Part 11 (1/2)
Caesar himself was interested in poetry and the arts, just as were all the cultivated men and tyrants of the Renaissance. His court poet was Francesco Sperulo, who served under his standard, and who sang his campaigns in Romagna and in the neighborhood of Camerino.[69] A number of Roman poets who subsequently became famous recited their verses in the presence of Lucretia, among them Emilio Voccabella and Evangelista Fausto Maddaleni. Even at that time the three brothers Mario, Girolamo, and Celso Mellini enjoyed great renown as poets and orators, while the brothers of the house of Porcaro--Camillo, Valerio, and Antonio--were equally famous. We have already noted that Antonio was one of the witnesses at the marriage of Girolama Borgia in the year 1482, and that he subsequently was Lucretia's proxy when she was betrothed to Centelles in 1491. These facts show how closely and how long the Porcaro were allied to the Borgias.
This Roman family had been made famous in the history of the city by the fate of Stefano, Cola di Rienzi's successor. The Porcaro claimed descent from the Catos, and for this reason many of them adopted the name Porcius. Enjoying friendly relations with the Borgias, they claimed them as kinsmen, stating that Isabella, the mother of Alexander VI, was descended from the Roman Porcaro, who somehow had pa.s.sed to Spain. The similarity of sound in the Latin names Borgius and Porcius gave some appearance of truth to this pretension.
Next to Antonio, Hieronymus Porcius was one of the most brilliant retainers of the house of Borgia. Alexander, upon his election to the papal throne, made him auditor of the Ruota (the Papal Court of Appeals). He was the author of a work printed in Rome in September, 1493, under the t.i.tle _Commentarius Porcius_, which was dedicated to the King and Queen of Spain. In it he describes the election and coronation of Alexander VI, and quotes portions of the declarations of loyalty which the Italian envoys addressed to the Pope. Court flattery could not be carried further than it was in this case by Hieronymus, an affected pedant, an empty-headed braggart, a fanatical papist. Alexander made him Bishop of Andria and Governor of the Romagna. In 1497 Hieronymus, then in Cesena, composed a dialogue on Savonarola and his ”heresy concerning the power of the Pope.” The kernel of the whole thing was the fundamental doctrine of the infallibilists; namely, that only those who blindly obey the Pope are good Christians.[70]
Porcius also essayed poetry, celebrating the magnificence of the Pope and Cardinal Caesar, whom, in his verses on the Borgia Steer, he described as his greatest benefactor. Apparently he was also the author of the elegy on the death of the Duke of Gandia, which is still preserved.
Phaedra Inghirami, the famous student of Cicero, whom Erasmus admired and whom Raphael rendered immortal by his portrait, doubtless made the acquaintance of the Borgias and of Lucretia through the Porcaro. Even as early as this he was attracting the attention of Rome. Inghirami delivered an oration at the ma.s.s which the Spanish amba.s.sador had said for the Infante Don Juan, January 16, 1498, in S. Jacopo in Navona, which was greatly admired. He also made a reputation as an actor in Cardinal Rafael Riario's theater.
The drama was then putting forth its first fruits, not only at the courts of the Este and Gonzaga families, but also in Rome. Alexander himself, owing to his sensuous nature, was especially fond of it, and had comedies and ballets performed at all the family festivities in the Vatican. The actors were young students from the Academy of Pomponius Laetus, and we have every reason to believe that Inghirami, the Mellini, and the Porcaro took part in these performances whenever the opportunity was offered. Carlo Ca.n.a.le, Vannozza's consort, must also have lent valuable a.s.sistance, for he had been familiar with the stage in Mantua; and no less important was the aid of Pandolfo Collenuccio, who had repeatedly been Ferrara's amba.s.sador in Rome, where he enjoyed daily intercourse with the Borgias.
The celebrated Pomponius, to whom Rome was indebted for the revival of the theater, spent his last years, during the reign of Alexander, in the enjoyment of the highest popular esteem. Alexander himself may have been one of his pupils, as Cardinal Farnese certainly was. Pomponius died June 6, 1498, and the same pope who had sent Savonarola to the stake had his court attend the obsequies of the great representative of cla.s.sic paganism, which were held in the Church of Aracoeli, a fact which lends additional support to the belief that he was personally known to the Borgias. Moreover, one of his most devoted pupils, Michele Ferno, had for a long time been a firm adherent of Alexander. Although the Pope in 1501 issued the first edict of censors.h.i.+p, he was not an enemy of the sciences. He fostered the University of Rome, several of whose chairs were at that time held by men of note; for example, Petrus Sabinus and John Argyropulos. One of the greatest geniuses--one whose light has blessed all mankind--was for a year an ornament of this university and of the reign of Alexander; Copernicus came to Rome from far away Prussia in the jubilee year 1500, and lectured on mathematics and astronomy.
Among Alexander's courtiers there were many brilliant men whose society Lucretia must have had an opportunity to enjoy. Burchard, the master of ceremonies, laid down the rules for all the functions in which the Pope's daughter took part. He must have called upon her frequently, but she could scarcely have foreseen that, centuries later, this Alsatian's notes would const.i.tute the mirror in which posterity would see the reflections of the Borgias. His diary, however, gives no details concerning Lucretia's private life--this did not come within his duties.
Never did any other chronicler describe the things about him so clearly and so concisely, so dryly, and with so little feeling--things which were worthy of the pen of a Tacitus. That Burchard was not friendly to the Borgias is proved by the way his diary is written; it, however, is absolutely truthful. This man well knew how to conceal his feelings--if the dull routine of his office had left him any. He went through the daily ceremonial of the Vatican mechanically, and kept his place there under five popes. Burchard must have seemed to the Borgias a harmless pedant; for if not, would they have permitted him to behold and describe their doings and yet live? Even the little which he did write in his diary concerning events of the day would have cost him his head had it come to the knowledge of Alexander or Caesar. It appears, however, that the diaries of the masters of ceremony were not subjected to official censors.h.i.+p. Caesar would have spared him no more than he did his father's favorite, Pedro Calderon Perotto, whom he stabbed, and Cervillon, whom he had killed--both of whom frequently performed important parts in the ceremonies in the Vatican.
Nor did he spare the private secretary, Francesco Troche, whom Alexander VI had often employed in diplomatic affairs. Troche, according to a Venetian report a Spaniard, was, like Ca.n.a.le, a cultivated humanist, and like him, he was also on friendly terms with the house of Gonzaga. There are still in existence letters of his to the Marchioness Gonzaga, in which he asks her to send him certain sonnets she had composed. She likewise writes to him regarding family matters, and also asks him to find her an antique cupid in Rome. There is no doubt but that he was one of Lucretia's most intimate acquaintances. In June, 1503, Caesar had also this favorite of his father strangled.
Besides Burchard and Lorenz Behaim, there was another German who was familiar with the family affairs of the Borgias, Goritz of Luxemburg, who subsequently, during the reigns of Julius II and Leo X, became famous as an academician. Even in Alexander's time the cultivated world of Rome was in the habit of meeting at Goritz's house in Trajan's Forum for the purpose of engaging in academic discussions. All the Germans who came to Rome sought him out, and he must have received Reuchlin, who visited that city in 1498, and subsequently Copernicus, Erasmus, and Ulrich von Hutten, who remembered him with grat.i.tude; it is also probable that Luther visited his hospitable home. Goritz was _supplicant referent_, and as such he must have known Lucretia personally, because the influential daughter of the Pope was the constant recipient of pet.i.tions of various sorts. He had ample opportunity to observe events in the Vatican, but of his experiences he recorded nothing; or, if he did, his diary was destroyed in the sack of Rome in 1527, when he lost all his belongings.
Among Lucretia's personal acquaintances was still another man, one who was in a better position than any one else to write the history of the Borgias. This was the Nestor of Roman notaries, old Camillo Beneimbene, the trusted legal adviser of Alexander and of most of the cardinals and grandees of Rome. He knew the Borgias in their private as well as in their public character; he had been acquainted with Lucretia from her childhood; he drew up all her marriage contracts. His office was on the Lombard Piazza, now known as S. Luigi dei Francesi. Here he worked, drawing up legal doc.u.ments until the year 1505, as is shown by instruments in his handwriting.[71] A man who had been the official witness and legal adviser in the most important family affairs of the Borgias for so long a time, and who, therefore, was familiar with all their secrets, must have occupied, so far as their house, and especially Lucretia, were concerned, the position of a close friend. Beneimbene records none of his personal experiences, but his protocol-book is still preserved in the archives of the notary of the Capitol.
Adriano Castelli of Corneto, a highly cultivated humanist, and privy-secretary to Alexander, who subsequently made him a cardinal, was very close to the Borgias. As the Pope's secretary he must have frequently come in contact with Lucretia. Among her intimate acquaintances were also the famous Latinist, Cortesi; the youthful Sardoleto, the familiar of Cardinal Cib; young Aldo Manuzio; the intellectual brothers Rafael and Mario Maffei of Volterra; and Egidio of Viterbo, who subsequently became famous as a pulpit orator and was made a cardinal. The last maintained his connection with Lucretia while she was d.u.c.h.ess of Ferrara. He exercised a deep influence upon the religious turn which her nature took during this the second period of her life.
The youthful d.u.c.h.ess of Biselli certainly enjoyed the lively society of the cultured and gallant ecclesiastics about her--Cardinals Medici, Riario, Orsini, Cesarini, and Farnese--not to mention the Borgias and the Spanish prelates. We may look for her, too, at the banquets in the palaces of Rome's great families, the Ma.s.simi and Orsini, the Santa Croce, Altieri, and Valle, and in the homes of the wealthy bankers Altoviti, Spanocchi, and Mariano Chigi, whose sons Lorenzo and Agostino--the latter eventually became famous--enjoyed the confidence of the Borgias.
Lucretia was able in Rome to gratify a taste for the fine arts.
Alexander found employment for the great artists of the day in the Vatican, where Perugino executed some paintings for him, and where, under the picture of the holy Virgin, Pinturicchio, who was his court artist, painted the portrait of the adulteress, Giulia Farnese. He also painted portraits of several members of the Borgia family in the castle of S. Angelo.
”In the castle of S. Angelo,” says Vasari, ”he painted many of the rooms _a grotesche_; but in the tower below, in the garden, he depicted scenes from the life of Alexander VI. There he painted the Catholic Queen Isabella; Niccol Orsini, Count of Pitigliano; Giangiacomo Trivulzio; and many other kinsmen and friends of the Pope, and especially Caesar Borgia and his brother and sisters, as well as numerous great men of the age.” Lorenz Behaim copied the epigrams which were placed under six of these paintings in the ”castle of S. Angelo, below in the papal gardens.” All represented scenes from the critical period of the invasion of Italy by Charles VIII, and they were painted in such a way as to make Alexander appear as having been victorious. One showed the king prostrating himself at the Pope's feet in this same garden of the castle of S. Angelo; another represented Charles declaring his loyalty before the consistory; another, Philip of Sens and Guillaume of S. Malo receiving the cardinal's hat; another, the ma.s.s in S. Peter's at which Charles VIII a.s.sisted; the subject of another was the pa.s.sage to S.
Paul's, with the king holding the Pope's stirrup; and, lastly, a scene depicting the departure of Charles for Naples, accompanied by Caesar Borgia and the Sultan Djem.[72]
These paintings are now lost, and with them the portraits of the members of the Borgia family. Pinturicchio doubtless painted several likenesses of the beautiful Lucretia. Probably many of the figures in the paintings of this master resemble the Borgias, but of this we are not certain. In the collections of antiquaries, and among the innumerable old portraits which may be seen hanging in rows on the discolored walls in the palaces of Rome and in the castles in Romagna, there doubtless are likenesses of Lucretia, of Caesar, and of his brothers, which the beholder never suspects as such. It is well known that there was a faithful portrait of Alexander VI and his children above the altar of S. Lucia in the Church of S. Maria del Popolo, the work of Pinturicchio. Later, when Alexander restored this church, the painting was removed to the court of the cloister, and eventually it was lost.[73]
Of the famous artists of the day, Lucretia must likewise have known Antonio di Sangallo, her father's architect, and also Antonio Pollajuolo, the most renowned sculptor of the Florentine school in Rome during the last decades of the fifteenth century. He died there in 1498.
But the most famous of all the artists then in Rome was Michael Angelo.
He appeared there first in 1498, an ambitious young man of three and twenty. At that time the city of Rome was an enchanting environment for an artistic nature. The boundless immorality of her great past, speaking so eloquently from innumerable monuments of the pagan and Christian worlds; her majesty and holy calm; the sudden breaking loose of furious pa.s.sions--all this is beyond the imaginative power of modern men, just as is the wickedly secular nature of the papacy and the spirit of the Renaissance which swept over these ruins. We are unable to comprehend in their entirety the soul-activities of this great race, which was both creative and destructive. For to the same feeling which impelled men to commit great crimes do we owe the great works of art of the Renaissance.
In those days evil, as well as good, was in the _grand style_. Alexander VI displayed himself to the world, for whose opinion he had supreme contempt, as shamelessly and fearlessly as did Nero.
The Renaissance, owing to the violent contrasts which it presents, now navely and now in full consciousness of their incongruity, and also on account of the fiendish traits by which it is characterized, will always const.i.tute one of the greatest psychologic problems in the history of civilization.
All virtues, all crimes, all forces were set in motion by a feverish yearning for immaterial pleasures, beauty, power, and immortality. The Renaissance has been called an intellectual baccha.n.a.lia, and when we examine the features of the bacchantes they become distorted like those of the suitors in Homer, who antic.i.p.ated their fall; for this society, this Church, these cities and states--in fine, this culture in its entirety--toppled over into the abyss which was yawning for it. The reflection that men like Copernicus, Michael Angelo, and Bramante, Alexander VI and Caesar Borgia could live in Rome at one and the same time is well nigh overpowering.
Did Lucretia ever see the youthful artist, subsequently the friend of the n.o.ble lady, Vittoria Colonna, whose portrait he painted? We know not; but there is no reason to doubt that she did. The curiosity of the artist and of the man would have induced Michael Angelo to endeavor to gain a glimpse of the most charming woman in Rome. Although only a beginner, he was already recognized as an artist of great talent. As he had just been taken up by Gallo the Roman and Cardinal La Grolaye, it is altogether probable that he would have been the subject also of Lucretia's curiosity.