While this violent physical exercise was designed to keep his athletic body in trim, Cesare was seriously worried by his appearance. At this critical moment in his life, when he wished above all to impress the French court and a new bride with his splendid looks, the signs of secondary syphilis began to manifest themselves on his body, and, disastrously for him, on his face. Cattaneo remarked on his departure from Rome: ‘He is well enough in countenance at present, although he has his face blotched beneath the skin as is usual with the great pox.’ One can imagine the demoralizing shock suffered by a handsome young man of twenty-three at this inopportune reappearance of a disease of which he must have thought himself cured. Syphilis was a new phenomenon at that time, and relatively little was known about it; Cesare would not have known that the unsightly brown rash and dry skin which marked its secondary stage would clear up of itself within two or three months, and he must have been worried about its effect on his matrimonial prospects and his reception at court. The inner doubts and uncertainties which he felt at this testing moment in his life were outwardly revealed by his continuing to sign himself ‘Cardinal Valentinus’, as if he could not bring himself wholeheartedly to believe in his secular future. As Cattaneo wrote after his departure for France: ‘Valencia has certainly left in lay clothes, and having made his preparations as duke, nonetheless he signed himself up to the last moment as Cesar, Card. Valentino … and this perhaps as a precaution if things did not come out out as he wished or that perhaps, because of that face of his, spoiled by the French disease, his wife might refuse him.’
Cesare was well aware that if his crossing of the Rubicon could lead, as it had for Caesar, to fame and power, it could equally lead to ignominious failure. In turning their backs on the powerful King Ferdinand, and gambling on Louis for Cesare’s future, the Borgias were playing a dangerous game. ‘The King of Spain [is] extremely displeased with these ways of the Pope and Valencia,’ commented Cattaneo. ‘… However the Pope will disregard this, knowing that anyway there will be a rupture between them for this or for another cause.’ Alexander, he reported, said that he cared little for the children of the Duke of Gandia because they were more closely related to the King of Spain than to himself. This declaration of indifference to the children of his beloved Juan indicated the total abandonment of his Spanish dynastic policy and single-minded concentration of all his hopes upon Cesare’s future through France. Observers who were less daring and less involved than Alexander warned him of the dangers of his high game, not the least of which could be that Louis might use Cesare’s presence at court as a hostage to bend his father to his will. Cattaneo reported that when the Pope boasted to a great cardinal of Louis’ desire to have Cesare in his service, the cardinal replied:
It is true that Valencia is a dexterous man and has practised much in the exercise of arms, horses, and leaping, and uses his physical capacities to the full … but, believe me, Holy Father, that the King wants him because he doesn’t trust you, and Your Holiness is content in order to execute your own designs, but beware that you do not aim so high that, you or he falling, you will break too many bones …
But the Borgias were gamblers by nature; having weighed up the odds, they considered the prize worth the risk. No doubt Alexander, with his immense skill and experience in the game of high politics, thought that he would be able to handle Louis as easily as he had outmanoeuvred Charles.
Whatever the outcome might prove to be, Alexander and Cesare were determined to astound the French court with the splendour of the Papacy and the family. In an anxious desire to impress, Cesare spent wildly in the months before his departure from Rome. Two hundred thousand ducats had been raised for his expenses, partly from the confiscated goods of Pedro de Aranda, Bishop of Calahorra, who had lately been condemned for heresy, and partly, it was said, from the possessions of three hundred Jews. The money was spent on buying rich stuffs, Jewels, gold and silverware to such an extent that the Mantuan envoy reported that Roman supplies were exhausted, and additional luxuries had to be imported from Venice and elsewhere. Cesare wrote to Francesco Gonzaga, asking him to send him horses from his famous stud – ‘We find ourselves absolutely destitute of fine coursers suitable to us in such a journey’ – and a few days later to Cardinal Ippolito d’Este, requesting ‘a courser not unworthy of French esteem’, following it up with a demand for musicians. He went to the extremes of extravagance in his determination to bedazzle the French; the Gonzaga coursers were to be shod with silver, while Cattaneo reported that he took with him a most princely travelling privy ‘covered with gold brocade without and scarlet within, with silver vessels within the silver urinals …’
Thus magnificently equipped, Cesare took formal leave of his father on 1 October, and received from him letters of recommendation to Louis filled with expressions of the most extravagant paternal love: ‘We send Your Majesty our heart, that is to say our beloved son, Duke Valentino, who to us is the dearest of all …’ Alexander remained at a window of the Vatican watching Cesare until he was out of sight. Burchard, who continued to refer to him as ‘Cardinalis Valentinus’, wrote that he departed ‘secretly and without pomp’. This was true only in the sense that there was no official procession. Cesare’s progress from the Vatican to the Banchi, where he was to embark for Ostia, must have caused a considerable stir. He was dressed in a white brocade tunic, with a mantle of black velvet thrown over his shoulders (the first reported instance of his penchant for dressing in black velvet), a matching cap blazing with large rubies, and boots sewn with gold chains and pearls. Even his bay horse was draped in red silk and gold brocade, the colours of the royal house of France to which Cesare now belonged as Duke of Valentinois, while its shoes and harness were of silver. He was accompanied by Gaspare Torella, his personal physician, his confidential secretary Agapito Geraldini da Amelia, and the Spanish master of his household, Ramiro. de Lorqua, later notorious as the ferocious governor of the Romagna, plus a hundred pages, squires and grooms in crimson velvet halved with yellow silk, twelve baggage carts, fifty baggage mules, and a string of gianette, Spanish riding horses; the heavier chargers, corsieri had silver harness with silver bells – shades of Gandia – tinkling at their necks. A large suite of Spanish and Roman noblemen embarked with him: the Spaniards were soberly dressed in their national style; the thirty Romans, who included Giangiordano Orsini, son of Virginio, were as flamboyant as their leader in cloth of silver and gold, and had spent a thousand ducats apiece on their wardrobes for the expedition.
While Burchard, used to Italian ways, could describe Cesare’s departure as ‘without pomp’, the ostentation of his dress and equipment was to disgust the French court, accustomed to plainer northern customs. In Renaissance Italy the magnificence of a person’s outward appearance was considered an essential manifestation of his standing and importance. Cesare, though half-Spanish, was Italian enough to regard far bella figura, ‘cutting a fine figure’, as of prime importance. But it may be too that his over-ostentation betrayed an inner lack of self-confidence. Later, at the height of his power, he dressed in plain black velvet. The peacock splendour of his attire belongs to this early, uncertain phase of his career. And there was a physical reason for his flashy appearance at this time – the desire to enhance his superb athletic body to distract attention from his diseased face, natural in a young man bitterly conscious that his beauty had been marred, and who had not yet found success to bolster his self-esteem. Torn between the high ambitions expressed on his magnificent sword, and the doubts and uncertainties concealed beneath his splendid clothes and self-confident bearing, Cesare launched himself on his new career, embarking symbolically in a French ship.
His potential as a man to be watched, as distinct from his father the Pope, was now beginning to be recognized by observers at the Roman court. ‘All the principal fortresses are at Valencia’s disposal by the Pope’s will,’ the Mantuan envoy wrote ominously on 3 October. ‘Above all the castellans are Valencia’s men rather than the Pope’s �
��’ The wary envoys who haunted the Vatican antechambers, political reporters avid for significant news, were becoming aware of the nature of the Borgias, father and son, and of the scale of their ambitions. The significance of Cesare’s departure upon a French ship, destined for a military career, was not lost upon them. As Cattaneo wrote with wry foreboding on the day Cesare left Rome: ‘The ruin of Italy is confirmed … given the plans which father and son have made: but many believe the Holy Spirit has no part in them …’
VI
Two Women
CESARE and his extraordinary suite disembarked in late October sunshine at Marseilles under the stares of the Marseillais crowding the quays. They met with a royal reception: salvoes of artillery rent the air as the local notabilities greeted them, and Louis XII had sent a guard of 400 archers as a mark of special honour. Cesare spent several days at Marseilles feasting and seeing the sights of the town, including the relics of St Lazaire which were put on show for him. Since syphilis was often referred to in Italy as ‘the malady of San Lazzaro’, Cesare, who still bore the marks of the disease on his face, must have regarded this somewhat tactless exhibition with mixed feelings.
From Marseilles he went on to Avignon, the city of the popes, now the stronghold of Giuliano della Rovere, who resided there as Papal Legate, and of his nephew Clemente, Bishop of Mende and governor of the city. It was now a year since Giuliano had made his peace with the Borgias, a reconciliation signalled by Alexander’s handing back his fortress of Ostia, but he prudently preferred to continue living at Avignon, at a safe distance from Rome. For the moment it suited both men to be on good terms. Giuliano planned to make his way back to power in Rome, while Alexander hoped that Giuliano’s influence would help to further his designs at the French court. As he wrote gratefully to him on 1 September: ‘We are not unaware with what great effect Your Fraternity has argued our case to the King.’ However there is evidence that the devious Cardinal, even while apparently pressing the Borgias’ case at court, was secretly involved with Ludovico il Moro in a somewhat pathetic intrigue against them. Evidence of Giuliano’s double-dealing is revealed in a letter from one of il Moro’s secret agents who was at Avignon when Cesare arrived there. The letter employs code names – Madama Margherita for Ludovico, Lorenzo for Giuliano, Pietro for Cesare and Cristoforo for Louis XII, while the agent signs himself simply ‘B’ Ludovico, aware of Louis’ designs on Milan, was terrified by the prospect of art alliance between France and the Papacy, and determined to do everything in his power to prevent it. ‘B’ writes of Giuliano’s willingness to accommodate Ludovico, doubtless by throwing a spanner in the works of the Borgia negotiations at the French court:
Madama Margherita,
… You will understand how I came to Avignon to speak with Lorenzo of the matter which we discussed together, so that our interest may be well served in this matter and Lorenzo has received me with the best possible countenance, and has told me that he is all mine, and in the matters in which he may serve me, he will be at my disposition. Thus I believe he will do all that he will … It seems to me that he has the malady of San Lazzaro in his face. Also Pietro is none too well of his malady, I believe. Lorenzo and Pietro will soon depart from here to do his business with M. Cristoforo.
Giuliano’s assurances to Ludovico’s anonymous envoy that he was ‘all his’ may well have gone no further than mere words. Although no doubt he would have been happy to do down the Borgias if he could, Giuliano was adept at picking the winning side, and can have had no illusions as to whose would be the lost cause if it came to a clash between the King of France and the ruler of Milan. And so he prepared a magnificent reception for Cesare, his former colleague in the College of Cardinals and son of his old enemy Rodrigo Borgia. The city council raised 2000 golden crowns to pay for the festivities, which were to include decorations, the presentation of tableaux and gifts of silverware and preserved fruits. Giuliano must have informed the councillors of Cesare’s predilection for beautiful women, since the document recording their decisions specifies: ‘He must be honoured at the City Palace by ladies and beautiful girls who should know well how to entertain him with dances, because the aforesaid Don Cesare finds pleasure in this …’
While the celebrated demoiselles d’ Avignon prepared themselves to greet their appreciative guest, Giuliano, accompanied by his nephew and Cardinal Gurck, another anti-Borgia refugee, rode to meet Cesare two miles outside the city. It is difficult to imagine the feelings of the two men as they embraced in the blue light of that Provençal autumn. Cesare had not seen Giuliano since his dramatic escape from Velletri four years before, since when Giuliano had been living the bitter life of a self-imposed exile in France, well out of his father’s reach. No doubt, beneath the cordial greetings, each was deeply wary of the other, but they rode together in apparent amity into Avignon, under a triumphal arch bearing the arms of the Pope, Cesare and the della Roveres.’Avignon never witnessed such an enthusiastic welcome, never such a splendid procession’, wrote a local chronicler. Cesare and his suite were lodged in the archiepiscopal palace as Giuliano’s guests for ten days at an estimated cost of 7000 ducats. Among the entertainments provided for him was a reception at the Hôtel de Ville on All Saints’ Day, 1 November, when the moresca, normally performed by men, was danced by local beauties in deference to his well-known predilections. No doubt Cesare noted the loveliness of the women of Avignon, but for the time being he was limited to a purely passive appreciation. Shortly after his arrival, both guest and host suffered a recurrence of their malady. II Moro’s informant ‘B’ reported with malicious pleasure: ‘Della Rovere has fallen sick of that disease of his: now the flowers are beginning to bloom again [the syphilitic rash]. If God does not help him he will never be quite healthy. They say publicly of Cesare that he has the malady of San Lazzaro on his face, and moreover he is not in a contented frame of mind …’
The mysterious ‘B’ guessed correctly when he referred to Cesare’s uneasy state of mind. Whether or not he had suspicions of Giuliano’s treacherous intrigues, he was restless, made nervous by inactivity, impatient of the protracted delay, and longing to reach the court and get his ‘business’ done. Almost certainly, on Alexander’s orders, he was waiting for news from Rome which would enable him to present the King with the dispensation for his marriage with Anne of Brittany, without which he knew he would not find a welcome at court. And so, fretting with impatience and uncertainty, he dawdled his way northward, trying to find relief from his doubts and anxieties in a constant round of festivities. From Avignon he went to the capital of his new duchy, Valence; when Louis was asked by the Venetian ambassador when they might expect to see the Duke of Valentinois at court, he replied with an enigmatic smile: ‘He is in the Dauphinate, in a land where there are beautiful women and good wine, and he is there feasting and dining well.’ Oh 7 November he made a solemn entrance into Lyons, where a gargantuan banquet was held in his honour. But things were going sour; the French were not as impressed by Cesare as he had expected they would be. They found the Italians’ ostentatious luxury vulgar, and Cesare’s own manners arrogant. He seems to have displayed little of his famous charm, except perhaps to the women. Inwardly unsure of himself, he could be brusque, prickly, apprehensive of slights to his honour and status. When, at Valence during a festive reception in his honour, the King’s special envoy Monsieur de Clerieux attempted to bestow upon him the collar of the Order of St Michael, Cesare brushed him aside, saying haughtily that he intended to receive it only from the King’s own hands.
At last news came that the sentence of the Divorce Commission set up to inquire into the validity of Louis’ marriage to Jeanne de France was ready for delivery. Through the medium of Giuliano, who had ridden ahead to prepare for Cesare’s reception at court, it was arranged that he should meet the King at the castle of Chinon in Touraine, where the court was then staying. On 17 December, carefully timing his arrival to coincide with the Divorce Tribunal’s pronouncement in favour of annulment, C
esare reached the neighbourhood of the castle. The circumstances of his meeting with Louis raised awkward points of protocol: he was not a prince of the blood, nor the son of a king; no provision had been made under the rules of etiquette for the reception of the son of a pope, nor could he officially be considered as such. It would have been considered improper for the King to go out and meet him. Strictly speaking, Cesare should enter the castle on his own to be received there by him. However, Louis solved the problem by a simple expedient: he went hunting the day after Cesare’s arrival, and on his return from the chase met him, as if by chance, the requisite two miles from the town. After giving him the most cordial welcome, he retired to the castle, leaving Cesare to make his solemn entrance on his own.
This was the moment for which he had been waiting, his chance to impress the King of France with the power and wealth of the Borgias, to show the world that the bastard son of the Pope could rival legitimate princes in magnificence. If it was a glorious moment, it was also an anxious one; his entry into Chinon would represent his first step on the international stage. Waiting before the great medieval castle of Chinon which crowned the hill above the town alongside the River Vienne, with the critically expectant eyes of the French court upon him, Cesare must have experienced some of the nervous anxiety of a parvenu.
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