Lucrezia Borgia

by Sarah Bradford

  On 25 September, Alexander and Cesare left Rome to inspect the fortifications at Nepi and Civita Castellana, north-east of Rome. Once again Lucrezia was appointed her father’s regent in the Vatican. Saraceni and his fellow envoy Berlinguer visited her constantly, attempting, they told Ercole, to find a way to present themselves to the Pope through her. They reported her state of health:

  The illustrious Madonna persists still in her little indisposition, saying that it is no more than weakness, nor for this nor otherwise because of [taking] medicine will she cease to carry on her affairs: and she gives audiences as she is accustomed to nor do we believe that this indisposition will last longer because in truth Her Ladyship looks after herself very well and also we believe that the rest of these few days . . . must do her good, because these times that Her Ladyship visited the Pope, they spent in dancing and celebration until the eighth or ninth hour, something that very much harmed Her Ladyship.2

  Lucrezia had quite won over the Ferrarese who were impressed by her constantly expressed desire to be in Ferrara: ‘Her Ladyship does not cease every day to ask when we believe that she may be leaving here, because in truth one hour seems a thousand until she is able to be at Ferrara to do reverence to Your Excellency and find herself in the sight of the Most Illustrious Don Alfonso . . . and here now seems a prison to her . . . so great is her desire to come: and the fear of bad weather [which would delay her journey], that she with most great affection seeks to know the time which Your Excellency has established to send for [her] . . .’3 Lucrezia was only too aware that many things could go wrong: she did not trust the Este, her marriage depended on the continuance in power of her father and her brother; she could not be sure of the outcome until she was safely in Ferrara, her marriage to Alfonso – who had resolutely remained distant and out of touch—consummated. Ercole, however, was determined that she should stay in Rome until he had got everything he wanted out of the Pope. When she expressed herself as ‘most impatient’ to leave Rome, the ambassadors told her that her arrival was much desired in Ferrara but equally ‘her presence in Rome was too necessary to conduct to a good end all the conventions through the great influence she has on the mind of His Holiness’.

  One unspoken condition of the marriage was the most personally difficult for her. On 27 September, after dinner, Lucrezia offered to show the envoys round the Vatican: her son, Rodrigo Bisceglie, not quite two years old, was with her. When the envoys tactfully raised the subject of his future, she replied, apparently with no show of emotion, that he would remain in Rome with an allowance of 15,000 ducats. It could be deduced that the Este had indicated that they would prefer Lucrezia to come to Ferrara with the appearance at least of a virgin bride and without any of the baggage of her previous life. The spectre of the murdered Alfonso Bisceglie hung over his son as an unpleasant reminder of Lucrezia’s scandalous past. It was terrible for Lucrezia to be parted from the son who had been with her since birth but as a realist, a Borgia and a woman of her time, she accepted it, apparently without question. The infant Rodrigo had his part to play in the Borgias’ dynastic plans to consolidate their power around Rome at the expense of the local barons. That month of September 1501, the child was entrusted to the guardianship of Francesco Borgia, Cardinal Cosenza, and created Duke of Sermoneta with estates including the Caetani lands purchased by Lucrezia and some of the recently confiscated Colonna lands in a new Borgia duchy Giovanni Borgia, born in 1498, had his part to play in this reshuffle of Borgia lands necessitated by Lucrezia’s departure for Ferrara. He was legitimized in two successive Bulls, the first declaring him to be the son of Cesare before his marriage, the second acknowledging him as Alexander’s son. As the Borgias’ historian Michael Mallett has pointed out, the timing of these Bulls may have been designed to counteract the rumours that Giovanni Borgia was an illegitimate son of Lucrezia; copies of them were among the many documents that the careful Lucrezia took with her to Ferrara. Again to avoid awkward memories, the Pope had requested that Giovanni Sforza, despite being linked to the Este family, should not be present in Ferrara when Lucrezia arrived for the nuptials. Among the subjects raised with Lucrezia was that of the census which Ercole now wished to be remitted to his heirs in perpetuity, though the Pope had not wished to change the terms of the Bull. The envoys had appealed both to Lucrezia and Cesare to change Alexander’s mind: ‘The Duchess had spoken to him of this the previous evening but without result; and she thought it was necessary to put off the demand to another time.’ The Pope had apparently told her that it would be necessary to pawn her jewels to raise the cash for her dowry since Ercole had refused to take them in lieu. But she said they would not be taken from her and she still hoped the Pope would find other means to raise the money. She cunningly told them that ‘His Holiness increasingly believed her to be too zealous for the interests of the Estensi’.4

  Lucrezia hastened to give Ercole the same impression, assuring him in her letters that she would do everything possible to serve him. ‘As to the particulars to negotiate with His Holiness I will make every effort to execute justly my debt to you [and] with every reverence and swiftness to observe your orders as you will see at greater length in the letters of your ambassadors . . .’ she wrote on 28 September, following it up with an even more ingratiating letter on 8 October. She was taking the opportunity of the departure of the messenger for Ferrara to send Ercole a few lines in her own hand in place of a visit in person: ‘meanwhile with the help of God I will be able to revere and serve you as is my only desire: concerning the other things which are being negotiated, I am sure Your Illustrious Lordship will be informed by your most diligent envoys . . .’5

  In return, Lucrezia received the most charming letter from her prospective father-in-law:

  So great is the love and affection we bear Your Illustrious Ladyship and so pleasing is everything to do with you that, having received your letter of the 8th which you sent me in place of a personal visit which has brought us greater pleasure, delight and content than any visit, even personal which could be made by any other person, because reading Your Ladyship’s letter so full of sweetness, it seems as if we were seeing you and talking to you whose presence we desire as much as anything else we have ever had to heart, to be able to welcome you and treat you in a manner suited to a most beloved daughter. And thus we as you see are not failing on our side to do everything necessary so that your arrival here should not be delayed . . .6

  Behind the sweet words, however, the haggling between Pope and Duke continued. Lucrezia played her part, assuring Ercole that she was on his side. She had understood from the envoys, she wrote on 11 October, how great was his desire for the extension of the remission of the census beyond the third generation of his descendants:

  So desirous as your devoted and most obedient daughter to do all I possibly can in everything . . . I have recently with great insistence besought His Holiness Our Lord [about this] and although I understand it to be a somewhat difficult matter yet Your Excellency can be certain that for my part here I will endeavour to work on His Holiness so that you will recognize how great is my desire to serve and to please you: for this reason I have today been with the Cardinal of Modena who is most devoted to you and begun to set the matter in order: so that I hope that on the return of the aforesaid Holiness, I will be able to do something pleasing to Your Excellency, whom I again beseech to be of quiet and tranquil mind.7

  Engaged in preparations for the bride’s sumptuous reception in Ferrara, Ercole sent to Rome asking for details of the Borgia ancestry to be used in the customary welcoming orations at the wedding festivities.8 A fake genealogy was hastily cobbled together representing the Borgias as descendants of Don Pedro de Atares, feudal lord of Borja and pretender to the throne of Aragon. The claim was entirely baseless since Don Pedro died without successors, although this was either not known or not admitted at the time.9 The ambassadors had to report that, although in Spain the house of Borgia was certainly most noble and ancient, they had had troubl
e finding outstanding deeds by their forebears and suggested that the oration should concentrate on the achievements of Popes Calixtus and Alexander. Since tales of high deeds and chivalric romance (such as Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso featuring the house of Este) were considered an essential part of the history of noble families, the Borgias’ failure to produce anything better than a dubious relationship to the shadowy Don Pedro de Atares was of particular embarrassment, emphasizing the difference in social standing between their family and the Este.

  While wrangling continued through the medium of the envoys on such subjects as whether the dowry was to be calculated in ‘fiorini di camera’, as the Pope wished, or ducati larghi, as the Duke demanded, Lucrezia found a new way in which she could earn Ercole’s gratitude. Ercole was extremely pious and his hobby was collecting nuns. And of all nuns, those who showed the sign of the stigmata, or Christ’s wounds on their bodies, were the most prized. Whatever modern Catholics may think of the phenomenon, to deeply religious people such as Ercole they were a new manifestation of Christ’s passion: ‘These things,’ he wrote, ‘are shown by the Supreme Craftsman in the bodies of His servants to confirm and strengthen our Faith, and to remove the incredulity of impious men and hard of heart.’10 Such nuns were considered a badge of honour, even a tourist attraction in their local towns. The three most famous women of the time were Sister Columba of Rieti, who lived in a convent in Perugia, Sister Osanna Andreassi of Mantua and Ercole’s particular target, Sister Lucia Brocadelli of Narni, at the time in a convent in Viterbo. He had even tried to persuade his daughter Isabella d’Este to bring Sister Osanna (who was later to predict, to everyone’s satisfaction, that Cesare’s rule in the Romagna would be ‘like unto a straw fire’) to Ferrara, a request which Isabella cunningly evaded. He had, however, after a series of cloak-and-dagger episodes, succeeded in having Sister Lucia smuggled out of her Dominican convent in Viterbo and brought to Ferrara on May 1499. Less than a month later, he had laid the first stone of the convent he had promised to build for her and on 29 May 1500 he had obtained from Alexander a Bull enabling him to establish for Lucia a convent of sisters of the third order of St Dominic, followers of St Catherine of Siena, and conferring special privileges and chief authority upon ‘our beloved daughter in Christ, Lucia da Narni . . .’ By the summer of 1501, the fame of Sister Lucia had spread even to the French court where the Queen sent messages to Ercole asking him to obtain Sister Lucia’s prayers to God to give her a son.11 In order to make Lucia happy, Ercole had resolved to get some of her former friends, nuns from Narni and Viterbo, and had sent his emissary Bartolommeo Bresciano for the purpose, only to meet with an absolute refusal from the prior of the Dominicans. In this impasse, Ercole turned to the one person he knew to have influence with the Pope – Lucrezia.

  Bresciano was sent on to Rome to Lucrezia with a letter from Ercole of 28 September asking her help. When he arrived on 11 October he was deeply impressed with Lucrezia and her eagerness to help: ‘In truth this Lady has taken up this thing with all her powers to gratify Your Lordship, and I find her so well disposed to you that she could not be more. I hope that Your Excellence will be well satisfied with the most Illustrious Madonna, for she is endowed with so much graciousness and goodness that she continually thinks of nothing else, save how to serve you.’12 The affair took on the aspect of comedy as the two nuns Bresciano had brought to Rome then absolutely refused on the feeblest of excuses to be sent to Ferrara, while the authorities in Viterbo and Narni in turn refused to let the women whom Sister Lucia had requested go. Lucrezia gave them a good scolding and the heads of the Dominican order, intimidated by the will of the Pope’s daughter, instructed them to give way. In a stream of impassioned, almost hysterical letters, Ercole implored Lucrezia’s help, which she, intent on her marriage and anxious to please her father-in-law, willingly gave. She had taken up his case with the Pope, she soothed him on 28 October, and she was sure that he would give Ercole entire satisfaction in this matter. ‘Be of good heart,’ she adjured him, ‘because in this and every other affair concerning you I hope to achieve what you desire.’13 By December the nuns Ercole had requested were on their way to Rome to be sent on to Ferrara: his letters to Lucrezia were effusive with gratitude: ‘We have heard . . . that all the sisters we have requested are now in Rome with the intention of being brought here,’ he wrote on 28 December. ‘We have received singular pleasure and content from this [and] incredible satisfaction: and we could not thank Your Ladyship more, seeing that with your prudence and favour you have brought this matter to this end . . .’14 She could have found no better way to win his heart.

  From all the reports of the Ferrarese envoys in Rome to Ercole, it is clear that Lucrezia herself handled the negotiations and that the Ferrarese, rather than speaking directly to the Pope, generally used her as their intermediary This cleverly underlined her importance in the eyes of the Ferrarese, as it was made clear that any concessions made by the Pope were gained by her intercession. Indeed, Alexander and Cesare were out of Rome on two occasions that autumn – in late September visiting Nepi, Civita Castellana and other Borgia fortresses and from 10 to 17 October touring the former Colonna properties – Lucrezia being left as regent in the Vatican.

  Lucrezia was involved in every aspect of the discussions, from Ercole’s demands for the archbishopric of Bologna for Ippolito d’Este, which necessitated her writing to Giuliano della Rovere asking him to renounce the archbishopric in Ippolito’s favour, to the wrangling over income of the Romagna castles to be given as pledges for the eventual consignment of Cento and La Pieve, and the financial agreements over the dowry. Saraceni and Berlinguer reported to Ercole the extreme difficulty they were having over the banker Jacopo de’Gianuzzi’s absolute refusal to deliver a sum of money to Ferrara. Then, they said, Lucrezia stepped in to resolve the situation: ‘When the Illustrious Lady heard of the difficulties over this matter, and understanding that perhaps this could delay her departure [for Ferrara], she sent for Messer Jacopo and spent a long time in discussion with him.’ The upshot was that the banker agreed to provide the cash within three days of presentation of the letters of exchange in agreed places without taking any commission. There was a discussion over jewels: the Pope asked in jest what he could expect to see from Ercole so that perhaps he would not have to provide them himself. The envoys replied in the same vein, that with the jewels she already possessed, those the Pope intended to give her and those which Ercole would give her ‘she will be the best-equipped Lady with jewels in Italy’. Alexander questioned the richness of the brocade which the Ferrarese intended to give her, considering that he would send her with four most beautiful lengths of golden brocade. ‘Thus the Pope was laughing and joking along these lines for a very considerable time,’ the envoys reported,

  and in truth His Holiness being very splendid and high-spirited enjoyed this exchange because from every honour that has been done and will be done to the aforesaid Lady [Lucrezia] he derives as much joy as it is possible to describe, and thus holds it most dear that in all things she should be the chief, and moreover at the same time having said something about the investiture of Ferrara [the census] and the confirmation of matters relating to the bishopric of Ravenna, His Holiness said how the aforesaid Lady had spoken to him of them, and that everything will be done in good form, saying give the letters to the Duchess: because she is your good procurator [representative]. 15

  Alexander never missed an opportunity to impress the Ferrarese with Lucrezia’s qualities. When they complained that they had not been able to obtain an audience with Cesare, the Pope sympathized with them, saying that Cesare had left the envoys of Rimini waiting for an audience for two months. ‘He lamented that [the Duke] turned night into day and day into night, comporting himself in such a manner that it left room for doubt that if his father died he would be able to keep what he had conquered. He commended the Duchess Lucrezia as the opposite for her prudence and willingness to receive [people] benevolently, praising the way in
which she had governed Spoleto, and the way in which she could capture the heart of the pontiff in every matter she dealt with him . . .’16 On another occasion he praised her again as beautiful and prudent, comparing her with the Duchess of Urbino and the Marchioness of Mantua, both of whom were famous for their intelligence and culture.

  Minute observers of Lucrezia’s life as they were, none of the four Ferrarese officials in Rome mentioned an extraordinary episode recorded by Burchard, of an orgy which he said took place in the Vatican on 30 October, five days after the Pope and Cesare returned from the tour of inspection of the Borgia fortress of Civita Castellana:

  On Sunday evening, the last day of October, there took place in the apartments of the Duke Valentino in the Apostolic Palace, a supper, participated in by fifty honest prostitutes of those who are called courtesans. After supper they danced with the servants and others who were there, first clothed, then naked. After supper the lighted candelabra which had been on the table were placed on the floor, and chestnuts thrown among them which the prostitutes had to pick up as they crawled between the candles. The Pope, the Duke and Lucrezia, his sister, were present looking on. At the end they displayed prizes, silk mantles, boots, caps, and other objects which were promised to whomsoever should have made love to those prostitutes the greatest number of times . . .

  That Cesare did at least give a party that night in the Vatican is attested by another source, the Florentine envoy Pepi, who reported on 4 November that the Pope had not attended mass in St Peter’s or the papal chapel on the days of All Saints’ and All Souls’ because of an indisposition which, he added cautiously in cipher, ‘did not impede him on Sunday night, the vigil of All Saints’, from spending the night until the twelfth hour with the Duke who had brought into the palace that night singers, courtesans, and all the night they spent in pleasures, dancing and laughter . . .’ Of the two accounts of the notorious ‘Chestnut Supper’, Pepi’s sounds the most plausible. Courtesans of the first rank, like Cesare’s Fiammetta, were an essential part of a lively, informal party in early sixteenth-century Rome; whether Lucrezia was actually there, Pepi does not say. As a Borgia, she was unshockable, and equally loved parties, dancing and singing, as the Ferrarese accounts of finding her worn out by Alexander’s late evenings attest. Hot chestnuts are traditional at that particular time of year but when it comes to nakedness and sexual contests the only witness is Burchard who must have had one eye to the keyhole and the other on posterity.