The second ring of the temporal Church was composed of the Papal States themselves. It was not for the sake of prestige or even military defense alone that the papacy battled to maintain the states. In an average year the states yielded a revenue of some one hundred thousand florins, less than the annual income enjoyed by the great mercantile powers of Milan, Venice and Naples, but far more than that of the papacy's smaller neighbors in Italy. Power in the states was concentrated almost entirely in the hands of the so-called vicars in the various cities, a system which was creaking ominously as more and more of the vicars contemptuously ignored their suzerain and acted as though they were independent lords.
The third ring was in Rome itself and this was divided into two: the civic government of the city, now almost wholly under the control of the pope; and the papal Curia, a series of great departments of state, each virtually autonomous and headed by a cardinal. The most prestigious was the chancery, which now had Ascanio Sforza as its vice- chancellor. His income of eight thousand ducats—handsome but not immense—was perhaps four times what he could have earned as a professor of law at a university. The chamberlain of the treasury probably wielded more immediate power in day-to-day matters, but the vice-chancellor's general political influence was immense. He worked in close contact with the pope himself, and through his department passed the tens of thousands of legal documents which regulated the whole enormous structure of the Roman Church in its purely temporal affairs. Here were drafted the bulls which affected the lives of millions of people; here arrived the pleas or threats of monarchs together with the petitions of little men who craved the exercise of the Apostle's power in their favor. The Chancery became the goal of every hungry scholar who could turn an elegant Latin phrase. Scores found employment, for it was growing at a greater rate than any other department, so great that eventually the larger part of it migrated from the Vatican to Borgia's old palace on the left bank of the Tiber. The vice-chancellor, as the papacy's lawyer, was therefore president of the Roman Rota, a supremely vital office. The Rota was the ultimate court of appeal for the ecclesiastical affairs of all Europe. Altogether, there was small wonder that the vice-chancellorship should be looked upon as the traditional penultimate step to the papal throne itself.
Parallel with the Chancery was the Apostolic Chamber, the department of state responsible for finances. The chamberlain, like the vice-chancellor, chose all his own officials—with one exception. The papal treasurer was appointed directly by the pope, and Alexander, always preferring to achieve his ends by outwardly legal means, gratefully took advantage of the system and appointed his cousin, Francesco Borgia, to the office. Rumor had it that Francesco was the son of old Calixtus, an unlikely story that was Francesco's only claim to fame. But Alexander needed a loyal, competent and pliant man in this delicate post. Francesco occupied it throughout the pontificate, receiving a cardinal's hat as reward.
Papal revenues were in two forms, spiritual and temporal, faithfully reflecting the dual nature of the papacy itself. Spiritual income was received from all Europe. Originally, it had taken the conventional form of gifts from the faithful together with such customary payments as the annates, one year's income from each new occupant of a benefice whether he were bishop or parish priest. Gradually however, a new, far more lucrative and ultimately more damaging -form of spiritual revenue began to appear, the sale of indulgences and of offices. Even before Alexander's time the sales had increased to such an extent that a recognized sub-department, the Datary, came into existence to control it. The Datary proved an ideal instrument for Alexander. He already had perfectly legal access to a secret treasury, a fund which allowed him to finance his personal expenses without the necessity of gaining the chamberlain's approval. But though the fund was generous it could not keep pace with Alexander's demands upon it as his ambitions for his children grew ever greater. The treasury machinery was too complex and too public for his purpose. It was, after all, a little embarrassing to see milliners' and jewelers' accounts solemnly set down in the Apostolic registers. But the newly evolved Datary existed in a kind of no-man's land, and Alexander brought it under his direct control. Unsophisticated people might complain that the sale of offices was simply another version of simony, but it was just possible to argue that the sale constituted a loan, the buyer recouping his outlay by receiving the revenues of the office. The technique provided the legal cloak which Alexander ever preferred to wear, and what actually happened to the money was known only to a very select few.
Temporal income—the revenues which the papacy derived from its position as one of the major European landlords—had inevitably declined disastrously during the Schism but had recovered with the return of normality, when the papacy was again in a position to enforce its rights. These revenues, in addition, had received a curious and wholly unexpected boost when the Florentine, Giovanni di Castro, discovered alum in Italy. To the uninitiated there was no reason why this dull, unglamorous mineral should cause the stir it did in European banking circles. But alum probably made more fortunes than did more obviously precious metals, for it was a vital element in both clothing and tanning, Europe's major industries. Outside Italy, European alum mines had long since been exhausted, and for centuries manufacturers had been obliged to import it from Asia Minor, particularly from the mines near Constantinople, paying heavy tolls for the privilege. Long before the fall of that great city to the Turks, Europeans had been looking for another, less vulnerable source, and Giovanni di Castro found it through a combination of sheer luck and acute observation. Exploring the hills behind Civitavecchia he noticed a locality where vegetation was similar to that growing near the alum mines of Constantinople. Prospecting further, in 1462 he discovered what was to prove the immensely rich deposit of the Tolfa mines. Thus there was justification for the exuberant letter which he wrote to Pope Pius:
Holy Father, today I bring you victory over the Turk. Every year the Turks extort from the Christians more than three hundred thousand ducats because Ischia produces but little and the alum mines of Lipari have been worked out since the times of the Romans. Today I have found seven mountains so rich in alum that they could furnish seven worlds. You will be able to supply alum enough to dye the cloth of the whole of Europe and thus snatch away the profit from the infidel.
By great good fortune for the papacy, Tolfa happened to be situated in the Papal States, and thereafter the Apostolic Camera exercised a virtual monopoly in the supply of alum to Europe. Merchants were threatened with the heaviest spiritual penalties if they should again turn to the infidel for alum supplies, but there was hardly a need to create an artificial protection for a source which was hundreds of miles closer to production centers. Revenues mounted to some fifty thousand florins per year from this single source, and it was a revenue not only rich but constant. No matter what went on in the world, regardless of which princes rose or fell, people needed clothes, clothes had to be dyed, and so long as there was money enough to satisfy this basic need, the stream of gold moved steadily from the choking alum mines of Tolfa to the quiet rooms of the Camera.
Combined temporal and spiritual incomes provided Alexander with some four hundred thousand florins annually. Compared with other European monarchs his income was only moderate; in terms of sheer spending power, indeed, the papacy was very low in the European league. The king of France enjoyed an income the equivalent of at least a million florins. His powerful vassal, the duke of Burgundy, followed with an income of some nine hundred thousand. Even England's king could boast of seven hundred thousand annually, while in Italy the only major power with a smaller income than Alexander's was Florence with two hundred thousand. The largest single charge on Alexander's purse was the upkeep of the standing army necessary to defend the Papal States. It cost one hundred thousand florins, a quarter of the entire revenue. In bookkeeping terms, the states simply paid for themselves. The next major charge on his purse was the half share which each cardinal levied by right upon the revenues of the Patrim
ony, the area immediately surrounding Rome. This accounted for a further thirty thousand florins or more, reducing the revenue to some 250,000 florins even before the scores of lesser payments were made.
The papacy, outwardly so magnificent, was in fact in a state of chronic penury. A pilgrim in Rome saw only the fixed assets. Gaping at the accumulation of more than a millennium's existence—the priceless vessels, the gorgeous robes, the splendid palaces and churches—he might reasonably conclude that the Church was the fount of all wealth as well as all wisdom. But the clerk, adding up his figures in some airless cubicle, could see the reality: the papacy was balanced on the knife-edge of solvency, with revenues only just equaling expenditures. The speed with which the Tolfa windfall was assimilated into ordinary income showed how narrow that margin was. A pope who wanted to raise a large sum of money for an unusual purpose had only limited options. He could increase the taxes on the Jews, the only wealthy group who could be treated with impunity, he could borrow, he could appeal to Christendom generally (the usual course when he wanted to finance a crusade), or if he were fortunate in his timing, he could wait for a jubilee year. Every fifty years, at the turn of the century and of the half-century, the faithful were summoned to Rome and arrived in tens of thousands to make a great public demonstration of faith at the tomb of the Apostle and at the mother churches of Christendom. Alexander, as ever, was fortunate, for the next jubilee was scheduled for the year 1500. Nevertheless, though he could then count on a certain addition to income, it would be less than the splendid outward appearances betokened. Jubilee expenses were heavy and the Roman shopkeepers rapacious, taking a very large share of the pilgrim's purse. Money was in short supply throughout Europe. It would be at least another twenty years before Aztec gold circulated in any quantity, and the pope was in direct competition with the gold-hungry monarchs of the continent, each of whom needed ever more specie to maintain their growing armies and the increasing splendor of their courts. Alexander had every pressing reason to look elsewhere for money, and under pressure of need, progressed almost imperceptibly from unconventional to actively criminal means of obtaining it.
The papal budget was heavily in the red at the time of Alexander's election. Indeed, it could hardly have been otherwise, considering the mixture of incompetence and corruption that had characterized the previous pontificate. Alexander succeeded in balancing that budget, for he brought to the office of pope the same frugality with which he had run his household as cardinal. Even in later years when his son Cesare forced him to find ever larger sums to match the young man's ravenous ambitions, Alexander maintained a careful watch over the curial machinery itself, so that it functioned more efficiently, more economically than it had for many decades past. Under Alexander's rule, the Vatican became the center of gaudy entertainments, but the observant noticed that they cost Alexander very little indeed. The profusion of costly, but inherited, plate and the glittering company at banquets obscured the fact that the meal itself usually consisted of a single course and that wine, though abundant, was of inferior quality. Alexander loved theatrical entertainments, provided that they were not intellectually demanding. And actors were cheap, a stage could be erected for a few ducats, and the artists who created the spectaculars were glad enough to work for little or nothing in return for the immense prestige gained. Alexander had no intellectual pretensions, no particular ability or desire to seek out and reward original talent, but that admixture of affability and majesty which all men noticed about him gave him an immense personality so that he seemed to confer where, in fact, he received. His court became fashionable and, in the manner of successful fashions, created its own standard. His guests scarcely noticed that it was they, striving to outdo each other with glittering entourages and splendid gifts, who actually created the glamorous atmosphere. His household expenses rarely rose above ten thousand florins per year, an impressive figure when compared with the thirty thousand florins that the Medici deemed necessary to run their household in Florence or the one hundred thousand florins that the papal household itself would need in a generation's time when a Medici pope sat on the throne.
4 The Court of Rome
At sixty Alexander was still an extraordinarily attractive man. He was by no means handsome, as his sons Cesare and Juan were. His head was too fleshy, the nose and mouth too heavy for formal good looks. But all who came in contact with him, men and women alike, testified to a magnetism which made mere regularity of features an irrelevance. The portliness of middle age had developed into an undeniable stoutness, but Alexander was tall enough to carry the weight of flesh so that it gave him genuine majesty. There was nothing stiff or pompous about him. The small plump hands gesticulated energetically in conversation, the black eyes sparkled; the sensuous, generous mouth under the great beak of a nose smiled easily. Perhaps the most impressive thing about Alexander was his voice. He loved taking part in the sonorous rites of the Church, his vigorous, full-bodied chanting sounding beautiful even among professional choristers, for his voice was resonant and rich. In conversation his voice could hypnotize, now falling beguilingly, now lashing out venomously in anger, now urgent, now pleading, but always alive.
Alexander brought to the business of being pope a certain gusto, a certain larger-than-life quality which was the product of immense self-confidence. He never seemed to have any doubts either in religion or politics. A less confident man might have displayed some diffidence when the Portuguese and Spaniards came to him to complain about each other's trespassing in the New World. Alexander merely called for a map and, with a splendid gesture, divided the world between the two nations. In religion he was orthodox and, if anything, inclined to be old-fashioned. He displayed an unusual degree of veneration for the Madonna, and in her honor instituted that sounding of the angelus bell which was to echo throughout Catholic Europe down the following centuries. It was precisely the rather showy, theatrical gesture which he liked to make, and gave no real indication as to his true religious beliefs. Canon lawyers contemplating the bizarre temporal precedents he established, and forced to disentangle their consequences, could perhaps count themselves fortunate that he did not similarly experiment with the spiritual side of his office.
Tolerance was undoubtedly Alexander's most obvious good point. One of the first acts of his pontificate was to take official notice of the new art of printing and establish the Index of prohibited books as a bulwark against the spread of heresy. It would have been a natural act, one which could have been legally justifiable, to extend the censorship to cover the political pamphlets which attacked him personally. He did not do so even though some of the propaganda leaflets were remarkably vile compilations, accusing not only him but also his children of every imaginable lust of the flesh and mind. "Evil is often spoken of me but I let it pass," he remarked to the Venetian ambassador on one occasion, and it was true enough.
Alexander's curiously long-suffering patience with the turbulent Girolamo Savonarola in Florence bore ample witness to that fact. He had summoned Savonarola to Rome "to give an account of the prophecies for which he claimed Divine inspiration," prophecies which were causing dangerous political upheavals. It was a perfectly legitimate act on the part of Savonarola's spiritual superior, but the monk ignored the summons, defied the excommunication which followed and garnished the defiance with a personal attack on Alexander and the Rome over which he presided.
They only ring their bells for coin and candles. They sell their benefices, sell the Sacraments, traffic in masses. When the evening comes one goes to a gaming table, another to his concubine. They are steeped in shameful vices. Formerly it used to be said "if not pure, at least demure." Now no one need try to keep up appearances. No one talks now of his nephew but simply of his son or daughter. All veils are cast aside.23
The most obvious person in Rome who might have more fittingly termed his own son his nephew was Alexander, but he ignored the personal barb as he ignored the ever more vicious ones which followed. Even the Florentines w
earied of their self-appointed leader's violent language and ever wilder denunciations and claims, but when Alexander did move against Savonarola it was simply on the grounds of insubordination and of acting as priest while excommunicated. "Does this friar think that he alone was excepted when Our Lord conferred the power of binding and loosing on our predecessor St. Peter? Our duty as pastor of the flock forbids us to tolerate such conduct any longer." Alexander was still prepared to absolve Savonarola "if the monk will prove his obedience by abstaining from preaching for a reasonable time,"24 but by then Savonarola had totally departed from reality and was shortly afterward abandoned by his followers to his thronging enemies in Florence itself. Alexander merely had to approve what was virtually a fait accompli.
The eulogies which attended Alexander's accession to the throne no more reflected truth than did the execrations and legends which followed his death. Both eulogies and execrations alike were political products, the work of men with axes to grind or grievances to work off. But he was well liked by those who came into humdrum, daily contact with him, by the servants or court officials who had nothing to hope or fear politically from him. All other things being equal, Alexander preferred to be liked rather than disliked, preferred laughter to tears, preferred doing a favor to a disfavor. In return he was served cheerfully enough and with what seems to have been real affection—sufficient on one occasion to save his life. In the summer of 1500 he happened to be seated in the throne room, talking to the datary Ferrari and the chamberlain Caspar, when a freak storm broke violently overhead. Ferrari and Gaspar dashed to the windows to close them and as they did so lightning struck the building, collapsing a large part of the roof and the story above the throne room. When the two men turned back into the room all they could see was an enormous mound of rubble burying the throne with Alexander still seated in it. Crying for help, the two elderly clerks threw themselves on the mound dragging away the stones and timber and plaster. They found Alexander alive, but bleeding and unconscious. The canopy of the throne, in collapsing, had protected his head but he would probably have suffocated had it not been for the prompt action of Ferrari and Gaspar.
The Fall of the House of Borgia Page 8
