The Borgias

by Paul Strathern

  Borgia had already decided on his prisoners’ fate. During the early hours of 1 January 1503 Vitellozzo and Oliverotto were despatched in characteristic fashion by Miguel da Corella. His preferred method of strangling was in the so-called ‘Spanish style’. This involved a loop of lyre string around the neck, with a lynch pin inserted and then twisted, gradually tightening the string until the victim was throttled. Before their execution, Borgia had managed to extract from his prisoners confessions about their secret alliance with Lorqua, as well as their plan to assassinate him. (Since learning of this from Lorqua, Borgia had worn a chainmetal suit both night and day.) Borgia also learned that they, too, had hatched a plot to take place at Sinigalia, but Borgia’s well-rehearsed troop movements had outwitted them. In the early hours, Borgia summoned Machiavelli to his presence and informed him of the fate of Vitellozzo and Oliverotto, remarking of the Orsini: ‘We are taking them as prisoners to a similar end.’

  By 3 January 1503 a secret message from Borgia had reached Alexander VI in Rome, informing him of what had happened at Sinigalia. The Pope’s reaction was immediate and typical. That night he sent a joyful message to Cardinal Orsini, with whom he had banqueted just four days previously, though without revealing to his guest on this occasion what he had learned of his son’s intentions. Now, the Pope informed Cardinal Orsini that Cesare Borgia had succeeded in taking Sinigalia, yet omitting to mention any further details. The following morning Cardinal Orsini hastened to the Vatican to congratulate his friend the Pope on his son’s great victory. Upon arrival, he was seized by the guards and marched off to the Castel Sant’Angelo, where he was cast into a dungeon. Even as this was happening, Alexander VI ordered the seizure of Cardinal Orsini’s palazzo, and the transportation of all its luxurious contents to the Vatican. The cardinal’s mother and other women of the house were evicted and left to wander the streets of Rome with nothing but the clothes they stood up in. Other Roman relatives, or friends, of the conspirators suffered a similar fate. Giustinian’s despatch to Venice on 6 January described how ‘the Pope has become obsessed with seizing all the gold he can find’. He also added ominously that the Pope had promised him: ‘What has happened so far is nothing compared with what is planned for the future.’

  It is worth bearing in mind this last remark. Alexander VI’s astonishing ambitions for his son and the future of the papacy had only just begun. During the coming days and weeks, all Italy would be abuzz over Cesare Borgia’s deeds at Sinigalia. Astonishingly, widespread reaction was not one of revulsion. Machiavelli, who had himself been so terrified by what he had witnessed, would write with admiration:

  The Duke’s actions are accompanied by a unique good fortune, as well as a superhuman daring and confidence that he can achieve whatever he wants.*

  If Italy was to be great again, this was precisely how its leader should behave. In a similar vein to Machiavelli, Louis XII himself – with more perception than he perhaps realized – declared Borgia’s feat to be ‘an act worthy of a Roman hero’. Even the contemporary historian Paolo Giovio, usually so critical of the Borgias, could not help but admit that Cesare Borgia’s feat at Sinigalia was ‘a most beautiful deception’. Here perhaps was the strong leader for which all Italy had so long been waiting. Did Alexander VI and Cesare Borgia between them have sufficient power and skill to unite Italy and create a new Roman Empire? There were many who now thought so.

  No sooner had Borgia completed his triumph at Sinigalia than he moved on. Leaving the city as early as 1 January 1503 he marched post-haste with his combined troops and cavalry inland for the Via Flaminia, heading south-west into the Apennines. In tow, he brought the three captured Orsini in a caged cart. By now winter had set in with a vengeance and Borgia faced ‘the worst possible weather, as unfavourable for war as can be imagined’. But already things were turning his way. The citizens of Fermo, hearing that their detested tyrant Oliverotto had been murdered by Borgia, immediately sent word expressing their wish to become part of Borgia’s new Romagna, with its enlightened laws and administration. Next a delegation from Vitelozzo’s Città di Castello surrendered their city unconditionally to Borgia.

  Such were the appalling conditions that it was 13 January before Cesare Borgia and his troops managed to cover the fifty miles from Sinigalia to Città di Castello. The following day a message finally reached Borgia from Alexander VI in Rome, informing him that Cardinal Giambattista Orsini had been confined in the dungeons of Castel Sant’Angelo.* Whereupon, Borgia ordered Miguel da Corella to dispose of the three caged Orsini ‘in the Spanish manner’.

  Within days news reached Borgia that Baglioni had fled from nearby Perugia. Hard on the heels of this came a message from the citizens of Perugia, surrendering the keys of the city to Borgia, welcoming him as their new ruler and informing him that Baglioni had taken refuge with Pandolfo Petrucci in Siena. Borgia well knew that Petrucci had been the driving force behind the meeting of the conspirators at La Magione, and was determined to track him down – even if this meant marching into Siena. However, he was mindful of the fact that Siena, like its northern neighbour Florence, remained very much under the protection of Louis XII. Thus he sent ahead a message to Louis XII in Milan, assuring the French king that he had no designs on these territories under his protection. His sole concern was to capture all those who had plotted against him.

  Louis XII knew his young protégé Cesare Borgia only too well, and refused to believe his assurances. If Borgia marched into Siena, and even Florence, in the middle of winter, it was unlikely that he would retreat until the winter was over, or even then. By which time Louis XII knew that it would be all but impossible to dislodge him – especially when so many of his own French troops were down in Naples contesting the territory with the Spanish. Accordingly, Louis XII despatched the sternest possible message to Alexander VI, ordering him to restrain his son. As Pope he surely had the authority to order the Captain-General of the Papal forces to desist from such action, which went against all their shared interests. Indeed, Alexander VI was more than aware of the consequences of Cesare’s latest actions. Worst of all, by marching towards Siena, Borgia was leaving Rome, and even the Pope himself, dangerously exposed to the remnant forces of the Orsini family, who still occupied their strongholds around La Magione to the north of Rome.

  Once again, Alexander VI was beside himself with fury. This time he summoned all the ambassadors in Rome to an audience, where he made it plain to them:

  We have done everything in our power to make [Borgia] give up the enterprise of Siena . . . nonetheless, he is absolutely resolved to disregard us . . . we promise you that since we have sat in this chair [the papal throne] we have never heard of anything which causes us greater displeasure. And nonetheless we must have patience: he wills it thus, and it seems to him that he can do to us with impunity that which he is doing.

  Judging from Alexander VI’s last, somewhat cryptic comments, there is a suspicion that he retained a covert sympathy for his son’s actions. He would not be disloyal to Cesare. On the other hand, Alexander VI found himself seriously exposed. The Orsini family had ‘succeeded in making an alliance with several of the expelled Colonna and Savelli lords, who, although their hereditary enemies, understood that the threatened overthrow of the Orsini was to confirm their own ruin’.

  Heedless of Alexander VI’s wishes, Cesare Borgia launched into Sienese territory, allowing his Spanish troops a free hand to lay waste anything in their path. According to Burchard, writing in Rome on 23 January:

  By the time they reached San Quirico* all they found were two old men and nine aged women. The Duke’s soldiers hung these unfortunates by their arms and lit a fire beneath their feet to make them reveal where the local treasures had been hidden.

  The victims knew nothing and ‘died hideously’; then the soldiers ‘smashed everything . . . and burned it to the ground’. But Borgia was not in fact intent upon taking Siena, only on taking Petrucci himself. Unfortunately for Borgia, Petrucci happened to
be a fairly popular ruler. Even so, Borgia issued an ultimatum to the citizens of the city: if within twenty-four hours they had not driven out Petrucci, ‘we will proceed to exterminate all the towns, subjects and goods that are yours, and also your city and all its citizens’. However, as Machiavelli had suspected during his initial confrontation with Borgia some six months previously in Urbino, when Borgia appeared at his most fearsome he was often bluffing. Once again, this proved to be the case. Firstly, he dared not provoke Louis XII any further. And secondly, news had now reached him from Rome that the Orsini were preparing to march on his father.

  In order to succeed, Borgia’s bluff had to convince Petrucci right away. Petrucci immediately replied to Borgia, promising to leave Siena on condition that he was granted safe passage to ride north to the safety of the northern city state of Lucca, on the other side of Florence. Unexpectedly, Borgia agreed at once. Petrucci fled, but Borgia sent a squadron of cavalry to hunt him down, nonetheless. For his part, Petrucci had never trusted Borgia and chose to make his way to Lucca cross-county, using obscure byways and little-known paths, avoiding all the main thoroughfares.

  Borgia’s obvious next move was to march south and confront the Orsini. But to his father’s horror, Borgia halted short of Orsini territory, taking up quarters with his army in the city of Viterbo, some forty miles north of Rome. By now Alexander VI had become so panicked and exasperated by Cesare’s behaviour that he even threatened to excommunicate him. Yet as ever, Cesare’s behaviour alternated between impulsiveness and low cunning. This time he knew precisely what he was doing. Borgia opened talks with the Savelli and Colonna families, making it plain to his father (and the Orsini) that he was not willing to waste his time attacking their all but impregnable strongholds at Bracciano and Pitigliano. The reasons he gave Alexander VI were perplexing. Bracciano was the fortress of Giangiordano Orsini, a character of such exasperating unpredictability that even the Orsini themselves had branded him a ‘public madman’. What was less well known, to all but Borgia himself, was that Giangiordano had been opposed to the Orsini joining the conspirators at La Magione. However, Borgia’s excuse to his father for not attacking Giangiordano was that Louis XII had appointed both of them to the French chivalric Order of St Michael, whose rules decreed that no member should take up arms against a fellow member. Similarly unconvincing (at least to the Pope) was Borgia’s reason for not attacking Niccolò Orsini at Pitigliano. Cesare informed his father that Niccolò was a condottiere regularly hired by the Venetians to command their forces, and he had no wish to endanger his new dukedom in the Romagna by antagonizing Venice.

  In fact, if Borgia had launched an all-out attack on the Orsini he could well have destroyed them. This would have placed him at risk of irritating both Louis XII and Venice, though he suspected that neither of these powers would have been willing to intervene over such a move. Instead, by negotiating with the Savelli and the Colonna, as well as holding back from attacking the Orsini, Borgia was planning for the future. Alexander VI, who was by now seventy-two, was at last beginning to show his age. As ever, it was Machiavelli who had understood Borgia’s strategy. Several months earlier, Machiavelli had written to his masters in Florence: ‘When the Pope dies, [Borgia] will still need to have some friends in Rome.’ Machiavelli had astutely divined the Borgia family’s overweening ambitions: he saw that Borgia was lining himself up to take his father’s place. Alexander VI’s aim had been nothing less than establishing a hereditary papacy. In which case, Cesare Borgia would be well served if he had made allies of the powerful aristocratic families of Rome. Even so, if he was to achieve this, Borgia knew that he would have to teach the Orsini a lesson. Already the family was split: first he would demonstrate his power, then his magnanimity.

  As usual, Cesare Borgia’s next move came as a complete surprise – to both Alexander VI and the Orsini family. On 19 February Borgia and his troops swiftly vacated Viterbo, marching thirty miles south to lay siege to the Orsini fortress at Ceri, the stronghold of Giulio Orsini, brother of Cardinal Giambattista Orsini (who now lay at death’s door in the dungeons of Castel Sant’Angelo).

  Ceri was just twenty miles west of Rome, strategically placed to cut the sole supply line which kept the Holy City alive – namely, the Tiber, which connected Rome to the port of Ostia. Ceri consisted of a thick-walled fortress which lay at the summit of a sheer outcrop of rock and appeared utterly impregnable, both to cannon and to siege. Borgia also knew that Giulio was the one Orsini who would never be persuaded to join him. Thus Cesare Borgia now chose to employ his secret weaponry: the ingenious devices which had been designed for him by Leonardo da Vinci. These included ‘mortars capable of firing multiple explosive projectiles, mobile precision artillery and large-scale catapults’, as well as a ‘huge machine held to be capable of carrying up to 300 men up to the ramparts’.

  The assembly of these siege machines proved to be a time-consuming operation. This was initially overseen by Leonardo himself, and would be the last important work he would complete for Cesare Borgia before he was finally permitted to return to his native Florence. (His friend Machiavelli had managed to engineer his own return almost immediately after the events he had witnessed at Sinigalia.) Cesare Borgia was little interested in the details of assembling these ‘machines’ and decided to return to nearby Rome for the last of the Carnival season. Despite Alexander VI’s joy at this prospect just two months previously, the very opposite was the case now. The Pope was outraged that his son had decided to abandon his campaign just to come and enjoy himself in Rome. Relations between Alexander VI and Borgia deteriorated rapidly. At one point Giustinian even sent a despatch to Venice describing how the seventy-two-year-old Pope and his twenty-seven-year-old son had ended up brawling together. Despite this, and doubtless other contretemps, Alexander VI and Cesare Borgia did in fact remain close. They were both pursuing the same aim: the establishment of a Borgia dynasty. In order to achieve this, both these headstrong characters knew that they each needed the other. Indeed, it may well have been this fact, as much as anything, which contributed to the turbulence of their indissoluble family relationship.

  For two weeks Cesare Borgia lived it up in Rome, once again reverting to his preferred nocturnal lifestyle. Giustinian comments that during this time he was never seen without a mask. Whether this was due to an efflorescence of his syphilitic symptoms, or because he wished not to be identified – for his own safety, as much as anything else – is not clear.

  By March Cesare Borgia was back directing operations at the siege of Ceri. Maintaining Borgia’s army, and the siege, was proving as expensive as ever, and Alexander VI was once again hard-pressed to raise funds for the upkeep of his son’s continuing campaign. In mid-March Alexander VI issued a bull creating no less than eighty new positions in the Curia. The purchase of these positions, by those who wished to hold them, brought in over 60,000 ducats. But even this was not enough. Early in April the Venetian Cardinal Michiel was suddenly taken ill at his palazzo in Rome. Two days later he was dead. Inevitably, poisoning was suspected, and Alexander VI’s consequent actions did little to allay such suspicions. Before dawn, on the very night that Cardinal Michiel had died, Alexander VI ordered the cardinal’s palazzo to be stripped of all its valuables, luxury fittings, art and so forth. Giustinian records how several days later he arrived at the Vatican to find Alexander VI personally engaged in counting out the dead cardinal’s fortune, exclaiming in exasperation: ‘Look at it, there are only 23,382 ducats. Yet word has spread around that I’ve got hold of 80,000 to 100,000 ducats.’

  To make up for this unexpected lack, Alexander VI resorted to his old tactic of appointing new cardinals. Candidates for these posts had to be Spanish, or of proven loyalty to the Borgia cause, as well as being possessed of sufficient financial resources and ostensible spiritual rectitude. By now, such candidates were becoming increasingly scarce. In the end Alexander VI appointed nine new cardinals, each paying up to 20,000 ducats for the privilege of such exalted o
ffice. In this way he managed to raise around 130,000 ducats. In the words of Giustinian: ‘thus demonstrating to the world that His Holiness was capable of expanding the papal income at will’.

  By early April Giulio Orsini had agreed to surrender Ceri on condition he was given free passage to the Orsini fortress at Pitigliano. Borgia agreed; and to the surprise of many, Giulio was permitted to reach safety. This was an astute move on Borgia’s part. When the Orsini at the fortresses of Bracciano and Pitigliano saw Borgia’s leniency, they too agreed to surrender. All this avoided any further drain on the Pope’s resources. At the same time, the all-powerful Louis XII ordered that the Borgia family and the Orsini family should sign a truce.

  Later that same month the situation in Italy would undergo a dramatic and unexpected transformation. News arrived from Naples that on 28 April the army of Louis XII had unexpected been defeated by the Spanish general Gonsalvo de Córdoba at Cerignola, just over 100 miles north-east of Naples. Within three weeks the Spanish had taken the city of Naples itself, and the French forces were withdrawing to the port of Gaeta, in the hope of being transported back to France. Alexander VI now found himself in a quandary. He had always secretly favoured the Spanish cause in Naples, but in order to fulfil his strategy he knew that he needed the support of the winning side. Hence his adherence to the cause of Louis XII. In view of the dramatic turn of events, Alexander VI decided to switch sides. However, to the Pope’s exasperation his son Cesare decided to remain loyal to his friend Louis XII, who still held his wife Charlotte and young daughter Louise in France. Then Cesare, too, reckoned that it might be in his best interests if he joined his father in support of Spain. With Louis XII weakened, his guarantee of protection to Florence and Siena looked in doubt. Here was Cesare Borgia’s opportunity to enlarge his dukedom to include the whole of central Italy.