Chapter III: Book IV (1)

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.

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.