Chapter XIII: Book II: , speaks for the fact that venom was feared, and therefore likely (2)

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.

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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.

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.

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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.

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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!

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