The Life of Cesare Borgia
Page 37
To rest? May the soul of him rest at least, for men—Christian men—have refused to vouchsafe that privilege to his poor ashes.
Nearly two hundred years later—at the close of the seventeenth century, a priest of God and a bishop, one who preached a gospel of love and mercy so infinite that he dared believe by its lights no man to have been damned, came to disturb the dust of Cesare Borgia. This Bishop of Calahorra—lineal descendant in soul of that Pharisee who exalted himself in God's House, thrilled with titillations of delicious horror at the desecrating presence of the base publican—had his pietist's eyes offended by the slab that marked Cesare Borgia's resting-place.(62)
The pious, Christian bishop had read of this man—perhaps that life of him published by the apostate Gregorio Leti under the pen-name of Tommaso Tommasi, which had lately seen the light—and he ordered the tomb's removal from that holy place. And thus it befell that the ashes of Cesare Borgia were scattered and lost.
Charlotte d'Albret was bereft of her one friend, Queen Jeanne, in that same year of Cesare's death. The Duchess of Valentinois withdrew to La MotteFeuilly, and for the seven years remaining of her life was never seen other than in mourning; her very house was equipped with sombre, funereal furniture, and so maintained until her end, which supports the view that she had conceived affection and respect for the husband of whom she had seen so little.
On March 14, 1514, that poor lady passed from a life which appears to have offered her few joys.
Louise de Valentinois—a handsome damsel of the age of fourteen—remained for three years under the tutelage of the Duchess of Angoulême—the mother of King Francis I—to whom Charlotte d'Albret had entrusted her child. Louise married, at the age of seventeen, Louis de la Trémouille, Prince de Talmont and Vicomte de Thouars, known as the Knight Sans Peur et Sans Reproche. She maintained some correspondence with her aunt, Lucrezia Borgia, whom she had never seen, and ever signed herself "Louise de Valentinois." At the age of thirty—Trémouille having been killed at Pavia—she married, in second nuptials, Philippe de Bourbon-Busset.
Lucrezia died in 1519, one year after her mother, Vanozza de'Catanei, with whom she corresponded to the end.
REQUIESCANT!
Notes
(1)
St. Francisco Borgia, S.J.—great-grandson of Pope Alexander VI, born at Gandia, in Spain, in 1510.
(2)
Pasquale Villari in his Machiavelli i suoi Tempi
(3)
See Burchard's Diarium, Thuasne Edition, Vol. II. p.442 et seq.
(4)
He was not ordained priest until 1471, after the election of Sixtus IV.
(5)
Don Francisco de Borja, born at Valencia in 1441.
(6)
Macchiavelli, Istorie Fiorentine.
(7)
In a letter to Francesco Gonzaga.
(8)
Istorie Florentine.
(9)
Istoria d'Italia.
(10)
See the supplement to the Appendix of Thuasne's edition of Burchard's Diarium.
(11)
D'Arignano is as much a fiction as the rest of Infessura's story.
(12)
"Facendomi intendere the epsa Duchessa é di etá di anni ventidui, li quali finiranno a questo Aprile; in el qual tempo anche lo Illmo. Duca di Romagna fornirá anni ventisei."
(13)
A contract never executed.
(14)
"Item mes attenent que dita Dona Lucretia a XVIIII de Abril prop. vinent entrará in edat de dotze anys."
(15)
1 The glory of the Sistine Chapel, however, is Michelangelo's "Last Judgement," which was added later, in the reign of Pope Julius II
(Giuliano della Rovere).
(16)
The gold florin, ducat, or crown was equal to ten shillings of our present money, and had a purchasing power of five times that amount.
(17)
Macchiavelli, Istorie Fiorentine.
(18)
The silly interpretation of this afforded by later writers, that this physician attempted transfusion of blood—silly, because unthinkable in an age which knew nothing of the circulation of the blood—has already been exploded.
(19)
"...essendo concordi tutti i cardinali, quasi da contrari voti rivolti tutti in favore di uno solo, crearono lui sommo ponteflce" (Casanatense MSS). See P. Leonetti, Alessandro VI.
(20)
"Fu pubblicato il Cardinale Vice-Cancelliere in Sommo Pontefice Alessandro VI(to) nuncupato, el quale dopo una lunga contentione fu creato omnium consensum—ne ii manco un solo voto" (Valori's letter to the Otto di Pratica, August 12, 1492). See Supplement to Appendix in E. Thuasne's edition of Burchard's Diarium.
(21)
Cardinals Piccolomini, de'Medici, and Giuliano della Rovere.
(22)
Istoria d'Italia, tom. V.
(23)
Touching Lodovico Maria's by-name of "Il Moro"—which is generally translated as "The Moor," whilst in one writer we have found him mentioned as "Black Lodovico," Benedetto Varchi's explanation (in his Storia Fiorentina) may be of interest. He tells us that Lodovico was not so called on account of any swarthiness of complexion, as is supposed by Guicciardini, because, on the contrary, he was fair; nor yet on account of his device, showing a Moorish squire, who, brush in hand, dusts the gown of a young woman in regal apparel, with the motto, "Per Italia nettar d'ogni bruttura"; this device of the Moor, he tells us, was a rébus or pun upon the word "moro," which also means the mulberry, and was so meant by Lodovico. The mulberry burgeons at the end of winter and blossoms very early. Thus Lodovico symbolized his own prudence and readiness to seize opportunity betimes.
(24)
Ferdinand Gregorovius, Lucrezia Borgia.
(25)
See, inter alia, the letters of Alfonso d'Este and Giovanni Gonzaga on her death, quoted in Gregorovius, Lucrezia Borgia.
(26)
"Et multa alia dicta sunt; que hic non scribo, que aut non sunt; vel si sunt, incredibilia" (Infessura, Diarium).
(27)
La Vie de César Borgia.
(28)
Thus in the matter of the fifty silver cups tossed by the Pope into the ladies' laps, "sinum" is the word employed by Infessura—a word which has too loosely been given its general translation of "bosom," ignoring that it equally means "lap" and that "lap" it obviously means in this instance. M. Yriarte, however, goes a step further, and prefers to translate it as "corsage," which at once, and unpleasantly, falsifies the picture; and he adds matter to dot the I's to an extent certainly not warranted even by Infessura.
(29)
See Corlo, Storia di Milano, and Lodovico's letter to Charles VIII, quoted therein, lib. vii.
(30)
In Mem. Storiche dei Monarchi Ottomani.
(31)
Vitis Pontif. Rom.
(32)
"Che non gli faceva buona compagnia."
(33)
It is rather odd that, in the course of casting about for a possible murderer of Gandia, public opinion should never have fastened upon Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. He had lately been stripped of the Patrimony of St. Peter that the governorship of this might be bestowed upon Gandia; his resentment had been provoked by that action of the Pope's, and the relations between himself and the Borgias were strained in consequence. Possibly there was clear proof that he could have had no connection with the crime.
(34)
"El S. de Pesaro ha scripto qua de sua mano non haverla mai cognosciuta et esser impotente, alias la sententia non se potea dare. El prefato S. dice pero haver scripto cosi per obedire el Duca de Milano et Aschanio" (Collenuccio's letter from Rome to the Duke of Ferrara, Dec. 25, 1497).
(35)
"Et mancho se e curato de fare prova de qua con Done per poterne chiarire el Rev. Legato che era qua, sebbene sua Excellentia tastandolo sopra cio gli ne abbia facto offerta." And further: "Anzi haverla conosciuta infinite volte, ma ch
el Papa non geiha tolta per altro se non per usare con lei" (Costabili's letter from Milan to the Duke of Ferrara, June 23, 1497).
(36)
The Ghetto was not yet in existence. It was not built until 1556, under Paul IV.
(37)
"Non dixit verbum Pape Valentinus, nec Papa sibi, sed eo deosculato, descendit de solio" (Burchard's Diarium, and "Solo lo bació," in letter from Rome in Sanuto's Diarii)
(38)
Éloges et vies des Reynes, Princesses, etc.
(39)
"Dite litre lei le aveva fate tocare et tenere adose ad uno nostro infetado."—Andrea Bernardi (Cronache di Forli).
(40)
It was customary throughout Italy that the Podestà, or chief magistrate, should never be a native of the town—rarely of the State—in which he held his office. Thus, having no local interests or relationships, he was the likelier to dispense justice with desirable single-mindedness.
(41)
"Teneva detta Madona (la qual é belissima dona, fiola del Ducha Galeazo di Milan) di zorno e di note in la sna camera, con la quale—judicio omnium—si deva piacer" (Sanuto's Diarii).
(42)
The scabbard of this sword is to be seen in the South Kensington Museum; the sword itself is in the possession of the Caetani family.
(43)
It is extremely significant that Capello's Relazione contains no mention of Alfonso's plot against Cesare's life, a matter which, as we have seen, had figured so repeatedly in that ambassador's dispatches from Rome at the time of the event. This omission is yet another proof of the malicious spirit by which the "relation" was inspired. The suppression of anything that might justify a deed attributed to Cesare reveals how much defamation and detraction were the aims of this Venetian.
(44)
"Mansit in Palatio secrete," says Burchard.
(45)
This, incidentally, is another misstatement. Valentinois had with him, besides the thousand foot levied by the Pope and the hundred lances under Morgante Baglioni, an army some thousands strong led for him by Yves d'Allègre.
(46)
The frequency with which the German historian cites Matarazzo as an authority is oddly inconsistent, considering that when he finds Matarazzo's story of the murder of the Duke of Gandia upsetting the theory which Gregorovius himself prefers, by fastening the guilt upon Giovanni Sforza, he devotes some space to showing—with perfect justice—that Matarazzo is no authority at all.
(47)
See Gregorovius's Lucrezia Borgia.
(48)
Cronache Forlivesi.
(49)
The arquebus, although it had existed in Italy for nearly a century, was only just coming into general use.
(50)
In his Niccolò Machiavelli.
(51)
See the twenty-first letter from Macchiavelli on this legation.
(52)
This is Macchiavelli's report of the forces; but, it appears to be an exaggeration, for, upon leaving Cesena, Cesare does not appear to have commanded more than 10,000 men in all.
(53)
See this letter in the documents appended to Alvisi's Cesare Borgia, document 76.
(54)
Burchard's Diarium, March 6, 1504.
(55)
"Il diavolo sarebbe saltato fuori della camera in forma di babuino, et un cardinale corso per piarlo, e preso volendolo presentar al papa, il papa disse lasolo, lasolo ché ii diavolo. E poi la notte si amaló e morite."—Marino Sanuto, Diarii.
(56)
See Sanuto's Diarrii.
(57)
Burchard's successor in the office of Master of Ceremonies.
(58)
"Per non dar materia ad altri che fazino un po di lui mazor estimazion di quel che fanno quando lo vedessero in parte alcuna favorito."—Giustiniani, Dispatch of November 6, 1503.
(59)
"In quo nobis rem gratissimam facietis ducis enim ipsum propter ejus insignes virtutes et praeclara merita praecipuo affectur et caritate praecipua complectimur."—Archivio di Stato, Firenze. (See Alvisi, Doct. 96.)
(60)
Quoted by Alvisi, on the authority of a letter of Luigi da Porto, March 16, 1510, in Lettere Storiche.
(61)
Sanuto confirms Zurita, in the main, by letters received by the Venetian Senate.
(62)
It bore the following legend:
AQUI YACE EN POCA TIERRA
AL QUE TODO LE TEMIA
EL QUE LA PAZ Y LA GUERRA
EN LA SUA MANO TENIA.
OH TU QUE VAS A BUSCAR
COSAS DIGNAS DE LOAR
SI TU LOAS LO MAS DIGNO
AQUI PARE TU CAMINO
NO CURES DE MAS ANDAR.
which, more or less literally may be Englished as follows: "Here in a little earth, lies one whom all did fear; one whose hands dispensed both peace and war. Oh, you that go in search of things deserving praise, if you would praise the worthiest, then let your journey end here, nor trouble to go farther."
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