The Fall of the House of Borgia

by E R Chamberlin

  Cesare had always been intended for the Church and therefore, from a very early age, Church benefices had been showered upon him. Before he was twelve he was a protonotary of the Church, treasurer of the cathedral of Cartagena, bishop of Pampeluna and, when his father became pope, he inherited almost automatically the family seat of the archbishopric of Valencia. His illegitimacy technically disqualified him from holding any Church office, but Pope Sixtus had obligingly granted Cesare a dispensation when he was only six years old. Nevertheless, the dispensation did not apply to the immensely powerful office of cardinal, an office which was vital to Cesare's career. His father found a way out of the impasse, and in so doing threw a curious light on Borgia family affairs. A commission headed by no less a person than the vice-chancellor Ascanio Sforza deliberated on the problem and solemnly reported that the young man generally known as Cesare Borgia was, in fact, the lawful child of Domenico d'Arignano and his wife Vannozza Catanei. Cesare was therefore not a bastard, and therefore not a son of Alexander. The pope, out of consideration for the love he bore Cesare's half-brother Juan, had taken Cesare into his family and permitted him to bear the name of Borgia. The report was published as a bull in 1493, thereby permitting Cesare's entry into the Sacred College in the same year. Simultaneously a secret bull was drawn up which disclaimed Alexander's responsibility for the published statement and specifically claimed Cesare as his natural son.

  The duplicity was necessary to satisfy the letter of the law, but it must have contributed considerably to the bitter hatred which Cesare felt for his brother Juan, a hatred born of the contrasting roles which their father planned for them. Cesare was to make the family fortune through the Church, whereas Juan was to have the glamorous role of founding the family dynasty. Cesare's prospects would have dazzled most young men. Even at the age of eighteen he was probably one of the richest young men of his generation, although he possessed no land. Splendid though his Church preferments were, they implied nothing further than the passive receipt of income, and the one certain fact known about Cesare Borgia in his youth was that he was not a passive person. Looking ahead, all he could see was the career of an ecclesiastical courtier; by contrast, the range and speed of his achievements when he was given a free hand shows clearly that his talents lay elsewhere. He excelled in the bold, dramatic stroke rather than in patient, devious intrigue, preferring the glamor of force to the drudgery of bureaucracy.

  A year after his father's coronation, Cesare Borgia seemed just another young Roman dandy, immensely wealthy, bedecked with titles, with his own establishment but doing nothing in particular apart from the usual round of boisterous pleasures. It must have been an intensely galling experience for a vigorous, highly intelligent young man but it was the role cast for him by his father. He could, and did, disguise his true feelings. Later, at the consistory in which he pleaded to be released from the cardinalate, he displayed a sudden flash of hatred for the brother he believed had robbed him. But meanwhile, during the long period of waiting, Cesare gave the impression of being totally satisfied with his life, accepting the boredom of a future ecclesiastical career for the sake of the present income. Andrea Boccaccio, the ambassador from Ferrara, sketched a lively picture of the young man pursuing his pleasures about town. "I met Cesare yesterday in the house in Trastevere. He was just on his way to the chase dressed in a costume altogether worldly—that is to say, in silk, and armed. He had only a little tonsure like a simple priest. I conversed with him for a while as we rode along—I am on intimate terms with him. He possesses marked genius and a charming personality, bearing himself like a great prince. He is especially lively and merry and fond of society. The archbishop never had any inclination for the priesthood— but his benefices bring him in more than 16,000 ducats annually."31 Boccaccio incidentally conveyed a picture of himself as a toady of some magnitude, but though he was mostly concerned to let his master know that he was on such cordial terms with the great, his portrait of Cesare at the beginning of his career was borne out by others—the portrait of a highly intelligent young man with more than sufficient vigor and charm to exploit his opportunities, but seemingly content to fritter them away.

  The house in Trastevere where Cesare and Boccaccio met in that spring of 1493 was the palace of San Maria in Portico, a building not far from the Vatican where lived the three most important people in Alexander's life; his cousin Adriana, his mistress Giulia Farnese, and his daughter Lucrezia, then in her thirteenth year. It was Lucrezia, more than any of the four children, who felt the full force of her father's curious domestic arrangement. Her young brother, Joffre, was still only a child; her two elder brothers Cesare and Juan would, in any case, have left the family home for the studies custom dictated. Thus it was around Lucrezia that their mother's lamentations centered. Vannozza made the best of the situation, but she did so with a deep and lasting sense of grievance. Even after Lucrezia had finally severed her links with Rome and was a duchess in her own right in Ferrara, Vannozza's sighs followed her —"your fortunate and unfortunate mother" was the manner in which she usually signed her letters to Lucrezia. It is expecting too much of Vannozza's passive nature to suppose that she would have defied Borgia's plans for their daughter in any significant manner. But it was another woman who supervised the upbringing of her child during a vital period of the girl's life—and that woman was notorious for having acted as bawd to her cousin. There was excellent reason for Vannozza Catanei to have grave doubts about her daughter's future and to pity herself as she drifted out of the Borgia story.

  But the household in San Maria was a remarkably happy one. Lucrezia and Giulia Farnese were close enough in years to pass as sisters and, given their enforced and curious propinquity, they were fortunate in that they enjoyed each other's company and became close friends. They were markedly similar in character—light-hearted, quick-witted, rather shallow but essentially generous. Their home, so discreetly presided over by Madonna Adriana, was only a step or so away from the Vatican. It became Alexander's personal sanctuary, the place where he could escape those tedious rituals of church and state which could make him explode with boredom, a place beyond the penetrating eye and disapproving sniff of his master of ceremonies. A kinsman of Giulia's, a certain Lorenzo Pucci, paid a visit to the palace on Christmas Eve 1493 and left a charming picture of the domestic life which so strongly attracted Alexander. "Today I called at the house of San Maria in Portico to see Madonna Giulia. She had just finished washing her hair when I entered. She was sitting by the fire, with Madonna Lucrezia, the daughter of our master, and Madonna Adriana and they all received me with great cordiality." Pucci had called, significantly enough, to thank Giulia for certain favors she had obtained for his family, and after an exchange of compliments, the conversation turned to domestic matters. They admired Giulia's new baby, the little girl called Laura:

  She is now well grown and, it seems to me resembles the pope for truly it is always possible to tell the fruit from the seed. Madonna Giulia has grown somewhat stouter and is a most beautiful creature. She let her hair down before me and had it dressed. Never have I seen anything like it before —she has the most beautiful hair. She wore a headdress of fine linen and over it a sort of net, light as air, with gold thread interwoven in it. In truth, it shone like the sun! I would have given a great deal for you to be present to see her for yourself. She wore a lined robe in the Neapolitan fashion as also did Madonna Lucrezia who, after a little while, went out to remove it. She returned shortly after in a gown almost entirely of violet velvet.

  Pucci had eyes only for Giulia—La Bella Giulia, Christ's Bride, as the wits called her—the celebrated beauty who had captured the most powerful man in Rome. Lucrezia, homely by contrast to that dazzling feminine glory, was worth only an afterthought in his letter. But she was by no means unattractive in person or in nature. A year or so after Pucci's visit, another correspondent describes her in highly complimentary terms: "She is of middle height and graceful in form. Her face is rather long, th
e nose well cut, the hair golden, eyes of no especial colour. Her mouth is rather large ... by nature she is always happy and gay." She lacked her brother Cesare's magnetism, but otherwise she shared fully the easy charm of their father.

  Lucrezia was approaching her fourteenth birthday when, in June 1493, she was married off to Giovanni Sforza, lord of Pesaro. Sforza was more than twice her age, a man possessed of few talents and less charm, but who happened to be related to the most powerful family in northern Italy and so presented immense attraction to Alexander, who was much preoccupied in establishing himself securely during this first year of his reign. This was Lucrezia's first marriage but third betrothal: piecing together the ambiguous documents which marked her progress to full marital status, it would appear that at one stage she was in fact legally betrothed to two men simultaneously. Like her brother Cesare, she experienced to the full the devious interweavings that characterized Alexander's policy for his family, a policy that arose from his desire to protect his illegitimate children at every conceivable legal angle, but produced also a tangled obscurity in which legends would flourish abundantly.

  Lucrezia was eleven years old when she was first betrothed in that solemn ceremony which for most people was an act almost as final and unbreakable as marriage itself. The prospective groom was a young nobleman of Valencia, and contracts between the pair were exchanged in February 1491, eighteen months before her father became pope. Then, in April of that year, further contracts were exchanged binding Lucrezia to marry another Valen- cian noble, Don Gaspare d'Alversa, whose father held estates in the Kingdom of Naples. It was perhaps these estates which enhanced young Gaspare's value as a potential husband, for despite Alexander's abiding affection for his native Spain, he saw clearly that his own family's future lay in Italy. No one ever seems to have troubled formally to dissolve the first contract. But the young man proved accommodating, his family accepted a modest cash sweetener for their offended honor, and Lucrezia seemed destined to become a Spanish matron whose children would some day possess a modest fief in southern Italy.

  Then, sixteen months later, her father became pope and her entire future altered. Simultaneously, she was a highly valuable pawn for her father to use in his role of papal monarch seeking to defend the Papal States and, as his daughter, she was the means whereby he could place the Borgia dynasty on a sound footing in its adopted country. In the light of Alexander's later actions and his ever- soaring plans for his children, it seems unlikely that he ever viewed Lucrezia's marriage with Giovanni Sforza as other than an expedient in the fluid and potentially dangerous political conditions of the first eighteen months of his reign. But the Borgia were always able to keep their own counsel and in the eyes of the world Giovanni Sforza, the insignificant count of Pesaro, was suddenly a very important person. His splendid kinsman, Ludovico Sforza of Milan, who hitherto had barely noticed Giovanni, now gave him a high-ranking, well-paid sinecure in the Milanese army. Giovanni's neighbor, the marquis of Mantua, lent him some of the magnificent Gonzaga jewels to bedeck himself at his wedding. And Roman society was prepared to accept a provincial with thirty thousand ducats of dowry money, even if the more knowledgeable were inclined to doubt the extent of the influence Giovanni Sforza, count of Pesaro, hoped to yield.

  There was but one sour note to mar the wedding preparations. Don Gaspare, Lucrezia's second betrothed, less a gentleman than the first, came to Rome swearing vengeance. "There is much gossip about Pesaro's marriage," an ambassador noted. "The first bridegroom is here, raising a great noise as Catalans do, saying he will object to all the princes and powers of Christendom. But willy-nilly, he will have to submit." The Alexander Borgia who was capable of outwitting the great monarchs of Europe was more than equal to dealing with a minor Spanish family, and the bewildered Don Gaspare found himself not merely consenting to Lucrezia's marriage, but even agreeing not to marry for at least a year afterward—a characteristically devious action of Alexander's, presumably with the object of keeping Don Gaspare available should he yet be required for Lucrezia.

  But Don Gaspare was not needed, and whether or not he remained in Rome to witness his betrothed's splendid wedding to another man, no one was sufficiently interested to record. Johannes Burchard had the responsibility of arranging the wedding, carefully recording the details in that diary of his in case it should ever prove necessary to repeat the performance, for precedence was all. The ceremony took place not in the private Borgia Apartments but in the great public halls of the Vatican, Burchard correctly interpreting his master's wishes that the marriage of the daughter of a pope should be a state occasion, intimately affecting the apostolic Church. To reinforce that point the great consistorial throne was set up in the Sala Reale, the hall normally used for solemn consistories of the Church, with smaller thrones for the bride and groom before it. A hundred cushions for the principal guests were scattered on the floor, and the room, like all the other chambers, was specially decorated for the occasion with rich tapestries and hangings of velvet in a color scheme of gold and blue and green.

  Lucrezia had already transferred her household to the palace of Cardinal Zeno, a friend of the family, because the somewhat ambiguous nature of the menage in Adriana's house was now thought unsuitable. Her brother Juan escorted her from the cardinal's palace to the Vatican. A Negro slave bore her train and she was followed by about one hundred and fifty maidens and matrons of Rome, including Giulia Farnese and Battistina, the granddaughter of His late Holiness, Innocent VIII. The bride's mother, Vannozza Catanei, was not present. Battistina's wedding in these solemn halls had established a useful precedent for Burchard to follow, and she had therefore earned her position in the most glittering wedding procession Rome had seen in years. Vannozza, by contrast, had no status, for the post of pope's concubine was now adequately filled by the delightful Giulia. Despite his care, there was that indecorous moment which shocked Burchard. As the procession entered the wedding chamber, where Alexander was already seated in state, the excited women forgot their manners and rushed to their places instead of first genuflecting before the enthroned vicar of Christ. Only Lucrezia and those immediately around her made the correct obeisance, Burchard noted disapprovingly. But nothing else occurred to mar the ceremony. Camillo Beneimbene, the notary who had put the formal questions to Lucrezia's own mother on her wedding day nineteen years before, now performed the same office for Lucrezia herself. Lucrezia agreed that she was willing to become Don Giovanni Sforza's lawful wife, rings were exchanged and a naked sword, held by the Captain-General of the Holy Roman Church, was slowly lowered over their heads. "There followed a well-constructed sermon by the bishop of Concordia dealing with the sacrament of marriage."

  So Burchard recorded precisely, impassively, for his own pedantic purposes. But among the guests was a far livelier chronicler and that was Andrea Boccaccio, ambassador to the duke of Ferrara. Eight years hence Boccaccio would be inspecting Lucrezia with considerably closer interest as the potential bride for his master's son, but today he was more concerned with depicting for his master a ceremony which very few persons have ever witnessed—the wedding of a pope's daughter in the apostolic palace. The little ambassador bubbled with delight at the splendors around him, avidly noting the names and office of those great people with whom he was rubbing shoulders:

  The union was publicly celebrated in the palace, with the greatest pomp and extravagance. All the Roman matrons were there, also the most influential citizens and many cardinals—twelve in number—stood near her, the pope occupying the throne in their midst. The palace and all the apartments were filled with people who were overcome with amazement. The only ambassadors present, however, were the Venetians, the Milanese and myself, and one from the king of France.

  There was a tricky question of etiquette as to the correct moment to present the duke of Ferrara's gift. The pope himself solved it by decreeing that it should be presented at a private dinner party he was giving that night. Boccaccio, again present, supplied his master with
a guest list, mostly family and friends of the family. The ambassador skated delicately over their peculiar relationships.

  There was Madonna Giulia Farnese—of whom there is so much talk . . . then the wife of Angelo Farnese, Madonna Giulia's brother. Then came Madonna Adriana Orsini. The last is mother-in-law of the above-mentioned Madonna Giulia. She had the bride educated in her own home, where she was treated as a niece of the pope. Adriana is the daughter of the pope's cousin, Pedro de Mila, now deceased, with whom Your Excellency is acquainted.

  The supper table was cleared at four o'clock in the morning and the presents brought in: brocade and jewels from the duke of Milan; a drinking service of silver and gold from Ascanio Sforza; more gems from the Spanish Cardinal Monreale; a wine cooler from the bride's brother Juan; vases and cups of jasper and gold from two papal officials.

  These were all the gifts presented at the time. The other cardinals, ambassadors, etc., will bring their presents with them later. In conclusion, the women danced and, as an interlude, a good comedy was given with songs and music. What shall I add? There would be no end to my letter. Thus we passed the night, and whether it were good or bad Your Highness may decide.33

  There was one outstanding omission in the long catalogue of ceremonies and entertainments: no one seems to have formally witnessed the bedding of the bride and groom. An occasion for much crude humor, it was also a vital component in a dynastic wedding on the reasonable assumption that a naked young couple who shared a bed would proceed without waste of time to the proper end of matrimony. The omission of the coarse, essential bedding ceremony was to have profound consequences for Lucrezia's unfortunate bridegroom Giovanni Sforza.