Part 39 (1/2)
”Because this belongs to the Dominions of the Pope.”
”And what kind of guards are these?”
”These are pontifical Swiss guards.”
”They look comic-opera enough,” said Caesar.
”My dear man, don't say that. This costume was designed by no one less than Michelangelo.”
”All right. At that time they probably looked very well, but now they have a theatrical effect.”
”It is because you have no veneration. If you were reverential, they would look wonderful to you.”
”Very well, let us wait and see whether reverence will not spring up in me. Now, you go on and explain what there is here.”
”This first room, the Hall of Audience, or of the Popes, does not contain anything notable, as you see,” said Kennedy; ”the five we are coming to later, have been restored, but are still the same as at the time when your countryman Alexander VI was Pope. All five were decorated by Pinturicchio and his pupils, and all with reference to the Borgias.
The Borgias have their history, not well known in all its details, and their legend, which is more extensive and more picturesque. Really, it is not easy to distinguish one from the other.”
”Let's have the history and the legend mixed.”
”I will give you a resume in a few words. Alfonso Borja was a Valencian, born at Jatiba; he was secretary to the King or Aragon; then Bishop of Valencia, later Cardinal, and lastly Pope, by the name of Calixtus III.
While Calixtus lives, the Spaniards are all-powerful in Rome. Calixtus protects his nephews, sons of his sister Isabel and a Valencian named Lanzol or Lenzol. These nephews drop their original name and take their mother's, Italianizing its spelling to Borgia. Their uncle, the Pope, appoints the elder, Don Pedro Luis, Captain of the Church; the second, Don Rodriguez....”
”Don Rodriguez?” said Caesar. ”In Spanish you can't say Don Rodriguez.”
”Gregorovius calls him that.”
”Then Gregorovius, no doubt, knew no Spanish.”
”In Latin he is called Rodericus.”
”Then it should be Don Rodrigo.”
”All right, Rodrigo. Well, this Don Rodrigo, also from Jatiba, his uncle makes a Cardinal, and at the death of Pedro Luis, he calls him to Rome. Rodrigo has had several children before becoming a Cardinal, and apparently he feels no great enthusiasm for ecclesiastical dignities; but when he finds himself in Rome, the ambition to be Pope a.s.sails him, and at the death of Innocent VIII, he buys the tiara? Is it legend or history that he bought the tiara? That is not clear. Now we will go in and see the portrait of Rodrigo Borgia, who in the series of Popes, bears the name Alexander VI.”
_ALEXANDER VI AND HIS BROTHER_
Kennedy and Caesar entered the first room, the Hall of the Mysteries, and the Englishman stopped in front of a picture of the Resurrection.
”Here you have Alexander VI, on his knees, adoring Christ who is leaving the tomb. He is the type of a Southerner; he has a hooked nose, a long head, tonsured, a narrow forehead, thick lips, a heavy beard, a strong neck, and small chubby hands. He wears a papal robe of gold, covered with jewels; the tiara is on the ground beside him. Of the soldiers, it is supposed that the one asleep by the sepulchre and the one who is waking and rising up, pulling himself to his knees by the aid of his lance, are two of the Pope's sons, Caesar and the Duke of Gandia. I rather believe that the little soldier with the lance is a woman, perhaps Lucrezia. How does your countryman strike you, my friend?”
”He is of Mediterranean race, a dolichocephalic Iberian; he has the small melon-shaped head, the sensual features. He is leptorrhine. He comes of an intriguing, commercial, lying, and charlatan race.”
”To which you have the honour to belong,” said Kennedy, laughing.
”Certainly.”
”They say this man was a great enthusiast about his countrymen and the customs of his country. These tiles, which are remains of the original floor, and the plates you see here, are Valencian. A Spanish painter told me that several letters of Alexander VI's are preserved in the archives of the cathedral at Valencia, one among them asking to have tiles sent.”
Kennedy walked forward a little and planted himself before an a.s.sumption of the Virgin, and said: