The Fall of the House of Borgia

by E R Chamberlin

  Among the eighteen men in the large chamber was Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, Bishop of Siena and one of the candidates for the tiara. He looked like a peasant for he was a thickset man with a heavy, fleshy face which could appear sullen or even stupid. But appearances belied reality: his family, though poor, was one of the noblest in Siena, and behind the commonplace facade was a unique mind, darting, questioning, enlivening all it touched upon. There was, too, a colossal vanity, but a vanity so open, so childish that it was difficult to be offended by it. Traveler, scholar, gossip, diplomat, Piccolomini was essentially a man of his day, even down to the classic names that his parents had bestowed upon him. Curiosity was perhaps his most obvious characteristic and Man, in all his fascinating, exasperating aspects was for him the only study really worthwhile.

  Even now, while one half of his mind was engaged in the vital but tedious business of drumming up votes, the other half was engaged in observing, speculating, recording. No one in a position to know had ever before troubled to write an account of a papal election. True, each election had produced a crop of rumors and even written reports, but their authors' audacity and imagination had been equaled only by their ignorance. Never before had a conclavist left a first-hand account of the tortuous negotations, the sudden tantrums, the unpredictable, irrational currents that could suddenly sweep a man toward the supreme goal. He, Aeneas Silvius, intended to write such an account and. leave for posterity at least one true record of a conclave and of the men who had made the decisions.

  Dominating the group physically was Bessarion the Greek, burly, remote, immensely dignified with the great patriarchal sweep of beard that set him apart as the alien he was. His natural ally was the Russian, Isidore; they spoke in Greek, Aeneas noted, virtually a secret language even among this gathering of learned men. There was no danger from this quarter, he considered; Isidore was unknown and Bessarion, though an honorable man and possessed of great prestige, was fatally hampered by his nationality. The same consideration applied to that other group of men who were speaking a language that had been heard only too much in Rome recently: that harsh Catalan which sounded, to Piccolomini's Tuscan ears, like the barking of dogs.

  There were four in this group: young Rodrigo Borgia, plump, affable, watchful with his cousin Luis in his shadow as usual; and two quieter, older men whose names Piccolomini could never quite remember. Not one of them represented a challenge to him but each had a vote. Would they support foreigners, or Italians?

  The Italians outnumbered all other nationalities but were split up in little, bitterly opposed groups. Pietro Barbo, the Venetian, had a couple of supporters: He had been a merchant and it was said that he had precipitately abandoned his career for the Church when his uncle became pope a few years back—a typically Venetian move and a prosperous one. There was Calandrini of Bologna, a quiet, modest man with considerable influence, for he had been the half-brother of the brilliant Pope Nicholas V and the dead man's mantle was still upon him. There were, of course, cardinals from the Orsini and Colonna families, pointedly ignoring each other. It was inconceivable that a papal election could take place without representatives from these two families appearing to complicate an already complex business with their tribal hatreds. And the French. Alain of Avignon was a windbag, but Estouteville of Rouen represented the greatest challenge of all, Piccolomini considered. A hatchet-faced man with thin lips that seemed set in a permanent sneer, an aristocrat from the tips of his slender bejeweled fingers to the exquisite set of the robe around his neck. Fabulously wealthy, totally unscrupulous, he had already made a scathing personal attack upon Piccolomini, mocking his poverty, his scholarship, even his physical disability. "What is Aeneas to you that you think him fit for the pontificate? Will you give us a pope lame in both feet and poor? How will he who is sick cure our sickness? Shall we put a poet in Peter's place?" The cruelty of the attack was equaled only by the crudeness, the unblushing appeal to the basest instincts, with which he had put forward his own claim to the tiara. "I am the senior cardinal. Royal blood flows in my veins. I am rich in friends and money. I have many benefices which, when I resign them, I will divide among you and others."

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  The defeat of this arrogant man would give Piccolomini intense pleasure even if he himself should fail to win the tiara.

  But such a defeat seemed increasingly unlikely. On this, the second day of the conclave, matters had proceeded to their almost inevitable deadlock with each of the tiny groups pulling its different way. Shortly after midnight, however, support seemed to gather for Estouteville. "A number of cardinals, seeking a private place," Piccolomini wrote, "met in the latrines and agreed together that they should elect Estouteville pope and bound themselves with signatures and oaths. Relying on them, he straightaway began promising priesthoods, magistracies and offices and divided his provinces among them. A worthy setting for the choice of such a pope!"

  One more vote was needed and Calandrini tried to persuade Piccolomini to vote for the favorite, pointing out how dangerous it would be to have the new pope as an enemy. Piccolomini declined and, after an argument, went off in search of Rodrigo Borgia. He found the young man sitting pensive in his cell. Borgia was less than half Piccolomini's age and had been a cardinal for scarcely two years; nevertheless, as vice-chancellor, he held the highest office among the eighteen men. He had excellent reason to be pensive, however, for even his limited experience of affairs told him how easily the favorite of one reign could be stripped of all he possessed in the next. He shrugged when Piccolomini demanded to know whether he had sold himself to Estouteville. "What would you have me do? The thing is settled. Many of the cardinals have met in the latrines and decided to elect him. It is not to my advantage to remain with a small minority out of favor with the new pope. I am joining the majority and I have looked out for my own interests. I shall not lose the chancellorship—I have a note from Estouteville assuring me of that. If I do not vote for him the others will elect him anyway and I shall be stripped of my office."

  Piccolomini exploded. "You young fool! Will you then put an enemy of your nation in the Apostle's chair? And will you put your faith in the note of a man who is faithless? You will have the note, and Alain of Avignon will have the chancellorship. Will a Frenchman be more friendly to a Frenchman or a Catalan? Take care, you inexperienced boy! Take care, you fool."

  Piccolomini's vigorous argument seemed to have some effect, at least enough for Borgia to promise his support during the next ballot. This took place in the morning, after the conclavists had had a few hours' sleep. Estouteville, who was acting as teller, attempted trickery and announced that Piccolomini had only eight votes. "The rest said nothing about another man's loss," as Piccolomini remarked drily in his lively record and he insisted on a recount. He had, in fact, received nine votes, the highest that morning but still not sufficient to break the deadlock, so the conclave decided on 'accession,' the spontaneous announcing of the candidate favored by each person present. Nothing happened. Each man sat in a heavy silence, waiting for the other to make the first move. "It was a strange silence and a strange sight, men sitting there like their own statues. No sound was to be heard, no movement seen. Then Rodrigo, the vice-chancellor, rose and said 'I accede to the cardinal of Siena,' an utterance which was like a dagger in Estouteville's heart, so pale did he turn." Others followed, if reluctantly. Some withdrew from the conclave on the pretense of physical needs, hoping either to bring this session to a close or waiting to see which way the majority would move. But by mid-morning Piccolomini's election was assured, very largely through Rodrigo Borgia's ability to assess a trend and act swiftly upon his judgment. It was an impressive debut for a young man of twenty-seven; more important, it ensured his political survival, for gratitude was one of Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini's outstanding virtues.

  That first conclave was very nearly the most important of Borgia's long career, for it marked the moment when he ceased to be the favored nephew of a reigning pope and was thrown en
tirely on his own resources. He had survived. He had turned the potential destroyer into a grateful patron. The new pope—who took the name Pius II— confirmed him in the office of vice-chancellor. The gesture was partly one of friendship, for a curious intimacy, almost that of father and son, had sprung up between the two dissimilar men, the one grizzled in the ways of the world, deeply pious, much traveled, the other with the buoyant confidence of youth, from a world limited to provincial Spain and the brown walls of Rome, with a piety satisfied by the gorgeous outer forms of religion. In part, the granting of the office was a natural reward for the young man's timely support. But it was also a public demonstration of Pius's belief that "Rodrigo was an extraordinarily able man." Pius was plagued by the usual swarms of place-hunting relatives and he had every personal reason to follow precedent and distribute high office among them—including that of vice-chancellor. The fact that he did not do so was clear evidence that the young man could maintain by his own merits what he had gained by good fortune.

  Pius had an eye for everyone and everything within his orbit and, with his itch to record what he saw and felt, he snatched time from the endless pressure of affairs to keep that voluminous, lively diary of his. It is only through this diary that posterity is able to catch a glimpse of the young Spanish cardinal, as cautiously, discreetly, he worked himself into Roman society. The gossiping writers of Rome saw no particular reason to refer to him—his conduct was demonstrably normal (if it had not been they would have regaled the world with accounts of his doings); he held an important position but he was still young and there was no guarantee that he would continue to hold that position in the whirligig of Rome; and his family was obscure. So they ignored him. But fortunately Pius's bright, speculative eyes frequently fell on his young colleague and his pen contributed to the slowly emerging picture of a most unusual man.

  Pius saw Borgia as a hardworking, good-humored man who made friends easily, enjoyed life enormously but usually took care to conform to the relatively puritanical standards established by the pope. He seemed, like his uncle before him, to have little interest in the speculative ferment of his day. Highly intelligent, he was essentially a pragmatist, using his intellectual abilities for strictly practical ends.

  But he delighted in display and possessed a talent for organizing those flamboyant religious spectacles, such as the Corpus Christi pageants, that were becoming increasingly part of social life.

  Wherever Pius went, Borgia went with him, and that was no simple matter, for the pope crossed and recrossed Italy in his ultimately futile attempt to stir Italians to Crusade. Borgia's loyalty, whether calculated or spontaneous, involved much hard riding, many uncomfortable quarters and peasant meals taken by roadside. Pius genuinely preferred simple meals—bread and cheese, fruit and wine—to an elaborate banquet in some nobleman's palace. Unlike most cardinals, Rodrigo shared the pope's indifference to food and physical comfort. It was one of the last traces, perhaps, of his Spanish origin and it proved very useful now.

  Sometimes he made a tactical mistake. One night during a violent storm at Ostia he, with other senior members of the Curia, had been lodged comfortably in the bishop's palace while the servants had been obliged to camp out. During the night a hurricane arose and destroyed their tents. They fled, "but in the dark they could not see their way," Pius recorded compassionately.

  The force of the rain drove them naked among the thistles which grew thick in that place and they were wounded by the sharp spikes. Covered with blood, stiff and almost stupefied by the cold they at last reached Cardinal Borgia who was lying in the palace terrified by the storm. And when he saw that his people had abandoned the tents and arrived naked, he inquired not whether they were safe but where they had put his money.3

  Pius's affection for his protege did not blind him to certain obvious flaws in the young man's character and when it came to his ears that Borgia and Estouteville—of all people—had taken part in an orgy in Siena he fired off a blistering letter that must have left Borgia a very thoughtful man. As Pius heard the story, Borgia and Estouteville, "whose age alone ought to have recalled him to his duty," had locked themselves up for several hours with a number of noble but lighthearted ladies of Siena. "Shame forbids mention of all that took place—not only the acts themselves but their very names are unworthy of your position. In order that your lusts might be given free rein the husbands, brothers and kinsmen of the young women were not admitted. All Siena is talking about this orgy. Our displeasure is beyond words."4 Pius was relying on hearsay and certainly there were sufficient ambiguities about the report—in particular why the touchy noblemen of Siena should tamely stand by while two foreigners debauched their womenfolk —so that Pius could accept Borgia's protestations that the whole thing had been exaggerated, together with his promises of good behavior in the future.

  Borgia never made quite that mistake again during his patron's pontificate and Pius continued to regard him not merely with approval but with active admiration.

  Pius recorded a description of Borgia's new palace, probably the first description of a Renaissance palace in Rome. Borgia's motive in building was not merely a desire for the grandiose; he had set out to make himself a Roman and the first essential was a base. Native Roman cardinals had an immense advantage over their non-Roman colleagues for they could retire to the family fortress in the frequent moments of crisis and defy the world for as long as need be. In the past there had been little incentive for "foreign" cardinals to go to the trouble and expense of building, for the popes were very rarely in Rome, preferring to travel on an endless circuit through the safer, pleasanter, healthier cities of the Papal States. But as normality returned and the court settled at last in its ancient home the non-Romans realized the need for a permanent home. Pietro Barbo had already begun his own palace, selecting a site below the mournfully deserted Capitoline Hill. There he laid the foundations of that enormous Palazzo Venezia which, in the twentieth century, was to provide an appropriately grandiloquent headquarters for Mussolini. Borgia preferred a site closer to hand, in the fast growing region just across the river from the Vatican. He built to a smaller scale, but just as well as Barbo did, for his palace also survived into the twentieth century.

  On Palm Sunday 1462 Pius headed a great procession past that palace when the head of St. Andrew was brought to Rome. Emotionally he described the scenes of penitence and religious fervor as the priceless relic was carried through the streets of Rome—but he had an eye, too, for the splendors of the decorations on the processional way.

  All the cardinals who lived along the route had decorated their houses magnificently . . . but all were outstripped in expense and effort and ingenuity by Rodrigo, the vice-chancellor. His huge, towering house, which he had built on the site of the old mint, was covered with rich and wonderful tapestries, and besides this he had raised a lofty canopy from which were suspended many and various marvels. He had decorated not only his own house but those nearby, so that the square all about them seemed a kind of park full of

  sweet songs and sounds, or a great palace gleaming with

  gold such as they say Nero's palace was.5

  Borgia had bought the site from his uncle only a few months before the old man's death in 1458. The site lay deep in Orsini territory, almost under the shadow of the main Orsini stronghold on Monte Giordano and, considering that the Orsini were hunting his brother to death while the palace's foundation was being laid, Rodrigo's decision to build there might have seemed foolhardy, to say that least. But it was an expression of his immense confidence in his ability to flourish no matter what vicissitudes the Borgia family encountered, and this confidence was well- founded, for the great building was complete when Pius noticed it on that Palm Sunday only four years later.

  The style of the building was transitional, reflecting the style of Rome itself as it passed reluctantly from medieval squalor to Renaissance splendor. It was as much castle as palace, a massive structure designed to withstand siege as well
as provide a home, but the interior was most splendidly furnished. Cardinal Ascanio Sforza visited it in October 1484 and sent a description of it to his brother Ludovico, the magnificent lord of Milan who was ever eager to hear of any magnificences that might rival his own. Ascanio was impressed by the priceless tapestries and carpets —particularly the latter. They were still rare in Rome and yet here they were not only scattered in abundance but actually matched the furniture and decorations. In a small room leading off the great central hall Ascanio noticed "a couch with a canopy all upholstered in crimson satin, and a beautifully carved cupboard full of vases of gold and silver as well as an enormous quantity of plate all very beautiful to see."

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  Exploring further he found two more rooms, even more ornately decorated with satin hangings. Each had its own great couch or divan for ceremonial audiences, one upholstered in velvet, the other in a richly decorated cloth of gold.

  The overall impression conveyed by Sforza's description is of a desire to display wealth rather than taste. If there had been anything worthy of note Ascanio would have remarked it. The other new palaces in Rome were already bearing the imprint of the Renaissance intellect as expressed through the work of its artists. In the new Borgia palace there seemed to be nothing but a profusion of objects—precious plate, expensive but gaudy hangings and upholsteries—thrown together without underlying plan. The palace did indeed seem to express the personality of its owner—rich, gaudy, durable.