Part 3 (2/2)

Lucrezia may or may not have known the sad and revolting details of her father's death and burial. Rumours of poison were rife; some even held that the Borgias had poisoned each other by mistake at the dinner held on 5 August by their friend Adriano da Corneto, recently created cardinal. Cesare and Alexander, the story ran, had intended to poison their host and seize his possessions, but there was a mix-up over the jugs of wine and they too drank the poison intended for their victim. It is an indication of the extraordinary atmosphere surrounding the Borgias that this farcical scenario was widely believed. Francesco Gonzaga, at the French headquarters at Isola Farnese outside Rome, sent Isabella an account of Alexanders death which included a Faustian pact with the devil: When he [Alexander] fell sick, he began to talk in such a way that anyone who did not know what was in his mind would have thought that he was wandering, although he was perfectly conscious of what he said; his words were,'I come; it is right; wait a moment.'Those who know the secret say that in the conclave following the death of Innocent he made a compact with the devil, and purchased the papacy from him at the price of his soul. Among the other provisions of the agreement was one which said that he should be allowed to occupy the Holy See twelve years [actually eleven], and this he did with the addition of four days. There are some who affirm that at the moment he gave up his spirit seven devils were seen in his chamber. As soon as he was dead his body began to putrefy and his mouth to foam... The body swelled up so that it lost all human form. It was nearly as broad as it was long. It was carried to the grave with little ceremony; a porter dragged it from the bed by means of a cord fastened to the foot to the place where it was buried, as all refused to touch it. It was given a wretched interment, in comparison with which that of the cripple's dwarf wife in Mantua was ceremonious. Scandalous epigrams are every day published concerning him.26 That a sophisticated aristocrat like the Marquis of Mantua should believe such stuff about pacts with the devil is an indication of how close medieval superst.i.tion lay to the surface of the supposedly humanist, cla.s.sical Renaissance. The gruesome facts of the burial were to some extent, however, confirmed by Burchard who was in charge of organizing it. As soon as Cesare, lying weak but conscious in the room above the Pope's, was made aware of his father's death he sent Michelotto and a squad of armed men to secure the Pope's apartments and remove silver, jewels and cash to the value of 300,000 ducats (in their haste they missed another cache of valuables but what they managed to find was enough to finance Cesare's immediate future). The papal servants then plundered the apartments and wardrobes leaving only the papal thrones, some cus.h.i.+ons and hangings. At four o'clock in the afternoon, they opened the doors and announced that the Pope was dead. Burchard, arriving to supervise the laying out of the body, found the Vatican more or less deserted and not a cardinal in sight. He had Alexander's body clothed in red brocade vestments and covered with a fine tapestry, laid on a table in the Sala del Pappagallo, scene of so many Borgia festivities. Two tapers burned beside it but no one kept vigil. The next day it was borne on a bier by the customary group of paupers to St Peter's where fighting broke out as the guards tried to seize the valuable wax tapers from the monks accompanying the body. In the confusion the Pope's body was abandoned. Burchard and a few others dragged the bier behind the railings of the high altar and locked the grille for fear that Alexander's enemies might try to desecrate his body.

During the next day, as Gonzaga described, the body began to decompose in the great heat. Burchard found a horrific sight: 'Its face had changed to the colour of mulberry or the blackest cloth, and it was covered in blue-black spots. The nose was swollen, the mouth distended where the tongue was doubled over and the lips seemed to fill everything. The appearance of the face then was more horrifying than anything that had ever been seen or reported before...' At the burial it was found that the coffin was too short and too narrow; six porters making blasphemous jokes about the late Pope and his hideous appearance 'rolled up his body in an old carpet and pummelled and pushed it into the coffin with their fists. No wax tapers or lights were used and no priests or any other persons attended his body'

Hundreds of miles to the north, Lucrezia, as Bembo had pointed out, could not afford to be seen destroyed by grief for long. As a Borgia, she was resilient and she saw that she had to act quickly to salvage what remained of Borgia power: that meant Cesare. Despite his weakness, Cesare played his cards with his usual skill and deception. He was still the major Italian force in terms of money and troops, a factor which could decide the balance between France and Spain. Most of his lands in the Romagna still held firm for him. Equally importantly, both the French and the Spanish believed that Cesare, with the numbers of cardinals at his command, could swing the result of the election of the next pope, critical in the circ.u.mstances. And, whatever Ercole d'Este might have privately felt, he was sincerely apprehensive as to what: his old enemy, Venice, might do should Cesare's power in the Romagna crumble. Cesare at first feigned to make an agreement with Prospero Colonna and the Spanish side, then double-crossed them by making an agreement with the French, and took the road to Nepi. On 5 September the French dispatched letters in his favour to the Romagna to the effect that the Duke Valentino was 'alive, well and the friend of the King of France'. This had the effect of stemming the tide running against him in the Romagna where Guidobaldo had returned to Urbino, Gian Paolo Baglioni to Perugia and the surviving Vitelli to Citta di Castello. Venice had occupied Porto Cesenatico on 1 September, sent Giovanni Sforza back to Pesaro on the 3rd, and Pandolfo Malatesta to Rimini on the 6th. Attempts against Cesena, Imola and Faenza failed, the Venetians drew back and the cautious Ercole wrote to Cesare offering his congratulations on his recovery and his wisdom in turning to the French.

Lucrezia acted resolutely to help her brother: Sanudo reported on 27 September that she was raising troops in Ferrara and paying 20 ducats each to twenty bombardiers.27 On 7. October he wrote that she had sent fifty cavalry to help Cesare at Faenza and Forli, and on the 20th that Cesare's captain at the Rocca di Forli had left Ferrara with a force including 150 Germans, the greater part of them sent by the Duke of Ferrara in Lucrezia's name, and gone to Cesena. On 7. October he wrote that she had sent fifty cavalry to help Cesare at Faenza and Forli, and on the 20th that Cesare's captain at the Rocca di Forli had left Ferrara with a force including 150 Germans, the greater part of them sent by the Duke of Ferrara in Lucrezia's name, and gone to Cesena.

Cesare, however, was not the only Borgia Lucrezia had to be concerned about. In the dangerous times following Alexander's death, the two little Borgia children, Rodrigo Bisceglie and Giovanni Borgia, were sent for safety to the Castel Sant'Angelo, to be followed later by Cesare's illegitimate children, Girolamo and Camilla. Alexander's last child, named Rodrigo, born of an unknown mother in the last year of his papacy, is not mentioned, possibly because he was young enough to be left with his mother. On 2 September when Cesare left for Nepi he took with him Vannozza, the Borgia children and Jofre who had shown considerable courage after Alexander's death. Sancia who, for some unexplained reason had been in the Castel Sant'Angelo since October 1502, was released and departed for Naples with Prospero Colonna, whose mistress she soon became. On 3 October, Cesare returned to Rome with his family, determined to confront his enemies and to exert his influence over the recently elected pope, the old and ailing Cardinal Francesco Piccolomini, now Pius III. Cardinal Cosenza and Ippolito d'Este had been appointed guardians of the two elder boys; at this juncture Cosenza apparently wrote Lucrezia a letter, which has not survived, suggesting that Rodrigo should be sent to Spain for his own safety, the implication being that while Giovanni and the other little Borgias might be acceptable to the Este, poor Rodrigo, whom Lucrezia had not seen for well over a year, would not be. In an anguished letter which has. .h.i.therto not been published, Lucrezia, often accused of being a thoughtless mother where Rodrigo was concerned, appealed to Ercole for his opinion, enclosing Cosenza's letter. To send him so far away seemed to her very hard to bear as a mother: Knowing it to be my duty to communicate to you as my father and only benefactor all my affairs and particularly of such importance to me as the interests of don roderico my son, I am writing this to you now.It is the opinion of the Most Reverend Cardinal of Cosenza for reasons which Your Lords.h.i.+p will understand from his enclosed letter that Don Roderico [Rodrigo] be transferred to Valencia. As to which although it seems to me so far away as to be most hard for a mother [to bear] however I will accede to your most wise counsel, given the fact that the death of His late Holiness Our Lord happened so suddenly that he [Rodrigo] could not establish an appropriate state and that little which he did have will be taken from him, for this I pray Your Excellency that not only will you consult me as to your opinion but hold him recommended in everything you know might preserve and profit him: which will be among the other obligations I have to you of eternal benefit...28 Ercole replied, in an affectionate, thoughtful, almost fatherly letter, that he considered the cardinal's advice sound, and that Lucrezia owed Cosenza a debt of grat.i.tude for the demonstration and proof of so much cordial love that he clearly bears to you and to the most ill.u.s.trious Don Roderico your son, who, one can say, has been preserved in life by his means. And although Don Roderico will be somewhat severed from Your Ladys.h.i.+p, it is better to be so far away and safe, than near with the danger in which he evidently would be; nor, because of this distance, will the love between you be at all diminished. When he has grown up, he will be able according to the condition of the times to decide on his own course, whether to return to Italy or to stay.

He thought the cardinal's suggestion that Rodrigo's Italian property should be sold to provide for his support a wise one (since, following the death of Alexander, the dukedom of Nepi would be taken away from him, leaving him only with his father's estates in the Kingdom of Naples). 'Nevertheless,' Ercole ended, 'if to your Ladys.h.i.+p, who is most prudent, it should seem otherwise, we yield to your better judgement.'29 Lucrezia's maternal feelings led her to reject the advice of both Ercole and Cosenza. She could not bring herself to send her first-born and at that time only child to Spain. A compromise was reached whereby Rodrigo was to be brought up by his father's relations, first in Naples, probably by Sancia, his aunt, and then after her death in c.1506 by his father's half-sister, Isabella d'Aragona Sforza, d.u.c.h.ess of Bari, the legitimate daughter of Alfonso II. He would keep his Neapolitan estates. This last decision may possibly have been prompted by a solemn promise made by the Catholic Kings, Ferdinand and Isabella, on 20 May 1502 confirming Cesare, Jofre, Juan Gandia's son (also named Juan), in the possession of all their Neapolitan estates, an impressive doc.u.ment which Lucrezia had taken care to bring with her from Rome since it still exists among her papers in the archives at Modena.3 Although apparently not allowed to have Rodrigo with her at Ferrara, Lucrezia continued to care for his welfare and there are many entries in her wardrobe accounts for clothes for 'Don Rodrigo'. Lucrezia's baby half-brother, also called Rodrigo and born in the last year of her father's life, was apparently brought up in Naples, while Giovanni Borgia and Cesare's two illegitimate children were brought to Carpi, not far from Ferrara. Although apparently not allowed to have Rodrigo with her at Ferrara, Lucrezia continued to care for his welfare and there are many entries in her wardrobe accounts for clothes for 'Don Rodrigo'. Lucrezia's baby half-brother, also called Rodrigo and born in the last year of her father's life, was apparently brought up in Naples, while Giovanni Borgia and Cesare's two illegitimate children were brought to Carpi, not far from Ferrara.

Just at this time Lucrezia and Pietro Bembo had a quarrel in the course of which she seems to have accused him of wavering in his devotion to her and leaving her to go to Venice. Bembo's affair with Lucrezia was described by his biographer as 'the most ambitious and memorable, but also the most risky and anguished' of his life. It seems probable that his father, well acquainted with the situation in Ferrara, had put pressure on him to return to Venice for his own sake and indeed planned (unsuccessfully) to get him out of the way by obtaining a post for him with an emba.s.sy to France. Poor Bembo was anguished. On 5 October he wrote: Firstly... I would rather not have come by some great treasure than hear what I heard from you yesterday... although as our sworn affinity deserved you might well have let me know it earlier. And secondly, that as long as there is life in me my cruel fate will never prevent the fire in which f.f. and my destiny have placed me from being the highest and brightest blaze that in our time ever set a lover's heart alight. It will soar by virtue of the place where it burns, bright with the intensity of its own flame, and one day it will be a beacon to all the world.

She had completely misjudged him, he told her.

Now think me false as much as you will, believe the truth as little as you please, but like it or not, the day shall come when you must acknowledge how far you judged me wrong. There are times I fear this is not so much how others would have you believe, it is your very own opinion. And if this be so, then I hope that the motto I read among your papers a few days ago will prove to be true: quien quiere matar perro ravia le levanta quien quiere matar perro ravia le levanta (he who would kill a dog must work himself up a rage). Make a merry blaze of all my other letters... and this alone I beg you to deign to keep as pledge for what I write... (he who would kill a dog must work himself up a rage). Make a merry blaze of all my other letters... and this alone I beg you to deign to keep as pledge for what I write...31 During the time Lucrezia had been at Medelana and Bembo at Ostellato, the two had enjoyed romantic meetings, as he recalled in a letter from Venice on 18 October. In the eight days since he had parted from Lucrezia not one hour had pa.s.sed without his thinking of her: 'Often I find myself recalling... certain words spoken to me, some on the balcony with the moon as witness, others at that window I shall always look upon so gladly...'32 But Lucrezia had been right in her diagnosis of her lover's waning ardour, or more probably his increased concern for his own safety. Bembo's surviving subsequent letters for that year are no less ardent but full of excuses for not seeing her. On 25 October he wrote to 'f.f.' from his father's villa at Noniano that he had to go to Venice for two days, after which, as he had promised her, he would return: But Lucrezia had been right in her diagnosis of her lover's waning ardour, or more probably his increased concern for his own safety. Bembo's surviving subsequent letters for that year are no less ardent but full of excuses for not seeing her. On 25 October he wrote to 'f.f.' from his father's villa at Noniano that he had to go to Venice for two days, after which, as he had promised her, he would return: to see once more my own dear half without whom I am not merely incomplete but nothing at all, she being not simply one half of me but everything I am and can ever hope to be. And there could be no sweeter fate for me on earth nor could I win anything more precious than to lose myself like this, living the rest of my life in one thought alone, which, if in two hearts one and the same purpose thrives, and one single fire, may endure as long as those hearts wish, no matter what the heavens conspire. And this they can all the more readily accomplish because strangers' eyes are unable to discern their thoughts and no human power can bar the road they take since they come and go unseen...33 But Bembo was being overoptimistic: the heavens were indeed about to conspire against the lovers. In November 1503 Bembo had taken refuge in Ferrara with Strozzi even though Lucrezia was still in Medelana 'because at Ostellato, as I told you, there are no provisions on account of the visit of His Lords.h.i.+p Don Alfonso's court...', a feeble excuse which suggests that Bembo was unwilling to incur Alfonso's anger by being seen in Lucrezia's vicinity. Although Lucrezia was in Ferrara from at least mid December, there was time for only one last meeting before Bembo was called back to Venice to find that his brother Carlo had died on 30 December. The need to comfort his elderly father and, one might well speculate, the instinct that he was not welcome in Ferrara once Lucrezia's husband had returned, led him to decide to stay in Venice and send for his books, which indicated that his stay would be a long one. He would always, he a.s.sured her in words that have an almost valedictory ring, 'be that faithful Heliotrope to whom you alone and for ever remain the sun'.34

10. The Dark Marquis

'If during this period you chance to find your ears are ringing it will be because I am communing with all those dark things and horrors and tears of yours, or else writing pages about you that will still be read a century after we are gone'

Pietro Bembo to Lucrezia, 25 July 1504

During the high summer and autumn of 1503 the plague had raged through Ferrara; all those rich enough to escape had left, and the Este with their various households had retreated separately to their country villas. The poor and the artisanelli artisanelli literally 'little artisans' had been the princ.i.p.al victims and some 850 had died. By November the disease had spread to the country-side: on 1 November, di Prosperi reported that he had heard that fifty-seven members of Lucrezia's household were sick. Both Lucrezia and Alfonso remained outside the city, Lucrezia at Medelana, Alfonso at Ostellato. literally 'little artisans' had been the princ.i.p.al victims and some 850 had died. By November the disease had spread to the country-side: on 1 November, di Prosperi reported that he had heard that fifty-seven members of Lucrezia's household were sick. Both Lucrezia and Alfonso remained outside the city, Lucrezia at Medelana, Alfonso at Ostellato.

Meanwhile, an event had occurred in Rome which was to have serious consequences for Cesare, the Este and indeed Lucrezia herself. On the night of 17 October the gentle, kindly but infirm Pius III died after a reign of only twenty-six days. Pius had protected and favoured Cesare; on 8 October, the day of his coronation, he had confirmed him as Captain General of the Church and Gonfalonier. Cesare had been preparing to leave for the Romagna as his enemies the Orsini, Gian Paolo Baglioni and Bartolommeo d'Alviano gathered in Rome. Even the Colonna joined them. Cesare tried to break out but the Orsini got wind of his plans and after a ferocious fight Cesare was forced to retreat to the Vatican for safety. Even there he was not secure as the Orsini and their allies raged through the Borgo, shouting, 'Let us kill the Jewish dog!' Protected by the cardinals and the castellan of Sant'Angelo, a Borgia partisan, Cesare fled along the covered way to the castle with his family Rodrigo Bisceglie, Giovanni Borgia and his two illegitimate children. Two days later Pius died, leaving Cesare at bay in the Castel Sant'Angelo. News of his predicament caused the final crumbling of his states in the Romagna where, by the end of the month, he held only a few cities and castles. In Rome he still hoped to gain something by bargaining the support of his Spanish cardinals in the conclave to elect the new pope. But in reality there was only one candidate: the Borgias' lifelong enemy, Giuliano della Rovere.

On 1 November 1503, Giuliano became pope, taking the t.i.tle Julius II; Cesare had made an agreement with him over the election but the long-term prognostication for their relations.h.i.+p was not good. The former Giuliano della Rovere was sixty years old when he attained the papacy, the object of his lifelong ambition. Men said of him that he had the soul of an emperor and his appearance was as imperial as his manner was imperious. He was a man of volcanic temperament: when he acted it was with dynamic energy and he was given to fits of violent temper, often fuelled by too much wine. Guicciardini wrote of him that he was notoriously difficult by nature and formidable with everyone; that he had spent his long life in restless action, in great enmities and friends.h.i.+ps and constant intrigues. The Venetian envoys Lippomano and Capello described him as extremely acute but tempestuous: 'It is almost impossible to describe how strong and violent and difficult to manage he is. In body and soul he has the nature of a giant.' He had the reputation of being a man of his word, which even the Borgias believed, but in fact he was subtle, devious and ruthless in pursuit of his aims. And Cesare had seriously misjudged him, as Machiavelli, always the acute observer, commented: 'He does not love il Valentino, but nonetheless strings him along for two reasons: one, to keep his word, of which men hold him most observant, and for the obligations he has towards him, being recognizant to him for the good part of the Papacy; the other, since it seems to him, that His Holiness being without forces, the Duke [Cesare] is better placed to resist the Venetians.'1 Cesare's predicament caused strains in the relations.h.i.+p between Lucrezia and her husband. Alfonso was not enthusiastic about her support for her embattled brother. While Ercole had taken the view that Cesare in charge in the Romagna would be less dangerous to Ferrara than a powerful Venice, Alfonso was more circ.u.mspect and courted Venice through the medium of the Venetian envoy, della Pigna. According to Sanudo, on 21 October Alfonso complained to della Pigna that the Venetian Signory 'do not wish him well and he does not know why if it were not for the men sent by madonna Lucretia to help Valentino, and he has not given him a penny, etc...' The envoy concludes that 'it would be good to act together with Don Alfonso, who wishes evil to Valentino ...'2 Ercole, eager to keep in with the new Pope, had dispatched Ippolito to Rome with Ferrante, the Pope's G.o.dson, for Julius's coronation on 3 November. Ercole, eager to keep in with the new Pope, had dispatched Ippolito to Rome with Ferrante, the Pope's G.o.dson, for Julius's coronation on 3 November.

Whatever their differences over Cesare (and it is possible that Alfonso was playing games with the Venetians) and Alfonso's distaste for Lucrezia's literary circle, he was strongly physically attracted to his wife; from the first year of her marriage to the end of her life, Lucrezia was almost continually pregnant and getting her in that condition seems to have been almost an obsession with him. Numbers of children were a.s.sociated with virility: Alfonso's grandfather, Niccol III, had so many children, legitimate and otherwise, that official genealogists gave up after sixteen, adding after the sixteenth, Balda.s.sare, 'and many other b.a.s.t.a.r.ds'. Ercole himself had fathered eight children. On 17 November, di Prosperi reported to Isabella that Lucrezia was said to

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