by Michael Hone
The Bentivoglio family had held Bologna since the early 1300s, a town with an extremely important university that had carried out medical dissections in public for centuries. The leader now, Giovanni Bentivoglio, had done whatever he could to gain the favor of King Louis XII and Cesare, even withdrawing the troops he had promised in support of Faenza, ruled by his daughter’s son, Astorre Manfredi. He surrendered fortifications to Cesare and put food and lodging at the disposition of a part of his troops. But then Louis withdrew his support, saying he couldn’t stand in the way of Pope Alexander VI who had final supremacy over Bologna. Afraid that Cesare would take possession of the city, Giovanni sent his son Ermes to Magione to join the other conspirators. The young Ermes proclaimed, in front of the other participants, that he himself would kill Cesare.
Gian Paolo Baglioni was also present at Magione. Lord of Perugia, he was at Oliverotto and Vitelli’s sides in massacring the citizens of Camerino. He escaped Cesare’s vengeance at Senigallia but was later beheaded in Rome for his role in an attempted assassination, supposedly a pretext used by the Medici pope Leo X because Baglioni was a cruel tyrant who was becoming far too strong.
The catalyst for the meeting of these gentlemen in Magione was a rumor, that King Louis XII of France feared that Alexander VI sought the union of all of Italy under his son Cesare Borgia. This meant that both Spain, which occupied Naples, and France, which occupied Milan, would be escorted manu militari out of the country. The rumor gave courage to those who had loyally served he who was now referred to as Valentino, Cesare’s name since Louis made him Duke of Valentinois. The men at Magione felt that Cesare had been loyally served, and had given nothing back in exchange. Worse, he had deprived most of the men of their conquests, if in doing so he could further his own ambitions and/or ingratiate himself to the all-powerful French king. Others, like the Bentivoglii, just wanted to keep that which had been theirs for generations, more and more difficult with the fearless, pitiless and ambitious son of the pope roaming about. Some of the complotters, those who believed the rumor, even envisioned the possibility that Louis would take Cesare back to France with him and imprison him for life, as the French had done to Ludovico Sforza.
Besides the men mentioned above, there were other complotters who took a backseat, waiting to see in which direction the wind turned: Giovanni Sforza of Pesaro and Francesco Gonsaga of Mantua. They had been present in Milan when Louis rode out to personally welcome Cesare, calling him ‘’mon ami’’ and ‘’mon cher cousin.’’ They didn’t believe the rumor.
Pope Alexander had been previously needed by Louis for Louis’ divorce and Louis’ request for a cardinal’s hat for his friend and counselor George d’Amboise. Now Louis wanted Alexander to put Cesare’s troops under his direction in his reconquest of Naples. He also wanted Cesare to promise to have d’Amboise replace Alexander as pope following his death. Cesare left Louis in Milan and rode off into the Papal States, especially the Romagna, with his and Louis’ combined forces, the French led by Yves d’Alègre, around 6,000 in number. Alexander prepared the way by bulls excommunicating Romagna’s lords for not paying sufficient obeisance to their suzerain, the pope himself.
So at Magione they all came together, even Vitelli, so stricken by syphilis that he couldn’t even walk and had to be toted around on a stretcher. Had they stuck together they would easily have won. Cesare had surrendered the mass of his troops to Louis for his move against Naples, leaving him with but a handful. The complotters, on the other hand, had over 10,000. Ermes Bentivolgio, who had promised to kill Cesare with his own hands, upped the stakes by declaring that his big brother Giovanni would march on Imola, where Cesare presently resided, and destroy both him and what remained of his army.
Yet the moment the meeting broke up, Vitelli and the Orsini sent word to Cesare that they would remain loyal to him in perpetuum, while Giovanni Bentivoglio contacted Cesare through his sister Lucrezia’s husband Alphonso of Ferrara, pleading for negotiations.
These dealings didn’t stop the Vitelli and Baglioni from trying to take back some of the territory they had surrendered to Cesare, killing Bartolomeo da Capranica while doing so, a valued Cesare captain, and attacking Micheletto de Corella who was holding Pesaro for Cesare. Micheletto was Cesare’s irreplaceable Spanish assassin, he who throttled to death Lucrezia’s husband and Sancia’s brother after Cesare himself had failed to kill the boy. Micheletto strangled Francesco Troche, a loyal servant who had hoped for a cardinal’s hat in recompense for his loyalty, and then badmouthed both Cesare and the pope when he didn’t receive one. Micheletto is suspected of killing Astorre Manfredi at the end of an orgy organized by Cesare and, according to Burchard, attended by Alexander. He strangled Giulio Cesare da Varano, as mentioned, and slit his three sons’ throats. In a version by the author Sabatini, one of the sons was caught by Micheletto in the market place and strangled. The boy nonetheless survived and sought sanctuary in a nearby church, the priest of which turned him over to Micheletto who cut his throat. The priest was later torn to pieces by the outraged citizens.
Cesare ended by signing a treaty with all of his opponents. This gave him time to let Italy know that he was in need of troops. They came in from everywhere, crowding to serve this handsome man on his white charger, dressed all in black, totally loyal to the men who did as he wished, and possessing endless funds delivered daily from all the churches in the known world, through Alexander VI. These troops were augmented by Swiss and Gascon mercenaries.
Before meeting his captains at Senigallia Cesare, accompanied by the assassin Micheletto--never a good sign--had business in Rimini with a captian he had placed over the town. Complaints reached Cesare’s ears that Ramiro de Lorca was murdering whomever he wished, stealing from the inhabitants and taking any girl who caught his fancy. Cesare had already received reports of Lorcas’s lascivious behavior with Lucrezia when he’d accompanied her to her wedding with Alfonso of Ferrara. Micheletto strangled him with a violin cord.
Cesare rode to Senigallia. Not all of the traitors would be able to make it and those who did came with their own troops. As their leader, Cesare told them that his own soldiers had priority in lodging. Troops other than his own were to evacuate Senigallia and find quarters outside the town limits. These Cesare had quietly surrounded by his men.
They all entered the castle of Senigallia where a banquet in Cesare’s honor was spread out. At a certain moment Cesare excused himself to answer a call of nature. Those present, Vitelli and the Orsini brothers, Francesco and Paolo, and Paolo’s son Fabio, and Oliverotto, were immediately set upon by Micheletto de Corella and his men and tied up. The Orsini were put aside until Cardinal Orsini in Rome and his brother Giulio Orsini could be stopped by Alexander. Oliverotto and Vitelli were tried during the night. They begged for their lives but when found guilty were seated back-to-back and strangled. When word that the Orsini in Rome had been arrested, the Orsini at Senigallia were murdered. The Orsini in Rome were poisoned, although the cardinal’s death was described as being by natural causes. When Julius II took power a priest came forward and confessed to the poisoning, under orders from Alexander. The man, Asquino de Colloredo, spoke of the infallible white powder the Borgia used in all of their masked assassinations.
So ended what is known today as the Revolt of the Condottieri.
In order to continue his conquests Cesare needed ever more money. Alexander helped out where he could by emptying the palaces of the condottieri mutineers. In addition, new cardinals were nominated, raising 130,000 ducats. Cardinal Gianbattista Ferrari became ill owing to, according to rumor, the Borgia white powder. Alexander had his residence emptied of its gold and jewels, bringing him 80,000 ducats. Ferrari had been hated as he had helped no one but himself. He was so avaricious, went the story, that he refused to pay Saint Peter 1,000 ducats as entry into Heaven. He refused, too, to pay the lesser fee of 500. He even refused the 1 ducat that Saint Peter requested, after which the furious saint said, ‘’Then go to Hell!,’’ which was, apparentl
y, exactly what Ferrari had deserved all along. Cardinal Giovanni Michiel died after ‘’a strange session of vomiting.’’ His home was plundered of its goods, worth 150,000 ducats.
Cesare was no fool. He knew his father would not live on forever. He had thusly looted Italy of every ducat seizable, he had storerooms of weapons at his disposal and his troops loved this handsome fearless man who conceded their every wish as long as they remained loyal to him. What he didn’t count on was his nearly dying at exactly the same time as his father, which is precisely what happened. What he didn’t count on either was the election of a new pope even more vigorous, intelligent and belligerent than Alexander VI.
He and his father had been invited to a banquet after which they both fell seriously ill. Illness was nothing new to the Renaissance. I haven’t gone into the subject, but all the actors in this book, all without exception, had fallen ill multiple times throughout their lives. Lucrezia, for example, could nearly be described as being continuously sick--especially following her many miscarriages. Illness came from literally everywhere, bad food, incredibly diseased water that one drank or swam in; illness came from common flue, from typhus, cholera and malaria; from flees and rats and dogs and other people. Illness came through breathing, sweating, defecating and fucking. Illness favored the months of July and August, hot muggy months propitious to dysentery. All of Alexander’s predecessors, Innocent, Sixtus, Pius and Calixtus had died during those months. And it was now July, ‘’the month,’’ Alexander had said, ‘’when fat men croak,’’ and both he and Cesare were at death’s door. Perhaps they believed, as did the people, that they had been poisoned during the banquet. Perhaps, as some said, they themselves had tried to poison their host--an ever-criticizing cardinal they both could well do without and his money they could well do with--but somehow they had drunk their own means of murder. As Alexander was now seventy-three, he was in more danger than his young son. They were both bled although, unlike his father, Cesare was plunged into cold water, the accepted cure for fever. Alexander received last rites but not Cesare, a former cardinal, who vaunted his atheism.
Alexander did die. The year was 1503. Was he guilty of some of the most heinous crimes known to humanity--even the buggering of Astorre Mandredi and his fifteen-year-old brother before ordering them to be strangled and thrown into the Tiber? Or, as one recent source claims, did he die a misunderstood saint? There is only one response: God will know His own. Let Him decide who goes into the eternal flames or who gets access to the 72 virgins. As for me, I’ve spent a lot of time reading about this unique creature without whom--and without miscreants like him--history would be a far more boring concern. But … one doesn’t touch children. If Alexander had harmed Astorre, if he did survive happily until the ripe old age of seventy-three (and he did), if there is no eternal punishment, if death is, in fact, just eternal nothingness, if, in a word, there is no justice for boys as innocent as Astorre and the 8,000 cowardly slain Srebrenicans--then what does life represent other than a moment of sublime beauty on a planet of sublime beauty, in the arms, if you are lucky, of she or he who warms your bed and whose beauty brings tears to your eyes?
Micheletto de Corella went to the pope’s rooms and, putting a knife to the throat of its guardian, Cardinal Casanova, made him disclose the places Alexander had hidden, à la Volpone, his gold and jewels, worth, wrote the Venetian ambassador Giustinian, 500,000 ducats. In his haste he overlooked rings and a tiara that the servants found and stole, along with his clothes, furniture, bedding, drapes and tapestries. When the cardinals made an inventory later, they came up with a further 25,000 ducats in gems and gold, said Burchard. Burchard, as Master of Ceremonies, was responsible for the pope’s burial. He had to hide the fact that even the pope’s rings had been wrenched from his fingers. Alexander’s body was placed in the usual papal triple coffin. As customary, paid paupers carried his remains, swollen and black, reported Burchard, to St. Peter’s where the body was abandoned; no one even saw, apparently, to lighting a vigil of candles. He stank intolerably and, Burchard says, he was erect there where he had been erect all his life.
What remained of the Orsini, and they were numerous, arrived in Rome at the head of 1,200 armed men. Nearly overnight Cesare had lost it all. His palaces were sacked and the lands he had conquered were recovered by the counts, lords, dukes and princes he had overturned. He was carried away by litter to recuperate at his sister’s retreat of Nepi. There he found his mother Vannozza and his brother Jofrè. Giuliano della Rovere, the future Julius II, returned to Rome for the conclave, surrounded by his own army of crossbowmen, despite Micheletto that Cesare had sent at the head of a hit team to kill him. The Venetian ambassador Giustinian was sent to ask Cesare to remove his men from Castel Sant’Angelo which had been taken by Micheletto de Corella’s troops. In return, he was promised to be confirmed in all of his functions. In Rome Pius III was elected, a good man who at age 21 had been archbishop of Siena. Among the cardinals was Ippolito d’Este. He had fallen in love with a local beauty. The girl claimed that she far preferred another of Ippolito’s brothers, Giulio, whose beautiful brown eyes alone were worth more than all of Ippolito. In response the cardinal waylaid his brother and tried to cut out those wonderful eyes. Alfonso forced Ippolito to ask for pardon, but as Giulio suffered horrible pain and the near total loss of sight, he decided to get revenge on both brothers, Alfonso and Ippolito, by having them killed. He united his forces with still another of his brothers, Ferrante. Their conspiracy was discovered, however, and although Alfonso would not have them executed, he did send them to prison. Ferrante died in his dungeon forty-three years later, Giulio endured for fifty-three. In Rome Ippolito also bedded Cesare’s favorite mistress, left alone while he was at Nepi. No one, and especially Pius III, trusted Cesare, and no one wanted him back in Rome. But Pius III fell for his assurances that he wished to return simply to die in the holy city, again à la Volpone. Pius allowed his return, only to find Cesare in perfect health. But this too was an act performed in the presence of Pius, as Cesare was still so ill that after the meeting he returned to his palace and to bed where he would remain for several weeks. In fact, his situation worsened as news that he was not going to die reached the ears of the Colonna and the Orsini who decided to move against him. At the same time, he was losing his hold over his own troops who were demanding more pay.
Then Destiny stepped in again. Pius died ten days after his coronation, replaced by the powerful Julius II, a mortal enemy of the Borgia. The conclave, which had felt itself so threatened that it met in the Castel Sant’Angelo, lasted part of a single day, the shortest in history. Julius won over the Spanish cardinals by promising to reinstate Cesare, the Spaniard, in all his functions. He won over the Italian cardinals because they were split, Orsini against Colonna, and Julius made them believe that a French pope, in this case George d’Amboise, would take the papacy back to Avignon. Besides reinstating Cesare in all his functions, Rovere promised Cesare that the three-year-old daughter Cesare had never seen would marry thirteen-year-old Francesco della Rovere, heir to Guidobaldo da Montefeltro who was, you may remember, impotent. And Rovere would make sure that Cesare got back all the money he had stashed in banks in Genoa. Cesare knew he would eventually lose the Romagna, but he believed he would nonetheless remain a man of wealth and power.
Strong in body and mind, intelligent, handsome, arrogant and utterly ruthless, the new pope had contracted syphilis but with age he replaced the lust of the loins with that of the stomach, devoting himself to roast pig and strong wines. His temperament was described as melancholic, capable of the greatest furies. He created the Swiss Guard and put Michelangelo to work on the Sistine Chapel (and the Guard’s uniforms). He refused Henry VIII’s divorce, ending the Catholic Church in England, and he brought war and peace to the continent according to his whims, and was only prevented from uniting Italy into one country by the emergence of someone still more powerful than he, the Grim Reaper.
Julius was only 59 when e
lected and in perfect health. As a boy he had worked on a cargo shipping onions up and down the Italian coast. At 27 he had been made a cardinal by Sixtus IV, one of the six nephews so honored--although Sixtus had the habit of passing off his sons as nephews too. He was no scholar and when Michelangelo suggested a statue of him holding a book as one of the many statues that were to adorn his tomb, he told the sculptor to replace the book by a sword.
Julius, as Machiavelli had foreseen, kept none of his promises. A wagon train of Cesare’s wealth was stopped and seized in Bologna, and turned back under papal escort to Rome. His money in Genoa was blocked while Julius did the paper work to retrieve it from the banks there. Micheletto was stopped outside Ferrara at the head of a pack of mules carrying the gold and jewels Cesare had stolen from the Vatican and were now destined for safe keeping by his sister Lucrezia. Florence refused safe passage so that Cesare could go north to France where his young wife awaited him and where he could find safety under Louis XII. Then Julius issued a warrant for his arrest, accusing him of the murders of his brother Juan, his sister’s husband Alfonso, Astorre Manfredi and Astorre’s brother, as well as Vitelli and Oliverotto garroted in Senigallia, the two Orsini strangled in Rome, the Orsini cardinal poisoned, Troches, Varano and his sons, and others. But in exchange for his giving up the wealth he had hoarded and the fortifications in the Romagna still in possession of those who remained loyal to him, Cesare was allowed exile in Spain.
He retired to Chinchilla, a mountain castle in the heights near Valencia. Machiavelli blamed all of Cesare’s disasters on his original agreement to back Julius’s bid for the papacy, after Julius had promised him that he could retain his papal functions, his army and the Romagna. Machiavelli could not understand how someone so intelligent could have done something so stupid. Others around Cesare suggested that his illness had adversely affected his brain.
