Part 14 (1/2)
A brother of the last. } Menico Sanguigni. } Jo. Baptista Mancini. } Dorio Savello. }
_Prominent Men in the Duke's Household._
Bishop of Elna, } Spaniards.
Bishop of Sancta Sista, } Bishop of Trani, an Italian.
A Neapolitan abbot.
Sigr Ramiro del Orca, Governor; he is the factotum.
Don Hieronymo, a Portuguese.
Messer Agabito da Amelio, Secretary.
Mesr Alexandro Spannocchia, Treasurer, who says that the duke since his departure from Rome up to the present time has spent daily, on the average, eighteen hundred ducats.
Collenuccio in his letter omits to mention the fact that he had addressed to Caesar, the new master of Pesaro, a complaint against its former lord, Giovanni Sforza, and that the duke had reinstated him in the possession of his confiscated property. He was destined a few years later bitterly to regret having taken this step. Guido Posthumus, on the other hand, whose property Caesar appropriated, fled to the Rangone in Modena. Sforza, expelled, reached Venice November 2d, where he endeavored, according to Malipiero, to sell the Republic his estates of Pesaro--in which attempt he failed. Thence he went to Mantua. At that time Modena and Mantua were the asylums of numerous exiled tyrants who were hospitably received into the beautiful castle of the Gonzaga, which was protected by the swamps of the Mincio.
After the fall of Pesaro, Rimini likewise expelled its hated oppressors, the brothers Pandolfo and Carlo Malatesta, whereupon Caesar Borgia laid siege to Faenza. The youthful Astorre, its lord, finally surrendered, April 25, 1501, to the destroyer, on the duke's promise not to deprive him of his liberty. Caesar, however, sent the unfortunate young man to Rome, where he and his brother Octavian, together with several other victims, were confined in the castle of S. Angelo. This was the same Astorre with whom Cardinal Alessandro Farnese wished to unite his sister Giulia in marriage, and the unfortunate youth may now have regretted that this alliance had not taken place.
FOOTNOTES:
[81] His correspondence with Gonzaga is preserved in the archives of Mantua.
[82] Ad. Pisaurenses: Guidi Posthumi Silvestris Pisaurensis Elegiarum Librii ii, p. 33. Bonon, 1524.
[83] Pietro Marzetti, Memorie di Pesaro. Ms. in the Oliveriana.
CHAPTER XIX
ANOTHER MARRIAGE PLANNED FOR LUCRETIA
During this time Lucretia, with her child Rodrigo, was living in the palace of S. Peter's. If she was inclined to grieve for her husband, her father left her little time to give way to her feelings. He had recourse to her thoughtlessness and vanity, for the dead Alfonso was to be replaced by another and greater Alfonso. Scarcely was the Duke of Biselli interred before a new alliance was planned. As early as November, 1500, there was talk of Lucretia's marrying the hereditary Prince of Ferrara, who, since 1497, had been a widower; he was childless, and was just twenty-four years of age. Marino Zorzi, the new Venetian amba.s.sador, first mentioned the project to his signory November 26th. This union, however, had been considered in the Vatican much earlier--in fact while Lucretia's husband was still living. At the Christmas holidays of 1500 it was publicly stated that she was to marry the Duke of Gravina, an Orsini who, undeterred by the fate of Lucretia's former husbands, came to Rome in December to sue for her hand. Some hope was held out to him, probably with a view to retaining the friends.h.i.+p of his family.
Alexander himself conceived the plan of marrying Lucretia to Alfonso of Ferrara. He desired this alliance both on his beloved daughter's account and because it could not fail to prove advantageous to Caesar; it would not only a.s.sure to him the possession of Romagna, which Venice might try to wrest from him, but it would also increase his chances of consummating his plans regarding Bologna and Florence. At the same time it would bring to him the support of the dynasties of Mantua and Urbino, which were connected by marriage with the house of Ferrara. It would be the nucleus of a great league, including France, the Papacy, Caesar's States, Ferrara, Mantua, and Urbino, which would be sufficiently strong to defend Alexander and his house against all enemies.
If the King of France was to maintain his position in Italy he would require, above all else, the help of the Pope. He already occupied Milan, and he wished to seize half of the kingdom of Naples and hold it as a va.s.sal of the Church; for France and Spain had already agreed upon the wicked part.i.tion of Naples, to which Alexander had thus far neither refused nor given his consent.
In order to win over the Duke of Ferrara to his bold scheme, Alexander availed himself, first of all, of Giambattista Ferrari of Modena, an old retainer of Ercole, who was wholly devoted to the Pope, and whom he had made datarius and subsequently a cardinal. Ferrari ventured to suggest the marriage to the duke, ”on account,” so he wrote him, ”of the great advantage which would accrue to his State from it.”[84] This proposal caused Ercole no less embarra.s.sment than King Federico of Naples had felt when he was placed in a similar position. His pride rebelled. His daughter, the n.o.ble Marchioness Isabella of Mantua, and her sister-in-law Elisabetta of Urbino, were literally beside themselves.
The youthful Alfonso objected most vigorously. Moreover, there was a plan afoot to marry the hereditary duke to a princess of the royal house of France, Louise, widow of the Duke of Angouleme.[85] Ercole rejected the offer absolutely.
Alexander had foreseen his opposition, but he felt sure he could overcome it. He had the advantages of the alliance pointed out more clearly, and also the disadvantages which might result from a refusal; on one hand was Ferrara's safety and advancement, and on the other the hostility of Caesar and the Pope, and perhaps also that of France.[86]
Alexander was so certain of his victory that he made no secret of the projected marriage, and he even spoke of it with satisfaction in the consistory, as if it were an accomplished fact.[87] He succeeded in winning the support of the French court, which, however, was not difficult, as Louis XII was then very anxious for the Pope to allow him to lead his army out of Tuscany, through the States of the Church, into Naples, which he could not do without the secret consent of his Holiness. Above all, the Pope counted on the help of Cardinal Amboise, to whom Caesar had taken the red hat when he went to France, and whose ambitious glances were directed toward the papal throne, which, with the aid of his friend Caesar and of the Spanish cardinals, he hoped to reach on the death of Alexander.
It is, nevertheless, a fact that Louis XII at first was opposed to the match, and even endeavored to prevent it. He himself was not only determinedly set against everything which would increase the power of Caesar and the Pope, but he was also anxious to enhance his own influence with Ferrara by bringing about the marriage of Alfonso and some French princess. In May Alexander sent a secretary to France to induce the king to use his influence to effect the alliance, but this Louis declined to do.[88] On the other hand, he was anxious to bring about the marriage of Don Ferrante, Alfonso's brother, with Lucretia, and secure for her, as portion, the territory of Piombino.[89] He had also placed a check on Caesar's operations in Central Italy, in consequence of which the latter's attempts against Bologna and Florence had miscarried.
The whole scheme for the marriage would have fallen through if the subject of the French expedition against Naples had not just then come up. There is ground for believing that the Pope's consent was made contingent upon the King's agreeing to the marriage.
June 13, 1501, Caesar himself, now created Duke of Romagna by his father, came secretly to Rome, where he remained three weeks, exerting all his efforts to further the plan. After this, he and his men at arms followed the French Marshal Aubigny, who had set out from near Rome for Naples, to engage in a nefarious war of conquest, whose horrors, in the briefest of time, overwhelmed the house of Aragon.