromise,
want of defined principle, lack of courageous singleness of
mind,—amounting to Emasculation—is the mental note of the Twentieth
Century. The Fifteenth had not a tithe of the knowledge now possessed:
but it was awfully convinced, strong, and decisive, within its
limitations. Then, there was no place for the palterer—except against
the wall.
Other malefactors felt the flail which, like Osiris, He wielded equally
with the crook. Notaries of the Pontifical Briefs debauched by the
undisciplined rule of previous Popes, had become corrupt. In the absence
of restraint they habitually forged briefs nominating to benefices, not
only in Italy, but in all Christian countries. The ambition of German
clergy created the demand. The flagitious notaries managed the supply.
They sold their forged briefs privately to whoso would pay the price,
and they pocketed the proceeds of this nefarious traffic. In 1497, the
Lord Alexander P.P. VI found them out. Some promptly were broiled on
Campo di Fiori, the nineteenth of October; one, the Lord Archbishop of
Cosenza, and three secretaries, deprived of their benefices and degraded
from their clerical estate, solemnly were immured alive in the Mola of
Hadrian. These miserable criminals lived some years in their solitary
cells, as the custom was, literally feeding on the bread of tears and
the water of affliction until they died. (_Burchard_, _Diarium_.) One
has heard fables of nuns immured. Here is a fairly genuine case of an
immured archbishop. Immuration is the same punishment which the
Twentieth Century metes out in countries where capital punishment has
been abolished:—solitary confinement;—nothing more. The archbishopric of
Cosenza was conferred on Cardinal Francisco de Borja, bastard of the
Lord Calixtus P. P. III.
The assiduous attention to the duties of His office which the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI exhibited is perfectly astounding; and pregnant with
indubitable signification.
He reformed the monasteries of Austria, and the secular clergy of
Portugal. He confirmed the Rule of the Religion of Friars Minim, founded
by San Francesco da Paola. He approved the Rule of the Third Order of
Friars Minor, founded by San Francesco d’Assisi. He permitted Madame
Jean de Valois to found her Religion. In 1499, He confirmed the Rule of
the Jesnats of San Girolamo, a congregation of laymen leading a
religious communal life under the Rule of St. Aurelius Augustine,
nursing the sick, and distilling aquavitæ, (as Carthusians distil
Chartreuse, yellow and green, now.) He founded and confirmed in Rome the
Order of Military Knights of St. George, for the defence of Christendom
against the Muslim Infidel. He granted privileges to the College at
Windsor: (Chapter of St. George, or King Henry VI Plantagenet’s
Foundation at Eton?) He approved the Order of Praying Knights of St.
Michael in France. He reformed the Order of Military Knights of Christ
in Portugal. He canonized no saints. His personal piety was simple,
diligent, and real. He greatly revered the Deipara, the Blessed Virgin
Mary. In her honour, He ordained the bell which rings at sunset,
sunrise, and noon, for the _Angelus Domini_ in memory of The
Incarnation. On His death-bed, He said, “We always have had, and have, a
singular affection for the Most Holy Virgin.”
In the Secret Archives of the Vatican, (merely a technical term, for
they are open to all the world,) His original acts are preserved; the
veritable Briefs and Bulls which He laboured to utter during His reign.
They are bound in one hundred and thirteen large-folio volumes, each
tome containing about ten thousand separate documents.[82] To understand
what kind of thing is a Papal Bull or Brief, the Epistles of St. Peter,
which are easily accessible, may be mentioned as the best examples
extant;—earnest disquisitions, simple or scholarly, dealing
authoritatively with subjects the most vital. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI
is responsible for more than a million of these; and He only reigned
eleven years.
The days and nights appreciably were not longer then than now. WHERE,
THEN, DID THE LORD ALEXANDER P.P. VI FIND THE TIME TO ACCOMPLISH THE
MULTIFARIOUS TURPITUDES WITH WHICH HE HAS BEEN CHARGED?
He was the father of bastards. He was not the first or last,—plebeian,
patrician, potentate, or pontiff.
He was inflexible to foes. Was ever peace assured except by a stern
martinet?
The Lord Alexander P.P. VI was a very great Prince, a very faithful
Pastor, a very human Man.
By members of that Church, at least, which He so ably ruled, He should
be regarded as above and beyond criticism (so-called), amenable to no
judge, ecclesiastical, or secular.[83] For the rest—the dwellers in
glass houses....
* * * * *
Sparks that Die
“_A fire, that is kindled, begins with smoke and hissing, while it
lays hold on the faggots; bursts into a roaring blaze, with raging
tongues of flame, devouring all in reach, spangled with sparks
that die._”
On the death of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, Duke Cesare de Valentinois
della Romagna was the most potent personage in Italy. Several of his
veteran legions under Don Michelotto held the Eternal City. Usually,
during the Novendiati after a Pope’s demise, armed bands of Colonna
and Orsini pervaded the streets, to intimidate the Conclave with their
war-cries _Column—Column—_, _Bear—Bear—_. In August and September
1503, the baronial partizans were dumb; and all Rome shouted
_Duca—Duca—Duca—_for Duke Cesare. He might have done anything that he
pleased.
Now, if Duke Cesare were the ambitious ruthless impious despot and
villain which a fashion has painted him, he must also have been a fool;
in that he did not force the Sacred College to raise another Borgia to
Peter’s Throne. There were three Borgia cardinals ready to his hand, all
quiet and malleable and inoffensive, and two of them aged men; viz.,
(α) the Lord Luis Juan de Mila y Borja, Cardinal-Prior-Presbyter of
the Title of Santi Quattro Coronati and Bishop of Lerida; first
cousin and contemporary of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI:
(β) the Lord Francisco de Borja, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of
San Nereo e Sant’ Achilleo, Archbishop of Cosenza; bastard of
the Lord Calixtus P.P. III:
(γ) the Lord Pedro Luis de Borja y Lançol, Cardinal-Deacon of Santa
Maria in Via Lata; son of the late Pope’s sister Doña Juana de
Borja by her marriage with her cousin Don Guillelmo de Lançol.
The last was a young man, a contemporary of Duke Cesare himself, and
appears to have been of a modest and retiring disposition. Whether his
youth would have taken fire at being crowned with the Triregno, is an
open question. He was not elected, and is numbered with the sparks that
die. The Cardinal de Mila had resided nearly half a century at his
bishopric in Spain; and was completely out of touch with his Italian
relatives, as well as with the Sacred College.
But Cardinal Francisco de Borja seems to have been an ideal nominee for
the purpose of Duke Cesare. He owed his rank to the Lord Alexander P.P.
VI. He was of the age of sixty-two years, a gentle old gentleman of
placid nature, of sweet and lovable habits, easily plastic. If he had
been elected Pope by the influence of Duke Cesare, the consolidation of
the Borgia Dynasty would have been an accomplished fact. Theoretically,
it matters not a jot who may be the Pope, Caius or Balbus, Peter or
Paul. If there be any basis for the claims of the Holy Roman Church, Her
mission goes on till the world’s end, as well and as inevitably when
Borgia, as when Pecci, reigns; as well and as inevitably under Boys of
the age of twelve and eighteen years, like the Lord Benedict P.P. IX and
the Lord John P.P. XII, as under Saints, like the Lord St. Sylvester
P.P. and the Lord St. Fabian P.P. ; as well and as inevitably under a
Jew, like the Lord St. Peter P.P. as under an Englishman like the Lord
Hadrian P.P. IV. The personality of God’s Vicegerent is of no
consequence whatever to the purity of the Faith, or to the triumph of
the Holy Roman Church. These things being so, it is hard to understand
why Duke Cesare did not menace with his unconquerable army the Sacred
College, or assassinate samples of the cardinals who should decline to
vote at his direction; until, by ultimate intimidation, he should have
secured the election of his candidate. If he had been the godless wretch
that his enemies designated, he would have achieved some such
_colpo-di-stato_ as this.
But, in the _rôle_ of an unconscionable villain, Duke Cesare was a
failure—an accented failure. Contrariwise, he comported himself as
exemplarily as any good and pious Catholic. Most likely his fever, or
the murderous remedies of his physicians, was responsible for this.
There is no doubt but that the scheme for a Borgia Dynasty had been
adumbrated; and that this was the psychological moment for giving it
concrete expression: but the death of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, and
Duke Cesare’s own illness came with sobering effect to him; and his
course of action may be translated thus—that he resolved not to usurp
the prerogative of the Supreme Disposer of events. For a villain, the
resolve was weak: but it was what was to be expected of a splendid man
of sense.
Duke Cesare knew that he held his riches, his supremacy, his titles of
Duke of Romagna, Gonfalonier of the Holy Roman Church, and Castellan of
Santangelo, solely at the pleasure of the Pope; yet he made no effort to
secure the election of a Pope who would confirm his possession of them.
There is still in existence a ring of his, (they call it a “Poison
Ring”—but of that much has been said—) which bears the splendid motto
FAYS CEQUE DOYS AVIEN QUE POURRA
_Do thy duty, come what may._
That principle informed his action now. Duke Cesare did his duty.
He renewed his feudal oath of allegiance in the presence of the Sacred
College. He formally recognized the supremacy, during the interregnum,
of the Cardinal-Dean and the Cardinal-Chamberlain. He divested himself
of the semblance and reality of power, by relinquishing the Mola of
Hadrian (which impregnable fortress he held as Castellan of Santangelo,
and whence he could have overawed both the Vatican and Rome). Further,
finding that the mere presence of his army in the City was considered
disrespectful to the Conclave, he retired it to his province of the
Romagna; and he himself withdrew to France to his duchy of Valentinois.
So, the Conclave of 1503 met in absolute freedom; and elected, as
Successor of St. Peter, Ruler of the World, Father of Princes and of
Kings, and Earthly Vicar of Jesus Christ our Saviour, the Lord Francesco
de’ Piccolhuomini, Cardinal-Archdeacon of Sant’ Eustachio, Archbishop of
Siena, who deigned to be called the Lord Pius P. P. III, in memory of
His august uncle, the Lord Pius P. P. II[84] Who had reigned from 1458
to 1464.
Then momentous events came thick and fast. The new Pope, on His
coronation in St. Peter’s, graciously permitted Duke Cesare to return to
Rome. Such a mighty and splendid vassal as he was naturally inspired
fear and distrust among the clergy. Such a trenchant weapon as he
possessed in his unconquerable veteran army was described as a danger to
the papacy. It is always very hard to make the clergy understand that a
laic can be as sentimental and conscientious and self sacrificing as a
clerk. The word was put about that, seeing the Romagna to have been
reduced to order, the necessity for Duke Cesare’s army had ceased to be.
Naturally, the clergy could not be expected to understand the necessity
for an “army of occupation.” The first rumour speedily grew into the
statement that Duke Cesare’s army was to be disbanded.
Colonna and Orsini heard, in their ugly exile, in their battered
fortresses. Like the chained wolves on the Capitol who know when rust
makes thin their fetters, they lifted up their horrid heads and waited
till the ultimate link should part. If Duke Cesare’s army were
disbanded, thousands of condottieri would be at large, brigands ready to
take service under a new chief, under any banner. Why not under the
banners of the Column and the Bear? Colonna and Orsini in alliance,
reinforced by those same unconquerable mercenaries might recover their
old position, and once more become the strong right and left hands of a
feeble Pope of their own; and then the days of the hated Borgia would be
numbered. Colonna and Orsini, like their antipodes righteousness and
peace, forgot their ancient feud and each kissed other. Duke Cesare
indeed was in evil case.
And then, suddenly, after a pontificate of six and twenty days, the Lord
Pius P.P. III died.
This moment was the opportunity of the psychic epileptic, the Lord
Cardinal-Bishop Giuliano della Rovere, eternal enemy of the House of
Borgia. He had emerged from the exile, which his innumerable treasons
and malfeasances had merited, in time for the election of the Lord Pius
P.P. III during Whose short reign he had employed himself to his own
advantage. He had no friends. He gained the loathing of all with whom he
had to do. The Sacred College to a man was inimical to him. He was not
wealthy. He was thoroughly plebeian, he had no learning, no diplomatic
skill, no charm. And there, on the other hand, was the splendid Duke
Cesare, feared; yes: but admired also; and his unconquerable army was
within call. A second time the election appeared likely to depend on
him.
Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere was a desperate man. The only advantage
that he possessed was, that at this time when all the other cardinals
were in a state of nervous perturbation at the unusual occurrence of the
deaths of two Popes in three months, he alone preserved his equanimity.
He alone knew what he wanted. His colleagues in the Conclave were
mentally collapsed: they shewed signs of a liability to come under the
influence of, to take advice, to take even direction from any one who
would tell them what they wanted; and chiefly from him who was the one
strong man of Italy, the man with the veteran army, Duke Cesare de
Valentinois della Romagna (detto Borgia). The strongest laic is no match
for an unscrupulous clerk when it comes to wits. Cardinal Giuliano della
Rovere saw that he could gain the Sacred College, by gaining Duke
Cesare. He concentrated all his crude rough desperate will on the one
point.
* * * * *
The historian Varillas, who writes as a violent upholder of the Papacy,
relates an extraordinary story; which, if true, is a veritable solution
of mysteries; which, in short, is so strange, that it very likely is not
fiction, historical or otherwise, but the blind and naked Truth emerging
from her well unabashed, luciferous, and, naturally, unwelcome.
He says that Duke Cesare proposed to the Second Conclave of 1503 to
elect a cardinal whom he should name: that Cardinal Giuliano della
Rovere, becoming aware of this, endeavoured to attract Duke Cesare’s
influence to himself: that to this end the said Cardinal privately
announced to the said Duke that he was his father after the manner of
men, further alleging this to have been the cause of his (the said
cardinal’s) enmity against the Lord Alexander P.P. VI deceased: that the
said Cardinal asked the said Duke to assist him, his father, to gain the
papal throne, promising, in return for such assistance, after his
coronation with the Triregno, publicly to acknowledge the said Duke as
his son, to confirm him in possession of his duchies and his conquests,
and to retain him in all the offices which he then held: that the said
Duke believed the said Cardinal, and by withdrawing from opposition, and
by exerting full influence in a filial manner, he had compassed the
election of the said Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere: that after his
election the said Cardinal had belied all his promises, deprived the
said Duke, of Umbria, and the Romagna, and all the fiefs which he had
won, and of all the situations which he enjoyed, and finally had
harassed, despoiled, and exiguously persecuted, all who bore the name
of, or were connected with, The Borgia.
This is an extremely probable tale. Certainly a part of it is true, and
perhaps the whole.
The identity of the father of Duke Cesare (detto Borgia) is involved in
mystery.
The Brief of the Lord Xystus P.P. IV[85] dated the first of October
1480, which dispenses Messer Cesare from the necessity of proving his
legitimacy, calls him “son of a cardinal bishop and a married woman,”
_de episcopo cardinali genitus et coniugata_.
The Brief of the Same, dated the sixteenth of August 1482, which makes
Cardinal Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja administrator of Messer Cesare’s
estate, calls the boy “son of a cardinal bishop and a married woman,”
_de episcopo cardinali genitus et coniugata_.
The name of this “cardinal bishop” is not given in either Brief.
Most of the scribblers, diarists, chroniclers, orators, speak of Don
Cesare, Cardinal Cesare, and Duke Cesare, as the son of Cardinal Rodrigo
de Lançol y Borja (the Lord Alexander P.P. VI). Some, like Peter Martyr
and Fioramondo Brugnolo call him “nephew of a brother of our Lord the
Pope.” In his autograph letter to the Pope, dated the sixteenth of
January 1500, he himself speaks of Cardinal Giovanni Borgia (detto
Giuniore), (who was the son of Don Pedro Luis de Lançol y Borja, own
brother of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI) as “my brother.”
In no official document is he named as the son of Cardinal Rodrigo de
Lançol y Borja (the Lord Alexander P.P. VI): but the Venetian Senate, in
conferring on him the patriciate of that Republic in 1500, styled him
“nephew of Pope Alexander.”
The Lord Alexander P.P. VI never called him “son”: but, in an autograph
Brief of recommendation addressed to the Christian King Louis XII, He
introduced Duke Cesare as His “heart.”
Duke Cesare’s subscription of a letter, which he wrote to the Pope on
the twenty-eighth of January 1503, at the time of the Orsini revolt, is
very curious. He signed himself “The most humble servant and most
faithful handiwork of Your Holiness.” _Vestrae Sanctitatis humillimus
servus et devotissima factura._ As cardinal he might, and did, call
himself the Pope’s “creature,” _creatura_: that is the form. A son,
however, is not “handiwork” in any sense of the word: but a duke, who is
made by his sovereign’s signature of his patent, precisely is.
The authorities, who call Duke Cesare “nephew,” may be dismissed. Popes,
like other human beings, generally have nephews _stricte dicte vel
late_.
His own appellation of Cardinal Giovanni Giuniore is susceptible of the
meaning “comrade.”
And “factura” will bear reference to his duchy, gonfalonierate,
castellanship, etc.
Who then was the father of Duke Cesare?
Madonna Giovanna de’ Catanei (wife of Don Giorgio della Croce, and,
after his death, of Don Carlo Canale,) was certainly his mother. Two
official inscriptions bear witness to this. The first, which was
published by Signor Gnoli in the _Nuova Antologia_ of the first of
February 1881, refers to a house on Campo di Fiori which she left as an
endowment for anniversary masses for the repose of the souls of herself
and her two husbands named. The deed is the work of Messer Andrea
Caroso, Notary Public, and is dated the fifteenth of January 1517. In it
she is called “Vanoza Catanea _madre del Duca Borge_.” The second is her
epitaph on her tomb in Santa Maria del Popolo (Forcella. Iscrizioni
delle chiese di Roma I. 335) shewing her natural pride at finding
herself the mother of two dukes, a prince duke, and a sovereign duchess.
“Faustiae Cathanae, _Caesare Valentiae_, Joannae Candiae,
Jufredo Scylatii, et Lucretia Ferrariae ducib. filiis nobili
Probitate insigni religioni eximia pari et aetate et
Prudentiae optime de xenodochio Lateranen. Meritae
Hieronimus Picus fidei commis. procur. ex test(amento) pos(uit).
Vix(it) ann. LXXVI m. IV d. XIII. Objit anno M.D.XVIII. XXVI Nov.”
In the absence of anything more authoritative than the foregoing, the
story of Varillas remains the most probable solution of the mystery. The
Lord Alexander P.P. VI never named, never treated, Duke Cesare as His
son; never shewed for him the paternal love and affection which He
shewed for his bastards, Don Pedro Luis, Madonna Girolama, Duke Juan
Francisco, Duchess Lucrezia, Prince Gioffredo, Madonna Laura, Duke
Giovanni. Yet Duke Cesare was splendid and superb; his abilities were
immense, and pre-eminently useful to the Pope. And the Pope used him on
all occasions as His most serviceable subject, rewarding him with lavish
generosity for the service which he rendered. Between the Duke and his
Sovereign Patron, there was a certain privileged and familiar
confidence: but never intimate relationship, or filial or paternal love.
The status of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere; his furious, blind,
instinctive, and eternal hatred of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI and of
every one connected with Him, is susceptible of an extremely human
explanation. It bears the strongest possible resemblance to that very
singular and very distinguishable passion of revengeful jealous rage
which consumes the vulgar man in regard to a superior (in rank,
breeding, or physique,) who shall have supplanted him in the favours of
a lady.
Cardinal Rodrigo and Cardinal Giuliano both were cardinals and bishops
at the time of the birth of Duke Cesare. Cardinal Rodrigo had wealth,
illustrious ancestry, incomparable charm of manner, a sumptuous aspect.
He was magnificent and invincible. Cardinal Giuliano as a boy had
peddled onions in a boat between Arbisola and Genoa, he had no money
except the revenues of a few benefices, he was of a saturnine habit of
mind, repulsive to his fellow creatures. His portraits, as cardinal on
his medal by Sperandio, as Pope by Il Caradosso (Ambrogio Foppa), shew
him as a hatefully ugly man with satyr-brows, sunken and bleared eyes,
fierce but haggard mien, and the animal appetites hugely predominant in
the lips, the back of the head, and the curious little muscles which
obliquely tend downward right and left in the region of the root of the
nose. In the age of the Discovery of Man, Cardinal Giuliano della
Rovere’s physique did not qualify him to gain, or retain, the fidelity
of any woman whom, inevitably, he would hunger to possess.
Nothing is known against the character of Madonna Giovanna de’ Catanei
except that she was the mistress, first of Cardinal Giuliano della
Rovere, second of Cardinal Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja. A woman who
indulges in systematic adultery _and sacrilege_ is liable to be as false
to her lovers, as she is to her husband and her God, at least until she
has repented of her crimes and sins, giving proof of her repentance by
surceasing from those same to lead a godly righteous and sober life, as
Madonna Giovanna did during the whole reign of the Lord Alexander P.P.
VI, and especially in, and after, 1508, when she was converted, together
with Madonna Fiametta, a leman of Duke Cesare’s, by hearing Frat’ Egidio
da Viterbo preach the Lent in Rome. But history and rumour agree in
this, that with the exception of these two separate intrigues lasting
from 1473 to 1481 Madonna Giovanna de’ Catanei was “alioquin proba
mulier” as even the rascally Paulo Giovio says, (Vita Gonsalvi
212)—otherwise, an honest woman.
It is humanly probable that Duke Cesare was the son of Cardinal Giuliano
della Rovere by Madonna Giovanna de’ Catanei. He was born in 1474, “son
of a cardinal bishop and a married woman.” The following year, 1475, the
lady bore to Cardinal Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja, Don Juan Francisco; in
1478, Madonna Lucrezia; in 1481, Don Gioffredo. It is as humanly natural
that, after the birth of Duke Cesare, Cardinal Rodrigo should win the
mother from Cardinal Giuliano; as that in 1492 he should win the
Triregno from him in full conclave. The two prelates were antipathetic
from heel to crown. There was bound to be rivalry between them. The loss
of the papal throne in 1492 would have embittered Cardinal Giuliano
della Rovere: but, by itself, hardly could have imparted that virulent
vicious smack to his revenge that made him agonize, during twenty years,
to dispossess and grind to powder the House of Borgia. The introduction
of the feminine element provides a key to the enigma of that pettiness.
The narration of Varillas, therefore, deserves consideration as a
contribution to the solving of the mysteries of the unquenchable hatred
of Dellarovere for Borgia, and of Duke Cesare’s relations with the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI.
Whatever the truth may be, it is circumstantially evident that to Duke
Cesare de Valentinois della Romagna, his advocacy or neutrality, his
influence exercised or his abstention from opposition, Cardinal Giuliano
della Rovere owed his election in the Conclave of November 1503. He
chose to be called the Lord Julius P.P. II.; and He instantly set about
the ruin of the House of Borgia.
* * * * *
The three Borgia cardinals naturally did not vote for Cardinal Giuliano
della Rovere. Cardinal Luis Juan de Mila y Borja did not deign to attend
the Conclave: but remained at his bishopric of Lerida in Spain. Cardinal
Pedro Luis de Lançol y Borja, immediately after the election, passed
into voluntary exile in the Regno without speaking to the Pope. Cardinal
Francisco de Borja followed the custom of his House in regard to the
voting: but he remained in Rome; and no doubt hoped with his charming
innocent good nature that the Lord Julius P.P. would be satisfied, would
be appeased, now that the world had nothing more to give Him. The
Cardinal was bitterly disappointed.
From Madonna Lucrezia’s little boy, Duke Roderico, His Holiness seized
the duchy of Sermoneta; and restored it to the Caïetani from whom it
originally had been taken, and who hold it still, A.D. 1901. (The
present Duke of Sermoneta also has the superb sword of state which
Maestro Ercole, the master-sword-smith of his age, had made to carry
before Duke Cesare (detto Borgia) when he officiated as Cardinal
Ablegate at the coronation of King Don Federigo of Naples in 1497. It is
a miracle of damascening and design, a lesson to Twentieth Century
makers of decorative swords who heap glories on hilt and scabbard, and
leave the blade to be hidden. Of this sword of Duke Cesare’s the blade
is the soul. The sheath of plain embossed leather is in the Victoria and
Albert Museum.)
Then, the Lord Julius P.P. II demanded of Duke Cesare the renunciation
of his duchy of the Romagna. That province was a fief of the Holy See;
and it was competent for the Holiness of the Pope to deal with it at His
pleasure: but, seeing that to Duke Cesare’s splendid services, the
Papacy practically owed the peace, the possession, the heftiness of the
Romagna, heretofore a hell of turbulent bandits, brigands and assassins
who defied their Over-lord to collect His revenues,—the demand of the
Lord Julius P.P. II at least was discouraging.
Duke Cesare, while willing to take the oath of allegiance of a feudal
vassal to the Prince, refused to relinquish the fortresses of the
Romagna which by conquest he had won, and garrisoned with his veteran
army, now disbanded by the Judas wiles of Cardinal Giuliano della
Rovere, and re-enlisted under alien banners.
[Illustration: _Julius P.P. II._]
Whether the Lord Julius P.P. II had made, or had not made, promises
before His election, He was now _de iure_ and _de facto_ Ruler of the
World, and absolutely despotic. He arrested Duke Cesare in Rome; and
imprisoned him as a rebel in the Borgia Tower. The utter and vacuous
helplessness of the Duke is in striking contrast to the masterful energy
of all his previous life. Some enormous mental shock might produce such
degeneration; the hideous treachery of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere as
related by Varillas, for example. Duke Cesare behaved, in his
misfortune, like a son staggered, struck breathless and speechless by a
revelation of a father’s iniquity. A Bull of Deprivation despoiled him
of all fiefs and dignities held from the Holy See, and confiscated all
his personal property. He literally was stripped naked. In 1504, he
escaped from Rome to Ostia in disguise, and thence to Naples. Here he
might have found a pied à terre; and, with the splendour of his past
achievements, have won an opportunity of recovering his lost estates by
war: but the Lord Julius P.P. II, conscious of the danger to His peace
that such an aggrieved and notable personality would be, had intrigued
with the Catholic King; and, on Duke Cesare’s arrival in the Regno, he
was re-arrested, and shipped to a new prison in the castle of Medina del
Campo in Spain.
* * * * *
The marriage of Madonna Lucrezia Borgia with Don Alfonso d’Este was a
most happy one. The sweet young bride had made herself beloved by all
Ferrara, from her husband’s father Duke Ercole to the meanest of his
subjects, by her beauty, her goodness, and her wonderfully able
versatility, three indispensable qualities in the wife of the heir to
the throne. Attired in “a mulberry satin gown embroidered with gold
fish-bones each two fingers broad,” with the lace-flounce worth thirty
thousand ducats (say £60,000) which, according to Giovanni Lucido, was
in her wedding-chest, she would amuse herself in the ducal palace by
witnessing performances of the _Casina_ or the _Miles Gloriosus_,
comedies of Plautus. Sometimes, (as Sanuto, the Venetian Orator at
Ferrara, informed his government,) she would remain all day in her
apartments, writing letters, and having her head washed: or she would
sit for hours and listen to the violin-music of her adept young husband.
On the Maundy Thursday of the first year of her marriage, she publicly
washed the feet of one hundred and sixty poor men. Her observance of
religious duties was as notable as the spirit of genuine piety which
pervades her many letters still extant.
On hearing of Duke Cesare’s _disgrazia_, Madonna Lucrezia earnestly
wrote to the Marquess of Mantua, and to her friend, sister-in-law, and
confidante, the Marchioness Isabella, begging them to use the influence
of their House of Gonzaga with the Lord Julius P.P. II to procure his
freedom. The times were out of joint for Este personally to interfere;
for Madonna Lucrezia was stricken down with the effects of an ἄμβλωσις,
and the old Duke Ercole was breathing his last sigh.
On the nineteenth of January 1505, the Lord Julius P.P. II issued His
notorious Bull against Simony; striking a new blow at the House of
Borgia, by the aspersion cast upon the memory of the Lord Alexander P.P.
VI.
Duke Alfonso d’Este and his Duchess Lucrezia ascended the throne of
their duchy in due course; and negotiations with the Holiness of the
Pope, for the enfranchisement of Duke Cesare, might have been, and would
have been instituted: but, early in the spring of the year Ferrara was
threatened by famine, and the hands of the young sovereigns were
entirely occupied. Had Duke Cesare been own brother to the Duchess
Lucrezia, perhaps more urgent steps would have been taken: but she never
seems to have regarded him otherwise than as a half-brother, who was her
Father’s most useful servant, and her mother’s shame. Duke Alfonso
proceeded to Venice to buy food stuffs in view of the famine, for the
patriarchal rule obtained in Ferrara; and left the Duchess Lucrezia as
Regent of his state. Her lovely womanly character may be seen in an
edict which she issued for the protection of Jews, who were attacked and
pillaged by Christians rioting for food; and in the sweet indignant
letter, abounding in mis-spelt words (as do all good and distinguished
women’s letters,) and enjoining the Podesta (mayor) to be energetic
about securing to the Jews protection of their lives and property
equally with the Christians.
When Duke Alfonso returned, after some months’ absence during which the
Duchess sent him periodical and frequent accounts of her regency,
addressed “To the Most Illustrious and Most Excellent Lord, My Most
Honourable Lord and Consort, These, with speed—speed—speed—” the summer
brought plague on the heels of famine. The visitation was most severe.
The unselfish exertions of the Duke and Duchess were noble and untiring.
The health of the Duchess Lucrezia suffered; and before the year was
over she gave birth to a dead child.
In 1506, Duke Cesare de Valentinois escaped from his Spanish prison, and
made his way into the neighbouring realm of Navarre, where the King Jean
d’Albret was brother to his wife Madame Charlotte d’Albret, Duchess of
Valentinois. The events of the last three years had not broken his
splendid spirit. All his triumphs, all the results of his strenuous
energy and talent had been nullified for him. At the age of thirty-three
years he was despoiled of his life’s work, and was a ruined man. The
Romagna for ever was gone from him. His French duchy seems to have been
of small account. Still, he was not crushed, he had the courage to begin
again to carve out a career in a new country; and to this end he took
service in the army of his brother-in law King Jean of Navarre.
* * * * *
The Lord Julius P.P. II having decreed Himself and His Successors to be
the heir-at-law, next-of-kin, residuary and sole legatee, of all
cardinals, and of all clergy who die within the walls of Rome, an era of
sumptuous premortal cenotaphs and sepulchres set in among the
Illustrissimi Colendissimi ed Osservantissimi Porporati, as well as
among the lesser ecclesiastical dignitaries; to the end that as little
as possible of their riches, after their demise, should go to the
pontifical exchequer.
There is a codicil to the will of the Genoese mariner, Messer Cristoforo
Colombi of this date, the fourth of May 1506, by which the Inventor of
America bequeathed to his native Republic of Genoa “the prayer-book
which Pope Alexander gave him; and which, in prison, in conflict, and in
every kind of adversity, had been to him the greatest of comforts.” How
simply bright a light does this incident throw upon the relations of a
great and good man with the Lord Alexander P.P. VI!
The Lord Julius P.P. II was capable of doing without Duke Cesare in the
Romagna. The Pope’s Holiness Himself was a man of war, Who found it
consistent to wear cuirass and casque on battlefields equally with
pluviale and triregno in the Vatican Basilica. Men called Him _Il
Pontifice Terribile_. “Give Us in Our hands no stupid book, but a bare
blade,” He impatiently roared to the painter of His portrait, now in the
National Gallery. But Messer Rafaele Sanzio, despite all his
conventional macaronics, was for once in his life artist enough to omit
both book and blade, and to concentrate on the painting of the character
of those fierce vulgar insatiable empty hands gripping the arms of the
chair. And the Romagna found the whips of Duke Cesare to be preferred
before the scorpions of the Lord Julius P.P. II. Perugia was the seat of
the Baglioni. Twenty years before, in 1487, there had been an outbreak
of the feud of Baglioni and Oddi, months of continual rioting, the
gutters running blood, the city like a slaughterhouse; until Oddi was
driven away, and Baglioni turned the place into a fortress and the
churches into barracks. In 1491, in another outbreak, Baglioni hanged a
hundred and thirty conspirators from the windows of the Palazzo
Communale in a single day; and, (with the quick reversion from carnage
to piety which is a characteristic of the age,) incontinently erected
five and thirty altars in the public square, and caused continuous
masses to be said and processions to be performed, to purify the city
and to procure repose for the souls of the slain. Duke Cesare made a
marked impression on these brigands, who learned to give him little
trouble: but, when he was dispossessed and his long sword sealed in its
scabbard, Baglioni took the bit between their teeth and reared, refused
tribute to their sovereign Over-lord, and broke out in rebellion in the
customary manner. The Lord Julius P.P. II promptly raised an army which
He led in person; and reduced Perugia. Without precautions for His
safety, trusting to the moral effect of His presence for the
inviolability of His sacrosanct person, He adventured Himself in the
heart of the rebel city, and beat Don Giampaolo Baglioni to his knees.
In a man of sensibility this hardihood would indicate a very dare-devil:
in the case of the Supreme Pontiff a distinction must be made between
courage and mere plebeian callousness. Messer Niccolo Machiavelli
sneered at this miserable Don Giampaolo Baglioni, because he lacked the
boldness to strangle his unwelcome visitor, the Lord Julius P.P. II, and
so crown his life of crime with a signal act of “Magnanimità”! Certainly
a man would need some boldness to strangle the Pope, the Ruler of the
World, the Father of Princes and of Kings, the Earthly Vicar of Jesus
Christ our Saviour! Certainly, a man who would strangle in cold blood
the Sovereign Pontiff coming to him as his guest, unarmed, under a flag
of truce, would win fame, or infamy, for endless ages. But that such a
deed should deserve the epithet “magnanimous,” should be considered to
be indicative of greatness of soul, is a matter of opinion. Evidently
the Twentieth Century considerably has curtailed and straitened the
signification and the application which the word Magnanimity bore in the
Fifteenth. Now, we call a man magnanimous who, at huge self-sacrifice,
does noble deeds. Then, Messer Niccolo Machiavelli thought that
startling actions, good, or bad, proclaimed the greatness of their
agent’s soul!
The Lord Julius P.P. II was not without His flatterers. No man is, if he
can pay. Literary petits maîtres like Messer Baltassare Castiglioni
found it profitable to address the Terrible Pontiff in terms like these:
“O Pater, O Pastor populorum, O “O Father, O Shepherd of the
Maxime mundi people, O Supreme
Arbiter, humanum qui genus omne Master of the world, Who rulest all
regis; the human race;
Iustitiae pacisque Dator Giver of Justice, Peace, and
placidaeque quietis, tranquil Ease,
Credita Cui soli est vita salusque Thou to Whom alone is committed the
hominum; life and salvation of men;
Quem Deus Ipse Erebi fecit caelique Whom God Himself has made Lord of
potentem, heaven and hell,
Ut nutu pateant utraque regno Tuo;— That either realm might open at Thy
nod—
“When the spiritual authority of the Popes came thus to be expressed
in Latin verse, it was impossible not to treat them as deities. The
temptation to apply to them the language of Roman religion was too
great; the double opportunity of flattering their vanity as pontiffs,
and their ears as scholars, was too attractive to be missed.”[86]
The Terrible Pontiff, however, was no scholar, but an unadulterated
plebeian. It is true that He, as Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia, bought that
vastly over-rated piece known as the Apollo of the Belvedere, when first
it was discovered at Porto d’Anzio (Antium). It is true that He bought,
in 1506, for six hundred gold crowns (?) the Laocoon, (which Messer
Michelangelo Buonarroti saw unearthed in the Baths of Titus,) to the
supreme disgust of his “art-adviser” who declared that the two sons of
the Thymbraian priest were not boys, but little men. It is true that He
bought the Ariadne (which He called Cleopatra), the Torso of Herakles,
and the Commodus, unearthed on Campo di Fiori, and now in the Vatican.
He did these things because they were modish things to do in 1506. One
gained more κῦδος in the pose of a Sixteenth Century Maecenas, than as
Successor of the Galilean Fisherman. The plebeian pontiff of the
Sixteenth Century was ashamed of His plebeian predecessor of the First.
The times were changed, he argued, as the faithful vainly argue to
excuse prelatical vagaries now. He preferred competition with “men of
the world” to the cure of souls. He was quite unable to appreciate
intellect. He was congenitally incapable of appreciating the delicacy,
or the validity, of Letters. The plebeian chiefly is touched by way of
the sense of sight; and the Lord Julius P.P. II understood naked
statues, things which He could see: wherefore He bought Apollo and
Laocoon and the rest. There is not the slightest credit due to Him for
discrimination in His purchases, or for a deliberate choice of what was
beautiful. Men happened to dig up those marbles in Roman territory just
then. Any one could see them to be beyond the ordinary. Any one could
see them to be antiques. It was the fashion to buy antiques; and the
Terrible Pontiff bought—bought as retired grocers buy, who buy their
libraries by the cwt. Also, He had Messer Michelangelo Buonarroti at His
ankle, with whose advice it would have been difficult for a sardonic
goat to commit an artistic blunder. They were a pair, those two, the
artist and the pontiff, _uomini terribili_, terrible men, both. Messer
Michelangelo had been educated at the expense of Lorenzo de’ Medici in
the Palazzo Medici of Florence and the Villa Medici of Fiesole. There,
at the suggestion of Canon Angelo Ambrogini (detto Poliziano), he had
sculptured his Battle of Herakles with the Centaurs, while listening to
Fra Girolamo Savonarola and Messer Giovanni Pico della Mirandola
surnamed the Phoenix of Genius (_Fenice degli iugegni_.) Could any man
but Poliziano have suggested a more admirable subject for Michelangelo
than this of weird muscular gigantic energy? In 1500, in the reign of
the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, he had carved his lily-pure Pietà of the
Vatican Basilica, the most divinely pure presentment of God’s Maiden
Mother, of the Μητροπάρθενος, save those of Alessandro Filipepi (detto
Botticelli) since Byzantine art had faded. Now, he was in Rome,
“art-adviser” to the Terrible Pontiff, eating his own heart in
inactivity, burning and yearning to work with his own hands, with all
the passionate excruciating torture suffered by every artist who may not
put his talent “out to the exchangers.” It was the lust of creation in
Michelangelo that made him terrible to his fellow men. His incivilities
to his colleagues are proverbial. “Goffo nell’ arte” he flung with
contemptuous scorn to Messer Pietro di Cristoforo Vanucci of città della
Pieve (detto Perugino) who had a picture-shop at Florence, and bought
estates with the proceeds of his smooth and stony saints and seraphs,
stencilled by his pupils on the canvases, and touched by himself in his
workshop or picture-factory at Perugia, at the very time when Oddi and
Baglioni each were tearing the other’s throats to tatters outside his
door. Then in 1508 the Lord Julius P.P. II ordered Messer Michelangelo
to paint the ceiling of the Xystine Chapel. The gods on high Olympos
never allow a man to do the thing that he wants to do: they are jealous
lest a man should create a god. Messer Michelangelo wanted to practise
sculpture; wherefore he was told to paint a ceiling. “I’m not a
painter!” (Nè io pittore!) he roared to the Terrible Pontiff, who
fulminated and thundered in reply. They both were terrible men; and they
unrestrainedly spoke with perfect frankness as between man and man,
using no set form whatever.
The Terrible Pontiff, like all clerical patrons, was an infernal
nuisance to the Terrible Painter, who well-nigh killed himself by years
of ceaseless toil, lying on his back upon a scaffold in the filthy air
that hangs about a ceiling. He would have no assistant save a boy or
two. He lived, and ate, and slept on the scene of his labour. Many times
the Terrible Pontiff came to see what was being done; and every time the
Terrible Painter instructed Him in the art and mystery of anathema, and
drove Him away. At last the Lord Julius P.P. II threatened to have
Messer Michelangelo flung down, and the scaffold pulled about his ears:
but this was when the work was done. The Terrible Painter had the
scaffold removed, and invited his patron to view the sumptuous ceiling.
The Terrible Pontiff came; and saw; and suggested that the scaffold
should be reerected so that the work might be touched up
with—ultramarine and gold-leaf!
* * * * *
In Ferrara, the year 1506 was marked by one of those tragical
expositions of naked human passion which afflict humanity in every age.
Madonna Angela de Borja y Lançol, a cousin of the Duchess Lucrezia—being
the daughter of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI’s sister, Doña Juana, by her
marriage with Don Guillelmo de Lançol, and sister to Cardinal Juan de
Borja y Lançol (detto Giovanni Seniore), Archbishop of Monreale, and
Cardinal Pedro Luis de Borja y Lançol,—was a maid-of-honour attached to
the suite of the Duchess of Ferrara. She was very beautiful, and is
called in the chronicle “a most elegant damsel”—_damigella
elegantissima_. Two younger brothers of Duke Alfonso, the athletic
Cardinal Ippolito d’Este, and Don Giulio d’Este (bastard of the old Duke
Ercole) fell in love with her. Madonna Angela favoured the Bastard
Giulio whose lovely eyes she unreservedly admired—consequently, as the
manner was, his rival the Cardinal hired four professionals to put out
those eyes. Naif unpaltering straightforwardness of the Sixteenth
Century! The operation failed of execution, for the Bastard Giulio,
being forewarned, escaped with his eyes unharmed. But such conduct does
not make for the peace of a state, brawling royalties affording
disedification to the mob. The laws of Ferrara, paternal in character,
ordained a scale of penances graduated to the rank of culprits: for
example, a working man, who obscenely swore, would pay a fine; a
swearing burgess paid a double fine and a swearing noble was mulcted of
a triple fine. Therefore Duke Alfonso put the ban on his brother, the
Lord Cardinal Ippolito, who retired to Rome to nurse his discontent and
plan his next move against the Bastard Giulio. Madonna Angela, who was
no more to be blamed than any other girl whose charms have inflamed a
lusty pair of rivals to desperation, married the third, Don Alessandro
Pio Estense di Savoja, Count of Sassuolo. The bandit[87] Cardinal
Ippolito had not long to wait in exile. If he had been the Master of
Fate, he could not have devised a neater or completer vengeance than
that which came to him. It is one thing to attempt to blind a bastard
brother who is a royal prince. It is another thing to compass the death
of a brother who is a reigning sovereign. The robust young Cardinal was
equal to the first: but above the second.
Duke Alfonso’s brothers, Don Ferdinando d’Este and the Bastard Giulio,
engaged in a conspiracy to assassinate him. News of the plot reached
Cardinal Ippolito in Rome. He promptly warned Duke Alfonso of his
danger. Finding themselves discovered, the conspirators fled. Don
Ferdinando was caught: but the Bastard Giulio, good at escapes, took
refuge in sanctuary with his brother-in-law the Marquess of Mantua, who
replied to Duke Alfonso’s demand for extradition that, if evidence of
guilt were shewn, the criminal should be delivered up to justice.
Evidence was shewn, in the shape of the full confession of Don
Ferdinando; and the Bastard Giulio passed into his sovereign brother’s
hands. Brought to the common block in the square of Ferrara, the two
detected traitors were allowed to suffer all the pangs of the approach
of death: but, at the last moment, Duke Alfonso in his mercy granted a
reprieve, commuting their penance to life-imprisonment.
* * * * *
Early in 1507, died Duke Cesare de Valentinois (detto Borgia), by a mean
inglorious death for one who had been in life so mighty a man. While
commanding a small squadron on behalf of the King of Navarre, he was
killed in a petty skirmish by the castle of Viana. His corpse was
quietly interred in the cathedral of Pampeluna, which, by a curious
coincidence, had been the first piece of ecclesiastical preferment
conferred on him by the Lord Alexander P.P. VI. So ended a phenomenal
personality in which superb and tawny beauty of physique, prodigious
force of character, fierce all-conquering energy, swift unerring
almost-feline agility of action, and transcendent splendour of
achievement, were blasted and nullified and marred, humanly speaking, by
one single delicacy of respectful conscientious self-sacrifice and
supreme confidence in clerical honour. His beautiful elegy by Ercole
Strozzi,
“Ille diu, qui dum caelestibus auris
Visitur, implet onus laudis, caelumque meretur”
is too well-known to be quoted at length. He left three children,
(α) Madame Eloise de Valentinois; who married, first, the Sieur Louis
de la Tremouille, second, the Sieur Philippe de Bourbon, Comte
de Busset, whose direct descendants flourish in France at the
present day:
(β) Don Girolamo de Valentinois; who, by marriage with Madonna
Isabella Carpi patrician of Ferrara, had issue Madonna Lucrezia
de Valentinois married, in 1562, to Don Bartolomeo Oroboni
patrician of Ferrara, who died in 1565.
(γ) a bastard Madonna Camilla Lucrezia; (evidently the offspring of an
intrigue carried on when Duke Cesare was in Ferrara in 1500–1
arranging the marriage of Madonna Lucrezia Borgia to the heir of
Duke Ercole d’Este;) born of Duke Cesare and a married woman in
Ferrara; according to the deed of legitimation,[88] dated 1509,
where Madonna Camilla Lucrezia is said to be “of the age of more
than seven years”: she became Abbess of San Bernardino in
Ferrara, in 1545; and died in 1573.
The Duchess Lucrezia Borgia d’Este was deeply grieved by the death of
Duke Cesare her half-brother. There is a very touching letter written by
her friend and sister-in-law, the Marchioness Isabella Gonzaga of
Mantua, to Duke Alfonso who at that time was in Rome. It is dated the
eighteenth of April 1507; and describes how that the Duchess of Ferrara,
on receiving the sad news, immediately went to the church of the
monastery of Corpus Domini and remained during two days and nights,
praying for the repose of the soul of Duke Cesare de Valentinois. A
simple act; and precisely what any good Christian woman would do in
similar circumstances.
* * * * *
A year later, on the fourth of April 1508, at the Castle of Ferrara to
the immense joy of all, _formosus puer est formoso natus Aprili_, says
Benedetto Lampridii in his Carmina Inedita, the Duchess Lucrezia bore to
Duke Alfonso a son and heir, who was baptized by the name Ercole.
During this year, a league of the Powers was formed under the
Elect-Emperor Maximilian directed against Venice; and Duke Alfonso,
whose dominions marched with those of that Republic, threw in his lot
with its foes. While he was engaging the Venetians on the Romagna
frontier, the Duchess Lucrezia ruled as Regent in Ferrara. She
administered government of the state with the same sweet womanly
thoroughness as she shewed in the administration of the government of
her domestic affairs. History is rich in records relating to this lovely
lady. She superintended the household matters of her palaces with a
minute attention to detail which, to the modern middle-classes, would
appear amazing in a Sovereign Duchess. To set a fashion of rare
liberal-mindedness she appointed the Jewess Mazzolino to the care of her
extensive wardrobe, and Messer Ludovico as her physician. Her régime was
of the simple patriarchal type of the old Duke Ercole, who, on the
occasion of an outbreak of plague in 1500, issued an Edict which said
that “Duke Ercole d’Este, for good reasons to him known, _and because it
always is well to be on good terms with God_,” ordained religious
processions every day throughout Ferrara. A second quaint Edict of the
same fatherly potentate, (which incidentally speaks for the meticulously
cleanly personal habits of the Borgian Era, so strenuously maintained on
a previous page of this book,) proclaims that “inasmuch as bakers are
known to knead their dough with feet that, frequently, are unclean, such
practices must not continue except on penalty of fine or imprisonment:
but the dough must be worked with clean hands _and nails_.”
Evildoers, all the same, had a shocking time. Maria Equicola gives exact
particulars of a certain Madonna Laura (name suppressed) who, being
caught in adultery, was immured alive; that is to say, she was publicly
confined in a cell a few feet square, with a little window, outside the
episcopal palace, near the entrance on the right of the high altar of
the cathedral of Ferrara. Perjurers went about after their conviction
with their tongues securely nailed to little logs of wood. The accounts
for the nails and logs exist. Duchess Lucrezia’s sumptuary laws were
unsuccessful. The sex of the legislator prevented her from manufacturing
laws to regulate fashion, which could be put into practical effect. That
was perfectly natural; nor does the failure in any way reflect upon the
excellence of the intentions of her ducal highness. She ordained that no
woman should wear a gown whose value was higher than the sum of fifteen
ducats (say £30), nor jewellery worth more than fifty ducats (say £100).
She furnished a specification of the gems which might be worn, and of
the fabrics of which gowns might be made. Also, she precisely specified
the quantity of material that might be used, and the cut and fashion
that was to be adopted. Further, in order to secure the observation of
these laws, she ordained a box, having a slit in its lid like a modern
letter-box, to be placed in the cathedral by the holy water-stoup; so
that fathers, husbands, or lovers, who found themselves outraged by the
length or the rotundity of the skirts, or the bulk of the sleeves, or
the violence of the style of their women-folk,—and the cost of the
same,—secretly might drop in denunciations while in the act of taking
holy water; the said denunciations afterwards to be attended-to in a
legal manner by the justiciary. Delightfully solemn and futile effort of
a charming woman. Well, it failed; not on account of the female peacocks
of Ferrara, but by reason of the very skewbald harlequins whose
propriety and purses it had aimed to benefit. How many denunciations
secretly were dropped into Duchess Lucrezia’s precious box, how many
scandalized fathers, husbands, and lovers, sneaked about their
daughters, wives, and lemans, is not known. Only one thing is
known,—there was not a justiciar in all the duchy of Ferrara, married or
unmarried, who dared even to allude to, much less to act upon, the said
denunciations, and enforce the law.
On the twenty-fifth of August 1509, the Duchess Lucrezia gave birth to a
second son, Don Ippolito d’Este, named after his uncle the heraklean
Cardinal; and who, in after years, became Archbishop and Cardinal of
Milan.
All through 1508 and 1509 the war went on. In December of the latter
year, a powerful Venetian fleet advanced to the mouth of the Po,
devastating the country on both banks, and invading the duchy of Ferrara
with frightful atrocities. Duke Alfonso, hurrying to meet the foe, won a
glorious victory at Policella: but the war dragged on till 1512, keeping
him in camp, away from his capital, which almost exclusively was
governed by the Duchess Lucrezia (she bore Don Alessandro d’Este in
1511), assisted by Cardinal Ippolito d’Este, now no longer a bandit, but
completely in the confidence and favour of his sovereign brother.
* * * * *
On the fifth of February 1510 died the noble and strenuous knight Don
Pietro Gregorio Borgia of the Junior Branch. He had been high in honour
with Duke Cesare de Valentinois della Romagna since he saved him from
the clutches of the Christian King Charles VIII in 1495; and had served
him as mounted scale-armoured arbalister, lieutenant, and
standard-bearer. On the fall of the Duke, he returned to his allegiance
to the Regno now ruled by the Catholic King Don Hernando. He was Viceroy
of the province of the Abruzzi when he died, and was buried in the
Church of San Clemente at Velletri, his native city.[89] His fine
epitaph[90] runs:
“HIC REQUIESCIT NOB. ET STRENUUS EQUES DOM. PETRUS BORGIA,
CATAPHRACTOR. LOCUM-TENENS, AC SIGNIFER CESARIS BORGIAE ISPANI
VALENTINI DUCIS, QUI OBJIT AN. DNI. MDX. D. QV. MEN. FEB.”
* * * * *
The year 1511 is remarkable for a wildly frenetic insurrection on the
part of the gentle old Cardinal Francisco de Borja, which cost that Most
Worshipful Lord his rank and his life. There is a limit to human
endurance. In some men it is wide; in others narrow: but human nature
subjected to unnatural suppression and restraint, sooner or later
desperately will struggle to burst its bonds. This principle has never
been understood by the clergy. It is one of the disabilities under which
they labour in dealing with men. History teems with examples of amiable,
would-be obedient, and respectable characters, tried beyond their
strength by inconsiderate ignorant oppressive injustice on the part of
churchmen, and transformed into savagely bitter and appallingly
destructive suicides. There is no better example than Cardinal Francisco
de Borja.
He was of the age of seventy years. Though his illustrious House had
been predominant in Christendom during more than fifty of those years,
he had never sought to benefit by the fact that his father was the Lord
Calixtus P.P. III, nor to intrude himself among the mighty who were his
blood-relations. Not till he was on the verge of his sixtieth year did
he become a personage; and then his august cousin, the Lord Alexander
P.P. VI, in admiration of his enchanting disposition, dignified him with
the scarlet hat and the rank of Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa
Lucia _in Silice_, (_Atti Consistoriali_). Later, he proceeded to the
Title of Santa Cecilia, (_Ciacconi_ and _Moroni_); thence again to the
Title of San Nereo e Sant’ Achilleo (_Atti Consistoriali_); and last to
the Title of San Clemente. He also was Treasurer of the Holy See, Bishop
of Teano, and Archbishop of Cosenza.
Seeing the exacerbating measures which the Terrible Pontiff, the Lord
Julius P.P. II was using against the House of Borgia, and especially the
spoliation of the two little boys Duke Roderico and Duke Giovanni, this
very sympathetic old cardinal had the indiscretion to put his frank
opinion of the Pope’s Holiness into certain letters which he wrote to
the Orator of Ferrara at the Court of Rome. This opinion could not fail
to be unfavourable and the reverse of complimentary. No doubt the Orator
was in direct communication with his sovereign, Duke Alfonso d’Este,
whom he would keep advised of the trend of sentiments and of events in
Rome. These letters came, by means which it would be improper to
describe, into the anointed hands of God’s Vicegerent. His Holiness read
them; and vehemently enraged himself against the Duke Alfonso d’Este of
Ferrara, and upon Cardinal Francisco de Borja, whom he incontinently
flung into prison with every species of indignity. The Sacred College,
tremorous for its own security if such treatment of a Purpled One should
pass without remonstrance, exerted its influence on the Holiness of the
Pope, and procured the ungracious liberation of Cardinal Francisco de
Borja.
But the ill was done. The milk of human kindness effectually had been
soured; the placid amiable old gentleman had been changed into a violent
malcontent breathing threatenings and slaughter, and whose fiery Spanish
blood at last was boiling over. Two other cardinals joined in his savage
revolt, the Lord Bernardino Lopez de Caravajal Cardinal-Bishop of
Sabina, and the Lord Guillaume de Briçonnet Cardinal-Bishop of Praeneste
(Palestrina). These three decamped from Rome to Pisa, where, a fourth,
the Lord Réné de Prie Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Sabina,
having joined them, they constituted themselves as a General Council;
and dared to cite the Lord Julius P.P. II to shew cause before them why
He should not be declared a Pseudopontiff, and deposed from Peter’s
Throne, by reason of the irregularity of His election due to Simony and
other crimes:—an excellent example of the sauce for the goose being
served to the gander.
Melpomene is own sister to Thalia; and never has a ghastlier tragedy
been more comically played. This self-styled Council of Pisa laboured
under the disadvantage of being radically schismatic. Only the Roman
Pontiff can summon, or confirm the decrees of, a General Council. The
acts of the Schismatic Council of Pisa, therefore, were hopelessly and
irretrievably invalid. The very impossibility of the whole affair is
proof conclusive that these four well-intentioned, well-living pathetic
old men had been tried beyond their strength, beyond all patience,
goaded by insult and by gross injustice into frenzy. Their conduct was
simply frenetic.
The Lord Julius P.P. II replied to Cardinal Francisco de Borja with
short incisive action. By His supreme authority He issued a Bull of
Deposition from the cardinalate; and denounced him to all Christendom as
an heresiarch and schismatic with whom none might have to do. A Bull
(Bulla Monitorii Apostolici) was issued on the twenty-eighth of July
1511 “_cõtra tres reverendissimos cardinales ... ut redeãt ad obediẽtâ
S.d.n. ne Schisma in eccl. in sancta dei oriẽt_.” This was followed by a
second “_Bulla intimatiõis Generalis Concilii apud Lateranum per S.d.n.
Juliũ Papâ II edita_,” directed, with the scrupulous politeness of a
cleric about to crush, against “_dilectũ filiũ nostrũ Franciscũ Tituli
Sancti Clementis p̃byterum Cardinalem_”; who “_in seipsis armis
assumptis et pro sacerdotalibus vestis Thorace[91] indutis et gladiis
armati Papā se cõtulerãt_.” Printed contemporary copies of these two
Bulls are in the British Museum; and, bound with them, but, strange to
say, uncatalogued (A.D. 1900)—(strange, because of the unique perfection
of everything at the British Museum)—is the momentous Brief announcing
the issue of the Bull of Deposition. Its title is “_Breve Julii Secũdi
Pont. Max. ad reges, duces, et principes christianos, etc._ “_Julius
Papa II_” addresses Himself to
“Our well-beloved son in Christ Maximilian, Elect-Emperor, Always
August;
„ „ „ Louis (XII), of the French, the Most
Christian King;
„ „ „ Hernando, of Aragon and the Two
Sicilies, the Catholic King;
„ „ „ Emanuele, of Portugal, the Illustrious
King;
„ „ „ Henry (VII), of England, the
Illustrious King;[92]
„ „ „ James (V), of the Scots, the
Illustrious King;
„ „ „ Wladislaf, of Hungary and Bohemia, the
Illustrious King;
„ „ „ Jean and Katharine, King and Queen of
Navarre;
„ „ „ Sigismund, King of Poland;
„ „ „ John, King of Denmark;
„ „ „ Carlo, Duke of Savoja;
„ „ „ Lionardo Lauredano, Doge of Venice;”
and proclaims that “this day, in Public Consistory, We have deprived” of
all things ecclesiastical, and of the cardinalitial hat, (_galero
cardinalatus_), Bernardino Cardinal-Bishop of Sabina, Guillaume
Cardinal-Bishop of Praeneste (Palestrina), Francisco Cardinal-Presbyter
of the title of San Nereo e Sant’ Achilleo (a clerical error for his
Title, as given above in the Bull, was San Clemente), and Réné de Prie
Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Sabina, that they no longer may
be considered Cardinals, nor called Cardinals, by word or by writing.
The Brief is _Dated at Rome at St. Peters, and given Under the
Fisherman’s Ring, the twenty-fourth of October 1511 and the eighth year
of Our Pontificate_. This summary is appended here as an example of
form.
Death had hurled his dart before the Terrible Pontiff. Cardinal
Francisco de Borja died of an apoplexy at Pisa, before the sentence of
his disgrace and deposition reached him there.
The student of history, who seeks a field wherein few yet have walked,
will be well advised to investigate the life of this gentle and quiet
cardinal, who departed in the tragic blaze of madness and revolt.
* * * * *
In 1512 death relieved the Lord Julius P.P. II of two more of the Borgia
whom He loathed: for there died in his Neapolitan exile the Most
Worshipful Lord Pedro Luis de Lançol y Borja, Cardinal-Deacon of Santa
Maria _in Via Lata_, Arch-presbyter of the Liberian Basilica (Santa
Maria Maggiore), Abbot of San Simpliciano at Milan, and Archbishop of
Valencia in Spain. Having heard a rumour of the death of the Supreme
Pontiff, he was on the verge of returning to Rome for the Conclave; but
he was killed by falling from his mule at Naples, where he is buried in
the church of San Piercelestino without any memorial.
This year also died Don Roderico de Aragona e Borgia, at the age of
thirteen years, the son of Madonna Lucrezia by her first legitimate
marriage with Don Alonso de Aragona Prince of Bisceglia. He had been
despoiled of his duchy of Sermoneta in favour of Caïetani by the Lord
Julius P.P. II; and his existence as a step-son was embarrassing in
Ferrara, except to his mother, who most sincerely mourned him.
The Duchess Lucrezia was to suffer much this year. The Lord Julius P.P.
II put the ban of Greater Excommunication upon her beloved husband Duke
Alfonso. As the consort of a Borgia—a Borgia universally adored, a
sovereign Borgia, a Borgia of unblemished character,—the Duke of Ferrara
naturally was intensely antipathetic to the Holiness of the Pope. If
that were not enough, the facts remained that Duke Alfonso was the
friend of France, (as the Supreme Pontiff’s predecessor also had been);
and, he was cognizant of Cardinal Francisco’s disesteem for the Lord
Julius P.P. II. Naturally the Pope’s Holiness found the Duke’s
Excellency most annoying. The awful import of Excommunication barely can
be realized at the present time. People idly wonder why the
excommunicated take their case so seriously—why they do not turn to find
amusement, or satisfaction, in another channel,—why they persist in
lying prone in the mire where the fulmination struck them. And, indeed,
in modern times the formal sentence rarely is promulgated, and only
against personages of distinction, like the German Dr. Döllinger or the
Sabaudo King Vittoremanuele II di Savoja, whose very circumstances
provided them with the means to allay the temporal irritation of the
blow. There are excommunications “_gerendae_ sententiae” and “_latae_
sententiae.” In the former, excommunication is threatened for some act:
but the offender must have sentence passed upon him. In the latter, the
offender is excommunicate the moment he performs the act forbidden,
(“ipso facto”). This however operates only “in foro _interno_,” and in
the Eyes of God. To make it effectual “in foro _externo_” it is
necessary that the guilt be proved and be declared to be so by some
“competent judge.” Excommunication _latae sententiae_ appears not to
have been uncommon in the Victorian Era. A Leading Case occurred in
December 1882, when it was enforced against a Scots clergyman on the
strength of the following letter:—
“ROME, _6 December 1882_.
“MY DEAR LORD ARCHBISHOP (of Saint Andrews and Edinburgh),—I have just
received a message from the Cardinal-Prefect (of Propaganda, Cardãl
Simeoni,) to tell your Grace ‘che il noto sacerdote il quale voleva
citare i Vescovi incorrerebbe senza dubbio la censura al primo atto
efficace che ponesse, ossia all’ atto della citazione, come _cogens
Ecclesiasticum ad tribunal laicum_. Se fosse ancora in tempo sarebbe
bene che l’Arcivescovo ne avvertisse il Sacerdote per distoglierlo da
tale atto.’
“Yours very respectfully,
“F. A. CAMPBELL,
“(then Rector of the Scots College of Rome.)”
The censure was Excommunicatio latae sententiae speciali modo reservatae
Romano Pontifici. Bulla _Apostolicae Sedis. VII_.[93] Seldom does a case
of Excommunication terminate in a perridiculous collapse, as this one
did, when the Cardinal-Prefect denied having sent the quoted message.
Seldom, on the whole, is Excommunication _latae sententiae_ made
effectual by proof of guilt and declaration of proof of guilt by a
competent judge. The effect can be produced in another and far more
exitial way. Simple secret instructions, or even hints, can be given by
bishops to clergy, or adverse opinions can be expressed by one clerk to
another, suggesting that it would be well (that it would tend ad majorem
Dei gloriam, some say,) to obstruct the worldly welfare of such and such
an one, to refuse him his rites and sacraments, or at least to offer the
last upon such conditions as the “proper pride” in human nature will
disdain to accept. This mode is purely devilish. It is capable of abuse
by unworthy clerks for personal ends. It admits of no defence, of no
appeal, of no redress, by the very reason of its intangibility. It
constricts a man in phantom folds. It blanches him with venomous breath.
The world, ever ready to pity some obscene dog who manifests his pain,
here sees nothing save one bruised and broken; desperately digladiant,
struggling with some invisible (and therefore incredible) foe. The
civilized world goes in terror of the invisible; goes by “on the other
side.” Excommunication of any kind is a fearsome thing for him to whom
the Faith once delivered to the saints is the only prize worth having.
To the man who, in defect of spiritual advice, is convinced of his own
integrity, to whom the sacraments are as “odorifera panacea,”[94] to
whom the sacraments are the only means which keep him from Despair,
their deprivation, by the revenge of a personal enemy, of an offended
vanity abasing spiritual powers to satiate secular ambition, signifies
that, for the excommunicate, the light goes out of life, love is
eradicated from the heart, confidence in man is killed, hope is banished
from death. Sympathy he may have from aliens, if he can humiliate
himself to expose his grievous wounds: but he may have it only at a
price which in honour he cannot pay—the price of insincerity to his
convictions—the price of apostasy. The dire Ban of excommunication,
formal or informal, drives a man wild; turns his hand against every man,
and every man’s hand against him; he is savage; he is a Bandit, actually
and literally. Sometimes he becomes criminal. Ostracism practised is a
school for scoundrels. Far more merciful—divinely merciful, not
humanly—it would be to slay outright the body; than to doom a soul to
live a solivagous life of torture—the torture of Hopelessness. That is
why Excommunication is so horrible in this present age of works. That is
why it was so trenchant a weapon in the ages of faith. It was, and is,
perfectly impossible to be resisted by one who is, and was, sincerely
faithful. Often enough, an excommunicate sovereign would try resistance;
for sovereigns are stronger than ordinary plebeians in the matter of
resources. Then, when an interval for consideration had elapsed, the
second blow of the Flail would fall—Interdict: his demesne would be made
to suffer loss of the means of grace, the sacraments, which were denied
to him. His subjects generally rose, resentful and revolting. There was
no reason why they should be afflicted, when submission of their
sovereign to God’s Vicegerent would suffice for their enfranchisement.
But sometimes Interdict also failed. The third blow came. Subjects were
absolved from their oath of allegiance to the excommunicate; his throne
was declared vacant; kings and princes of Christendom were invited to
invade his realm, to take his crown and sceptre, to expel him a homeless
friendless connudate outcast in a world that shunned him like a
pestilence, like the horrid leprous scab of creeping things which his
blasted human body inevitably would become. Then, suppliant, submissive,
he crawled to his Canossa; as the late Duke of Lauenberg crawled to the
Lord Leo P.P. XIII the other day; as Caesar Fridericus Ahenobarbus
Semper Augustus abjectly crawled to, and waited at, the gates of the
huge Englishman, Nicholas Breakespeare, the Lord Hadrian P.P. IV, who
ruled the world eight hundred years ago, “Not for thee, but for Peter,”
that indignant Emperor muttered, perforce doing groom’s service for
Peter’s Successor, holding the stirrup of the pontifical palfrey. “For
Us, _and_ for Peter,” the superb English Pope retorted, as He bent
Caesar to His unconquerable will. Arrogant? Arrogant——of any miserable
mortal man who did not believe himself to be, who had not been
officially crowned and saluted, and to whom every emperor and king and
prince of Christendom, every Christian sovereign and subject of Europe,
had not sworn allegiance as, “Ruler of the World, Father of Princes and
of Kings, Earthly Vicar of Jesus Christ our Saviour.”
When the action of the human mind is inspired by the principle
endeavoured here to be set down, the inexpugnable face of
Excommunication, (magnified by the assent to its validity of the
excommunicated one,) perhaps, may be realized. Duke Alfonso d’Este could
not hope to stand where Caesar Semper Augustus fell. Naturally, he went
in desperate and horrid fear. He knew that he had not deserved to be
gibbeted as a Bandit before the world: but he knew also that, before the
Holiness of the Pope, he, a sovereign-regnant, was crushable as a worm.
He lost no time in omitting to seek release from the hideous ban.
Early in 1513, he chose the poet Messer Ludovico Ariosto, with his
beautiful Greek profile and noble intellect, secretary and laureate of
Cardinal Ippolito; and named him as his Orator to open negotiations with
the Pope.
The Lord Julius P.P. II was perfectly implacable. He had not pardoned
the indiscreet criticisms of Cardinal Francisco de Borja, who had passed
beyond His power. It was the complete ruin of Borgia that alone would
slake His passionate thirst for vengeance;—and a Borgia was Duchess of
Ferrara. He did not intend kindness to the consort of that Duchess: and
He resolved to begin, in a clerical manner, with intimidation.
Accordingly, He admitted Messer Ludovico Ariosto to an audience; and
immediately ordered him to quit the Vatican by the door before he should
be thrown from the window. After this reception of a proffered
olive-branch, the Pope’s Holiness coolly awaited Duke Alfonso’s next
move.
Don Fabrizio Colonna flourished in the favour of the Lord Julius P.P.
II; and he, also, was under many vital obligations to the Duke of
Ferrara. He, in his turn, tried the role of peacemaker between pontiff
and sovereign; and so far succeeded, that the Holy Father farcically
permitted the Duke to come to Rome, assured of a favourable reception,
to plead his cause and to arrange the terms of his submission.
He came. He saw the Ruler of the World. He was conquered. The Terrible
Pontiff named the sole conditions on which He would consent to remit the
ban of excommunication. Nothing could be more enormously radical and
sweeping. They were, abdication of his sovereignty over the city and
whole duchy of Ferrara, with absolute renunciation for himself and his
heirs for ever of all rights therein, in favour of the Holy See; also,
his retirement to voluntary life-long exile at the little city of Asti
in the province of Lombardy. Death and obliteration of the Borgia, not
by vulgar assassination but by constitutional withdrawal of the means to
live, was the aim of the Terrible Pontiff; wherefore He would strip
naked Duke Alfonso, as aforetime He had stripped naked Duke Cesare.
Duke Alfonso d’Este refused to purchase release from excommunication on
these disgraceful terms. The Lord Julius P.P. II let him have hints
which gave to understand that the said terms might be mitigated. By
various subterfuges he was detained in Rome.
The army of the Terrible Pontiff stealthily was advancing on Ferrara.
There was only a woman there.
Duke Alfonso chanced to hear of the pontifical stratagem. On the
instant, he made his plans for quitting Rome. But he found that he was
in a prison. The Terrible Pontiff held him; and would not let him go.
The Lord Alexander P.P. VI may not have been a Saint: but He never
dirtied His honour like this.
This treachery of the Holiness of the Pope disgusted the Ghibellinism of
Don Fabrizio Colonna. This was not what he had contemplated, when he
persuaded Duke Alfonso to adventure his right hand in the jaws of the
Wolf of Rome. Considering himself to be responsible, his own honour at
stake, he played a counter-stratagem upon the Lord Julius P.P. II. By
his aid, the Duke broke prison; and, under his protection, in his
fortress of Marino fifteen miles from Rome, a safe asylum was provided.
Duke Alfonso desired to hasten to defend his duchy now menaced by the
Pope: and all Colonna acclaimed his resolution. Don Prospero Colonna
undertook to bring him there where he would be. Travelling by night
through hostile territory, environed by ever-present dangers, at length,
disguised as Don Prospero’s cook, the royal and ducal Bandit reached
Ferrara.
In the city there was joy. In the duchy there was confidence restored.
In the heart of the Duchess Lucrezia there was gratitude for the safety
of her much-loved lord. Ferrara was fresh from four years successful
war: an excessively dangerous enemy to assault, now that her leader led
her. The pontifical army executed a second strategic movement at the
double—to the rear.
And, before the year 1513 was three months old, the Terrible Pontiff,
the Lord Julius P.P. II, (Who, according to Monsignor Paris de Grassis,
successor to Burchard as Papal Caerimonarius, suffered from the French
Disease,) died at Rome, raving in His last delirium “Frenchmen, begone
from Italy! Begone from Italy, Alfonso d’Este!”
Dreadful end of a furious revengeful disappointed plebeian who was Ruler
of the World! The monstrous Moses of Michelangelo, in San Pietro _ad
Vincula_, marks His ambitious unfinished tomb.
* * * * *
The Most Illustrious Lord Giovanni de’ Medici, Cardinal-Deacon of Santa
Maria _in Domnica_, was the son of Lorenzo de’ Medici of Florence, born
the eleventh of December 1475. His mother was Madonna Clarice Orsini,
one of the sweetest and best of good mothers. Her husband said that his
own mother chose her for him,
“Tolsi donna ... ovvero mi fu data.
When Don Giovanni was of the age of seven years (the age of reason,
technically,) the Christian King named him Abbot of Fonte Dolce, on the
nineteenth of May 1483, in which preferment the Lord Sixtus P.P IV.
confirmed him twelve days later by Brief dated the thirty-first of May
1843. On the first of June he received the ecclesiastical tonsure, when
episcopal hands wielded scissors to cut the child-clerk’s hair in five
places—on the front, the back, the right, the left, and the crown, of
the head—while bishop and boy recited the psalm verse:
“The Lord is the portion— “_Dominus pars_—
“Of mine inheritance— “_Haereditatis meae_—
“And of my cup— “_Et calicis mei_—
“Thou art He Who shall restore— “_Tu es Qui restitues_—
“Mine inheritance to me— “_Haereditatem meam mihi_—
and finally the bishop endued him with the fair white linen surplice,
(super pellicem) the official vesture of his clerical estate. The
symbolism of this mystery seems to be that the clerk enlists himself in
the regular army of the Church Militant, sacrificing an actual piece of
his person as a pledge of his fidelity, and receiving as handsel, so to
speak, his uniform. From this date the child was called in his family
Messer Giovanni, (Mr. John). On the first of March 1484, he was named
Abbot of Passignano. He grew up a good and manly boy, fond of nice
things, grave, quietly merry, and a perfect gentleman. On the third of
March 1489, his father’s friend the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII created him
Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria _in Domnica_; but, as he was only of the
age of thirteen years, the creation was reserved _in petto_, while he
continued his studies under Canon Angelo Ambrogini (detto Poliziano);
who, in 1492 wrote to the Pope about his pupil,
“This youth is so formed by nature and education that, being inferior
to none in genius, he yields not to his equals in industry, nor to his
teachers in learning, nor to old men in gravity of demeanour. He
naturally is honest and ingenuous, and he has been so strictly bred
that never from his mouth there comes a lewd, or even a light,
expression. Though he be so young, his judgement is so secure that
even the old respect him as a father. He sucked piety and religion
with his mother’s milk, preparing himself for his sacred office even
from his cradle. (Ep. v. Lib. VIII)”
In the Publick Consistory of the twenty-second of March 1492, he was
admitted to the Sacred College, receiving the scarlet hat and the
cardinalitial sapphire ring, (whose value was six hundred zecchini
d’oro—say, £1200); and he was of the age of sixteen years, three months,
eleven days.
During his cardinalate his most delightful trait was the loving kindness
which he shewed to his young cousin Giulio, (Botticelli’s most precious
model), the bastard of Don Giuliano de’ Medici, by Madonna Antonia
Gorini of Florence, and who ended his life as the Lord Clement P.P. VII.
Cardinal Giovanni got him ennobled as a Knight of St. John of Jerusalem
of Malta, and Prior of Capua; and gave him an honourable position in his
household as confidential counsellor: and, indeed, it was to Don Giulio,
attending him as esquire in the Conclave of March 1513, that Cardinal
Giovanni generously said, when the result of the squittino (scrutiny)
was made known, “Come Giulio, let us enjoy the Papacy, since God hath
given it to Us:” and he immediately raised His cousin to the purple,
giving him His Own vacated rank of Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria _in
Domnica_.[95]
Cardinal Giovanni, like all the Medici, was congenitally myopic. In all
presentments of him, there is the slight forward bend or set of the neck
which marks the short-sighted man. Messer Paolo Giovio says that he
surveyed the world through a concave crystal, and that this affected his
skill as a sportsman. Messer Rafaele Sanzio’s portrait of him and his
cousin shows him with this concave crystal spy-glass in his hand. No
doubt his physical incompleteness wonderfully aided in developing his
enchanting taste and temperament; for it is well-known that the best
artist is the man who does not see all.[96]
The crowd, waiting outside the Conclave of 1513 for the annunciation of
the new Pope, were confronted by a doorway builded of the fragments of
other buildings. Some of the stones bore portions of mutilated
inscriptions; and the crowd amused itself by piecing these together. But
there was one large stone above the lintel, whose inscription baffled
explanation. It bore the letters
M. C. C. C. C. X. L.
and presumably had come from some edifice dated 1440. Presently, the
door was flung open; and the scarlet Cardinal-Archdeacon proclaimed, “I
announce to you great joy. We have for a Pope the Lord Giovanni de’
Medici, Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria _in Domnica_, who wills to be
called Leo the Tenth.” And in the doorway stood the white figure of the
new Successor of St. Peter, of the age of thirty eight years, His head
straining a little forward, peering through His half-closed bright eyes,
lifting His hand in Apostolic Benediction. Instantly a wag in the
kneeling crowd explained the cryptic inscription _Multi Caeci Cardinales
Creaverunt Caecum X (decimum) Leonem_; “Many short-sighted cardinals
created a short-sighted one Leo the Tenth.” That is a specimen of wit in
the year 1513, bright, quick, direct, pungent, and finished.
* * * * *
The election of the Lord Leo P.P. X was an immense relief to the Duke
and Duchess of Ferrara. It meant deliverance from unscrupulous
persecution for the Pope’s Holiness now was patrician, and at least a
gentleman, though no enemy to the House of Borgia. So Ferrara and Borgia
went in peace. The duchy had been at war for nearly six years, almost
without cessation; her resources were quite exhausted; her exchequer was
empty. So keen was the distress, that, in order not to add to his
people’s burden by pressing for his revenues, Duke Alfonso pawned his
plate, and Duchess Lucrezia her jewels which were of enormous value.
These were redeemed three years later: and it is to the inventory, made
when they were pawned, that modern knowledge of their extraordinary
rarity and worth is due.
* * * * *
On the thirteenth of September 1513 was born in Rome, of Don Tarquinio
Poplicola di Santacroce and Madonna Ersilia his wife, the Noble Don
Prospero Poplicola di Santacroce, afterwards Cardinal-Presbyter of the
Title of San Girolamo _degli Schiavoni_ and Nuncio, who introduced
Tobacco into Italy and gave it the name _Erba Santacroce_, Holycross
Herb.
* * * * *
The life of the Duchess Lucrezia, during the next few years, was a life
of calm after storm, _post tot naufragias tuta_. She won fresh fame by
her goodness to young girls, whom she provided with dowries, to tempt
them to keep continency by marrying well. Delightfully practical age,
which went directly to the point attempting no maudlin half-measures,
“so sweetly mawkish and so smoothly dull”! The ideal of the professional
philanthropist, then, was to make virtue easy, and vice difficult. The
ideal of the professional philanthropist, now, is to make virtue
horribly vulgar and vice an imperious necessity. The Duchess Lucrezia
had observed that the lack of money is the root of all evil; and, at
that root she struck.
Charming descriptions are extant of the evenings which this egregious
lady spent in conversation with poets and scholars, listening to music,
and working on the lovely embroidery for which she was so celebrated. On
the third of July 1515, she presented her lord with a daughter. The same
year she was grieved by the death of her friend, the great printer,
Messer Aldo Manuzio. That cool-headed, shrewd, and very learned
Venetian, the hereditary enemy of Ferrara, has left laudations of the
Duchess Lucrezia which are sincere and unsurpassable. It is not singular
that the great and good among her intimate contemporaries should be
those who praise her; and that her defamers should be professional
squibbers, notoriously base and venal. The following year, the eleventh
of July, 1516, she suffered the loss of her little son who was of the
age of five years. Is the touching letter, by which she conveyed the
news to her confidante and sister-in-law, the Marchioness Isabella
Gonzaga of Mantua, the letter of a wicked woman or of a good? She says,
“——the Most Illustrious Don Alessandro, my youngest son, after a long
and painful illness, in which remedies were of no avail, was seized by
a cruel dysentery. Yesterday, at the fourth hour of the night, (say,
midnight,) the poor little man (_poverino_) yielded his blessed soul
into the hands of our Lord God, leaving me much afflicted and full of
sorrow; as Your Excellency, being a woman and a tender mother
yourself, may easily believe.[97]”
On the Festival of All Saints, she bore another son to Duke Alfonso, who
was baptized by the name Francesco.
* * * * *
On the twenty-sixth of November 1517, there died in Rome Madonna
Giovanna de’ Catanei, the mother of the Duchess Lucrezia; and was buried
in Santa Maria _del Popolo_ by the Flaminian Gate. Nine of her letters
to her daughter, and rather crabbed letters too, are preserved in the
Archives of Modena. They are subscribed, “_La felice ed infelice
madre_;” which seems precisely to describe her condition. She was a
happy mother; happy in the gorgeous loveliness of her children, happy in
their good fortune, happy in being the mother of two dukes, a prince
duke, and a sovereign duchess: but unhappy, in that human law made their
father not her husband. Another letter of hers, dated from Rome the
fifteenth of December 1515, and signed “Perpetua Oratrice Vanozza,” has
been the means of causing some uncertainty as to her real name. The
following is suggested as an explanation.
“Vanozza”, of course, is a familiar abbreviation of “Giovanozza”, which
is equivalent to “Big Jenny”. Italians are deliciously disrespectfully
inoffensive in their use of universal and personal nicknames; which are
taken conferred without the least aggrievance. “Perpetua Oratrice[98]”
is not a name at all: but a quasi-official style.
In England at the present day, one frequently is startled by the receipt
of a letter, from some fervent member of that devout female sex (for
which Holy Church, knowing needs, diurnally prays), bearing as signature
the names of the writer, with the addition “E de M”. If one has not yet
seen the lions, (as the Fifteenth Century said of a novice,) one looks
for the university degree, knightly order, municipal or parochial rank,
of which those letters are the sign. But, when one knows them to stand
for “Enfant de Marie,” one remembers that a pious sodality, of French
origin and called “The Children of Mary,” is an excessively and
universally fashionable one among females; and doubts are at an end.
It is probable that there was some such pious association for females of
the Borgian Era. Madonna Giovanna always was a respectable well-living
character: but we know that she found salvation, was converted, became
_dévote_, in 1508, when she sat under Frat’ Egidio da Viterbo preaching
a course of Lent sermons in Rome.
It is suggested, then, that at once she began “to make her soul,” to
prepare to meet her God, for she was well on in years; and that she
became a member of some Confraternity of Perpetual Prayer, resembling
those of the present day whose members divide among themselves the duty
of praying the clock round, so that an unending stream of supplication
shall flow toward the Throne of Grace. It is suggested, that, being a
human woman, cherishing no objection to a little perfectly legitimate
advertisement of virtue (like the ladies of the “E de M” description),
Madonna Giovanna de’ Catanei formed the habit of signing her private
letters “The Perpetual Suppliant, Big Jenny.”
Her epitaph has been given on p. 261.
* * * * *
There are two documents of this year 1517, which go to prove that, at
this time, there existed no idea of concealing the parentage of Don
Giovanni Borgia the sometime Duke of Nepi and Camerino. The boy appears
to have made his home with his sister, the Duchess Lucrezia; for both
documents are issued under her protection and authority. She was
nineteen years older than her brother, who now was of the age of
twenty-one years; and her notable good nature, as well as her royal
estate, make it natural enough that she should be more mother than
sister to her august Father’s youngest son.
The first brief (they both are quoted in Cittadella,) is dated “sub die
Iº Nov. 1517”; and names the Bishop of Adria as Don Giovanni’s agent in
some pecuniary transaction, he being less than twenty-five, and more
than eighteen, years old. It begins, “Ferrariae in palatio habitationis
Ill^{mi} ... Ill^{mus} Dominus Joannes Borgia, _frater_ Ill^{mae}
Dominae Lucretiae Borgiae Ducissae Ferrariae, minor annis
vigintiquinque, maior tamen decem octo,——.”
The second brief is addressed to Messer Filippo Strozzi; and claims,
from the consuls of Pesaro, the baggage which the young noble had lost
after his shipwreck in sight of that city! It is dated the second of
December 1517; and begins, “Mandatum Ill^{mae} Dominae Ducissae
Ferrariae in palatio Ducali ... Ill^{ma} Domina Lucretia Borgia
Estensis ... suo nomine, et nomine ac Tanquam coniuncta persona Ill^{mi}
Domini Joannis Borgiae _eius frater_——.”
Little or nothing further has been discovered regarding the life of this
youth. His history, with that of his brother Prince Gioffredo Borgia of
Squillace, waits to reward research in the archives of Naples, Nepi,
Camerino and Ferrara. Reluctantly, they must be left here among the
_Sparks That Die_.
* * * * *
The following announcement closes the second epoch of the House of
Borgia. It is dated the twenty-first day of June 1519; and was sent by
flying posts to his nephew, the Marquess Federigo Gonzaga of Mantua: “It
hath pleased the Lord God to take unto Himself the soul of the
Illustrious Duchess, my much-beloved Consort. (Signed) Alfonsus Dux
Feraria.”
The “Illustrious Duchess” Lucrezia Borgia was buried in her favourite
church at the monastery of Corpus Domini, by side of her husband’s
mother the Duchess Leonor de Aragona, deeply and sincerely mourned by
her children, and her husband Duke Alfonso d’Este, and, indeed, by all
Ferrara duchy crowding round her bier. She was only in the forty-second
year of her age.
May she rest in the fragrant peace of her good deeds.
=Book the Third=
The Brilliant Light[99]
“_A fire that is kindled, begins with smoke and hissing, while it lays
hold on the faggots; bursts into a roaring blaze, with raging
tongues of flame, devouring all in reach, spangled with sparks
that die; settles into the steady genial glare, the brilliant
light, that men call fire_;”
The Borgia, who have gone before, present no difficulty to the Twentieth
Century. When once their formula has been learned, they are found to be
men of like passions with ourselves. They were born—they struggled
through life with an amazing amount of dignity and success—they died.
For a reason which has yet to be explained, the human race has made them
serve for hell-myths, for prodigies of turpitude, for symbols wherewith
to express ultimate and abysmal crime.
“The slave of his own appetites, in bondage to conventional laws, his
spirit emasculated by the indulgences, or corroded by the cares of
life, hardly daring to act, to think, or to speak, for himself;
man,—gregarious man,—worships the world in which he lives, adopts its
maxims, and treads its beaten paths. To rouse him from his lethargy,
and to give a new current to his thoughts, heroes appear from time to
time on the verge of his horizon; and hero-worship, Pagan or
Christian, withdraws him for a while from still baser idolatry. To
contemplate the motives and the career of such men may teach much that
well deserves the knowing: but nothing more clearly than this—that no
one can have shrines erected to his memory in the hearts of men of
different generations, unless his own heart was an altar, on which the
daily sacrifices, of fervent devotion and magnanimous self denial,
were offered to the only true Object of human worship.”[100]
The wheel of time makes one unerring revolution; and lo, a saint,—a
Borgia Saint.
To write of Saint Francisco de Borja, so that he may be known of men, is
more than difficult. Each man knows another, not by his strength but by
his weaknesses, not as surpassing but as lacking such and such of the
Ideal; for weakness makes men kin. And Saint Francisco de Borja gave no
sign of human weakness, little or no sign of human nature, after he had
reached his manhood. He has been called “a magnified non-natural man”;
and that is the only point of view from which he can be observed. He
lived entirely on the supernatural plane: the world, to him, was nothing
but an enemy with whom he would have neither art nor part: he was in it,
but not of it: his ways were not men’s ways, nor his thoughts men’s
thoughts: he rightly cannot be liked, or disliked, hated, or loved,
admired, or even judged. He must be taken as he was, comparable to none,
the exact antipodes of his strenuous august invincible magnificent
ancestors for there are “diversities of gifts,” in opposition to all
human ideals, a “magnified non-natural man.” His note is brilliantly
personal. He was utterly and absolutely selfishly solicitous about his
own salvation. He made that the unique object of his life; and, to that
end, he deliberately chose renunciation, hardship, ignominy, utter and
extreme. His singular devotion, to the task of living according to his
light, is a phenomenon of an intensity beyond the natural, environing
him with an aura as of one aloof, as of one alien among men, and,
therefore, altogether antipathetic to men.
He was the great-grandson of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, Whose bastard
Don Juan Francisco de Borja, Duke of Gandia in Spain, Prince of Teano
and Tricarico, Count of Chiaramonte, Lauria, and Cerignola, Constable of
Naples, and General of the Pontifical Army, had married Doña Maria de
Aragona, a princess of the royal House of Aragon. After the mysterious
murder of her husband at Rome in 1497, the Duchess Doña Maria married
Don Enriquez de Luna, uncle and Master of the Household to the Viceroy
Don Hernando of Castile, and Grand Commander of Leon, who soon left her
widowed the second time. She lived at Baeza in Granada, and devoted
herself to her two children, Doña Isabella, and Don Juan II de Borja,
who succeeded his murdered father as Duke of Gandia and the rest. When
her son married, she retired to the monastery of Poor Clares (the Second
Order of the Religion of San Francesco d’Assisi) at Gandia, where she
took the vows of a nun, and became Suor Maria Gabriella till her death
in 1537. Her daughter, Doña Isabella, who was betrothed to the Duke of
Segorbe, obtained the necessary dispensations, broke before marriage
from her affianced husband; and followed the Duchess of Gandia her
beloved mother to the Poor Clares, where she also took the vows as Suor
Francisca de Jesus.
Don Juan II married, first, Dona Francisca de Castro y Pinos; secondly,
Doña Juana de Aragona, bastard of Archbishop Don Alonso de Aragona of
Saragossa nephew of the Catholic King Don Hernando of Spain.[101]
Fourteen children were the offspring of these marriages;
DON FRANCISCO, THE SAINT:
Don Alonso, Abbot of Valdigna:
Don Enrico, Cardinal-Deacon of San Nereo e Sant’ Achilleo:
Doña Luisa, married Don Martino de Aragona y Gurrea, Duke of
Villahermosa:
Don Rodrigo, Cardinal-Deacon of San Niccolo _in Carcere Tulliano_:
“while still a youth” (Ciacconi)
Don Pedro Luis, Viceroy of Cataluna:
Don Tommaso, Archbishop of Saragossa, (in succession to Archbishop Don
Juan de Aragona bastard of Archbishop Don Alonso,) and Viceroy of
Aragon:
Don Felipe, Knight of Montesa and Governor of Oran:
Don Diego, died young:
_Doña Juana, First Abbess of the Royal Monastery of Discalced
Carmelites at Madrid. She died in the Odour of Sanctity_:
Doña Leonor, married Don Juan de Gurrea:
Doña Magdalena, married Don Hernando de Proxita, Count of Almenara:
Doña Margarita, married Don Fadrique de Portugal y Cordo:
* * * * *
Doña Isabella, followed her grandmother Doña Maria (Suor Maria
Gabriella), and her aunt Doña Isabella (Suor Francisca de Jesus)
to the Poor Clares of Gandia, of which monastery she became
Abbess.
That is a very characteristic family of a Grandee and Hijo de algo (son
of something) of Spain. Leaving the heir out of the question, the eight
sons divide between them two cardinalates, an archbishopric, an abbacy,
two viceroyalties, and a governorship: while, of the six daughters, two
enter religion and become abbesses, and four marry grandees and
semi-royalty of Spain. It is worth noting too, that shame on account of
their origin, or their ancestors’ supposed misbehaviour, has not yet
made its appearance. Alonso was the name of many royal bastards of the
House of Aragon, as well as of the Lord Calixtus P.P. III. Rodrigo was
the name of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, who also began his public career
in the Cardinal-Diaconate of San Niccolo _in Carcere Tulliano_, and
Whose eldest bastard (ob. 1481) was called Pedro Luis. All these names
were repeated here in the third and fourth generation; and the eldest
son of Don Juan II, bore the second name of his murdered grandfather,
Francisco.
The Terrible Pontiff, the Lord Julius P.P. II was reigning in Rome, when
Don Francisco de Borja was born in 1510 at the ducal palace of Gandia in
Spain.
The Terrible Pontiff was only a terrible memory ten years later, and the
Lord Leo P.P. X. was trying hard to “enjoy the Papacy,” in Rome when
riots arose in Gandia, the ducal palace was sacked, and Don Juan II,
with his family, was forced to flee for life. Don Francisco, then a
gracious boy of ten, was sent to his uncle Archbishop Don Juan de
Aragona at Saragossa,[102] who supplied him with a house and retinue
suited to his condition, and masters who taught him music, fencing, and
Latin grammar; for he was to be bred as became the heir to the duchy of
Gandia, and the future head of the Spanish Branch of the House of Borja.
In January 1522 died the Lord Leo P.P. X; and the Lord Hadrian P.P. VI,
a ship-carpenter’s son out of Utrecht in Flanders, was elected Pope,
called the Laocoon a pagan idol, walled-up the Belvedere statue-gallery
of the Vatican; and died. To Him, in 1523, succeeded Cardinal Giulio de’
Medici, cousin and life-friend of the Lord Leo P.P. X, who ascended
Peter’s Throne under the title of the Lord Clement P.P. VII. Great
changes were taking place in Europe. By marriage, conquest, inheritance,
or lapse, the Holy Roman Empire had passed into the hands of Spain. The
Elect-Emperor Carlos V, though he ceremonially had not been crowned with
the Iron Crown or the Double Golden Diadem, ruled in Spain, Naples and
Southern Italy, Germany, Austria, and part of France. King Henry VIII
Tudor, the Defender of the Faith, was becoming a power in England. The
Christian King of France was his rival: but the Continent of Europe
mainly was the Elect-Emperor’s, and wholly, perhaps, the Roman Pontiffs.
At the age of fourteen years, Don Francisco de Borja went to Tor de
Sillas as page of honour to the Infanta Doña Catalina, the
Elect-Emperor’s sister, who was about to be married to King Don Juan III
of Portugal.
When the marriage took place in 1525, Don Francisco did not accompany
his royal mistress to her new kingdom; because his father, who had for
him a higher ambition, had commanded his return to Saragossa to study
rhetoric and philosophy under his uncle, the Archbishop Don Juan. Here
he remained until he passed his seventeenth year; and in 1528 he entered
the Court of the Elect-Emperor Carlos V, where his robust physical
beauty, his courteous manner, and his brilliant ability, gained for him
a notable reception.
Humanly speaking, this acceptance of service under such a potentate is
most astonishing in a youth of the gracious piety of Don Francisco. The
Elect-Emperor was hot and reeking from the commission of what must have
seemed to be a perfectly appalling crime—the ghastly Sack of Rome of
1527, the fierce beleaguerment of God’s Vicegerent the Lord Clement P.P.
VII in the Mola of Hadrian, carnage, pillage, rape, rapine, sacred
monastic enclosures violated, virginity deflowered, nuns and the wives
and daughters of Roman citizens gambled for and ravished in the public
streets by the Elect-Emperor’s unpaid army of drunken Lutheran Goths and
Catholic Catalans. It was to the Court of this monarch that Don
Francisco de Borja brought the Gracious flower of his maiden manlihood.
Amid voluptuous surroundings, he found that it was better to marry than
to burn; and, in 1529, being then of the age of nineteen years, he led
in marriage the Noble Doña Leonor of Portugal. The Elect-Emperor, to
mark imperial approval, perhaps, also, from the generous benevolence of
a man who himself is about to receive—(he had come to terms with the
Lord Clement P.P. VII, and was hoping for the Dual Coronation,)—created
Don Francisco Marquess of Lombay.
The relations between Pope and Elect-Emperor were after this fashion.
Both were exhausted: both were desirous of peace. Peace, then, was
signed, and a perpetual alliance, on the twentieth of June 1527. The
Elect-Emperor had gained territory from Venice, and detached Genoa from
France; the Pope’s Holiness had promised to invest him with crown of
Naples, (which his predecessor the Catholic King Don Hernando of Spain
had stolen from the bastard Aragon dynasty in 1501); and formally to
crown him as Holy Roman Emperor. The Lord Clement P.P. VII had gained a
strong ally, who guaranteed to subdue rebellious Florence for the
pontifical nephew Duke Alessandro de’ Medici, to consolidate the
alliance by marrying the Bastard Doña Margarita of Austria to the said
pontifical nephew; and to procure the restoration of pontifical
authority in Emilia, Ravenna, and Cervia. They had been hideous enemies,
these two; and the Elect-Emperor had behaved abominably. Even now, he
refused to go to Monza or to Sant’ Ambrogio at Milan for the Iron Crown,
or to the Lateran Basilica of Rome for the Golden Imperial Diadem, as by
precedent he would have been compelled to do, had he belonged to the
House of Swabia. But he was a Spaniard, arrogant, cruel, unscrupulous,
and infamously powerful; and he insolently told the Pope’s Holiness that
he had not the habit of running after crowns, for, instead, they came to
him.
If the coronation of the Successor of St. Peter be a remarkable
function, the coronation according to the Roman Rite of the Successor of
Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus Augustus is but one degree less
sumptuous. It would be worth the while of any man of the Twentieth
Century to exchange lives with William of Hohenzollern, for the sake of
the opening which lies before him. In the case of Carlos V, all
ceremonies duly were observed. The Lord Clement P.P. VII came to
Bologna, a neutral city, for the coronation, and the Elect-Emperor met
Him there. On the twenty-second of February 1530, in the Chapel of the
Apostolic Palace, the Iron Crown[103] was set upon the imperial head.
Two days later, in the Cathedral of San Petronio, curtains were drawn
around the imperial canopy forming a pavilion wherein the Elect-Emperor
stripped naked for the anointing with holy oil and chrism. He was
ordained deacon, vested in the sacred imperial dalmatica, endued with
orb and sword and sceptre offered by reigning sovereigns, God’s
Vicegerent crowned him with the high closed Double Crown of Empire and
heralds proclaimed him
CAESAR
ROMANORUM IMPERATOR SEMPER AUGUSTUS MUNDI TOTIUS DOMINUS UNIVERSIS
DOMINIS UNIVERSIS PRINCIPIBUS ET POPULIS SEMPER VENERANDUS.
These things having been done, Pope and Emperor appeared in the
cathedral porch. There, Caesar Carlos V vested in full imperial
insignia, held the Pontiffs stirrup as He mounted, and led His palfrey
several paces, as a public act of homage and allegiance to Him By Whose
Sanction Kings Do Reign. Then, he mounted his own charger, and rode by
the Lord Clement P.P. VII’s side through the city of Bologna making
knights, as the way is, when the Pontiff left him.
It is probable enough that the Marquess Don Francisco de Borja
witnessed, and assisted at, this superb ceremony. He was attached to the
personal suite of Caesar Carlos V: but there is another circumstance
that implies that, in some way or another, most presumably in the flesh,
he was brought into contact with the Pope’s Holiness about this time. It
is that a little later, the Supreme Pontiff conferred an extraordinary
favour on his illustrious House, consisting of Five Privileges granted
to Duke Juan II of Gandia, his heirs and descendants of both sexes, and
whomsoever they might marry, IN CONSIDERATION OF THE SIGNAL SERVICES
RENDERED TO THE HOLY SEE BY THE HOUSE OF BORGIA. This unmistakeably
distinct statement shews that calumnies and lampoons of Messer Francesco
Guicciardini had made no ill impression on the Lord Clement P.P. VII,
who actually had met that writer when he was the guest of the _bas bleu_
Madonna Veronica Gambara during the coronation festivities at Bologna.
The fable of Borgia iniquity is a plant of later growth. In 1531 the
House was considered to have rendered signal services, deserving
recognition, _for a perpetual memorial_. Hence the granting of the Five
Privileges which follow here.
I
“To any confessor whom they may select,[104] powers to absolve them
from the gravest ecclesiastical censures and penalties: to commute the
obligation of fasting to almsgiving: once a year to absolve them in
cases usually reserved to the Holy See; or from any oath or vow but
those generally excepted.
II
“Special indulgences for the hour of Death, and for visits to a
church, or an altar: also, for every mass offered _by_ a scion of the
House (he being in priest’s orders), or _for_ any scion of the House,
indulgences equal to those which might be gained at the altars of San
Sebastiano, San Lorenzo, Santa Pudentiana, and Santa Maria _de Panis_
in Rome.
III
“Permission to use _Lacticinia_ (all food made of milk and eggs) and
meat,[105] on fast days throughout the year: this permission to extend
to guests and servants of the family. Permission to take luncheon at
mid-day, and dinner at night. Permission to receive the sacraments
within prohibited times.[106] Permission to be buried on any day in
the year, Easter alone excepted.
IV
“Priests who are scions of the House of Borgia may anticipate or
postpone their recitation of the Breviary Offices without observing
the fixed hours, reciting the whole office at once, or dividing it at
their pleasure.
V
“To female scions of the House of Borgia, or connections by marriage,
liberty once a month to enter the enclosure of nuns,[107] taking with
them four others to converse with the nuns, and to eat with them,
provided only that they do not remain for the night.” (_La heroica
vida, etc., del grande San Francisco de Borja, by Cardinal Alvaro
Cienfuegos. Madrid, 1717._ I. iii. 3, 4.)
The marriage of the Marquess Don Francisco, and the Marchioness Doña
Leonor, of Lombay, resulted in the birth of eight children, who were,
Don Carlos, the heir:
Don Juan, Count of Ficalho; Viceroy of Portugal; Ambassador of King
Don Felipe III.; Author of _Empresas Morales_ (1581); Married to
Doña Lorenza Oñaz de Loyola, heiress of Don Beltrano, Señor de
Loyola:
Don Alvaro, Marquess of Alcaguizes; Ambassador of King Don Felipe III
to the Holy See:
Don Hernando, Knight of the Order of Calatrava:
Don Alonso, Chamberlain to the Empress Maria:
Doña Isabella, married Don Francisco de Sandoval y Rojas, Marquess of
Denia, Count of Lerina: (from this marriage descends the ducal
house of Lerina:)
Doña Juana, married Don Juan Enriquez de Almanas, Marquess of
Alcanices:
Doña Dorotea, nun at the monastery of Poor Clares in Gandia.
Six years the Marquess Don Francisco spent in the duties of a husband,
father, and courtier. In 1536, he accompanied Caesar Carlos V on a
futile vainglorious expedition into Provence. Harassed by the French
commander Montmorency, his vast preparations all nullified, his troops
wasted by disease and discredited by disaster, half his army _hors de
combat_ by reason of famine and plague, two months of inglorious
campaigning sufficed for Caesar Carlos V. The French raised the
peasantry against him; his retreat became a rout; and only a shattered
fragment of his once-magnificent army reached the gates of Milan.
Burning to retrieve his shame in the eyes of Europe, he launched a
second vast expedition against Algiers; only to encounter a second
ignominious disaster. Such were the Marquess Don Francisco de Borja’s
experiences of war.
In 1537, died in the monastery of Poor Clares at Gandia, the Suor Maria
Gabriella (Doña Maria de Aragona y Luna) widow of the murdered Duke of
Gandia (bastard of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI), and grandmother of the
Marquess Don Francisco. The same year, also, death claimed his brother
Don Rodrigo, who had enjoyed the Cardinal-Diaconate of San Niccolo _in
Carcere Tulliano_ only one year.
In 1539, an event occurred which fundamentally affected the Marquess Don
Francisco. He and his wife the Marchioness Doña Leonor, were lord- and
lady-in-waiting to Caesar’s wife, the Empress Doña Isabella. While
Caesar was at Toledo trying to wring a grant of money from the Cortes of
Castile, a sudden illness took the Empress, and she died. The Marquess
and Marchioness of Lombay were entrusted with the duty of bringing the
imperial corpse for burial to Elvira. There, was performed the ceremony
of verification. Before the opened coffin, the Marquess Don Francisco
was required to swear before the magistracy, that its contents were the
mortal relics of the Empress Isabella. Corruption had set in, completely
ravaging the dead: the face was like no human face and totally
unrecognizable. The Marquess Don Francisco swore, not from recognition,
but from knowledge that the coffin had never left his care. But a
permanent impression scathed and branded him. He saw Death the
Inevitable, the Horrible. Life at its highest and best, such as he
himself enjoyed, offered no equivalent to, no consolation for, the end
which none escape. He resolved to qualify for life eternal.
Perhaps the most prominent note in the Spanish character is
singlemindedness. It can pursue a single aim with a concentration of
energy, with a fulness and pertinacity of unwavering will which is
simply astounding. Is it kind and noble: the kind nobility of Don
Quixote de la Mancha exemplifies Spanish ideal. Is it cruel: the
ruthless remorseless impersonal cruelty of Torquemada makes worlds to
wince. Is it pious: it achieves complete disagreeable detachment of soul
from every earthly sentiment, possession, hope, desire. Is it impious: a
Spaniard will ravish an abbess of eighty, the corpse of a virginal
novice, the statue of Truth. Is it gay: no lark in the sun on the
morning of Easter is gayer. Is it gloomy: black moonless night,
unstarred, brooding on pools obscure, shadowed by funeral pines, is not
more fathomless than the deep depth of gloom veiling sad Spanish eyes.
The sight of the dead Empress Isabella drew that veil across the joy of
living, for the Marquess Don Francisco. He resolved to abjure the world:
he prayed that God would shew the way, and break the bonds that bound
him there. He was of the age of nine and twenty years.
When he returned to Toledo, Caesar named him Viceroy of Cataluna and
Knight of the Order of Sant’ Jago. Entering with zeal on his new duties,
he swept away the brigands who made travelling dangerous and obstructed
commerce in his province. He found justice hard to come by; and the
judges corrupt and venal. He reformed them all. Hospitals for sick and
needy, schools and colleges for the education of the young, sprang up
under his viceregal rule. A Sixteenth Century Viceroy was responsible,
not to press or parliament or self-styled philanthropists; but to one
earthly power alone—the Caesar. So long as his province regularly paid
its tribute, and gave no trouble to the imperial exchequer, the Viceroy
had absolute freedom. He was a despot in all but name. On this account,
a Viceroy who laboured for his people’s welfare was something of a
novelty. The piety of the Marquess Don Francisco grew intenser; he
changed his habit; going to Holy Communion once a week instead of once a
month. He was trying to detach himself from the world—that despotic
Viceroy.
Presently, there came a new kind of religious man, neither monk, nor
friar, nor secular priest (to speak strictly), but a priest, one Padre
Aretino Aroaz, “of the company of Jesus,” he said; and he preached
before the Viceroy at Barcelona. From him, the Marquess Don Francisco
heard the marvellous history of the marvellous man, the Señor Don Iñigo
Lopez de Recalde, of the House of Loyola; who, born in 1491, the year
before the Borgia Lord Alexander P.P. VI began to rule Christendom from
Rome, had followed a career of arms; taken a serious incapacitating
wound in 1521; become converted; gone on a pilgrimage to Nuestra Señora,
the Μητροπάρθενος, of Montserrat, in 1522; lived ten months in an
hermitage at Manresa; studied theology in that same city of Barcelona;
testified everywhere to his faith in Christ; been imprisoned by the
Spanish Inquisition for heresy—six weeks at Alcala, three weeks at
Salamanca; studied theology again in Paris from 1528 to 1532; received
Holy Order as a priest; founded a Religion of military priest-knights of
Christ; gained the sanction and benison of Christ’s Vicar, the Lord Paul
P.P. III, for his “Company of Jesus”;[108] and given to the world a book
of Spiritual Exercises for the training of the soul in counsels of
perfection. All this was of extreme interest and significance to the
Marquess Don Francisco. To know more, he entertained a correspondence
with this Padre Iñigo de Loyola in Rome.
This same year 1539, the Viceroy’s brother Don Enrico had news that the
Lord Paul P.P. III deigned to raise him to the Sacred College, as
Cardinal-Deacon of San Nereo e Sant’ Achilleo, the Title of which
previously had been held by Cardinal Francisco de Borja, bastard of the
Lord Calixtus P.P. III who died excommunicate in 1511. Setting out for
Rome to receive the cardinalitial insignia, Don Enrico reached Viterbo,
where he suddenly died in September 1540. His epitaph in the Vatican
Basilica shews that no shame was known at this date on account of
descent from the invincible Lord Alexander P.P. VI.
“HENRICUS . GENTE . BORGIA . NATIONE . HISPANUS .
PATRIA . VALENTINUS . ALEXANDER . VI. . PRONEPOS .
DUCIS . GANDIAE . F . DUM . IN . MAXIMA . SPE . ASSURGERET .
IMMATURA . MORTE . HEU . NIMIUM . RAPTUS . EST .
SPIRITUS . IN . CAELO . CORPUS . HIC . QUIESCIT.”
There were now no cardinals of the House of Borgia.
In 1543, died the Duke Don Juan II. de Borja, father of the Viceroy
Marquess of Lombay, who now succeeded to the Duchy of Gandia, the
principalities of Teano and Tricarico, the counties of Chiaramonte,
Lauria, and Cerignola. Having obtained Caesar’s leave to resign the
Viceroyalty of Cataluna, Duke Don Francisco de Borja returned to court,
where he was appointed Master of the Household of the Infanta Doña Maria
de Portugal. This princess was betrothed to the Infante Don Felipe, son
of Caesar Carlos V; and it appeared that worldly ties were not to be
untied, but tightened for the Duke of Gandia. But the Portuguese Infanta
died before marriage, her household was dispersed; and Duke Don
Francisco retired to his duchy, where he began to make plans for a new
college for the Company of Jesus (which perfectly had charmed him), and
for a new monastery of Dominican nuns in whom his Duchess Doña Leonor
was interested.
* * * * *
The year 1546, in a most signal manner marked the Duke of Gandia’s
progress along the road of detachment from the world.
The Duchess was sick. The Duke was praying for her recovery. The FIGURE
on the Crucifix spoke to him.
What follows here rests on sworn testimony at the subsequent process of
canonization, later to be described; a formal legal process that, from
its scope and stringency, demands as much consideration as the Report of
a Royal Commission, or, better still, a Decision of the Judicial
Committee of the Privy Council, in modern England.
The FIGURE on the Crucifix spoke: “—oyo una voz sensible, carinosa e
distinta, que Christo articulaba desde aquella estatua muerta.”[109]
IT said: “Si tu quieres que te dexe à la Duquesa mas tempo in esta vida,
yo lo dexo en tu mano; pero te aviso que à ti no te conviene esto.” _If
thou askest Me to leave the Duchess longer in this life, I will do so;
but I warn thee that this will not be profitable to thee._[110]
The Duke of Gandia repeated this to his confessor. He also told him his
reply, which was as follows:
“What is this, O my God? Dost Thou indeed commit to a weak and
trembling hand like mine, a Power which belongs to Thy Divine
Omnipotence? What art Thou, O my Only Good? And what am I, that Thou
should’st desire to do my will; when I was sent into the world for the
purpose of doing Thine Alone, and of obeying, not only Every Command,
but Every Inspiration of my Rightful Master? What Immeasurable
Goodness is This, that, in order to shew favour to a creature, Thou
should’st be willing to abrogate Thy Supreme Prerogative as his
Creator! Since it is my wish to belong, not to myself, but altogether
to Thee, I desire that, not my will, but Thine, should be done. Leave
nothing O Lord to the decision of Francisco de Borja. Remember how
often his feelings have blinded him and led him astray. Surely I
cannot do less in return for Thine Infinite Condescension and Gracious
Generosity, than to offer to Thee the lives of my wife and children as
well as mine own, and everything, in fact, that I possess in the
world. From Thine Hand I have received all: to Thee do I return all:
earnestly entreating Thee to dispose of all according to Thy Good
Pleasure.”
The Duchess died.
It is unnecessary to engage in a disquisition anent the Speaking
Crucifix. It is conceivable that He, Who made the ass of Balaam speak,
could also make a statue speak. It already has been said that this
history deals with matters which, as far as little human knowledge
goes—and that is not far—, are out of the course of nature. The affair
most rigorously has been investigated, and admitted, by a competent
tribunal, whose verdict must be taken as going as near the path of truth
as it is possible for a human tribunal to go. Therefore, the item of the
Speaking Crucifix, with other items of supernatural manifestation, will
be related as they occur, without attempts to explain them away, or to
fit them with an adequate apology. If it be granted that they be
possible, they at once become extremely probable. The length and
elaboration of the Duke of Gandia’s reply are considered, by some, as
proving it to have been composed after the event, and with due
consideration. This conclusion is quite worthy of notice, because it is
open to serious and practical objection. The few men, and the many
women, who habitually pray to God and to His saints, who are in direct
frank frequent and habitual communication with the other world, will be
perfectly well aware of the spontaneous ease with which ideas
automatically sort themselves, the formal phrases of the special
language automatically flow, from the lips of those whose life is one
continual prayer. To these the Duke of Gandia’s utterance presents no
difficulty: they recognize a foreign tongue with which they chance to be
acquainted. Also, it is quite permissible to understand those words as
not having been uttered actually, but as clothing the sentiments of the
mind of the Duke of Gandia.
Viewing the affair from a human stand-point, ordinary men will regard
Duke Don Francisco’s conduct as abhorrent, as heartless, as utterly
brutal. It was. Granting the circumstances, he deliberately sacrificed
the life of his wife. But his conduct was purely superhuman, purely
supernatural. He was one of the many Roman Catholics of the Sixteenth
Century—the Twentieth is less prolific—who really and truly believed _In
The Life Of The World To Come_. His actions prove it. He knew that every
man inevitably must submit to the hideous ordeal of surrendering to
God’s enemy, Death, as the price of entrance to eternity. He judged
that, the sooner this ordeal was over, the better it would be.
Therefore, confident in the merits of his Saviour and his wife’s, the
chance of translation being offered, he incontinently accepted on her
behalf. It was the act of a truly Christian, of a cruelly unworldly man.
“He wished to be rid of his wife!”
He did wish. Is it wrong to accept the joy of heaven for one loved,
suffering here on earth? “But his wish was selfish!”
His wish was selfish. The Duke of Gandia gained by the death of his
wife. He gained liberty to tear the flesh of his gracious body with
thongs and scourges. He gained liberty to abdicate his duchy, his
marquessate, his two principalities, his three counties; to strip
himself of every farthing of his enormous wealth; to forsake his home,
his children, his palaces, and his power; to starve on foul bread and
fouler water; to wear odiously ugly clothes; to do menial service for
his natural inferiors; to wheel manure in barrows; worst of all, to herd
with vulgar men; to make himself disliked and scorned and hated,
literally——: if it be selfish to desire these things, then the Duke of
Gandia was a selfish man. “It is impossible to admire him!”
People who say these silly things make the mistake, commit the
injustice, are guilty of the absurd inconsistency, of judging the Duke
of Gandia by comparing him to their own ideal. He must be regarded as he
was; not as he might have been if he had imitated the ideal of some
Twentieth Century plumber, haberdasher, or journalist. It is not
necessary to admire him. He never courted admiration; nor imitation
either. What he did was personal between himself and his God. He acted
up to his lights. He obeyed the voice of his conscience. He took for his
ideal, that of San Francesco d’Assisi,
NUDUS NUDUM CHRISTUM SEQUENS,
He had the right. The affair was his. And his deeds can be related only:
for, to use them to teach a lesson or to point a moral would be like a
vain beating of the air. Lessons in this department of knowledge are
given by no human instructor; and they are given solely to the hearts of
willing learners.
The first hindrance was removed.
A few days after the death of the Duchess, Père Pierre Lefevre of the
Company of Jesus arrived at Gandia, by previous arrangement, to lay the
foundation stone of the college which the Duke was building for the
Jesuits. He brought with him the Book of Spiritual Exercises written by
the General Padre Iñigo de Loyola. The Duke of Gandia took advantage of
his presence to perform these Spiritual Exercises, consisting of
prayers, pious meditations, and rigorous and systematic searchings of
the heart. Feeling profited by this experience, he wrote to the Lord
Paul P.P. III, begging Him to pronounce Apostolic Approval of the book.
In course of post, (which the Sixteenth Century carried on by means of
private couriers,) that is to say in the course of a few months, he
received from the Holiness of the Pope a Brief of Recommendation. The
Bull of Approval was issued on the thirty-first of July 1548.
This Brief caused him to resolve to join the Company of Jesus; and he
wrote his resolution to the General without delay. When the death of his
Duchess made him free to renounce the world, he seriously had thought of
becoming a Friar Minor. His name Francisco gave him San Francisco
d’Assisi, the founder of the Religion of Friars Minor, as his
patron-saint: the abject poverty, the singular contempt of the world,
the awful austerities of the Franciscans admirably agreed with his habit
of mind. He consulted his resident chaplain who himself was a Friar
Minor. To this friar, there came a vision of Madonna Mary saying, “Tell
the Duke to enter the Company of my Son.” To Duke Don Francisco, also, a
statue of Madonna Mary spoke the same words. Hence his final resolution.
Padre Ribadaneira of the Company of Jesus, who, afterwards was his
confessor, and who wrote the life of the Duke of Gandia and swore before
five tribunals of the truth of every word that he had written, says (xv.
238) that, for the next seven days, Duke Don Francisco was afflicted
with an apparition of a sumptuous mitre always floating above his head.
He had much fear. He knew that, when a person of his quality
relinquished a brilliant secular career, an equally brilliant
ecclesiastical one lay open to him. This was the very last thing that he
desired. He swore to God that, unless the apparition left him, and he
should be allowed to practise poverty during his whole life yet to come,
he would refuse to don the clerical habit: for he felt the prospect of
dignity to be a danger. Then the apparition left him: How exceedingly
natural is this example of unconscious cerebration. It would have been
strange indeed if the Duke’s crushed and bruised humanity had not
asserted itself in phantasmal apparitions.
The singular reply of the General of the Company of Jesus shall be given
in full. Its curious worldly care for the worldly welfare of worldly
people, its wonderful depth of spirituality for him who is spiritually
minded, its complete grip of the subject, its polite piety, its discreet
judgment, its personal humility, its impersonal dignity, its
authoritative decision, its quaint gravity of form, stamp it as the work
of a great and powerful mind. Padre Iñigo de Loyola wrote as follows:
“MOST NOBLE LORD:—
“It gave me great delight to hear of the resolution with which God in
His Infinite Goodness has inspired you. Since we, who are on earth,
are unable to render Him sufficient thanks for the favour which He has
been pleased to show to our humble Company, in calling you to join it,
I humbly beseech the angels and the saints who are now enjoying His
Presence in heaven to supply our deficiency in this respect. I trust
that Divine Providence will cause this decision of yours to be the
means of effecting much good, not only in regard to your own soul, but
to the souls of many others who may be led to follow your example. As
for us who are already members of the Company, we shall strive to
serve with increased devotion the Gracious Father, who has given us so
skilled a labourer to aid in the work of cultivating the tender vine,
which He has been pleased to entrust to my care, although I am in
every respect unworthy of the office. In the name of the Lord, I
therefore receive you at once as our brother, and shall henceforth
regard you as such. Most truly can I promise to feel for you, now, and
always, an affection proportioned to the large-hearted generosity with
which you desire to enter the House of God, there to serve Him more
perfectly.
“With reference to your enquiries as to the time and manner of your
entrance into the Company, I have laid the matter before God in
prayer. It is my opinion that this change must be made with much
caution and deliberation, in order that you may not leave any of your
immediate duties unfulfilled; otherwise it may not prove to be
A.M.D.G. (Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam—_To The Greater Glory Of God_; the
motto of the Company of Jhesus.) You had better keep the affair a
secret at present; at least as far as it is possible to do, striving
meanwhile so to arrange things as to be free as soon as you can, and
at liberty to carry out the plan you so ardently desire to execute for
the love of our Lord.
“In order to make myself more plainly understood, I may as well say
that, as your daughters are of a marriageable age, I think you ought
to endeavour to see them suitably settled. It would be well if you
were also to choose a suitable wife for your eldest son, the Marquess
of Lombay. In regard to your other sons, it would be better not to
leave them dependent upon their elder brother: but to assign to each a
suitable and sufficient income of his own; allowing them meanwhile to
pursue their university career. It is reasonably to be hoped that, if
they fulfil, as I trust and believe they will, the promise of their
youth, the Emperor will extend to them the favour he has always shown
to you; and will bestow upon them, when the right time comes,
appointments in keeping with their rank. You must also try and push on
the various buildings you have begun; for I think it desirable that
they should all be completed, before the great change you are
contemplating is generally made known.
“Meanwhile, you cannot do better, since you are already a proficient
in most branches of human learning, than apply yourself to the study
of Theology. It is my wish that you should do this with much care and
pains; for I should like you to take a doctor’s degree in the
University of Gandia.
“I cannot conclude without inculcating upon you to take every possible
precaution in order to prevent this astonishing piece of news from
being prematurely divulged. I feel that I need add no more on this
head.
“I shall hope to hear frequently from you; and I will try to give you
all the advice and assistance you may need. In the meantime, I shall
beseech our Lord to grant you all graces and blessings, in
ever-increasing abundance.”
That truly is an extraordinary letter. The two men had never met. Only a
few letters at long intervals had passed between them; yet there is not
the slightest doubt or misunderstanding. The humble priest, readily but
not avidly, calmly but not arrogantly accepts the role of mentor to the
brilliant duke. He is very glad to get a duke—who will have done with
dukedom: but he will allow no looking back when once the hand is put to
the plough. The severance must be absolute and irrevocable; and, to this
end, Padre Iñigo de Loyola gives an exhibition of plain and practical
common sense expressed in terms of courteous and definite command, _It
is my wish_—_I think you ought_——.
So during the next four years the Duke of Gandia laboured to carry out
the orders of his ecclesiastical superior, removing the only hindrances
that bound him to the world. His late wife’s sister Doña Juana de
Meneses acted as mother to his children. In 1548, he married his heir
the Marquess Don Carlos of Lombay, at the age of eighteen years, to Doña
Magdalene de Centellas y Cardona, Countess of Oliva. In 1549, he married
his daughter Doña Isabella to Don Francisco de Sandoval y Rojas,
Marquess of Denia and Count of Lerina. He finished the buildings of the
Dominican monastery at Gandia, and of the Jesuit College which is richly
endowed with houses for poor scholars, and for children of the Maranas
or Jews on condition of baptism. He also obtained charters from the Lord
Paul P.P. III and from Caesar Carlos V. raising this college to the rank
of an university.
At last, in 1550, he left his duchy of Gandia and journeyed toward Rome,
escorted by a retinue of thirty servants, and his second son Don Juan de
Borgia of the age of seventeen years. He had to pay the penalty of his
extraordinary notoriety. On his passage through Ferrara, the reigning
Duke (who himself came of Borgia stock) met him with fêtes and
processions. At Florence, Duke Cosmo de’ Medici accorded a
state-reception. He was going to renounce the world; and the world made
a triumphal progress of his going. His desire to slink into the lowest
place won him attention verging on adoration. His chagrin was
undisguised. He envoyed an avant-courier to ask his superior’s leave to
enter Rome by night avoiding publicity. Padre Iñigo de Loyola
peremptorily refused: for the Duke of Gandia was too good an
object-lesson to be thrown away. His entrance into the Eternal City,
whose citizens even in 1550 revered the memory of Borgia, was like that
of a king who comes into his kingdom. The Lord Paul P.P. III sent
ambassadors to welcome him, and to offer lodging in the Apostolic Palace
of the Vatican: but the Duke of Gandia hurried to the Jesuit College;
doing obeisance at the feet of the General and Founder of the Company of
Jesus. So these two unique personalities first met, whom now men call
Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Saint Francis of Borgia.
Padre Iñigo de Loyola immensely admired the Duke of Gandia. This last,
whose gracious and brilliant figure caused him to be compared to Apollo
and gained for him the nickname The Modern Narcissus, already was known
to fame as a ruler and orator born. He was the master of enormous wealth
and influence; and his only ambition in life was to strip himself of
these and abnegate his will at the command of another. During his
sojourn in Rome, he lavished his revenues on the foundation of the Roman
College. The honourable title of Founder was offered to him by his own
General: but he begged to be excused; and the title afterwards was
accepted by the Lord Gregory P.P. XIII, Who named the college The
Pontifical Gregorian University of Rome. Meanwhile, he sent a courier to
Augsburg, where Caesar Carlos V was, with a letter in which he asked his
sovereign’s leave to resign all his titles and estates. While he was
waiting for the reply, his General obliged him to fulfil all the duties
of his ducal rank; whereby he was brought into intimate relations with
the Holiness of the Pope and the Curial Cardinals. Even in this august
assemblage he won regard. The Pope and the cardinals became so fond of
him, that they disliked the notion of allowing so brilliant a man to
bury himself in the severe Religion of Padre Iñigo de Loyola. It was a
waste of talent, they said; and the Supreme Pontiff proposed instantly
to name him cardinal, like his dead brothers Don Rodrigo and Don Enrico.
It did appear to be a waste of talent. But that was a personal account
which the Duke of Gandia would have to settle with his Judge. In these
specimens of abnormal humanity, interference invariably is fatal, owing
to natural forces. It always is the safest and wisest plan, not to
hinder, but to help a sane well-meaning man, who is aware of his
responsibilities, to do the thing which he wants to do. For human nature
is capable of amazing outbreak, violence, and divarication, where it is
not free.
After four months in Rome, suddenly, and with no leave-taking, the Duke
of Gandia fled to Spain. The prospect of a scarlet hat had become too
real, too terrifying. Of course there is not the slightest danger that a
man may be made cardinal against his expressed desire. The cardinalate
is not an infectious disease like the plague, or scarlet fever; nor is
it a sacrament, like baptism, which leaves an ineradicable mark upon the
soul. It conceivably is possible that only brutal rudeness and
incivility will suffice for its avoidance:—but they will suffice. And it
can always be renounced, rare though renunciations be. The Duke of
Gandia was a very gracious lord, in full possession of all his
faculties, utterly uninfluenced; and, no doubt, he wished to avoid an
occasion when his conscience would direct him to be ungracious or
uncivil to the benevolence of the Holiness of the Pope. In his flight,
he first went to the castle of Loyola, where his General had been born,
to thank Heaven for the nativity of that marvellous man: then, onward
again, a few miles to the little town of Oñata in Guipuscoa, where there
was a house of the Company of Jesus. The Lord Paul P.P. III died in Rome
this year 1550: and was succeeded by the Lord Julius P.P. III.
The Duke of Gandia received a Brief from Caesar Carlos V, dated the
twelfth of February 1551, giving permission, to divest himself of rank
and to renounce the world, with very much regret at losing the
allegiance of his most brilliant subject, and solely because Caesar felt
that to refuse would be opposition to the Divine Will. He made the
formal act of renunciation before a notary at Oñate; bestowing his
duchy, his principalities, and his counties on his heir, the Marquess
Don Carlos of Lombay; distributing his estates and wealth among his
children. He laid aside his sword, which, according to the fashion of
the courtiers of Caesar Carlos V, he rode cock-horse, (so to speak,) as
it hung between his legs. He had his hair cut short, and the tonsure
shaved on his head. He changed his ducal robes for the shabby
ill-fitting black habit of a Jesuit. On Whit Saturday he was ordained
priest; and the Duke of Gandia disappeared in Padre Francisco de Borja.
In his after life, he never would allow of any allusion to his former
style, except when he chanced to hear of the refusal by the Company of
Jesus to admit a would-be but unsuitable novice, when he would say, “Now
I thank God from the bottom of my heart for having made me a duke; for
assuredly there was nothing else about me which could have induced the
superiors to accept me”: an opinion which shews that Padre Francisco’s
extremely poor opinion of himself betrayed him into exaggeration—a
little human touch which brings him nearer to human understanding.
He said his first mass privately in the chapel of the castle of Loyola,
on the first of August 1551, the Festival of St. Peter’s Chains; and
gave Holy Communion to his second son, Don Juan de Borja, who, having
found it hard to leave his father, was losing his young heart to Doña
Lorenza Oñaz de Loyola, heiress of the Señor Don Beltrano de Loyola.
Padre Francisco’s second mass was a public function. All the people
round about persisted in nicknaming him “Lo Santo Duque,” _The Holy
Duke_. The Lord Julius P.P. III granted a plenary indulgence to all who
should assist at this mass, on the usual conditions of confession and
communion. To satisfy the multitude the mass was to be said in the city
of Vergara: but no church would hold the crowd, and the altar was
erected in a field by the hermitage of Santa Ana. It began at nine
o’clock in the morning of the fifteenth of November 1551, and continued
till three in the afternoon, so overwhelming was the number of
communicants. (The ordinary mass lasts half an hour.) The sermon was
preached by Padre Francisco in the courtly Castilian dialect: but it is
recorded that people of all provinces understood him, even those whose
native tongue was Basque. A certain Don Juan de Moschera publicly cursed
him; to whom Padre Francisco instantly went, begging pardon for being
worth a cursing.
He set up as a hermit in a wooden cell near the Jesuit House at Oñate;
and gained fame as a preacher, especially (strange to say) among the
learned clergy. Men who take pleasure in approving of others, newcomers,
of the same trade, are very rare: but for the clergy to approve of a
preacher is rarer. He wrote a manual of Advice to Preachers, which had
an unusual vogue. He was very fond of the breviary hymn _Vexilla Regis
prodeunt_, (The Royal Banners forward go;) and repeated with delight of
soul the stanza,
“_Arbor decora et fulgida,
Ornata regis purpura:
Electo digno stipite,
Tam Sancta Membra tangere._
“O Tree of glory, Tree most fair, ordained those Holy Limbs to bear;
How bright in purple robe It stood, the purple of a Saviour’s Blood.”
(“Hymns Ancient and Modern.”)
He worked miracles. A lady had two splinters of wood; the one was
unnotable, the other was a Relique of the True Cross: but which was the
Relique was not known. Padre Francisco, to decide, broke them both; from
one, Blood dropped upon a piece of paper. An Infanta of Spain put him to
a similar test: but in this case the relique was said to be a piece of
the skin of St. Bartholomew Apostle (he was flayed alive), with another.
Padre Francisco tore both skins; and again blood dropped from one on
linen. The blood-stained paper and the blood-stained linen, with both
reliques, are in the monastery of Poor Clares at Madrid. Multitudes came
to see the quondam duke as hermit; they said that they saw a radiant
nimbus lighting the pallor of his brow; and to prevent Padre Francisco
from becoming puffed up, (an excessively unnecessary precaution, one
would think,) his superior at Oñate, Padre Ochiva, set him to hard
menial labour, to dig, saw, carry stones, chop wood, light fires, help
in the kitchen, and wheel barrows of manure. The General, to whom every
detail was reported, sent Padre Francisco to preach in Portugal, where
the Company of Jesus was little known; and his mission met with great
results. With himself he was most severe. All physical beauty was gone
from his once gracious body, macerated in ceaseless austerities. He took
the habit of signing his letters _Francisco Pecador_, “Francis the
Sinner”: but his sapient General promptly stopped that practice, saying
that Singularity was not the seed of Sanctity. All letters which came to
him addressed to The Duke of Gandia, he returned, inscribed _Not for
me_, _Francisco S.J._
The Lord Julius P.P. III issued a Brief, offering him a scarlet hat. He
sent a firm refusal in reply. It has been said that he feared to accept
the cardinalate, lest he should be elected Pope at the next Conclave.
The statement is absurd; because
(α) in theory, the election of the Successor of St. Peter is the work
of the Holy Spirit; and _ubi Spiritus ibi libertas_, where the
Spirit is there is liberty: not cardinals alone, but humble
priests as well, or newly tonsured clerks, or any Christian
male, is eligible:—there is no such absurd thing as a
restriction on the Right of the Divinity to choose his Vicar;
and Padre Francisco, therefore, was as liable in black, as he
would have been in scarlet:
(β) if he had been elected Pope, it was open to him to refuse or to
accept the Call.
Some Roman Catholics hold that he _could_ not have refused. But Popes
can abdicate, and have abdicated! But _would_ he have refused? Would he
have been allowed by the General of the Company of Jesus to refuse?
There is no knowing. Such a case has never occurred.
There never has been a Jesuit Pope. It would have been an unique, an
unheard of situation,—the Company of Jesus in full power, armed with
plenary authority, absolute in all the world, practising unscrupulous,
uncompromising Christianity. The conditions of the Millennium would
stand in a fair way of being fulfilled—to speak by the Book.—But Padre
Francisco de Borja refused the scarlet hat; for he wished for himself
complete detachment from the world, and nothing more, here.
Returning from his mission in Portugal to Spain, he evangelized the
provinces of Castile and Andalusia. At Alicaza, he healed a cripple
girl. At Valladolid, he raised the dead to life. Two teeth being knocked
out of the head of a great preacher, his companion, they were replanted
by Padre Francisco: and never old age nor decay affected them. The
General named him Provincial for Spain and the Indies; and Father and
Founder of the Company of Jesus in Spain and Portugal. His preaching
converted the rich and worldly Bishop of Plasencia who returned to his
religious duties. Padre Francisco introduced the Company of Jesus at
Valladolid, Medina, San Lucar, Burgos, Granada, Plasencia, Murcia,
Sevilla, Valencia. Did he, in passing through Valencia, find any of the
old stock of Don Juan Domingo de Borja who, exactly a century earlier,
had given the Lord Calixtus P.P. III to Rome and Christendom?
He was the first to establish the Jesuit Noviciates; and the Noviciate
at Simancas was his favourite. Here are his methods of dealing with
novices. A certain novice of noble birth and breeding, but pious all the
same, found it intolerable that he should have to wait upon himself with
no menial to truss his points, or brush his clothes, or sweep his floor
to serve him. Padre Francisco heard his complaint; and, having there
another novice, who in the world had been a valet, he ordered him on his
obedience to serve his noble brother. The thing was done; and in a
little while, the noble novice sensibly took shame at his own
singularity, as might have been expected; and dispensed with further
service. Another noble novice found his narrow cell and his hebdomadal
shirt altogether insupportable. Padre Francisco promptly furnished him
with a large room, and a clean shirt every day; and, presently, he grew
to hate his privileges, renounced them, and assimilated himself with the
rest. Padre Francisco at least believed what already has been said here,
viz., that the wise man does not hinder, but helps the sane well-meaning
man who is aware of his responsibilities, to do the thing that he
desires to do: for, if that thing be undesirable, the doer quickly will
find it out, and so convince himself; while the thing undone, the wish
unsatisfied, causes the unconvinced to hanker after, to struggle for,
and to revolt. Once when Padre Francisco was visiting the College of
Sant’ Andrea of Valladolid, the resources were at an end; and there was
neither food nor money in the house. Natheless, he ordered the bell to
be rung as usual for supper though the board was bare; and, in the nick
of time, there came to the outer door an old grey-headed man with a huge
lovely boy, strangers in the city, who brought baskets of meat and bread
and fish and eggs and wine, and a purse of money: whom the pious have
called St. Andrew and an Angel.
The year 1555 saw three Popes; the Lord Julius P.P. III, Who died and
was succeeded by the Lord Marcellus P.P. II, Who died and was succeeded
by the Lord Paul P.P. IV.
In 1556, Padre Iñigo de Loyola died; and Padre Francisco instantly began
to invoke his departed chief,—_Holy Ignatius of Loyola, pray to the Lord
our God for me_;—while Padre Jago Laynez was elected General of the
Company of Jesus.
In 1558, also died the Holy Roman Emperor Carlos V, who long had given
himself to religion. On his death-bed, Imperial Caesar cried for “santo
Padre Francisco de Borja” to assist him in his agony. But the Jesuit was
unable to arrive except in time to preach the funeral oration. Caesar
had shown to the priest the unparalleled respect and honour of naming
him executor of his will; an office which the unworldliness of Padre
Francisco impelled him to decline. The royal and imperial family,
conscious of the κύδος which they would gain by his acceptance, appealed
against his decision. The Princess-Regent also invoked the General, who
issued a command upon obedience; which Padre Francisco perforce obeyed,
carried out the provisions of the will of Caesar Carlos V, taking as
little as possible of his own share, to avoid offence. Of course, all he
had would go to the funds of his order, his vow of poverty debarring him
from personal possessions.
In 1559, he was in Portugal once more, sick of an intermittent fever at
Evora. The people of this country, natural enemies of Spain and
Spaniards, so loved Padre Francisco that they said he must be a
Portuguese. During his sickness, he wiled the weary waiting and cheered
his soul by setting music to the anthem _Regina caeli laetare_
(“Rejoice, O Queen of Heaven”), and the hundred and seventy-six verses
of Psalm cxviii, Vulgate Version, _Beati Immaculati_, (Psalm cxix,
Authorized Version, “Blessed are the undefiled in the way.”) This year,
his sister Dona Juana de Borja y Aragona (Suor Juana de la Cruz,) died
In The Odour of Sanctity. She was the first Abbess of the Royal
Monastery of Sandalled (Discalced) Carmelites in Madrid. This year 1559,
died the Lord Paul P.P. IV and the Lord Pius P.P. IV succeeded Him. In
1560, Padre Francisco calmed the terrified population of Oporto during a
total eclipse of the sun, spontaneously preaching an impassioned sermon
on the eclipse, of mortal sin, which veils man’s soul from the Sun of
Righteousness. Then, again, sickness laid him low; neuralgia, paralysis,
ulcers. The vile body was resisting the strain which he made it bear.
Restored to health in 1561, he was summoned to Rome and named
Vicar-General of the Company of Jesus. Let it never be forgotten that,
while the Borgia Pontiffs paved the way for, Padre Francisco de Borja
governed the Jesuits throughout the world while the General Padre Jago
de Laynez was present at, the Œcumenical of Trent. The connection
between the House of Borgia and the Tridentine Decrees is of enormous
significance. Here, at last, was the General Council for the Reformation
of the Holy Roman Church, summoned and legally constituted by lawful
authority. For years, self-seeking malcontents, ecclesiastical and
royal, had howled for it. Now, it was come: but the German schism was an
accomplished fact. The cry had gone through Christendom that Rome was
effete, corrupt, on the verge of decay and dissolution. And lo, She
arose in Her strength, and cut away the parasitic ulcers that long had
blurred with open wounds Her contours; refurbished spiritual arms long
rusted; set Her house in order; and was ready again, like a giant
refreshed, for Her interminable affray. The Barque of Peter went into
dock. The Garden of Souls was weeded. The Council of Trent reformed the
Holy Roman Church: and a Borgia, as General’s deputy, was ruling the
Company of Jesus in all the world.
During four years, Padre Francisco was Vicar-General in Rome. He
preached often in the Spanish church of San Giuseppe on Via del
Monserrato. The Religion of Padre Iñigo de Loyola endured one of its
numerous phases of attack. In this world, things being as they are, to
such an institution a liability to disesteem is inevitable. Persecutors
and calumniators arose; and Padre Francisco showed a talent for
successful defence. Having completely crushed himself, he could bring to
his cause an amount of irresistible force of which the ordinary man,
distracted by the whimsy interests of this and that, is altogether
unaware.
[Illustration: _Saint Francis Borgia._]
His behaviour, in one of those cases with which the Holy Roman Church
occasionally shocks the world, is quite remarkable. His son Don Alvaro
de Borja, who was about the age of twenty-seven years, and Ambassador of
Spain in Rome, desired to marry Doña Laniparte de Almansa y Borja,
daughter of his own sister Doña Juana, and of the age of about fourteen
years. Padre Francisco refused to countenance a marriage between his
grand-daughter and his son, between uncle and niece: refused to ask the
Pope’s Holiness for the necessary dispensation. Whereupon, Don Alvaro
approached the Lord Pius P.P. IV directly, in his capacity of
ambassador, and obtained the dispensation; while the Pope scolded Padre
Francisco for his conduct in the matter.
In 1565 Padre Jago Laynez died. Deliberately shutting their ears to his
appeals, the Jesuits elected Padre Francisco de Borja Prepositor-General
of the Company of Jesus on the second of July. With the single exception
of the Roman Pontiff, he now was the most powerful ruler in Christendom,
general of an army unrivalled in discipline, utterly reliable, because
voluntarily enlisted and morally ruled. Yet he gave no sign of pride or
pleasure. He was a perfect Jesuit, humanely sensitive, completely
self-distrustful. He said “It is evident that our Lord has condescended
to assume the government of this Company since He sees fit to use so
deplorably unworthy an instrument.” What words could express more
sincerely abject and unworldly humility than those?
_Aut pati aut mori_ was his motto. As General, he relaxed not one of the
stern rigorous austerities with which he kept under his body and brought
it into subjection. Every passion and appetite of his human nature he
deliberately killed. He slept little. He ate little. He had freed
himself from every earthly love.
What he might have been!
What he was!
A brilliant and gracious duke, master of territories and boundless
wealth, father of a noble family allied with the bluest blood of Spain,
honoured by his sovereign, reverenced by his equals, loved by his kin,
adored by his dependants.
A sinister shadow of a man, wracked with continual pain, deliberately
apart from all his kind, feared, disliked, distrusted, alone,
suffering,—alone.
Every day he systematically meditated during five hours on superhuman
things. Every morning and every night, he subjected his conscience to
rigorous examination, and confessed even every impulse to evil thought.
He prayed without ceasing. Once, when travelling in Spain with Padre
Bustamente, the two slept side by side on the bare floor of a loft,
because there was no room for them in the inn. Padre Bustamente, being
asthmatic, spat all night long, unknowingly on the face of his
companion, who never moved. In the morning light, he was horrified to
see what he had done: but Padre Francisco consoled him, saying that in
all the world no more suitable place could have been found. He had been
very urgent with his sister Doña Juana, Abbess of the Poor Clares at
Gandia, that she should persevere in penance and mortification till her
life’s end. Has there ever been a case of a consistent Roman Catholic
who has committed suicide from religious melancholomania? Rarely; if
ever: for the Church, wisely recognising that peculiar temperament, has
provided a system where voluntary mortification has its places, its
rules, and may be practised by whoever will.
Padre Francisco had the gifts of intuition and of clear-seeing, which
generally are found developed respectively in women and brute beasts. He
knew when a house was about to fall some time before it fell. He knew,
on seeing a courier from his eldest son, that an heir was born to the
Duke Don Carlos of Gandia. The courier did not relish this intuition,
thinking that he deserved reward for his good news: of which disgust,
also, Padre Francisco was aware; and gave reward. _The greater the
detachment from the world, over worldly things the greater power is
gained._ People who saw Padre Francisco during his generalship, saw rays
of mysterious light playing round his head. The phenomenon of the
electric aura now is well-known; and the camera will show it on
occasion. Often, in his trances of prayer, he was seen floating above
the ground.
In 1566 the Lord Pius P.P. IV died; and, succeeding Him, the Lord Pius
P.P. V. stopped his coronation procession at the Jesuit House in Rome,
that He might pay His respects to the holy General. In 1569 Padre
Francisco again was stricken with fever. Recovering, he made a
pilgrimage to the Holy House of Nazareth, which angels carried over the
sea from Palestine and set down at Loreto by Ancona. In 1571 the Pope’s
Holiness sent an embassage to France and Spain and Portugal, to rouse
the sovereigns of Christendom against the Muslim Infidel. The
ambassadors were the Papal Nephew, the Lord Michele Bonello, son of
Madonna Gardina the Pope’s sister, born at Boschi near Alessandria, who
at his august Uncle’s first creation in 1566 had been named
Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Maria _sopra Minerva_ with the
cognomen Alessandrino; and Padre Francisco de Borgia, Prepositor-General
of the Company of Jesus. The two left Rome in 1571. In Barcelona, they
settled a long-standing dispute between the government and the cathedral
chapter; for Padre Francisco was ever a peacemaker. In the province of
Cataluna, which was not unmindful of him who had been its viceroy, the
ambassadors were received with the highest honour.
The record of this journey, through the scenes of his youthful glory, is
one of the most pathetic things in human history. This sinister
emaciated phantom shabbily robed in thread-bare black, whose thin lips
bit perpetual pain; this great and narrow spirit with eyes tardy and
grave, furtively, drowsily, reluctantly, regarding earthly things,
having seen the heavenly; this mendicant, whose companion was a prince
of the church sumptuous in ermine and vermilion,—he was no stranger in
Cataluna, where aforetime as marquess, duke, and imperial viceroy he had
exercised despotic and sovereign rule. Now he thought no place low
enough, foul enough, for his deserts. He was in, but not of, the world.
At Valencia, his children and his grandchildren knelt to kiss his
way-worn feet. They prayed him to visit his duchy of Gandia. He refused.
He was no longer of the world.
He preached for the last time in the cathedral of Valencia—Valencia the
shrine of the House of Borja. Here, a century and a half earlier, Canon
Alonso de Borja had been raised to the bishopric. The Bishop of Valencia
became cardinal. The Cardinal of Valencia became the strenuous Lord
Calixtus P.P. III. From Xativa by Valencia sprang Don Rodrigo de Lançol
y Borja, Bishop of Valencia, Cardinal of Valencia, the magnificent
invincible Lord Alexander P.P. VI. The splendid Don Cesare (detto
Borgia) also was Bishop of Valencia and Cardinal, before he renounced
the purple for the French duchy of Valentinois. Three huge personalities
had borne the name that now was represented by this obscure wan figure
whose voice, whose magic pleading fading voice, thrilled in the aisles
of Valencia’s fane. Here, in Valencia, the fire was kindled; hence, from
Valencia, blazed the all-devouring flame; here, in Valencia, the cresset
glowed with steady brilliant light, so shining before men that they
might see good works, and glorify the Father which is in heaven. Padre
Francisco de Borja preached for the last time in the cathedral of
Valencia.
In France, the ambassadors met with no success. That miserable country
was in the throes of the Huguenot Rebellion; and the Queen Dowager,
Madame Caterina de’ Medici, ruled the maniac King. After travelling
through France in the winter, gaining converts and confirming the
churches, but failing in the object of their journey, the ambassadors
reached Turin; and became guests of the Duke of Savoy. Padre Francisco,
utterly worn out with exertion and anxiety, his vital forces being on
the verge of exhaustion, fell ill on the second of February, Candlemas
Day 1572. The exigencies of courtly etiquette bored him to distraction;
and he hurried on. Low Sunday found him in Ferrara. Here, having
concluded his ambassadorial duties, the last remains of his strength
departed. His nephew, the Duke of Ferrara, gave him a royal escort, and
a royal litter, as he was too weak to ride, and sent him onward to Rome.
During this last journey, it was noticed that, though he lay still, more
like a corpse than a man, his characteristic gesture of command remained
with him to the very end.
He attained the Flaminian Gate of Rome on the twenty-eighth of
September. All the Company of Jesus were there to receive their dying
General. He was carried to the Jesuit House, and the last Sacraments of
Unction and Viaticum fortified his soul.
On the Festival of St. Michael Archangel, he lay a-dying. The next day,
his speech departed. His last words, the last words of the sometime
gracious and brilliant duke, the last words of the Jesuit General, were
the words of a simple little Christian child, “I long for Jesus!”
He had done with the Latin of the Church. He had gone back to his
mother-tongue, “A Jesus quiero.”
On the first of October 1572, he died of a decline, being of the age of
two and sixty years.
* * * * *
Instantly, the pious opinion was entertained that Padre Francisco de
Borja had died In The Odour of Sanctity.
It was found impossible to undress the corpse. Among others, his brother
Don Tommaso de Borja, the Viceroy of Aragon, made an attempt to perform
the last duties, but all without success. This same Don Tommaso, who
afterwards became Archbishop of Saragossa, wrote a detailed history of
this phenomenon which he calls miraculous. Various explanations are
given of the sudden and complete _rigor mortis_, which, however, are
mystical, not practical ones. It is said that modesty prevented the
disrobing, or that it was intended to hide the scars of long-practised
austerities, or that the greatest reverence was due to the body which
had been the temple of the Holy Spirit.
His family, and all who in his life had known him, looked upon Padre
Francisco de Borja as a saint: as such, they privately venerated his
fragrant memory, and invoked the aid of his intercession. No public
honours were accorded, for his right to these had not yet been made
clear: but it was alleged that these private invocations produced
marvellous results. Two shall be named. The physicians attending the
Duchess of Uzeda in child-bed found themselves unable to effect delivery
owing to congenital malformation. After the invocation of the dead
Jesuit, instant safe and painless delivery took place with perfect
health to mother and child. Queen Doña Margarita, wife of King Don
Felipe III of Spain, endured puerperal fever. The invocation of Padre
Francisco brought a cure. Then, and with these credentials, the Company
of Jesus formally petitioned the Papal Nuncio in Spain, Monsignor Decio
Carafa afterwards Cardinal, to order an enquiry into the virtues and
miracles of the Servant of God, their departed General. Five tribunals
were found at Valencia, Madrid, Barcelona, Saragossa, and Recanati;
multitudes of witnesses were examined and cross-examined. Padre
Ribadaneira, confessor of the deceased, confirmed on oath his book on
the life of Padre Francisco de Borja. From this book, many of the
foregoing facts are taken. In 1615, after thirty-seven years’ labour,
the proceedings of the five tribunals in writing were sent to Rome,
where Spain’s ambassador presented them to the Lord Paul P.P. V with
recommending letters from King Don Felipe III, the Grandees and Hidalgos
of Spain, archbishops and bishops, cathedral chapters, municipalities,
and universities.
The Supreme Pontiff was pleased to refer the matter to the Sacred
Congregation of Rites, the Roman tribunal competent to deal with such a
case. Before this court, all evidence was verified; and a decree was
issued attesting the orthodoxy of the teaching of the Venerable Servant
of God, his sanctity of life, and the authenticity of the alleged
miracles, satisfactorily to have been proved; and granted permission to
proceed to Beatification. The Lord Paul P.P. V confirmed this decree;
and named three Apostolic Commissioners to carry on the cause in Spain.
The proceedings of a Royal Commission are so well understood, that it
merely is necessary to say that the business of an Apostolic Commission
is to search for information, to hear and weigh evidence, and to compile
a report on a given subject.
Meanwhile, the claims of Spain to possess the remains of her renowned
son were recognized; and on the twenty-third of February 1617, the body
of the Venerable Francisco de Borja, (except an arm retained at the Gesù
in Rome,) was translated to the chapel of the Jesuit House in Madrid.
In 1623, the eight years labours of the Apostolic Commission were
concluded; and brought to the usual scrutiny in Rome. Later, the verdict
was given to the effect that the sanctity and miracles of the Venerable
Francisco de Borja fully had been established; and that, therefore, he
was worthy of Beatification: which decision duly was confirmed by the
Lord Gregory P.P. XV.
Thirty-one years later, on the thirty-first of August 1654, a decree in
accord with this decision was issued by the Sacred Congregation of
Rites, and ratified by the Lord Urban P.P. VIII[111], Who, on the
twenty-fourth of November, published the Bull of Beatification with the
Office and Mass in honour of the Blessed Francisco de Borja for the
Universal Church.
Another seventeen years of public prayers and legal action passed; and
on the eleventh of April 1671, the Lord Clement P.P. XI solemnly
canonized Saint Francisco de Borja, adding to the Roman Martyrology,
which is the official roll of sanctitude, the three lines, in which the
Holy Roman Catholic Church delivers Her authoritative judgment, and of
which the following is a literal translation: “_Sixth day of the Ides of
October. This day, at Rome, is kept the festival of Saint Francisco of
Borja, Repositor-General of the Company of Jesus, memorable, having
abdicated secular things and refused dignities of the Church, by
asperity of life, by the gift of prayer._
In 1680, the reliques of the saint were translated to the gorgeous
church in Madrid which the Duke of Lerma built A.M.D.G. To the Greater
Glory of God, and of his ancestor St. Francisco de Borja. So, a century
after his death, a Borgia was numbered with the Saints.
Rational human judgment may be glad to stand aside before the sober
judgment of the Church, so far removed from bias, from ecstatic
extravagance, so calmly judicially personal. She has divined all, and is
reticent. She has settled his key, She has struck his note, and is
sufficient. She has shewn him in an _Ideal Content_. He “left all”; and
for that She honours him: and She has Scriptural Warrant.
“An accomplished courtier, a clever diplomatist, a brilliant and
gracious viceroy, a perfect religious.
“A masterful imperious character—in breaking his own will he broke
himself.
“A magnified non-natural man.
“Saint Francisco de Borja—Memorable—By asperity of life—By the gift of
prayer.
“Memorable.
Ashes
“_A fire, that is kindled, begins with smoke and hissing, while it
lays hold on the faggots; bursts into a roaring blaze, with raging
tongues of flame, devouring all in reach, spangled with sparks
that die; settles into the steady genial glare, the brilliant
light, that men call fire: burns away to slowly-expiring ashes_;—
From the birthday to the Life eternal of St. Francisco de Borja, the
Spanish Branch of the House in his direct descendants increased and
multiplied; intermarried with the grandest names in Spain; and decreased
in importance, until its extinction in the penultimate decade of the
last century. Four only, of these, need be mentioned here.
Don Gaspard de Borja was a great-grandson of the Saint, and son of Duke
Don Francisco de Gandia by his wife Doña Juana de Velasco Tovar. He
studied at the Complutensian University, becoming a Laureate in Theology
and Dean of the University. He was the first Grandee of Spain to occupy
the Chair of Professor and Public Lecturer. At the instance of the
Catholic King, he obtained a Canonry at the Metropolitan Cathedral of
Toledo; and here he began to nourish the enormous ambition of becoming
the third Pope of the House of Borgia.[112]
On the seventeenth of August 1611, he was named Cardinal-Presbyter of
the Title of Santa Croce _in Gerusalemme_, being then a youth;
“invenis,” says Ciacconi; twenty-two years of age, says the exact and
uniquely well-informed Moroni. On the fifteenth of May 1630, he was
raised to the Cardinal-Bishopric of Albano, and named Archbishop of
Seville. In Rome, he was on the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office,
and ambassador of the Catholic King to the Holy See. In the Kingdom of
Naples, he was Viceroy. He bought, (Mr. Henry Harland wittily says that
one may buy such things,) the additional title of “Father of the Poor,”
by distributing annually in charity ten thousand crowns; and he
exchanged his archbishopric of Seville for that of Toledo. In 1641, he
held a diocesan synod over which his Vicar-General presided as his
proxy, and governed his archdiocese, while he was cultivating his
ambition in Rome. He was an unwilling assistant at the two Conclaves,
which elected the Lord Gregory P.P. XV and the Lord Urban P.P. VIII. And
in November 1645, while England was in the throes of the Great
Rebellion, he died at Madrid, after fifty-six years of life, and
thirty-four of cardinalate, a disappointed man, and was buried in the
metropolitan cathedral of Toledo.
* * * * *
Don Francisco de Borja, great-great-grandson of the Saint, son of Duke
Don Carlos de Gandia by his wife Doña Maria Ponce de Leon, was born on
the twenty-seventh of March 1659. He was a man of singular and
extraordinary piety and learning, Archdeacon of Calatrava and Canon of
Toledo. By his proved fidelity he gained the favour of the Catholic King
Don Carlos II, who made him Councillor of Aragon. From Rome, he received
the bishopric of Calagurita; and (on the fourteenth of November 1699,
according to Moroni, or on the twenty-first of June 1700, according to
Guarnacci,) the scarlet hat of the cardinalate and the archbishopric of
Burgos. He died on the fourth of April 1702, undistinguishable from
other ecclesiastics of his rank.
* * * * *
Don Carlos de Borja was brother to the foregoing. Born at Gandia his
family’s fief on the thirtieth of April 1653 (Moroni), or 1663
(Guarnacci,) he studied theology at the college of Sant’ Ildefonso, and
succeeded his brother as Archdeacon of Calatrava and Canon of Toledo. On
the death of Archbishop Don Pedro de Portocarrero, the Lord Clement P.P.
XI named him Archbishop of Tyre and Trebizond _in partibus infidelium_;
a see held at the present moment by an Englishman who is the ornament of
the “Black” drawing-rooms of Rome. From Tyre and Trebizond, Archbishop
Don Carlos de Borja rose to the Patriarchate of the Indies, continuing
to reside in Spain where he shewed piety and zeal as chaplain and
almoner to the Catholic King Don Felipe V. On the thirtieth of September
1720, he was raised to the Sacred College; and in his capacity of
cardinal, hurried to Rome for the Conclave of 1721. There, he found
already elected and crowned, the Lord Innocent P.P. XIII, who named him
Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Pudenziana, and placed him on
the Sacred Congregations of The Index of Prohibited Books, of
Indulgences, of Signaturae Gratiae. He died at the Royal Villa of Sant’
Ildefonso near Madrid on the eighth of August 1733, and honourably was
buried there. He has left nothing of his personality, save a physically
effete but beautiful gentle generous shadowy visage, in his portrait
painted by Procaccini, and engraved by Rossi in Guarnacci II. 357–8.
* * * * *
So the Senior Branch, in the line of the direct descendants of the
murdered Duke of Gandia, bastard of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, withered
in sumptuous obscurity; heaping up secular titles and estates by
marriage, heaping up ecclesiastical dignity and preferment by the
enchantment of the Borja name added to personal merit, until its final
extinction only eighteen years ago. The names and titles of the last of
the Spanish Borja, here recorded, will shew what that House had
accumulated in a bare four hundred years—three principalities, seven
duchies, ten marquessates, sixteen counties, and one viscounty, besides
knightly orders and decorations.
His name was
Don Mariano Tellez-Giron y Beaufort Spontin Pimentel de Quiñones
Fernandes de Velasco y Herrera Diego Lopez de Zuñiga Perez de
Guzman Sotomayor Mendoza Maza Ladrón de Lizana Carroz y Arborea
Borja y Centelles Ponce de Leon Benavides Enriquez Toledo
Salm-Salm Hurtado de Mendoza y Orozco Silva Gomez de Sandoval y
Rojas Pimentel y Osorio Luna Guzman Mendoza Aragon de la Cerda
Enriquez Haro y Guzman.
His titles were
Prince of Squillace[113], Eboli, Melito;
Duke of Osuna, Infantado, Benevente, Plasencia, Béjar, Gandia, Arcos
de la Frontera, Medina de Rioseco y Lerma;
Marquess of Tavara, Santillana, Algecilla, Argüesco, Gibraleon,
Zahara, Lombay, Peñafiel, Almenara y Cea;
Count of Benevente, Plasencia, Béjar, Gandia, Arcos de la Frontera,
Medina de Rioseco y Lerma, Real de Manzanares, La Oliva,
Belaleazar, Ureña, Casares, Melgar, Baiten, Mayorga y Fontenar;
Viscount of La Puebla de Alcocer.
He was Ten Times Grandee of Spain of the First Class, Knight of the
Orders of Calatrava, of St. John of Jerusalem, of the Golden Fleece,
Knight Grand Cross and Collar of the Orders of Carlos V, of St.
Hermenegild, of St. Alexandra Newski, of the Christ of Portugal, of the
Crown of Bavaria, of the Legion of Honour, etc., etc., etc.,
He died without issue on the second of June 1882.[114]
=Book the Fourth=
A Flicker from the Embers
_A fire, that is kindled, begins with smoke and hissing, while it lays
hold on the faggots; bursts into a roaring blaze, with raging
tongues of flame, devouring all in reach, spangled with sparks
that die; settles into the steady genial glare, the brilliant
light, that men call fire: burns away to slowly-expiring ashes;
save where smouldering embers flicker, and nurse the glow_,—
While St. Francisco de Borja was his contemporary in the Spanish Branch,
Don Pietro Borgia, (the great-grandson of that Don Pietrogorio Borgia
who was the Trusty familiar of Duke Cesare de Valentinois della Romagna
and Viceroy of the Abruzzi,) was living in Velletri on the frontier of
the Regno, the little Volscian city where his family had been settled
since Don Niccolo Borgia was its Regent in 1417. He married Madonna
Filomena—_gentildonna molto pia_, is the sweet breath of her, which
Archbishop Bonaventura Theuli has preserved for us,[115]—and had three
children:
(α) The youngest son, Don Polidoro Borgia, died in his youth, the year
before St Francisco de Borgia died General of Jesuits in Rome.
His epitaph, in the porch of Santa Maria del Trivito at
Velletri, is as follows
D . O . M .
POLIDORO BOR-
-GIAE INVENI VIR-
-TUTIBUS ET
MORIB. ORNAT-
ISS. FILUMENA
MATER HECTOR
I.V.D. ET HORAT-
IUS BORGIA FR.
B.P . VIX . A . XXII
OB . A . M.D . LXXJ
DIE XII
OCTOB.[116]
(β) The second son, Don Orazio Borgia, became commander of a squadron
of Pontifical Cavalry; and fell gloriously fighting in the
Crusade of Hungary 1597.[117]
(γ) The eldest son, Don Ettore di Pietro Borgia, married Madonna
Porzia Landi, who bore him two sons:—The younger, Don Alessandro
Borgia became Dean of the cathedral chapter of his native city.
The elder, Don Camillo Borgia, became Governor of Velletri,
married the Noble Madonna Constantia Gallinella, and died in
1645. His epitaph,[118] in the chapel of the Visitation of the
Παρθενομητηρ (the patron-saint of the Veliternian Borgia) in the
cathedral of San Clemente at Velletri, is as follows
D. T. V.
CAMILLO BORGIAE NOBILI
VELITERNO
HECTORIS I.C. ET D. PORTIAE LANDAE
FILIO NON MINUS CELEBRI
AVORUM TOGA ET ARMIS INSIGNIUM
CLARITUDINE ILLUSTRI
IN PATRIAE REGIMINE
CONSULI JUDICI ET RECTORI
VIGILANTISSIMO
VITAE CANDORE MORUM SUAVITATE
UBIQ. CLARO OMNIBUS CHARO
ANNO AET. SUAE LV ET MEN. IV
EXTINCTO
DIE XXVI. SEPT. A PARTU VIRGINIS
M. DC. XLV
ALEXANDER I.V.D. ET HUIUS CATHED.
CANONICORUM DECANUS FRATER
HECTOR I.V.D. EX NOBILI CONSTANTIA
GALLINELLA FILIUS
EXTREMUM AMORIS
MONUMENTUM
MŒSTISS . POSUERE[119]
Don Camillo Borgia left three sons,
(α) The youngest, Don Giampaolo Borgia, was a canon of Velletri:
(β) The second, Don Ettore Borgia, was a celebrated Jurisprudent, who
held governorships of pontifical cities, and was auditor-general
and familiar of Prince Savelli, the Hereditary Marshal of the
Holy Roman Church:
(γ) The eldest, the Noble Don Clemente Erminio Borgia, Roman
Patrician, and Governor of Velletri, who married Madonna Cecilia
Carboni, by whom he had seven children at the least.
Five of these children of Don Clemente Erminio Borgia have been traced.
They were
(α) Madonna Angela Caterina Borgia, who became a nun in a convent of
Santa Lucia _in Silice_ at Rome, and who died In The Odour Of
Sanctity:
(β) Don Fabrizio Borgia, born 1689, studied ten years with his uncle
Canon Giampaolo Borgia, became Bishop of Ferentino in 1729, and
died in 1754:
(γ) Don Cesare Borgia, was a Knight-Commander of the Order of St. John
of Jerusalem of Malta in 1703:[120]
(δ) Don Alessandro Borgia, born 1682, studied with his brother Don
Fabrizio under their uncle Canon Giampaolo; won the laurel
wreath of the Archgymnasium of Sapienza at Rome; in 1706, was
attached to the Secret Nunciature of Monsignor Bussi at
Cologne;[121] in 1716, became Bishop of Nocera, and in 1723,
Prince-Archbishop of Fermo. [In _Museum Mazzuchelliana_ (Tom.
II. Tab. CXCIV, p. 382–3) there is an engraving of a medal of
this prince-archbishop, which was struck to commemorate the
consecration by him of his nephew, (the son of one of his
sisters whose name remains to be discovered,) Don Pierpaolo
Leonardi, as Prince-Bishop of Ascoli. The obverse of the medal
shews three bishops sitting and one kneeling, with the
legend A. BORGIA ARCHIEP. ET PRINCEPS FERMANUS P. PAULUM
LEONARDUM EP. ET PRIN. ASCULAN. INUNGIT. The reverse shews the
θεοτόκος in Assumption blessing two churches, with the legend
UTRIUSQUE ECCLESIAE PATRONA FIRMI ET ASCULI A.D. M.D.CCLV.]
Prince-Archbishop Alessandro Borgia died in 1764.
(ε) the heir Don Stefano Camillo Borgia, of the Supreme Magistracy,
who married Madonna Maddalena Gagliardi, and had issue,
(α) Cavaliere Giampaolo Borgia, general in the Pontifical Army;
(β) The Noble Don Stefano Borgia, in whom the embers of the House of
Borgia flickered a hundred years ago.
* * * * *
Don Stefano Borgia was born at Velletri on the third of December 1731.
His early education was conducted in that little Volscian city where his
House had been established certainly since 1417, and probably since the
Document of Donation of the Lord Lucius P.P. III, 1181–1185. (_Ricchi._)
Later, he went to his uncle the Prince-Archbishop Alessandro Borgia of
Fermo, with whom he lived, and under whom he studied, till the latter’s
death in 1756. The nature of this education can be judged from Don
Stefano’s after-life in which he cut so noble a figure as ecclesiastic,
diplomatist, ruler, scholar, archæologist, man of letters, and Christian
gentleman.
At the age of nineteen years, he had written a learned little treatise
on the monument of the Lord John P.P. XVI; and a Short History of the
ancient city of Tadino in Umbria, with an exact account of the latest
researches among its ruins, two octavo volumes published in Rome 1750–1:
so that when he arrived in the Eternal City after his uncle’s death, he
found himself appreciated not only for his illustrious name, but also
for the crescent ability of which he had given evidence. Three years
later, in 1759, he was named Governor of the city and duchy of
Benevento, the pontifical fief formerly occupied by another Borgia, the
murdered Duke of Gandia. Here he wrote his Historical Memorials of the
Pontifical City of Benevento from the Eighth to the Eighteenth Century,
in three quarto volumes published in Rome 1763–9. In 1764 he was
secretary to the Sacred Congregation On Indulgences. In 1765, at the age
of thirty-four years, his hands were anointed and he received the order
of priesthood. In 1770 he was named Secretary _a secretis_ to the Sacred
Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith, (v. title-page of his _De
Cruce_.)
His career was now well-begun; and he had time to pursue his favourite
occupations of letters and archæology. Writing under his initials S. B.,
he published in 1773 his discovery of a Venetian Kalendar of the
Eleventh Century from a vellum MS., and a Koptic and Latin Fragment of
the Acts of St. Koluthus. In 1774, he published an edition of the Lord
Pius P.P. II’s (Enea Silvio) work, _Against the Turks_. In 1775 the
Signor Abbate Stefano Borgia addressed to the Etruscan Academies of
Cortona and Florence, a duodecimo Philological Dissertation on an
antique gem-intaglio, “la pregiabile vetusta agata—la bella e rara
gemma—Gemma Borgiana—”; which the celebrated and learned antiquary
Martinello, in a letter to Padre Ignazio della Croce a sandalled
Augustinian, calls _most scholarly and precious_. In 1776 he produced a
work in quarto on the Shrine of St. Peter in the Vatican Basilica. In
1779, he published a folio on the curious Cross of the Vatican which is
venerated on Good Friday, with the Syriac Rite of Salutation of the
Cross, all most learnedly set forth and illustrated with notes and
commentaries.
He did not forget his House, or his native city of Velletri: for he
established there the Borgia Museum of Antiquities, which chiefly was
famous for the Mexican Codex of his presentation, lately found worthy to
be produced in facsimile in Rome with a splendour and importance
unapproachable by English publishers.
In 1780, he brought out his quarto on the Ancient Cross of Velletri, “a
cross-full of reliques conserved in the cathedral with much decency.”
(_Theuli II._ 158.) It is a curious and luscious work, which relates the
history of the Cross, a fine gold piece encrusted with large single
pearls (unionibus) and other gems, from the middle of the Thirteenth
Century, when it was given to the Veliternian Cathedral of St. Clement
by the Lord Alexander P.P. IV, who, before His election was known as the
Lord Rainaldo de’ Conti di Segni,[122] Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia and
Velletri.[123] The year 1788, saw the issue of a new quarto from his
gifted pen, being a Short History of the Temporal Dominion of the
Apostolic See in the Two Sicilies; which went into a second edition the
following year.
But at this point, the year of the French Revolution, the fortunes of
the Abbate Stefano Borgia took a signal turn opening limitless
possibilities. The Lord Pius P.P. VI named him Cardinal-Presbyter of the
Title of San Clemente, in the Consistory of the thirtieth of March 1789;
and promoted him from the secretariate of Propaganda to the Prefectures
of the Sacred Congregation of Index and of the Pontifical Gregorian
University of Rome.
The cardinalitial scarlet is the proper setting for this noble
personage. The Most Eminent Lord Stefano Cardinal Borgia becomes at once
a type of the huge and sumptuous princes of the church, to whom letters
and the fine arts lend their glamour. “Quest’ Amplissimo Porporato,” as
his friend and biographer the sandalled Carmelite Fra Pietro Paolino da
San Bartolomeo calls him, had the two marks whereby the perfect
gentleman and scholar universally may be known. He had a pretty taste
for letters, a habit of acquiring rare books and manuscripts; and was
himself a writer of extreme distinction. He had also a passion for
collecting beautiful and singular things, especially engraved gems. The
magic of carven precious stones enchanted him, as camei and intaglii
ever have enchanted men of delicate and powerful mental mould. The times
in which he lived were not convenient for the cultivation of these
exquisite tastes: but it is in no case desirable that they should be
cultivated. They lead nowhere, neither to heaven, nor to hell.
Essentially they have no relation to the work of life, or death; and it
is not well that they should usurp attention—for there are greater
things. But the possession of these tastes is an imperative necessity to
him who would do those greater things; for they bring, as nought else
brings, the habit of discrimination, of selection, of appreciation; they
refine and temper and grace the steel with which the greater deeds of
life, and death, are done: and, so, their only end is served; while he
who has them in the nature of him, not laboriously acquired but
congenitally possessed, is the better man, the more capable man, the
more enduring, skilful, potent, and triumphant man, and, correlatively,
the happier man. Cardinal Stefano Borgia, then, having this gentle
generous love for books and precious stones, most naturally became one
of the most distinguished ecclesiastics of his age.
In 1791, he published as a supplement to his Short History, a learned
quarto in Defence of the Temporal Dominion of the Apostolic See in the
Two Sicilies. To this, he added, in 1793, a treatise on two Koptic
saints, Koluthus and Panesnice, whose original Acts were in his
possession. But it chiefly was as cardinal of the Curia, as Protector of
Religious, as Ruler and Governour, as Proprefect of Propaganda (to which
he was appointed in 1798,) that he manifested his ability and sterling
worth. When the armies of Revolutionary France invaded Italy, engaging
in those extravagant monstrosities of turpitude which habitually
disgrace the French toward the close of every century, His Eminence
allowed nothing of war or tumult to disturb the serene and strenuous
performance of his multifarious offices. In those horrid times, when
another or lesser man would have been paralysed, he retired with superb
dignity from Rome to Padua, whence he continued to administer and govern
not his own estates only, but all the foreign dioceses and missions
throughout the world which were subject to Propaganda. And it was here
in Padua that he quietly found time to do a beautiful and noble deed, by
which alone, had he done nothing else, he would have prepared for
himself a more illustrious name.
At this time, the College of Cardinals contained a certain August
Personage, an Englishman of paramount importance.
When, in the Revolution of 1688, King James II Stewart had been driven
from his kingdom of England by the Prince of Orange, His Majesty took
refuge in France. His son Prince James, vulgarly called the Old
Pretender, unsuccessfully warred for his rights in 1715; and, on the
death of his father, assumed in exile his birthright with the style,
James III D.G. of Great Britain France and Ireland King F.D. King James
III had two sons,—observe the admirable insouciant carriage of head on
their medals as boys. The elder, Prince Charles Edward, as Prince of
Wales, vulgarly called the Young Pretender, advanced his father’s claim
to the crown of England by force of arms in 1745. The result was the
Massacre of Culloden Moor. The younger, Prince Henry Benedict, the Duke
of York, was a priest. Hunted from France by Hanoverian diplomacy, King
James III found refuge in Rome, where, at length, he died; the Prince of
Wales succeeding him as King Charles III. Prince Henry Benedict
meanwhile rose in ecclesiastical rank through the Cardinal-Bishopric of
Ostia and Velletri (Cardinal Borgia’s city), to the Cardinal-Bishopric
of Tusculum and the Vicechancellorship of the Holy Roman Church. His
medal, by Filippo Cropanesi, dated 1766, shows his royal Stewart
profile, still with the admirable high carriage of head, and the legend
HENRICUS M.D. EP. TUSC. CARD. DUX. EBOR S.R.E.V. CANC.
In 1788, his brother, King Charles III, died at Rome; and was buried
with his father in the crypt of the Vatican Basilica. As he left no
legitimate heirs, his rights in the Majesty of England devolved upon
Cardinal Henry Benedict Stewart, who was known as His Royal Highness the
Cardinal-Duke of York. This Personage combined with transcendent beauty
and truly royal demeanour, rare and solid virtue and the extreme of good
sense. Nothing could have been more perfectly kingly than his easy and
ready realization of his situation. He was aware, as well of his
hereditary rights, as of the fact that his subjects, having settled down
under an usurping dynasty, had disowned and would disown his claims on
their allegiance. He had seen war in his path. He had no insatiable
craving for a crown. He arrived at a decision absolutely luminously
wise. That the rights of his dynasty should suffer no diminution, by
renunciation on his part, he made a technical assertion of his
sovereignty, proclaiming his accession in such a way that the usurpation
of his throne by the Elector of Hanover, (vulgarly called George III)
should be undisturbed, _except by England’s Will_. He caused a medal to
be struck, bearing on the obverse His Majesty’s effigy in a cardinal’s
habit with zucchetto and the pectoral-cross of his episcopate,—the
kingly head is drooping now—; with the legend
HENRY THE NINTH, OF GREAT BRITAIN FRANCE AND IRELAND KING, DEFENDER OF
THE FAITH, CARDINAL-BISHOP OF TUSCULUM.
The reverse shows a design of Faith, at whose feet are the cardinalitial
hat and kingly crown, and who turns from the Lion to the Cross; with the
legend
NOT BY THE DESIRES OF MEN BUT BY THE WILL OF GOD.
At the same time was struck a touch-piece, for distribution among the
few loyal English who had not bowed the knee to Hanoverian Baal, and for
curing those afflicted with struma or _kings evil_; an occult power
which died with this last Stewart. The obverse bears a design of a
frigate with the legend
HENRY THE NINTH, OF GREAT BRITAIN FRANCE AND IRELAND, KING BY THE GRACE
OF GOD, DEFENDER OF THE FAITH, CARDINAL-BISHOP OF TUSCULUM.
The reverse shows St. Michael Archangel overcoming the Dragon, with the
legend
TO GOD ALONE BE GLORY.
And that was all,—an enduring record, carven in perennial bronze, that
the King’s Majesty had come to the inheritance of his ancestors. He
believed in his Divine Right, the right implied in his existence, his
existence by the Sanction of Him by Whom kings do reign; and he simply
affirmed his Right, waiting for his people to recognize him as their
lawful sovereign, to do their part as he had done his. Could anything be
more superbly, more contemptuously kingly than this distinction of the
parts of sovereign and subject? Cardinal King Henry IX was happy in his
lot, for he had a goodly heritage,—in the Holy Roman Church. Had His
Majesty desired, the Supreme Pontiff could have released him from his
ecclesiastical estate and obligations by a stroke of the pontifical pen,
to enable him to prosecute his indubitable right. But he did not so
desire. He had chosen the better part—peace—and the happiness of the
subjects who were his, but who never would own him as their liege lord
and sovereign. No more splendid and disinterested example of
self-sacrifice exists in human history than the spectacle of this King
of England who scorned to seek to compel unwilling homage. It was indeed
the act of a king.
After the technical assumption of sovereignty, His Majesty made no
further claim.[124] He did not hesitate to use his regal style on
monuments which he erected in his Sub-Urban Diocese, or in similar
places: but he was content to be called the Cardinal-Duke of York, as
before, though all the world knew him as he really was, and invariably
accorded the respect due to him as a prince of the church. There was,
however, one notorious exception. The chivalrous nation of France, which
formerly had revenged itself on the Lord Alexander P.P. VI by attacking
Madonna Giovanna de’ Catanei and Madonna Giulia Orsini nata Farnese, was
just as ready now to strike at the old and helpless; and it is to the
shameful atrocities of France that England owes the noble action of a
Borgia in regard to the last of the Royal House of Stewart.
It has been said that Cardinal Stefano Borgia was at Padua in the autumn
of 1799 while the regicidal armies of the French Consulate were earning
infamy by ravaging the pontifical states. From Padua His Eminence
indited a private letter, dated the fourteenth of September 1799,
addressed to an English baronet, one Sir John Coxe Hippisley, at
Grosvenor Street, London, which will tell a tale. The Cardinal wrote as
follows, in beautiful Italian with the incorrect spelling of a gentleman
born:
“The friendship with which you honoured me in Rome encourages me to
lay before you a case worthy of your most mature reflection: which is,
that, among the other cardinals who have taken refuge in Padua, here
is also the Cardinal-Duke; and it is greatly afflicting to me to see
so great a Personage, the last descendant of his Royal House, reduced
to such distressed circumstances, having been barbarously stripped by
the French of all his property” (_dai Francesi barbaramente spogliato
di tutto_;) “and, if they deprived him not of life also, it was
through the mercy of the Almighty, Who protected him in his flight
both by sea and land, the miseries of which, nevertheless, greatly
injured his health, at the advanced age of seventy-five; and produced
a very grievous sore in one of his legs.
“Those who are well-informed of this most worthy Cardinal’s affairs,
have assured me that, since his flight, having left behind him his
rich and magnificent valuables, which were all sacked and plundered
both at Rome and Frascati, he has been supported by the silver plate
which he had taken with him, and of which he began to dispose at
Messina; and, I understand, that in order to supply his wants during a
few months in Venice, he has sold all that remained.
“Of the jewels[125] that he possessed, very few remain, as the most
valuable had been sacrificed in the well-known contributions (_forced
levies_ would be a juster word than the gentle Cardinal’s meek
_contributions_) “to the French our destructive plunderers; and, with
respect to his income, having suffered the loss of forty-eight
thousand Roman crowns annually by the French Revolution, the remainder
was lost also by the fall of Rome; namely, the yearly sum of ten
thousand crowns assigned to him by the Apostolic Chamber, and also his
particular funds in the Roman Bank.
“The only income which he has left is that of his benefices in
Spain,[126] which amount to fourteen thousand crowns: but this, as it
is only payable in paper at present, is greatly reduced by the
disadvantage of exchange; and even that has remained unpaid for more
than a year, owing, perhaps, to the interrupted communication with
that kingdom.
“But here it is necessary that I should add that the Cardinal is
heavily burdened with the annual sum of four thousand crowns for the
dowry of the Countess of Albany his sister-in-law; three thousand
crowns for the mother[127] of his deceased niece; and fifteen hundred
for divers annuities of his father and brother: nor has he credit to
supply the means of acquitting these obligations.
“This picture, nevertheless, which I present to your friendship, may
well excite the compassion of every one who will reflect upon the high
birth, the elevated dignity, and the advanced age of the Personage
whose situation I now sketch in the plain language of truth, without
resorting to the aid of eloquence. I will only entreat you to
communicate it to those distinguished persons who have influence with
your government; persuaded as I am that English Magnanimity[128] (_la
Magnanimitá Inglese_) will not suffer an Illustrious Personage of the
same nation to perish in misery.
“But here I pause, not wishing to offend your national delicacy, which
delights to act from its own generous disposition, rather than from
the impulse and urgency of others.[129]
“We have here (Padua) not only the Cardinal-Duke, but other cardinals,
namely, the two Doria, Caprara, and Livizzani; and perhaps very soon
they will all be here, as it is probable that the Conclave will be
held in this place; for it has pleased God to deliver from all His
labours the so eminently unfortunate Lord Pius P.P. VI, Who cherished
for you the most tender affection, and Who was pleased when He was in
the Carthusian convent (_Certosa_) at Florence to invest me with the
charge of the Proprefecture of the Congregation of the Propagation of
the Faith.
“My paper fails me, but I shall never fail of being
“Your true friend and servitor (_servitore_)
“STEFANO, CARDINAL BORGIA.”
That letter was written in September 1799. It is not clear by what route
Cardinal Borgia’s courier carried it to England, nor how long was
occupied by the journey. It manifestly is probable that the frightful
disorders in France closed the short road through that country; and the
short road in time of peace was not traversed in less than three weeks.
An English lady[130] who married Don Lorenzo Sforza-Cesarini Duca di
Segni, etc., (they were the grand-parents of the present Duke Lorenzo,)
made the journey with post-horses in the autumn of 1837; and described
it in detail to the present writer a few years ago, incidentally
mentioning that, between London and Rome, it was necessary to pass in
and out of the Pontifical States no less than five times, with the usual
custom-house inconveniences. What then would the journey have been in
1799, when France, internally distracted, was inimical to all and
sundry, especially to England and England’s friends! Further the journey
from Vienna to Venice occupied a fortnight, as may be seen from the
dates of succeeding letters on a later page. These considerations are
necessary to explain the fact that three months elapsed before Cardinal
Borgia was able to acknowledge Sir John Coxe Hippisley’s reply; for,
during those three months, the journey—the long journey—had to be made
twice over by the courier, going and returning; which would leave little
time for action between.
It is curious to think that these events occurred only a hundred years
ago; and that this intimate view of the private and secret history of
the last royal Stewart, and the last illustrious Borgia, should have
been suffered to remain obscure. Had there been any disgraceful element
in the transaction, concealment could be understood: but contrariwise,
the very greatest credit is reflected upon all concerned, on Borgia, on
Stewart, on Englishmen, and—to give the devil his due—on the Elector of
Hanover, vulgarly called George III. The indiscretions, the human
weaknesses of the earlier Borgia are the things by which they are
remembered:
“The evil, that men do, lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones.”
Here, then, is a good deed of a Borgia, which incontinently shall be
translated from its inadequate sepulchre, ostended for the veneration of
the faithful, and enshrined anew more worthily. Upon receiving Cardinal
Borgia’s enchanting letter, Sir John Coxe Hippisley sent to his Eminence
a draft for £500, begging him to offer this to the August Personage,
“for the exigencies of the moment”; and promising to air the matter in a
proper quarter.
The meticulous precautions which invariably are taken to secure the
freedom of the Conclave for the election of a Pope, already have been
described here. On the death of the Lord Pius P.P. VI alluded to in
Cardinal Borgia’s letter, when Rome was in the hands of the French and
all Italy distracted by foreign occupation, the Sacred College made its
way by slow degrees and amid infinite peril to Venice, where it
assembled in the convent on the Island of San Giorgio, and enclosed
itself in Conclave with all formality. This means, among other things,
that no cardinals were allowed to receive or to send out letters, unless
these were subjected to a rigorous examination by the Cardinal-Censors;
the object of which is to prevent the voting from being influenced by
secular and external Powers or considerations.
On the fourth of January 1800, the said Cardinal-Censors on the Island
of San Giorgio permitted the egress of a letter from Cardinal Borgia to
Sir John Coxe Hippisley, acknowledging the receipt of the £500, speaking
of the gratitude and satisfaction of the August Personage at knowing
what was being done on his behalf. “I find myself shut up here in
Conclave for the election of a new pontiff, (says Cardinal Borgia,) with
thirty-four cardinals, who, when they heard of the English generosity to
their Illustrious Colleague,”[131]—and he describes the many kindly
complimentary and genuinely admiring sentiments which these Italian
Cardinals, in common with Italians of all epochs and of all ranks,
(excepting cardinals of the Nineteenth Century)[132] always felt and
feel for England and the English. The letter is subscribed in the
politely respectful third person,
“Suo servitore cordialissinio ed Amico
“S. CARD. BORGIA.”
On the twenty-sixth of February 1800 a second letter was allowed to pass
out of the Conclave from Cardinal Borgia to Sir John; a short note, in
fact, which said that an English gentleman[133] had just been permitted
to enter the Conclave, being the bearer of “a very polite letter from
Lord Minto” to the August Personage. This “very polite letter” is given
in its original form, as well for its own sake, as for an example of the
French of English diplomacy a hundred years ago. It is addressed to the
Cardinal-Duke of York.
“DE VIENNA, _9 Feb. 1800_.
“MONSEIGNEUR,
J’ai reçu les Ordres de Sa Majesté le Roi de la Grande Bretagne de
faire remettre à Votre Eminence la somme de deux mille livres
Sterling, et d’assurer V.E. qu’en acceptant cette marque de l’interêt
et de l’estime de S.M. elle lui fera un sensible plaisir. Il “m’est en
même terns ordonné de faire part à V.E. des intentions de SM. de lui
transmettre une pareille somme de £2000 Sterling au mois de Juillet si
les circonstances demeuraient telles que V.E. continuât à la desirer.
“J’ai donc l’honneure de la prevenir que la somme de £2000 Stg. est
déposée à la maison de Messieurs Coutts et Cie., Banquiers à Londres à
la disposition de Votre Eminence. En executant les Ordres du Roi mon
Maitre, V.E. me rendra la justice de croire que je suis infiniment
sensible à l’honneur d’être l’organe des sentiments nobles et
touchants, qui ont dicté a S.M. la démarche dont elle a daigné me
charger, et qui lui ont été inspirés d’un coté par ses propres vertus,
et de l’autre tant par les qualités éminentes de la Personne Auguste,
qui en est l’object, que par son désir de reparer partout où il est
possible, les desastres dans lesquels de fleau Universel de nos jours
a paru vouloir entrainer par préférence tout ce qui est le plus digne
de Vénération et de Respect.
“Je prie V.E. d’agreer les assurances de mes hommages respectueux et
de la Vénération profonde avec laquelle
“J’ai l’honneur d’être
“De Votre Eminence
“Le très humble et très obeissant Serviteur
“MINTO
“_Env. Ex. et Min. Plen. de S.M.B.
“à la Cour de Vienne._”
Stripped of polite verbiage this letter conveyed to Cardinal King Henry
IX the offer of an annuity of £4000 for so long as he might please to
need it. It is ungracious to say with some Scots that, after all, the
Elector of Hanover only offered to the Majesty of England a calf of his
own cow. The situation was fraught with difficulty. The essentials and
the accidentals of his birth combined to make Cardinal Henry Benedict
Stewart the only rightful King of England. He could not help that; any
more than any man can help being the son of his father and mother, born
in lawful wedlock; and King-ship, being of Divine origin, can only be
conferred or transferred or confirmed by the Divinity acting through His
Earthly Vicegerent, the Roman Pontiff. With these principles to guide
him, and the circumstances being as they were, Cardinal Henry grandly
decided to be king only in name. His mere existence, however, made the
tenure of the occupant of the English Throne to some extent uncertain:
for an alien dynasty can never feel entirely comfortable while any of
the dispossessed remain. The old order had changed, and had given place
to new: but the New could not know that the Old would accept—would
condescend to accept—help in its private necessity. It was a most
delicate position. On the other hand, it was out of the question that
the King’s Majesty should make known to Englishmen his desperate plight,
for Cardinal Henry was every inch a King. But the good heart and clever
pen of Cardinal Stefano Borgia solved that difficulty, by invoking on
grounds of private friendship the intervention of Sir John Coxe
Hippisley.
The method of relief, when relief was seen to be required, was a task
for the wits of diplomacy. When the English choose to change their
sovereign dynasties, they at least should secure their nation against
the disgrace of seeing, perishing in indigence, one who truly could say
_My grandfather formerly wore the Crown, touched for the king’s evil on
the steps of St. Winifred’s Well, and reigned as King in England_. The
spectacle of the blind beggar of Constantinople, crying “Date obolum
Belisario” is shameful enough for one continent, and can be spared the
disgrace of repetition. A pension on the Civil List would have met the
needs of the case: but it would have had many disadvantages. It would
necessitate publicity; it would have been most disagreeable to the
gentle pride of the August Personage whose life and character commanded
nothing but respect.
At the present day, one is accustomed to hear members of a certain class
of Scot, desirous of shining at least in a reflected light, boasting
that their forbears were “out in the ’15” or “out in the ’45.” One does
not so often hear an Englishman congratulating himself on his descent
from heroes who endured confiscation, attainder, in the self-same
cause—but in 1688. The English resist aggression at the outset; they are
used to, are glad to, make sacrifices for, not bargains of, their
sovereigns; and, needing no reflected light, they are not good boasters.
There is no doubt that a great deal of Scots flesh was given in 1715 and
in 1745 for the House of Stewart. There is no doubt that some Scots gold
was offered on the same account. But one has not heard that the loyal
Scots—loyal, as they say, to the Stewarts,—ever attempted to minister to
the necessities of their liege Lord, the Cardinal King Henry the Ninth.
Ethics, derived from Master John Knox, whose iconoclastic ardour stopped
at the “saxpence” and made it the idolatrous object of supreme worship
of dulia and hyperdulia and latria, no doubt mitigated the sentiment of
loyalty in regard to a king who happened to be a prelatical papist. A
national fund, a fund raised by the adherents of the Stewarts, to
provide a yearly income for their exiled sovereign, would have been
graceful and acceptable. It is the duty of a people to maintain its
monarch; and it is not beneath the dignity of monarchy to accept such
maintenance offered in loyalty. Peter’s Pence is nothing but a fund of
yearly offerings instituted by King Ælfred the Great of England for the
maintenance of the Sovereign Pontiff. In the case of Cardinal King Henry
the Ninth, however, no such guaranteed annuity was forthcoming from the
nation of which no inconsiderable part admitted his right to rule.
Loyalty to the Stewarts—practical living loyalty—was confined to
individuals, few in number; and it became necessary to seek another
method of solving the difficulty.
Private munificence, towards the King _de jure_, on the part of—let it
be said, for Cardinal Henry himself said it, and none had more right to
decide than he—on the part of the King _de facto_, King George the
Third, the official representative of the English nation, was the only
possible method, which was likely to be agreeable or acceptable.
Therefore, an annuity of £4000 was offered, not from the Civil List, not
from the Nation, but from the Privy Purse, from King George to Cardinal
Henry—from one English Gentleman to another. The delicate tact and
straightforwardness with which the Envoy Extraordinary and Minister
Plenipotentiary of His Britannic Majesty at the Court of Vienna made the
offer; the complimentary terms of his letter to the “August Personage;”
his guarded denunciation of the French robbers of the Cardinal as “the
Universal Plague of our time which seems to design the destruction of
all that is most worthy of Veneration and Respect;” his proffered
homage;—all these qualities egregiously deserved Cardinal Stefano
Borgia’s epithet “very polite,” and made the proposal one which
honourably and gratefully could be accepted. At least the Cardinal-Duke
of York was pleased to think so, as the two letters following here will
shew. It may be observed that they are written in incoherent and
peculiar English. Let it be remembered that they were written by a very
old gentleman, under circumstance of extreme agitation; in a language of
appalling difficulty which, though his native tongue, was altogether
strange to him; for he had not lived in England, and, in his life-long
exile, he used nothing but Latin with his clergy or Italian with his
friends.
He wrote from the Conclave on the Island of San Giorgio on the
twenty-sixth of February 1800; and the letters are sealed with the Royal
Arms of England and France surmounted with the Cardinalitial Hat instead
of the Crown.
(I. To Lord Minto.)
“With the arrival of Mr. Oakley who has been this morning with Me, I
have received by his discourse, and much more by your letters, so many
Tokens of your regard, singular consideration, and attention for My
Person, that oblige Me to abandon all sort of ceremony, and to begin
abruptly to assure you My dear lord, that your letters have been most
acceptable to Me in all shapes and regards. I did not in the least
doubt of the noble way of thinking of your generous and beneficent
Sovereign; but I did not expect to see in writing so many and so
obliging expressions that well calculated by the Persons who receive
them and understand their force, impressed in their minds a lively
sense of tenderness and gratitude which, I own to you, obliges me more
than the generosity spontaneously imparted.
“I am in reality at a loss to express in writing all the sentiments of
My Heart, and for that reason leave it entirely to the interest you
take in all that regards My Person to make known in an energetical and
convenient manner all I fain would say to express My thankfulness
which may easily be by you comprehended after having perused the
contents of this letter.
“I am much obliged to you to have indicated to Me the way I may write
unto Coutts the Court Banker, and shall follow your friendly
insinuations. In the meantime I am very desirous that you should be
convinced of My sentiments of sincere esteem and friendship with which
My dear lord with all My heart I embrace you.
“HENRY CARDINAL.”
(II. To Sir John Coxe Hippisley.)
“Your letters fully convince me of the cordial interest you take in
all that regards My Person, and am happy to acknowledge that
principally I owe to your friendly efforts, and to them of your
friends, the succour generously granted to relieve the extreme
necessities into which I have been driven by the present dismal
circumstances. I cannot sufficiently express how sensible I am to your
good heart: and write these few lines in the first place to contest to
you these My most sincere and grateful sentiments and then to inform
you by means of Mr. Oakley an English Gent^n arrived here last week, I
have received a letter from Lord Minto from Vienna, advising Me that
he had orders from his Court to remit to Me the sum of £2000 Sterling,
and that in the month of July I may again draw, if I desire it, for
another equal sum. The letter is written in so extremely obliging and
genteel a manner, and with expressions of singular regard and
consideration for Me, that, I assure you, excited in Me most
particular and lively sentiments, not only of satisfaction for the
delicacy with which the affair has been managed, but also of gratitude
for the generosity with which has been provided for my necessity.
I have answered Lord Minto’s letter, and gave it saturday last to Mr.
Oakley who was to send it by that evening’s post” (the ambassadorial
courier) “to Vienna, and have written in a manner that I hope will be
to his lordship’s satisfaction. I own to you that the succour granted
to Me could not be more timely, for, without it, it would have been
impossible for Me to subsist on account of the absolutely irreparable
loss of all My income, the very funds being also destroyed; so that I
would otherwise have been reduced during the short remainder of My
life to languish in misery and indigence. I would not loose a moment’s
time to apprize you of all this, and am very certain that your
experimented good heart will find proper means to make known in an
energical and proper manner, these sentiments of My grateful
acknowledgment.
“Your best of friends,
“HENRY CARDINAL.”
Of the remaining history of H.R.H. The Cardinal-Duke of York it is not
necessary to speak here. He died in 1807, and was honourably buried in
the Vatican Basilica with his father and his brother, in a tomb which
bears their names and styles, James III, Charles III, Henry IX, last of
the Royal House of Stewart, three kings “who paid three crowns for a
mass,” who sacrificed the crowns of Great Britain, France, and Ireland,
rather than their religious convictions. May they rest in peace.[134]
* * * * *
The action of Cardinal Stefano Borgia which just has been described, was
not the only evidence of nobility of soul that he exhibited during the
long Conclave of 1799–1800. He did, or rather he did not do, another
deed; the neglect of which suffices to win him high renown.
It already has been manifested here, that the tide of human ambition
runs at its highest in the Conclave for the election of a Pope. At
different periods of history, the papacy has been regarded as an
appanage of the empire, or of the great Italian baronies, Crescenzi,
Colonna, Orsini, Savelli, Medici. The House of Borgia, not without
reason of a kind, desired to rank with these; and cardinals of that
House complacently expected election. There already had been two Borgia
Popes, the strenuous Lord Calixtus P.P. III. and the invincible Lord
Alexander P.P. VI. The great-grandson of St. Francisco de Borja,
Cardinal Don Gaspero, publicly hoped to be the third, and was
disappointed. Now, in the last year of the Eighteenth Century, was
enclosed in another Conclave another Borgia Cardinal, the noble Cardinal
Stefano, and it confidently was expected that he would emerge therefrom
not Stefano, but Peter, crowned with the Triregno, the pontifical diadem
made of feathers of white peacocks encircled with three crowns of gold.
Humanly speaking his chance of election was not chance but certainty. He
was admitted on all hands to be _facile Princeps_ of the Sacred College.
His learning, his dominant power, his simple piety, his universally
sympathetic personality, assured him of an unanimous majority, had he
chosen to enter the ranks of the cardinals-competitors, that is to say,
of the cardinals who were eligible and also willing.
When a man is aware of his own ability to do certain legitimate and
beneficent deeds, the world is wont to call him fool as well as knave
when he neglects to seek the situation, the opportunity, for exercising
his peculiar talent. In this matter, the world is not ill-advised. Then,
if an ecclesiastic is convinced that, in a certain position of
authority, he can do God-service, why should he be deterred from seeking
that position by craven terror of the inevitable scowls, rhodomontades,
and lampoons of envious incompetent venal mediocrity? The Lord Pius P.P.
II was not afraid. He knew His own powers. He was convinced of the
purity of His intentions; and, as Cardinal Enea Silvio Bartolomeo de’
Piccolhuomini, he met the schemes of Cardinal Guillaume d’Estoutville in
the Conclave of 1458 with counter-schemes, and accomplished His Own
elevation to the pontifical throne. There is another and more intimate
example, nearer home, and no later than the last century: the example of
a provost of a metropolitan cathedral chapter, who knew his power, who
knew the lawfully designated successor of the archbishop to be unfitted
for the responsibilities of office, who kept an agent at the Vatican to
urge his candidature when the see was vacant, until the Lord Pius P.P.
IX, declaring it to be _un colpo-di-stato di Domeniddio_, transformed
the convert-provost into Westminster’s Archbishop. It cannot be alleged
that Cardinal Henry Edward Manning became inglorious by giving practical
evidence of his contempt for the ridiculous and wicked doctrine which is
preached by vicious degenerates, that _the Almighty intends much of His
Good Work to be wasted_. It cannot be alleged that Cardinal Manning was
actuated by personal arrogance, or by desire for personal
aggrandisement. His whole life of saint-like self-sacrifice, of
intensest humility, of ascetic mortification, of ceaseless toil for the
spiritual and temporal welfare of all men without distinction of creed,
has proved the contrary. By the same token, on this score, there would
have been no stain on the noble character of Cardinal Stefano Borgia had
he desired to exert himself to compass his own election to the Throne of
Peter.
But he did not so desire. Indeed, he shewed himself unwilling to be
elected; and the Sacred College made choice of the next Most Eminent
Lord, the Benedictine Cardinal Gregorio Luigi Barnabo Chiaramonte, whose
accession was proclaimed under the name of the Lord Pius P.P. VII. So
Christendom still lacks the third Borgia Pontiff,—a lack unlikely soon
to be made good; seeing that, since Cardinal Stefano, no Borgia wears
the scarlet hat; yet by no means irremediable, seeing that the House of
Borgia is living, and not dead.
Little remains to be written of the last pre-eminent Borgia. On the
death of Cardinal Gerdil, Cardinal Stefano was promoted from the
Proprefecture to the Prefecture of Propaganda Fide.
In 1804, while attending the debile Lord Pius P.P. VII to Paris,
(whither His Holiness had been summoned for the coronation as emperor of
the Corsican upstart Consul Napoleon Buonaparte,) Cardinal Stefano
Borgia died, at the age of seventy-three years, on the Festival of St.
Clement the twenty-third of November, at Lyons, and was buried there in
the cathedral. It is worth noting that he had been baptized in the
cathedral of St. Clement at Velletri in December 1731; that he derived
his cardinalitial Title from the church of St. Clement in Rome; and that
on the Festival of St. Clement 1804, he died. His friend, Fra Pietro
Paolino da San Bartolomeo, a sandalled Carmelite, wrote his biography.
The celebrated Cancellieri composed his elegy, which has been
republished by Bodoni. The Borgia Museum of Antiquities which he
established in Velletri, and whose elaborate catalogue is the work of
his uncle Don Filippaurelio Visconti, in chief part is in the Royal
Museum of Naples; the College of Propaganda has the lesser part, and
also his splendid library.
* * * * *
The House of Borgia continues to flourish in the descendants of Cardinal
Stefano’s brother, the CAVALIERE GIAMPAOLO BORGIA OF VELLETRI, a general
in the pontifical army; who married the representative of two of the
most important houses of the Romagna, often mentioned in these pages as
having been subdued by the splendid Duke Cesare (detto Borgia) di
Valentinois della Romagna, in the campaigns of 1499 and 1501–2,—the
Countess Alcmena[135] Baglioni-Malatesta of Perugia. Eighteen children
were the issue of this marriage. The names of five have been recovered
at the date of writing, viz., the eldest, Cavaliere Camillo; Don
Clemente; Don Alessandro; Don Cesare; and the youngest Don Francesco.
(α) THE CAVALIERE CAMILLO BORGIA, born 1777, was Adjutant-General
and Field-Marshal under King Joachim Murat of Naples;
Aulic-Counsellor and Chargé d’affaires of the King of Denmark
in Rome; Knight of the Legion of Honour,[136] and of the Order
of the Two Sicilies.[137] Distinguished in arms by his
military talent, he was not less renowned in the kingdom of
Letters. After his retirement from the army, he travelled much
in Northern Africa to study Latin antiquities. At least one of
his works has achieved fame—the _Planisfero Borgiano_. He
married Mdlle. Adelaide Quaison, (who died in 1865); and he
died in 1817, leaving issue
DON ETTORE BORGIA, born at Velletri in 1802, a Roman Patrician,
Knight of Honour and Devotion of the Order of St. John of
Jerusalem of Malta, Knight-Commander of the Order of St.
Gregory the Great,[138] Gonfalonier of Velletri, National
Representative of Velletri in the Roman Parliament of 1848,
and Provisional Governour of Velletri in 1871. He departed
this life, in 1892, at Melazzo in Sicily, being of the age of
ninety years; and his death without issue extinguished the
Veliternian Branch of the House of Borgia.
(β) DON CLEMENTE BORGIA OF ROME, who married Donna Luisa Calderoni,
and died in 1852, leaving issue,
(α) Don Adriano, who died unmarried:
(β) Don Tito, who died unmarried:
(γ) Don Costantino, a prelate, (author of _De Cathedra Romana Sancti
Petri Principus Apostolorum Oratio_, etc. a quarto published at
Rome in 1845;) died unmarried in 1878:
(δ) DON AUGUSTO, a prelate, born 1820. His death, on the second of
September 1900, without issue, extinguished the Roman Branch of
the House of Borgia.
(γ) DON ALESSANDRO BORGIA, born 1788, Balì of the Order of St. John of
Jerusalem of Malta, died 1872.
(δ) DON CESARE BORGIA, was a Knight-Commander of the Order of St. John
of Jerusalem of Malta; and followed the profession of a man of
letters in Ferrara, (the city of which his kinswoman, Madonna
Lucrezia, formerly had been the sovereign duchess,) until his
death in 1861.
_(Here should be inserted the names of thirteen children of the
Cavaliere Giampaolo Borgia and his wife the Countess Alcmena
Baglioni-Malatesta of Perugia, which, at present are not accessible. The
eighteenth and youngest son of the said Cavaliere Giampaolo was,)_
(ε) THE NOBLE FRANCESCO BORGIA, born 1794; Knight of Honour and
Devotion, and Hereditary Commandant of the Order of St. John of
Jerusalem of Malta; Knight of the Order of the Lily of
France[139]; Knight of the Order of the two Sicilies; Patrician
of Rome: who married the Noble Luigia Ferrari di Cremona,
Dowager-Countess Cassera (died 1855); and established the House
of Borgia in Milan on his marriage with a Milanese lady in 1822.
He died in 1861 leaving issue,
(α) THE NOBLE ALCMENA, married to the Marquess Paolo Litta-Modignani
of Milan:
(β) THE NOBLE CESARE BORGIA, (_the present Head of the Illustrious
House of Borgia_); Knight of Honour and Devotion and Hereditary
Commandant of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Malta;
Patrician of Rome, (which patriciate gives its holder the right
to the title of Count;) born at Milan on the twenty-seventh of
January 1830; married in 1856 Donna Clementina Tarantola (who
died in 1884) and has issue,
(α) DON FRANCESCO BORGIA, born in 1863; married in 1885 the
Marchioness Eugenia Litta-Modignani di Menzago e Vinago,
Patrician of Milan; and has issue,
(α) DON CESARE BORGIA, born 1886:
(β) DON ALESSANDRO BORGIA, born 1898:
AD MULTOS ANNOS
* * * * *
“A FIRE, THAT IS KINDLED, BEGINS WITH SMOKE AND HISSING, WHILE IT LAYS
HOLD ON THE FAGGOTS; BURSTS INTO A ROARING BLAZE, WITH RAGING TONGUES
OF FLAME, DEVOURING ALL IN REACH, SPANGLED WITH SPARKS THAT DIE;
SETTLES INTO THE STEADY GENIAL GLARE, THE BRILLIANT LIGHT, THAT MEN
CALL FIRE; BURNS AWAY TO SLOWLY-EXPIRING ASHES; SAVE WHERE SMOULDERING
EMBERS FLICKER, AND NURSE THE GLOW, UNTIL PROPITIOUS BREEZES BLOW IT
INTO LIFE AGAIN.”
APPENDICES
Appendix I
ABOUT WOMEN
Very little can be said of the women of the Borgian Era; for the simple
reason that they as yet had not renounced and abjured the observation of
the maxim of Euripides
“_Women should stay at home and talk._”
For women, then, to cultivate an intellect was rare. The sacred offices
of mother and wife, of comforter and helper, chiefly occupied them. Yet
no stupid restrictions were invented to harass and embitter the
exceptions to this rule, the freaks, the Sports of Nature, (in modern
medical phraseology;) and thus the splenetic self-assertive
abnormalities of the twentieth century were avoided. Women, who so
willed, were absolutely free; they were admitted to the same
intellectual training as men in the universities and colleges[140];
professorial chairs rewarded talent male or female; and a learned lady
was called Virago, in no sarcastic vein but in flattering admiration,
the word being used in its scriptural sense. (_Vulgate_, Gen. ii. 23.)
Of these the most famous were Madonna Vittoria Colonna and Madonna
Veronica Gambara. The first was the daughter of Don Fabrizio Colonna,
Grand Constable of Naples, (who already has been mentioned as helping
the Duchess Lucrezia Borgia’s consort to evade the snare of the Lord
Julius P.P. II,) by his wife Madonna Agnesina di Montefeltro, daughter
of Duke Federigo of Urbino. She was born in 1490; and married at
nineteen in 1509 to Don Ferrando Francisco d’Avalos, who died in 1525.
She consecrated the remaining twenty-two years of her life to her
husband’s memory and to the duties of religion, residing, for the sake
of her reputation, as a parlour-boarder in religious houses at Orvieto,
Viterbo, Ischia, and Rome, where she kept a literary salon. Many
celebrated men were her frequent visitors, among whom may be mentioned
Cardinals Reginald Pole and Giacopo Sadoleto; the poets Marcantonio
Flaminio and Pietro Carnesecchi; and Fra Bernardino Ochino the second
general of the new religion called _Cappuccini_, who, after apostatizing
to write his Twenty-one Dialogues advocating Polygamy as authorized by
the example of the Patriarchs, was in turn expelled by the heresiarchs
of Geneva. But by far the greatest of Madonna Vittoria Colonna’s
admirers was the sculptor-painter-poet Messer Michelangelo Buonarroti,
who respectfully inscribed to her many beautiful sonnets—sonnets which
he hewed out of language, as also he hewed statues out of marble, and
with the same aloof and rugged majesty. The following is given as a
specimen, not only of the style of Messer Michelangelo Buonarroti, but
also for the profession of faith contained in the latter half of the
sestett—a human document which lends marvellous light to the more secret
soul of this true artist and gigantic misanthrope.
“Per ritornar là donde venne fora “As one who will reseek her home of
light,
“L’immortal forma al tuo carcer “Thy form immortal to this
terreno prison-house
“Venne com’angel di pietà si pieno “Descended, like an angel piteous,
“Che sana ogn’intelleto, e’l mondo “To heal all hearts and make the
onora. whole world bright.
“Questo sol m’arde, e questo “’Tis this that thralls my soul in
m’innamora; love’s delight,
“Non pur di fora il tuo volto “Not thy clear face of beauty
sereno: glorious;
“Ch’amor non già di cosa che vien “For he who harbours virtue still
meno will choose
“Tien ferma speme, in cu’ virtù “To love what neither years nor
dimora. death can blight.
“Ne altro avvien di cose altere e “So fares it ever with things high
nuove and rare
“In cui si preme la natura; e’l “Wrought in the sweat of nature;
cielo heaven above
“E ch’a lor parto largo “Showers on their birth the
s’apparecchia. blessings of her prime:
“Ne Dio, suo grazia, mi se mostra “Nor hath God deigned to shew
altrove, Himself elsewhere
“Piu che’n alcun leggiadro e mortal “More clearly than inhuman forms
velo; sublime,
“E quel sol amo, perche’n quel si “Which, since they image Him, alone
specchia. I love.”
MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI. TRANSLATION BY JOHN ADDINGTON
SYMONDS.
Madonna Vittoria Colonna herself was a poet, but her literary history is
not included in the Borgian Era. It may be mentioned that her descendant
and namesake the beautiful Princess Vittoria Colonna married into the
patrician House of Sforza-Cesarina, so prominent in these pages, and is
the mother of the present Duke Lorenzo.
Madonna Veronica Gambara, the friend and fellow-virago of Madonna
Vittoria Colonna was the daughter of Count Gianfrancesco Gambara, and
Madonna Alda Pia da Carpi. She was born in 1485, and educated by Messer
Pietro Bembo (afterwards Cardinal); married in 1509 to Don Guilberto di
Cor Reggio; and widowed nine years later. At her Palazzo Marsili at
Bologna, on the occasion of the coronation of Caesar Carlos V in 1530,
she received in princely state the scholars of the day, “Bembo, Molza,
the witty Francesco Berni, the learned Vida, the stately Trissio, the
noble-hearted Marcantonio Flaminio, Paolo Giovio and Francesco
Guicciardini.” She lived till 1550, a good mother to her two sons,
Ippolito and Girolamo, noble, learned, virtuous, and a poet and
woman-of-letters of much distinction.
Appendix II
CREATURE UNPROCLAIMED, OF THE LORD ALEXANDER P.P. VI
Query? Whether the Lord Pietro Ciero can be considered a cardinal of His
creation?
“Vidi ego, ingint Andreas Victorellus, excriptum diploma fide publica
firmatum, datum Romae sub annulo Piscatoris anno 1501 die xvii Aprilis
in quo haec verba: _Te in cardinalem approbamus, quod tamen sub
silentio tenebis, donec tempus idoneum aderit_.”
Appendix III
PAPAL TRIBUTE
The following tribute was used to be paid yearly on the Vigil of St.
Peter, xxviii June, in accordance with the rule of the Lord Boniface
P.P. IX.
By the city of Forrara Two thousand scudi and a chalice
„ „ „ „ Benevento „ „ „ „ „ „
„ „ island „ Sardinia „ „ „ „ „ „
„ „ city „ Terracina A white horse
„ „ „ „ Gallese A stag
„ „ „ „ Porto A brace of pheasants
„ „ „ „ Monte Caprello A dog and a sparrow-hawk
„ „ „ „ Sant’Ippolito A brace of partridges
„ „ College of Apostolick Scribes A pyx and one hundred scudi
„ „ „ „ „ Notaries A silver chalice
„ „ Kingdom of Naples The “Chinea.” This was a valuable
white horse or mule, richly
caparisoned, carrying seven
thousand ducati d’oro in a
splendid coffer. The Prince
Colonna, as Grand Constable of
Naples, was the official in
charge of the “Chinea.”
Monks and friars belonging to Abbeys which were Papal Peculiars, (—the
Abbey of Westminster was a Papal, for five hundred years before it was a
Royal, Peculiar,—) instead of paying tribute, pronounced the Holy Name
of JESUS, when their names were called at this ceremonial.
Appendix IV
SCHOLARSHIP IN THE BORGIAN ERA
One of the most amusing poses of the Borgian Era was the affectation of
classical antiquity. This pose was engendered of the revival of learning
upon human vanity. Scholars were the favourites of princes and of kings;
and they modelled their mental deportment on that plane. The man who
called himself Pomponius Laetus (for they Latinized or Hellenized even
their names,) was a νόθος of the baronial House of Sanseverini, who
revivified certain pagan cults and, with Cardinal Platino and others,
solemnly and habitually practised them in secret Catacombs. Really, he
was a learned man who owed his learning to his own wits and exertions,
and not to the help or influence of his own kin; who, while he was a
poor unknown pupil of Messer Lorenzo Valla, refused to acknowledge him.
But, when at last he had won fame and was sought by the best society,
the Sanseverini, being anxious to have at least the credit of an
intellect, made him an overture of friendship, and offered to take him
to their arms. His rejoinder is worth preservation as a specimen as well
of the effect of megalomania, as of the successful imitation of a
classic style. With delicious arrogance he wrote,
“_Pomponius Laetus cognatis et propinquis suis salutem.
“Quod petitis fieri non potest.” Valete._
Writers of the Borgian Era curiously translated contemporary terms and
titles into their classic phraseological equivalent. The Pope was
_Pontifex Maximus_, and _Princeps_. The Emperor was _Caesar Augustus_,
and sometimes _Princeps_. The Cardinals were _Senators_ or _Augurs_,
elders in charge of the lightning (“aliquis senior qui publica fulgura
condit.”) Nuns were _Vestal Virgins_. Excommunication was _Dirae_.
Carnival was the _Lupercalia_. The Padre Eterno became, by the pen of
Bishop Vida of Alba in Piedmont, _Superum Pater Nimbipotens_ and
_Regnator Olympi_. The Santissimo Salvatore was known as Ἥρως; and the
Santo Spirito as Ζέφυρος. Madonna was Ἥρα, Ἀφροδίτη, and Ἀθήνη παρθένος
upon occasion. The saints were gods, δῖος ἢ δῖα, divus vel diva; St.
Christopher was _Herakles_; St. Sebastian, or St. Michael Archangel, was
Φοῖβος Ἀπόλλων; St. Gabriel Archangel was _Hermes_; St. Raphael
Archangel was _Asklepios_; St. George, St. Maurice, St. Theodore, were
_Perseus_ or _Theseus_ according to the taste of the writer. This pose
was affected in England as well as in Italy, as may be seen in the
following verse from William Caxton’s _Boke of Curtesye_, A.D. 1477.
“Loke also/ upon Dan John Lydgate
“My maister whylome/ monke at berye
“Worthy to be renomede/ as poete laureate
“I praye to gode in bliss his soul be mercy
“Syngynge _Rex Splendens_ that heuenly kyrye
“Among the Muses Nine celestyalle
“Before the hyest Iubyter of alle.”
The scholarship of the Renascence of learning, however, was not all
empty foolishness, not all the merest pose. The extravagances of the
Yellow School of the day were inevitable; and, though their unreality
soon palls and cloys, they afford ephemeral amusement. But the new
learning did much to improve taste; and, in the hand of men of goodwill,
was of vast benefit to the purity of letters. The following verses are
quoted as additional examples of the style of noted scholars of the
Borgian Era.
ANGELI POLITIANI, MONODIA IN LAURENTIUM MEDICEM.
(Intonata per Arrighum Isae.)
Quis dabit capiti meo
aquam? Quis oculis meis
fontem lacrymarum dabit?
Ut nocte fleam;
ut luce fleam,
sie turtur viduus solet,
sie cygnus moriens solet,
sie luscinia, conqueri.
Neu miser, miser,
O dolor, dolor.
Laurus impetu fulminis,
illa, illa, iacet subito,
laurus omnium celebris
musarum choris,
nympharum choris,
sub cuius patula coma,
et Phœbi lyra blandius,
et vox dulcius insonat.
Nunc muta omnia,
nunc surda omnia.
Quis dabit capiti meo
aquam? Quis oculis meis
fontem lacrymarum dabit?
ut nocte fleam,
ut luce fleam;
sie turtur viduus solet
sie cygnus moriens solet,
sie luscinia, conqueri.
Neu miser, miser,
O dolor, dolor.
ANDREAE NANGERII (NAVAGERO) HYMNUS IN GABRIELEM ARCHANGELUM.
Iam caeli reserat fores
aurato e thalamo exiens
Mater Memnonis, et diem
laeto provocat ore.
Nos te maxime Maximi
minister, canimus, Patris:
quo nullus, qui hominum genus
tam praesens iuvet, usquam est.
Tu nostras celer ad preces,
aures protinus an Deum has
defers: nec tenues sinis
evanescere in auras.
Tu dum fers nova nuncia
virgini Ætherio Patri
dilectae, quibus indicas
Magni vota Tonantis;
nobis fers nova nuncia:
queis a faucibus impii
erepti hostis, in aurea
caeli templi vocamur.
Adsis, o bone: et in dies
semper nos propius iuva
nec patrocinio tuo
unquam mitte tueri.
ANGELI POLITIANI, HYMNUS IN DIVAM VIRGINEM.
O Virgo prudentissima,
quam caelo missus Gabriel,
supremus Regis nuntius,
plenam testatur gratia.
Cuius devota humilitas
gemmis ornata fulgidis
fidentis conscientiae
Amore Deum rapuit.
Te sponsam Factor omnium,
te matrem Dei Filius,
te vocat habitaculum
Suum Beatus Spiritus.
Per te de tetro carcere
antiqui patres exeunt:
per te nobis astriferæ
panduntur aulae limina.
Tu stellis comam cingeris,
tu lunam premis pedibus,
te sole amictam candido
chori stupent angelici.
Tu Stella Maris diceris,
quae nobis inter scopulos
inter obscuros turbines
portum salutis indicas.
Audi Virgo Puerpara,
et Sola Mater Integra,
audi precantes, quaesumus,
tuos Maria servulos.
Repelle mentis tenebras,
disrumpe cordis glaciem,
nos sub tuum praesidium
confugientes protege.
Da nobis in proposito
sancto perseverantiam,
ne noster adversarius
in te sperantes superet:
Sed et cunctis fidelibus,
qui tuum templum visitant,
benigna Mater dexteram
da caelestis auxilii. Amen.
Appendix V
BORGIA DOCUMENTS
_The British Museum possesses the following Original Letters by_
ALESSANDRO BORGIA, _Bishop of Nocera, Prince-Archbishop of Fermo_
viiii Nov. 1717–25
„ „ „ „ „ „ „ „ „ Apr. 1727
NICCOLO BORGIA, _Bishop of Cava_, xiii Jan. 1752
„ „ „ „ „ xviii Jul. „
DON GASPARO DE BORJA Y VELASCO, _Cardinal-Archbishop of Seville and
Toledo_
„ „ „ „ „ Letter to the Duke of Ossuna 1620
„ „ „ „ „ „ „ „ „ „ „
concerning his embassy in Rome „
„ „ „ „ xx Dec. 1625
DON JUAN DE BORJA, _Conde de Ficalho_, n.d. Portug. Signed.
DON CARLOS DE BORJA, _Cardinal-Patriarch of the Indies_. xi Oct. 1711
to viiii
Sept.
1724
STEFANO BORGIA, _Cardinal of San Clemente_ ii June 1801
„ „ „ xvii Jan. 1802
„ „ „ to L. Melini, Rome, xviii Aug. 1770
„ „ „ „ A. da Morona, Padua, xviiii June 1798
„ „ „ „ G. Andrei, Padua, i Sept. 1798
CESARE, DETTO BORGIA. _1. As Cardinal._
To the Catholick King and Queen Don Hernando and Dona Isabella of
Spain, on sending a friar with a present, dated 1497, signed C
CAR^{AL} DE VALENCIA.
Very rare.
_2. As Duke._
Holograph to Ricardo Cervini, from Cartoceto, dated i Feb. 1500. Eight
lines of beautiful precise arrogant and masterly writing, signed CESAR
BORGIA DE FRANCIA DUX VALENTIN, with seal.
_The Bodleian Library at Oxford has_
Indulgences conceeded to the college at Windsor (the chapter of St.
George?) by the Lord Alexander P.P. VI. Ashmolean MSS. Gasparo de
Borgia, Cardãl, Protestatio in consistorio 1632 nomine Regis Hisp.
Stefano Borgia, Cardãl. Four Latin Letters to C. G. Woide, 1783–7.
Appendix VI
THE BORGIA AS MEN OF LETTERS
ALESSANDRO BORGIA. Bishop of Nocera. Prince-Archbishop of Fermo.
Bonedicti xiii Romani Pontificis ... vita commentario
excerpta etc. Romae. 1741. 4º
Della Cristiana educazione de’ figliuoli. Omelie. Fermo. 1760. 8º
Indulto sopra il Precetto di astenersi dalle opere servili in
alcune Feste. 1752. 4º
Istoria della chiesa e città di Velletri descritta in quattro libri.
Stampatoria Vescovale. Nocera. 1723. 4º
(he also wrote a life of St. Gerald in 1698. _Stefano Borgia in De Cruce
Veliterna. 222._)
Antonio Borgia. Editor of
Poesie de’ Sig. Alunni e convitori del ... Vescovile Seminario ... di
Frascati, dedicate all’Altezza Reale ... del Cardinale Duca d’York,
etc.
Romae. 1772. 4º
Alexander Borgia. Teacher of Languages
Case of the Free Italian Church. 1877
Napoleon III. Italy on the eve of Freedom. 1860.
Novena of Meditations on Abuses of the Church of Rome. 1854.
Bartolomeo Borgia.
La sua vita. Milano. 1888. 8º
(He was a shoemaker of Fara Novarese, born 1818, died 1887; was
converted to protestantism, and became connected with il Rev.
MacDougall and il Dottore Stewart as Colportore della Societa
Biblica Scozzese; made himself an evangelical nuisance, collided
with the Established Church of the country, wherefore he and his
family suffered persecution at the hands of ignorant papists. The
book is illustrated by an awful photograph of this Borgia with a
bible and a billycock-hat, preaching over a satchel, on a painted
background.)
Constantinus Borgia. Son of Don Clemente Borgia, and grandson of
Cavaliere Giampaolo Borgia of Velletri: prelate in Rome: died 1878.
De Cathedra Romana Sancti Petri Principis Apostolorum Oratio, etc.
Romae. 1845. 4º
Damiano Borgia.
Free Christian Church in Italy. Rome. 1880
History of the Gospel in Fara Novarese; an episode of reform
in the nineteenth century. Florence. 1879.
Social Ruin, causes and remedies. 1894.
Fabrizio Borgia. Canon of Velletri. Bishop of Ferentino _inter
Hernicos_, and brother of the Prince-Archbishop Alessandro Borgia
of Fermo.
An Account of the Translation of St. Gerald. 1714.
Gasparo de Borja, Cardinal.
Ossuniano coniuratio quâ D. P. Gyron Ossunae Dux regnum
Neapolitanum ... sibi desponderat, etc.: una cum relatione
stratagematis quo Illustriss. Card̃lis Borgia ... in eam
Provinciam sibi aditum ... fecerit. 1623. 4º
Girolamo Borgia, detto Seniore. Jurisconsult, Bishop of Massa Labrese,
1544 (Massa Sorrentana?)
Incendium ad Avernum Lacum horribile pridie Kal. Octobr.
MDXXXVIII nocte intempestata exortum. Neapoli. 1538.
Epithalamion. 1606. 12º
Juris Civilis, lib. XX. Bulifon. Naples. 1689 (1678?) fol.
Giuseppe di Lorenzo Borgia.
In morte del Cav. G. di Lorenzo Borgia ... avenuta il dì XXX Novembre
MDCCCLXXXII. (Parole, etc.)
Noto. 1882. 8º
Niccolo Borgia.
Il concetto della civiltà greca e sua funzione nella storia.
Dissertatione su tema obbligato, etc. Napoli. 1881. 8º
Paulus Borgia.
De Rabie Canina dissertatio inauguralis, etc. Patavii. 1830. 8º
Rosario Borgia.
Poesie in idioma Calabrese. Napoli. 1839. 8º
These innocent little verses valuably preserve the dialect of what was
once a Greek colony. The author was a priest of the Oratory of San
Filippo Neri; and wrote sonnets
For a seminarist-friend,
To the same on becoming prefect of the seminary-kitchen,
On the Triumph of Christ,
On San Fortunato Martire,
On San Filippo Neri,
On the occasion of the death of his father, Don Francescantonio
Borgia, Patrician of Mileto (a city of the commune of Mileto in
Calabria, containing 3000 inhabitants,) etc., etc., etc.
Stefano Borgia, Cardinal.
Kalendarium Venetum saec. xj. ex Cod. Membranaceo Bibliotheca S.
Salvatoris Bononiae, a S.B. nunc primum in lucem editum. (Anecdota
Literaria etc. II.) 1773. 8º
Fragmentum Copticum ex Actis S. Coluthi ... quod nunc primum in
lucem profert S.B. (Anec. Lit. IIII.) 1773. 8º
De miraculis Sancti Coluthi et reliquis actorum Sancti Panesnice
martyrum ... Praeit dissertatio S. Card. B. de cultu S. Coluthi.
1793. 4º
Pii II oratio de bello Tureis inferendo, eruta ... et illustrata a
S.B. 1774. 8º
Breve istoria del dominio temporale della Sede Apostolica nelle duc
Sicilie. S.B. 1788–9. 4º
Difesa del dominio temporale della Sede Apostolica nelle due
Sicilie. 1791. 4º
Breve istoria dell’antica città di Tadino nell’Umbria ed esatta
relazione della ultime ricerche fatte sulle sue ruine. Romae
1751. 8º
De Cruce Vaticana en dono Justini Augusti in Parasceve maioris
hebdomadae publicae venerationi exhiberi solita commentarius;
cui accedit ritus salutationis Crucis in Ecclesia Autiochena
Syrorum servatus nunc primum Syriaee et Latine editus adnotation
ibusque inlustratus auctore S.B. Romae. 1779 fol.
De cruce Veliterna commentarius. Romae. 1780. 4º
Dissertatione filologica sopra un antica gemma intagliata
(Caloghiera A. Nuova raccolta d’Opuscoli III.) 1775. 12º
Marmorea monumenta Beatissimo.... Pio VI. Pont. Opt. Mar ... a
Veliternis ... in palatio senatorio dedicata S. Borgia ... typis
evulgari curavit. Velletri. 1775. 4º
Memorie Istoriche della Pontificia Città di Benevento dal secolo
VIII al secolo XVIII, etc. Tom. I. II. III. Roma. 1763–9. 4º
Monumento di Giovanni XVI. illustrato per S.B. Roma. 1750. 8º
Vaticana Confessio Beati Petri Principis Apostolorum, chronologicis
tam veterum quam recentiorum scriptorum testimoniis inlustrata.
Romae. 1776. 4º
“IMPROBE FACIT QUI
“IN ALIQUO LIBRO
“INGENIOSUS EST.”
MARTIAE.
Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
London & Edinburgh
-----
Footnote 1:
The epithet _Most Eminent_ (Eminentissimo) was granted to cardinals by
the Lord Urban P.P. VIII, 1630. Prior to that, they were styled _Most
Illustrious_ (Illustrissimo); or, in the case of the Cardinal-Dean and
Cardinal-Nephews, _Most Honourable_ and _Most Worshipful_
(Osservantissimo, Colendissimo).
Footnote 2:
They claim descent from the Gens Julia. Their armorials show the Bear
(Orsini) chained to the Column (Colonna) with the Imperial Eagle
displayed in chief.
Footnote 3:
The kingdoms of Aragon, Naples, the two Sicilies, and Jerusalem.
Footnote 4:
_Pater Patrum_; the official style of the Roman Pontiff.
Footnote 5:
The process of canonisation of King Ælfred, though initiated by a
Majesty of England (himself a saint _by acclamation_), has not yet
been completed by the Court of Rome after four hundred and fifty
years.
Footnote 6:
Religion—a gathering together for a pious purpose. It was the
fifteenth century equivalent for Order or Society.
Footnote 7:
The Lord Clement P.P. VII (Giulio de Medici), 1523–34, appears on
Cellini’s lovely medals in a full beard. Probably, in His case, there
was no choice; for, during the Sack of Rome in 1527 by the Lutheran
Goths and Catholic Catalans of the Elect-Emperor, Carlos V., His
Holiness was holding the Mola of Hadrian, or Castle of Santangelo, and
enduring the hard privations of a siege. Afterwards He did not shave;
and full beards became the fashion for the clergy. Later, the Lord
Alexander P.P. VII (Flavio Chigi), made the Vandyke beard and upturned
mustachio the clerical mode; and, later still, the whole face was
shaved according to the present rule. But, at the time when the
Cardinal of Avignon reflected upon the Cardinal of Trebizond’s beard,
there appears to have been a distinct prejudice in favour of a shaven,
indeed of a shorn, pope. This may be seen in the medals of popes and
cardinals of the fifteenth century (when cleanliness was a mark of
gentility), where the large tonsure and shaven faces are very
noticeable.
Footnote 8:
In the Acta Consistorialia of the Vatican Secret Archives, this Pope
is called Calixtus the Fourth, evidently by the stupidity of some
Apostolic Scribe, who happened to know that one John, Abbot of Struma,
called himself Calixtus III. (having got himself schismatically and
uncanonically elected in the reign of the Lord Alexander P.P. III);
and who had not the sense to know that the Holy Roman Church has the
habit of ignoring pseudopontiffs and other pretenders.
Footnote 9:
Villanueva (I. 18,181) quotes two Bulls of the Lord Calixtus P.P. III,
giving relics to the church at Xativa. On p. 51, Villanueva alludes to
him as “_Don Alonso de Borja, natural de la Torre de Canals, bautizado
en la Iglesia Collegial de Xativa, hoy S. Felipe, electo en 20 de
Agosto de 1429 por el Legado de Martin V. Conservo el gobierno de esta
Iglesia hasta el año en que murió, sienda yu Papa Calixto III. En 1457
concedió á esta Iglesia un jubileo en el dia de la Asuncion de nuestra
Señora, imponiendo para la fabrica la contribucion de diez sueldos._”
Footnote 10:
The pontifical diadem, consisting of a conical cap woven of the
plumage of white peacocks and encircled by three crowns of gold. It is
sometimes called the Tiara, and must be distinguished from the Mitre.
Footnote 11:
The _fiorino d’oro_, _ducato d’oro_, and _scudo d’oro_ were coins
worth about half a guinea, which, in the fifteenth century, had a
purchasing value of £2 to £2 10_s._
Footnote 12:
The first printing-press in Italy did not arrive till October 1465 at
Subjaco in the Sabine Hills.
Footnote 13:
The first Pontiff of this name, fifth in succession from the Lord St.
Peter P.P., is named in the Canon of the Mass as XYSTUS [Ξυστός, _cf._
Xanthus (Ξάνθος)]. The same form XYSTUS occurs in the Kalendarium,
and, in fact, in all officially issued liturgies; and is adopted also
in the authorised English version of the Liturgy. The word SIXTUS does
not appear to be a Latin word at all, and is not in Andrew’s
Latin-English Lexicon. It most likely is a debased corruption from
XYSTUS, when Latin liquefied into the Italian SISTO.
Footnote 14:
The business of these Orators (ambassadors) was conducted more by
means of florid eloquence than by the writing of despatches; though,
of course, the last was not neglected.
Footnote 15:
“... horribilesque ultimosque Britannos.” C. Valerius Catullus XI.
Footnote 16:
_Huszar_, derived by a roundabout route from Italian _cossaro_,
corsair, freelance (v. Murray).
Footnote 17:
Pragmatic Sanction, term of Byzantine origin, was applied to Imperial
Edicts (Τὸ Πραγματικόν) containing decrees issued as Fundamental Laws.
The Decrees of the Council of Basilea were embodied in a Pragmatic
Sanction by the Diet of Mainz, 1434; but at the Council of Vienna 1448
most of the advantages which it intended to secure for the Church in
Germany were abandoned.
Footnote 18:
Sikelian—Greek—Latin.
Footnote 19:
Note his epitaph in the Church of Santa Maria _sopra_ Minerva,
recorded by Ciacconi.
“Cardineo Divus Honore Decoravit Calixtus.”
Obviously the fifteenth century used “Divus” as Tacitus also used it
of Julius and Augustus; and as the twentieth century would say “the
late ——.”
Footnote 20:
The Lord Pius P.P. II (Enea Silvio).
Footnote 21:
The saving virtue of a drink of human blood was no new idea. Compare
Tertullian Apol. IX. “_Item illi qui munere in arena noxiorum
iugulatorum sanguinem recentem (de iugulo decurrentem exceptum) avida
siti comitiali morbo medentes hauserunt, ubi sunt?_”
Footnote 22:
Only one piece of antique silver, a salt-cellar, was possessed by the
House of Sforza in the latter years of the last century. All the rest
was not recovered from that Don Marino Torlonia, who usurped the
Sforza-Cesarini titles and estates from 1832 to 1836, when he was
deprived of them by the Ruota, the Supreme Tribunal of the Holy See,
in favour of Don Lorenzo Sforza-Cesarini, grandfather of the present
duke. The line of the great Francesco Sforza-Visconti, Duke of Milan,
to which Cardinal Ascanio Maria belonged, is now extinct. The present
House of Sforza-Cesarini descends from Don Bosio Sforza, Count of
Santafiora, 1441–1476, brother of the great Francesco, and second son
of Don Giovanni Muzio Attendolo, detto Sforza.
Footnote 23:
This paragraph rests entirely upon the gossip and conjectures of
Manfredi, Orator of Ferrara at Florence; Stefano Infessura (Ed.
Tommasini); Hans Burchard (Ed Thuasne); Bernardino Corio (Storia di
Milano).
Footnote 24:
For an English parallel of riotous superlatives, compare the
inscription on a picture of Elizabeth in the Hall of the
Post-Reformation Jesus College, Oxford.
“Diva Elizabetha Virgo Invictissima Semper Augusta Plus Quam Caesarea
Angliæ Franciae et Hiberniae Potentissima Imperatrix Fidei Christianae
Fortissima Propugnatrix Literarum Omnium Scientissima Fautrix Immenso
Oceani Felicissima Triumphatrix Collegii Jesu Oxon Fundatrix.”
Footnote 25:
Sdegnati di questa collazione contro del Papa, il Re tenne il dì
medesimo gran consiglio, dove furono proposte e trattate piu cose
contro del Papa in riformatione della chiesa. (Dispatch of 31 Aug.
1493, Canestrini, Négociations avec la Toscane. I. 249.)
Footnote 26:
There is a tale about this personage, that, having allowed himself to
be frightened by one of the calumnies of Cardinal Giuliano della
Rovere, to the effect that the Pope expected to be paid for the red
hat (in addition to the six hundred ducats which every cardinal offers
in return for the cardinalitial sapphire ring), he became so nervous
on Ash Wednesday, when it was his office to scatter ashes on the head
of the Sovereign Pontiff, as to substitute for the formula of
administration, “Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem
reverteris,” the words “Memento, homo, quia Papa es, et ego pecunias
non habeo.”
Footnote 27:
Infessura, in Eccard II. 2015. Alberi, Rel. Ven. Sen. III. 314.
Rivista Cristiana II. 261. Ugolini, Storia ... d’Urbino II. Doc. 13.
Ciacconi, Vitae Pontificum, sub anno. Gregorovius, Geschichts der
Stadt VII. 340. Matarazzo, Cron. di Perugia in Archivio Storico xvi.
See I. pt. ij. 3.
Footnote 28:
“Aiunt etiam multo vulgo inter illos iactari, regem Roman venturum et
statum Romanae Ecclesiae reformaturum. (Letter from Cardinal of Siena
to Pope, from Lucca, IIII. Nos. 1494.)
Footnote 29:
Allusion to the five red balls and the lilied bezant in the Medici
armorials.
Footnote 30:
A most important inference may be drawn from this, as to the paternity
of Cardinal Cesare.
Footnote 31:
The Roman phrase “to go to Santo Spirito” means “to go mad.”
Footnote 32:
“E molto necessaria la provisione de le genti d’ arme contro questi
demonii che non fugono per acqua santa.” xvi. ful. 1497.
Footnote 33:
“Commensano nel primo modo offenderse et non dare loco ad mei
commandamenti.” xxvii. ful. 1497.
Footnote 34:
“La S^a V^a po ben comprendere che tucto lo remedio di questi male in
la venuta de la gente d’arme, le quali tardando piu forniscere el
paese de Todi da desolare, essendo da la partita miu la cita
totalmente derelicta et lassata vacua.” xxx. ful. 1497.
Footnote 35:
“Procedono le cose qui con tanta obedientia et quieta che meglio non
si potriano desiderare.” xxx. ful. 1497.
Footnote 36:
“Du becharini homicidi ho facti piglia, et son stati senza tumulto et
piacer del populo menati in presione—cosa da bon tempo in qua insolita
in questa cita, et questi matina ne è stato appichiato uno.” 11 Aug.
1497.
Footnote 37:
This was quite a common torture. Every patrician had the right to
inflict it on his plebeians; and every inventory of palaces begins
with “Ropes for the Cord.” In many palaces and castles, iron rings
through which the Cord was passed remain to be seen. The witness had
his hands tied, hanging loosely behind him. One end of the long Cord
was attached to his wrists; the other end was flung over a beam or
through a ring and held by the official torturer. Then the witness
delicately was drawn up as high as possible. He hung there by his
wrists which were strained backward and upward, with his shoulders
generally dislocated. Then, with a frightful jerk he was dropped to
within a braccia (2 feet 7 inches) of the floor, completing the
dislocation with a shock. At this moment, the Question was put; his
answer distinguished from his shrieks, and written down. Any
stubbornness, or insolence, or reticence, was met by attaching weights
to his feet, and subjecting him to fresh elevations and fresh drops,
till his arms were torn from the sockets and his sinews strained to
the uttermost. Or, as a variant, he was left to hang until his
questioner had obtained the information required. Evidence of
commoners, without the Question, appears to have been considered by
the Fifteenth Century as valueless as evidence unsupported by oath or
affidavit and untested by cross-examination at the present day. The
nearest modern equivalent to the Torture of the Cord would be the
smelling of a greasy testament _plus_ the stratagems of a
cross-examining counsel. It was merely a legal form.
Footnote 38:
“Una de las mas principales causas que dava, para que el Cardenal de
Valencia dexasse el capelo era, porque siendo a quel Cardenal,
mientras en la Iglesia estuviesse, era bastante para impedir que no se
hiziesse in reformacion.”—Zurita, 126.
Footnote 39:
But She won a signal and decisive victory there, with the aid of Our
Lady of Victory (Νιχή, Poliziano would have said), in 1572.
Footnote 40:
“Mores esse profligatos pietatis studium restinctum, flagitiorum
licentiam solutam, sanctissimas pretio indignissimis addici—remque
esse in extremum poene discrimen adductam.”—(Osorius De rebus gestis
Emanuelis, Op. I. 595.)
Footnote 41:
“Italia tutta aviebbe dimostrato lui non esser vero
pontifice.”—(Marino Sanuto in De Leva, 61.) “Que eran notorias las
formas que se tuvieron en se eleccion, y quan graves cosas se
intentaron, y quan escandalosas.”—Zurita, 159.)
Footnote 42:
Indulgentia = Indulgence, gentleness, complaisance, tenderness,
fondness, a remission of punishment or taxation.—(Andrews,
Latin-English Lexicon, 1853, p. 789.)
Footnote 43:
De Maricourt.
Footnote 44:
“Il Papa ama ed a gran paura del figliuolo duca.”—Alberi, Relationi
III. iii. 10.
Footnote 45:
This title is hopelessly irregular. The _Princeps_ of the Holy Roman
Empire only becomes _Caesar Romanorum Imperator Semper Augustus mundi
totius Dominus universis dominis universis principibus et populis
Semper Venerandus_ by the herald’s proclamation after he has been
stripped, anointed, clothed in the consecrated dalmatica, ordained
deacon, and crowned with the Iron Crown of Monza and the Gold Diadem
of the Empire by the hands of the Supreme Pontiff Himself. The title
at present is dormant. If the sovereign is of the Swabian House,
precedent demands that he must go to Monza or to Sant’ Ambrogio at
Milan for the Iron Crown, and to San Giovanni Laterano at Rome for the
Gold Diadem. But Imperial coronations, (the sovereign not being of the
Swabian House,) at the Pope’s pleasure have taken place elsewhere.
Caesar Friedrich IV was the last Emperor crowned in Rome. Caesar
Francis II was the last to wear the imperial crown. He resigned it in
1806, having taken the title of Emperor of Austria in 1804. Before
coronation by the Pope the title of “The Elect-Emperor” is used; and
that is all which Maximilian can claim.
Footnote 46:
“Non de prefato duca sed de Nobis et dicta muliere soluta.”
Footnote 47:
Gregorovius F., _Lucrezia Borgia_.
Footnote 48:
The present writer once witnessed the reception, in all amity, by the
present Sforza, of the present Pasolini dell’ Onda, who came peaceably
to gain information for his book in praise of Madonna Caterina
Sforza-Riario. A singular example of the old order changed and giving
place to new.
Footnote 49:
“Per dar ad intender a tutti che ’l Signor over Signori hanno appiacer
del tradimento, ma non del traditore.” Priuli. xxvi. July 1502.
Footnote 50:
Costabili to Duke of Ferrara. Rome, xi. Aug. 1502.
Footnote 51:
“Aveva il duca gittate assai buoni fondamenti alla potenza sua, avendo
tutta la Romagna con il ducato d’ Urbino, e guadagnatosi tutti quei
populi, per avere incomminciato a gustare il ben essere loro.”
(Machiavelli. Il Principe. Op. i. 35.)
Footnote 52:
“Se ne ha contentare costui, e non il Papa, e per questo le cose che
si concludessino del Papa possono bene essere ritrattate da costui, ma
quelle che si concludessino da costui non saranno gia ritrattate dal
Papa.” (Dispatch from Cesena xiv. Dec. 1502.)
Footnote 53:
Arcuballistarius = cross-bow-man.
Footnote 54:
Arcuballista = cross-bow.
Footnote 55:
“Alcuni lo volevano far Re d’ Italia, e coronarlo, altri lo volevano
fa Imperatore, perche ’l prosperava talmente, che non era alcuno li
bastasse l’animo d’impedirlo in cosa alcuna.” (xi Jan. 1503.)
Footnote 56:
“Se nella morte di Alessandro fusse stato sano, ogni cosa gli era
facile.” (Machiavelli, Principe, Op. I. 39.)
Footnote 57:
Fitzgerald’s Rubaiyat of Omar Khaiyam, xvi.
Footnote 58:
Pastor, L. _History of the Popes_, edited by Fr. Frederick Antrobus of
the Oratory.
Footnote 59:
A comical side-light on this naïve age is given in the Annales
Bononiensis, (Muratori xxiii. 890) on the occasion of an outbreak of
plague. Penitence, fasting, and flagellation were resorted to.
Butchers closed their shops for eight days. And, that sorrow for sin
was not confined to respectable people may be gathered from the fact
that “meretrices ad concubita nullum admittebant. Ex eis quàdam quae
cupiditate lucri adolescentem admiserat, depreheusâ, aliae meretrices
ita illius nates nudas corrigiis percusserunt ut sanguinem emitteres.”
Footnote 60:
Here is a specimen of Mgr. Burchard’s or his copyist’s gross
inaccuracy. He officially was responsible for the conduct of this
function. He intimately should have known, and directed, every
movement and every gesture of every assistant. And he names, among the
cardinals-assistant, the Lord Giovanni Borgia (detto Seniore)
Archbishop of Monreale, Cardinal-Presbyter of Santa Susanna, _who had
been dead just eighteen days_.
Footnote 61:
_i.e._ in the usual manner, with all the ceremonies required for the
obsequies of the pontifical cadaver: not surreptitiously or with
maimed rites as some have said.
Footnote 62:
A dead Pope lies in state in the Chapel of the Trinity in St. Peter’s,
surrounded by unbleached wax tapers, and with the feet protruded
through the screen for the osculations of the faithful.
Footnote 63:
Enea Silvio Bartolomeo de’ Piccolhuomini, 1458–1464.
Footnote 64:
Qy. A concoction of cantharides? Or was it merely a name, like
κανθαρίτης οὶνός? (Plin. 14. 7. 9.)
Footnote 65:
M. de Voltaire speaks of Duke Cesare (detto Borgia) as “the son.”
Footnote 66:
Ducato d’oro = half a guinea with four times its purchasing power. A
million of gold ducats would equal £2,000,000 sterling.
Footnote 67:
M. de Voltaire speaks of Duke Cesare (detto Borgia) as the Pope’s son;
and of the Pope as Duke Cesare’s Father.
Footnote 68:
The Venerable Servant of God, King Ælfred the Great of England, has
not yet been styled “The Blessed.” Sir Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of
England under Henry VIII Tudor, only was admitted to the rank of “The
Blessed” in 1886, by the Lord Leo P.P. XIII. He now publicly may be
invoked by name, and his portraits decorated by a halo.
Footnote 69:
The Clerk of the Hanaper is the domestic in charge of the great gallon
goblet called the hanaper.
Footnote 70:
“Mercurii xx Nov. fuit data sententia in Rota, contra Sebastianum
Pinzonum, scriptorum apostolicum, absentem ob contumaciam, privationis
omnium beneficiorum et officiorum” (_interesting to notice that, in
the reign of the Lord Julius P.P. II, the eternal enemy of Borgia, a
convict on the capital charge was merely ruined, and not sentenced to
death_;) “pro quod eo dominum cardinalem Mutinensem patronum suum
veneno interemisset, qui eum de stercore eximerat.”
Footnote 71:
“Fuit facta proba, in tribus animalibus porcinis, de aliquibus
venenis, repertis in cancelleria, missis perantea a Vincencia, qua
reperta sunt non esse bona.” (Secrets de l’État de Venise, Petersburg,
1884, p. 6.)
Footnote 72:
“_Christophori sancti faciem quicunque tuetur
Illa nempe die mala morte non morietur._”
Footnote 73:
in Pentade Quaest. latrophilologicarum, p. 122. Ed. Geneva 1647,
quoting Juan de Vigo, Lib. II, Chirug. Tract. II, 5.
Footnote 74:
Mgr. Paris de Grassis _On Mgr. Hans Burchard_ is fine indeed!
Footnote 75:
Lamansky. Secrets de l’Etat de Venise. Petersburg. 1884.
Footnote 76:
Cf. Maricourt.
Footnote 77:
Decii Junii Juvenalis, Satura xiii.
Footnote 78:
Have these Bulls been rescinded? If not, it is possible that they form
the ground of the dull and bitter and radical animosity of Spain and
Portugal to Anglo-Saxondom of the present day. In the light of these
Bulls, England and America are usurpers and excommunicate!
Footnote 79:
Ep. II to Cor. ii. 7.
Footnote 80:
Ep. to Eph. i. 21.
Footnote 81:
Ep. to St. Titus ii. 15.
Footnote 82:
Réné, Comte de Maricourt, who quotes M. L’Abbé Morel in _L’Univers_.
Footnote 83:
When it becomes a question of blaming a priest or a Pope, the
principle of proportion demands that the lesser should bear. Two
modern Roman Catholics have presumed with “unctuous rectitude” to
scold the Holiness of the Pope as follows:
“From a Catholic point of view, it is impossible to blame Alexander
too severely.”—(History of the Popes. Pastor + Antrobus. VI. 139.)
This inhuman pronouncement is saved by the “a.” Comment is needless:
but there is another “Catholic point of view.”
Footnote 84:
Enea Silvio Bartolomeo de’ Piccolhuomini.
Footnote 85:
Secret Archives of the duchies of Ossuna and Infantado.
Footnote 86:
Symonds, J. A. Renascence, II. 493–5.
Footnote 87:
One _bandito_, under sentence, or ban, of exile.
Footnote 88:
Observe the chivalrous gentleness of the Borgian Era in regard to
women, compared with the bald mercilessness of modern parochial and
civil Registers. In these deeds of legitimation, the woman is never
named, and not always the man. The weaker party is never punished by
eternal gibbeting, by eternal record of her shame by name. She is
always permitted to hide under the veil of _coniugata_, or _soluta_,
“a married woman” or “a spinster.” Still, the Twentieth Century is
humane to the wolf’s brother and the hyæna’s cousin; and nourishes a
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals: and perhaps that
balances the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries’ humanity and chivalry
to sex.
Footnote 89:
Theuli. Bonaventura Abp. Teatro Istorico di Velletri, II. 5.
Footnote 90:
Vit. Synop. Stef. Borgiae S.R.E. Card. Ampliss. (Peter Paul of St.
Bartholomew, discalced Carmelite. Rome, 1805, I. 2.)
Footnote 91:
It appears to be a little inconsistent of a Pope, Who wished Messer
Rafaele Sanzio to paint Him with a Sword and not a book in His hand,
to object to a Cardinal in a Breast-plate: _for the sword is the
weapon of offence; but the Breast-plate, of defence merely_. But many
terms in this Bull are simply “corroborative detail calculated to lend
an air of verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing
narrative”—simply words, “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Footnote 92:
The Twentieth Century may be shocked to notice that, in the Sixteenth,
England ranked as the fifth Power in Europe, _after Portugal_.
Footnote 93:
See _Menghini_. (_C. Canon_) Opinion ... upon the Question whether ...
John Carmont D.D. incurred the Major Excommunication, etc. _J.
Anderson and Son. Courier and Herald Offices, Dumfries. 1886_: and
leading article in _Scotsman_, May 11th, 1886.
Footnote 94:
(Verg. Aen. XII. 419.)
Footnote 95:
These two charming personages used a most beautiful handwriting, neat,
clear, well-mannered, decisive; as may be seen in the private Brief of
the Lord Leo P.P. X, _placet et ita motu proprio mandamus_; and in the
letter of Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, dated April 1516; which are
preserved in the British Museum 23.721.
Footnote 96:
Whistler counts his myopia as his chief talent.
Footnote 97:
Belriguardo. xi Jul. 1516.
Footnote 98:
Oratrice (oratrix) is a rare word = but perfectly classical; and its
use shews that the Renascence of Learning had done something to
improve ecclesiastical Latin, and, by consequence, Italian also.
Footnote 99:
Authorities for this sketch of Saint Francisco de Borja, General of
Jesuits, and sometime Duke of Gandia, etc.
1. Ribadaneira. Life.
2. Cardinal Alvaro Cienfuegos. La heroica vida, etc. del grande San
Francisco de Borja. Madrid 1717.
3. Monumenta Historica Societatis Jesu. Madrid 1894–5.
4. Sir James Stephen. Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography.
5. A. M. Clarke. St. Francis Borgia. Lond. 1872 etc.
The last was prepared under the auspices of the late Fr. John Morris,
S.J.; and is useful in giving the modern English Jesuit point of view.
Footnote 100:
Sir James Stephen. Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography, i. 29.
Footnote 101:
A second bastard of Archbishop Don Alonso de Aragona, also called Doña
Juana, married Don Felipe of Austria, and became the mother of the
Emperor Carlos.
Footnote 102:
Anciently Salduba, colonized by Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus
Augustus B.C. 27, who called it Caesaraugasta; afterwards corrupted
into Saragossa.
Footnote 103:
A plain gold band, studded with uncut gems, round whose inner rim runs
one of the Nails that nailed our Divine Redeemer to the Cross of
Calvary hammered into a flat band to press the brows of him who wears
the Iron Crown. It may be seen enshrined in the Treasury of the
Cathedral at Monza.
Footnote 104:
In Catholic countries one is bound to use the clergy of one’s own
parish.
Footnote 105:
Milk and meat were forbidden during Lent, and on every Saturday
throughout the year.
Footnote 106:
_e.g._, one might marry in Lent or Advent.
Footnote 107:
To enable the Borgia ladies sometimes to see their relations in the
Monastery of Poor Clares, whose Rule is one of the strictest.
Footnote 108:
The Bull _Regimini_ was not finally sealed till xxvii Sept. 1540.
Footnote 109:
_La heroica vida, etc., del grande San Francisco de Borja, by Cardinal
Alvaro Cienfuegos._ Madrid, 1717, III. i. 115.
Footnote 110:
_La heroica vida, etc., del grande San Francisco de Borja, by Cardinal
Alvaro Cienfuegos._ Madrid, 1717, III. i. 115.
Footnote 111:
This Pontiff once was asked to give an opinion as to who had been the
greatest Popes. He answered, St. Peter, St. Sylvester, Alexander VI
and Ourself.
Footnote 112:
“Card Zappata ajebat frustra Card. Gasparem Borgia mores componere et
a natura recedere, ut Pontificatum assequatur. Quandoquidem a multis
annis Spiritus Sanctus non spiret in Hispania, Cubebat nihilominus
fidem adhibere inani, et fatuae predictioni bovem tertio murgiturum.
Quod assentatores interpretabantur ut post Calixtum III et Alexandrum
VI, ipse tertius Pontifex renuntiantur, et famiglia Borgia, bovem in
scuto ferens.” (_Arnidenio, in Vite m. s.s. de’ Cardinali_)
Footnote 113:
It would be very interesting to know how and when this title passed
from the line of Prince Gioffredo Borgia into the line of his elder
brother Don Juan Francisco de Borja the murdered Duke of Gandia; for
Prince Gioffredo, married at fourteen, certainly originated a notable
branch of Borgia, which, in the Seventeenth Century intermarried with
the Orsini Duke of Gravina. It is most unusual for a title _to turn
back_, as it were, and vest itself in another branch. And what has
become of the principalities of Teano and Tricarico, and the counties
of Chiaramonte, Lauria, and Cerignola which were held by the murdered
Duke of Gandia, his son Don Juan II, and the son of the last St.
Francisco de Borja?
Footnote 114:
All from _El Blason de España_, by Don Augusto de Burgos, III. i.
85–95.
Footnote 115:
Theuli. _Teatro Istorico di Velletri._ Velletri, 1644. III. 304.
Footnote 116:
Theuli, III. 335.
Footnote 117:
Ricchi, 251.
Footnote 118:
Theuli, III. 312–3.
Footnote 119:
While it indubitably is Christian, this epitaph shews that the modern
sophistication, which has destroyed belief in the world to come,
already had made its appearance in Italy. Death here is no longer
regarded with the calm dignity perceivable in earlier epitaphs, (that
of his lineal ancestor Don Pietrogorio Borgia, for example, on p.
434), but as a Horror and an End.
Footnote 120:
The Order of Malta, or of St. John of Jerusalem, was founded by Don
Gerardo di Martiquez di Provenza, warden of the Hospital of St. John
Baptist for Pilgrims, in 1098. The Hospitallers were dedicated to the
service of the poor; and wore a black habit, with an eight-pointed
Maltese Cross, in white, on the breast. They took vows of poverty,
chastity and obedience. The Regular Foundation was delayed till 1104
when Baldwin I was king in Jerusalem. The Rule was that of St.
Aurelius Augustine; and the Order was finally confirmed by the Bull of
the Lord Paschal P.P. II in 1113. Its Constitution admitted of Knights
of Honour and Brothers of Devotion; the former swore to defend the
Faith against all enemies, the latter to minister to pilgrims and
afflicted. There were two badges, a cross of six points in gold
enamelled white, and a crowned cross of eight points of the same, worn
on a black riband. The Order had a Priory in London before the
Reformation—St. John of Jerusalem in Clerkenwell—whose original gate
and crypt may yet be seen. The present soi-disant Order which occupies
this Priory has yet to shew authority for its existence.
Footnote 121:
P. E. Cav. Visconti in Tipaldo.
Footnote 122:
The Sforza-Cesarini, who in the Fifteenth Century intermarried with
the Borgia, enjoy the Duchy of Segni at the present day.
Footnote 123:
Coronelli, Bibl. Univ. II. 870.
Footnote 124:
By his last will and testament, Cardinal King Henry IX bequeathed his
rights in the English Crown to the descendants of Anna Maria
d’Orleans, (daughter of Henrietta Stewart, and niece of King Charles
I,) who married Duke Vittoramadeo of Savoja; from whom descends—not
the Bavarian Princess of the Order of the White Rose, but—King
Vittoremanuele III of Italy.
Footnote 125:
A ring belonging to Cardinal King Henry IX, containing miniatures of
his father and mother, King James III and Queen Clementina, has found
its way into the Fortnum Collection at the Oxford University
Galleries.
Footnote 126:
“Benefices in Spain,” the possession of which is alleged as a crime in
the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, appear to be common enough.
Footnote 127:
Miss Clementina Walkinshaw, Countess Alberstorf, the mistress of King
Charles III.
Footnote 128:
The word _magnanimitá_ had undergone a change of meaning since the
Sixteenth Century, when Messor Niccolo Machiavelli sneered that the
Baglioni of Perugia shewed no _magnanimitá_, because they did not
garrote the Lord Julius P.P. II, their guest.
Footnote 129:
Could any hint be more obscurely obvious, more insinuatory of
compliment? Cardinal Borgia’s little trick of leaving the
initiative(!) to John Bull is a master-stroke of Latin diplomacy,
whose strength is, now, and ever, in the pulling of wires.
Footnote 130:
From the ANNUAL REGISTER, 1837, p. 147. “_xvii Sept. 1837. At the
private chapel of the rt. rev. the bishop Griffiths, (Vicar-Apostolic
of the London District) Caroline Shirley, only daughter of Robert
Sewallis Shirley, Viscount Tamworth, to Don Lorenzo Sforza, Duca
Sforza, only son of the late Don Francisco Sforza, Duca Sforza, of
Rome_.”
(There is a slight inaccuracy in this notice. Duke Lorenzo should be
described as _only surviving son_ of Don Francisco, not as _only son_;
for Don Francisco’s elder son, Don Salvatore, died xix May 1832; and
Don Francisco’s daughter Donna Anna, wife to Don Marino Torlonia,
egregiously failed, before the Tribunal of the Ruota, to dispossess
her younger brother the aforesaid Don Lorenzo, the legitimate son,
born on the night between xvii and xviii of March 1807, to the
aforesaid Don Francisco Sforza-Cesarini, by his wife the Duchess
Geltruda de’ Conti. This hideous law-suit was the excitement of all
Rome at the time.)
Footnote 131:
“Io qui mi trovo racchiuso in conclave per l’elezione del nuovo
pontifice con trenta quatro Cardli, i quali avendo saputa la
generositá Inglese verso dell’ Illustro loro Collega.”
Footnote 132:
It is too early yet to speak about the twentieth.
Footnote 133:
It was Mr. Oakley, heir of Sir Charles Oakley Bart., who was entrusted
with this confidential and very delicate mission.
Footnote 134:
It should be said that loyalty to the Stewarts, as it has been here
entreated of, implies no shadow of disloyalty to the present Royal
House of England. The law of Prescriptive Right by itself would be
sufficient to require the most dutiful allegiance on the part of all
the subjects of Her Most Sacred Majesty the late Queen-Empress. But it
may be said further, that, as far as Roman Catholics are concerned,
the most ingeniously scrupulous conscience can have no possible doubt
about its obligation, since the Lord Leo P.P. XIII accorded that
formal Recognition of the late Queen’s Majesty as Queen, by the
presence of an Apostolic Ablegate at the Jubilee of 1887. In the
course of this book the immense importance which sovereigns of the
Borgian Era attached to this Recognition has been shewn. They were
ready to fight for it, knowing that without it they could not hope to
stand. In the present instance it was not even asked for; and its
spontaneous granting by the Roman Pontiff should emphasize the fact
that, what formerly might have been a matter for discussion, is now an
imperative religious duty, namely, undeviating loyalty to the Royal
and Imperial Dynasty of Queen Victoria.
Footnote 135:
Ἀλκμήνη. It is curious to note the survival of Greek names in the
ancient families of Etruria.
Footnote 136:
The Legion of Honour is a French Order founded during the Consulate of
Napoleon Buonaparte, 20 Fiorile, An. x: ratified by the Christian King
Louis XVIII on VI July, 1814. It is governed by a Grand Master who is
the Emperor, King, or President of France according to the fashion. It
contains five classes. The Knights and Officers wear silver crosses.
The Commanders, Grand Officers and Grand Crosses wear the decoration
in gold. The motto is HONNEUR ET PATRIE. (_Tettoni e Saladini. Teatro
Araldico._)
Footnote 137:
The Order of the Two Sicilies were founded by Joseph Buonaparte, XXIV
Feb. 1808, to recompense loyalty, courage, and long service. (_Tettoni
e Saladini. Teatro Araldico._)
Footnote 138:
The Order of St. Gregory the Great was founded by the Lord Gregory
P.P. XVI for Merit, Civil and Military, 1 Sept. 1831. There are four
classes, viz. First, and Second Grand Cross, Commanders, and Knights.
The obverse of the octagonal silver medal bears an eight-pointed cross
in red enamel, with a shield in pretence shewing an effigy of the Lord
St. Gregory P.P. I the Great (the Pope who sent St. Augustine to
convert the English, A.D. 596.) The reverse bears the legend, PRO DEO
ET PRINCIPE GREGORIUS XVI. P.M. ANNO I. (_Tettoni e Saladini. Teatro
Araldico._)
Footnote 139:
On the second of April 1814, M. le Comte d’Artois permitted the
National Guard of Paris to wear a silver Fleurdelys suspended from a
white watered riband, in recognition of service. On the twenty-sixth
of April, a Star was substituted for the Fleurdelys, and a blue border
added to the white riband. The Decoration was called the Order of the
Lily of France, and all _decorés_ made to swear an oath of fidelity to
God, and of obedience to the King, (_Tettoni e Saladini. Teatro
Araldico._)
Footnote 140:
Burckhardt, _Cultur de Renaissance_, see 5 ed. 2, p. 312. Gregorovius,
_Lucrezia Borgia_, II 4. Janitschek, _Gesellschaft der Renaissance_,
III.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Page Changed from Changed to
111 Pontificum, sub anno. Pontificum, sub anno.
Gregorovius, Geschichts de Stadt Gregorovius, Geschichts der
VII. 340. Matarazzo Stadt VII. 340. Matarazzo
193 following is suggested at an following is suggested as an
explanation explanation
226 בוווד––צמובה בוווו––צמרכד
● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
● Used numbers for footnotes, placing them all at the end of the last
chapter.
● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
● Enclosed blackletter font in =equals=.
● The caret (^) serves as a superscript indicator, applicable to
individual characters (like 2^d) and even entire phrases (like
1^{st}).
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