by Michael Hone
Paul III and grandsons Orravio and Alessandro.
Due to his evil, arrogant ways, and his ruthless taxation, he gained enemies among all classes, and when it was found out that Pier Luigi’s father-in-law, Emperor Charles V, wanted to increase his hold over Milan and anything else in the region, including Pier Luigi’s own Parma and Piacenza, his enemies united under the lord of Castiglione, the Marquis of Confalonieri, the Count of Anguissola, the governor of Como and the Duke of Milan, Ferrante Gonzaga, and stabbed him to death in Piacenza. His body was thrown from the window of his palace at the end of a rope and hung there, to the jubilation of the crowds below.
His father the pope ordered that the lands seized by the above nobles be turned over to Pier Luigi’s son Ottavio. Pier Luigi himself was buried on the island of Besentina in Lake Bolsena.
Pier Luigi’s status as a noble and the son of a pope helped him escape other accusations of rape, murder and theft. The rape of the young priest alone designates him as a murderer.
CARLO CARAFA
1517 – 1561
We know that Carafa was physically courageous. We know he was embroiled in murders, assassinations and banditry; we know that he ordered the massacre of all the soldiers being cared for in a hospital in Corsica--but on all of this we have no details. A condottiere, he fought for the French and the Spanish before turning against them, for the Holy Roman Emperor before betraying him, all in the expected condottiere tradition. He was a page for Cardinal Pompeo Colonna, followed by Pier Luigi Farnese whom he serviced sexually. He fought against the Protestants and was later garroted, in part for pro-Protestant heresy. Immediately on being named pope, Paul IV--Gian Piero Carafa--named him a cardinal, his brother Giovanni head of the papal troops and another brother, Antonio, was made Marques of Montebello.
Intelligent, subtle and articulate, he had a firm hold over his uncle the pope, which allowed him to increase his influence and wealth, the aim being, seemingly, to raise the House of Carafa to heights equal to those of the Farnese and the Borghese. Along the way he trampled on any foot posing the slightest obstacle, killing when need be, intriguing, plotting and imposing himself, sexually, on any woman or boy who caught his fancy. The poet Joachim du Bellay tells of his appreciating of a certain Ascanio, saying he ‘’loved the boy more than his eyes.’’ Other boys, other orgies followed, and the French, always in search of damning rumors that could forward their diplomacy by blackmail, had their Cardinal Charles de Lorraine put his ear to the ground. De Lorraine reported back that Carafa was a regular adept of the ‘’loathsome sin in which there is no distinction between the male and the female sex.’’
Paul refused to believe the rumors about his nephew’s excesses until some unknown source, in which he had complete confidence, convinced him otherwise. Paul IV was an exception for the times, scrupulous to the point that he declared his willingness to collect the wood needed to burn his own father should he be proved a heretic. He was also a fervent supporter of the Inquisition. (Another Carafa is said to have been the origin of the fig leaf placed over the sublime manhood of Michelangelo’s David.) Carafa was deprived of his functions and when Paul ended his passage on earth his successor, Pius IV, ordered Carlo and his brother Giovanni, said to equal Carlo in his debauch, tried in a court for treason, heresy and sodomy. The kangaroo hearings lasted nine full months and ended with Giovanni losing his head and Carlo, due to his stature of cardinal, being simply garroted. One source claims that the stick used to twist the silk ribbon around his neck broke two times before chocking him to death on the third attempt. The same source describes the blood gushing from Giovanni’s wound, the pupils of the open eyes vanishing into the head, and the body arching upwards before falling back lifeless and headless.
Their brother Antonio had Pius V reopen the case, thanks to which both Carlo and Giovanni were found innocent, and Antonio was awarded a cardinal’s hat for his persistence.
Putting unarmed hospitalized troops to death is reason enough to place him among the Renaissance murderers.
Carafa as cardinal
CARLO GESUALDO
1560 – 1613
During an October night at the Palazzo San Serero in Naples, 1590, servants heard screams for help, followed by gunshots. They knew the mistress of the palace, Maria d’Avalos, was entertaining the most handsome man of the late Renaissance, Fabrizio Carafa, Duke of Andria, while her husband Gesualdo was supposedly off hunting. Either he had returned early fortuitously or he had finally heard what everyone else had known for two years, that his wife, the daughter of the Marquis of Pescara and the niece of Pope Pius IV, was carrying on a love affaire. Aided by friends, Gesualdo come across the nude couple in the spacious bedroom. He thrust his sword through Fabrizio before stabbing Maria, paralyzed by the sight, screaming, nearby. He then returned to Fabrizio’s body and repeatedly harpooned it with such force that holes were made in the marble flooring. He left the room covered with blood, but returned, perhaps drawn by groans. Declaring, ‘’They’re still alive!’’ he turned his hunting arm on Fabrizio and shot him through the side, the bullet entering the elbow and plunging into the chest, followed by the coup de grâce, a bullet in the head, splattering both Fabrizio and himself. He went to his wife, still breathing, and slit her throat from ear to ear. He then took his knife to Fabrizio’s sexual attributes, emasculating the boy, before again turning the weapon on his wife, hacking at the source of her infidelity. Historians claim that at the time murder was a noble’s only means of revenge, as were duels when one’s nonsexual honor was at stake.
In his rage he went to his youngest son’s rooms and, dagger in hand, ended the boy’s life, as Gesualdo had convinced himself that the child’s eyes were not his own. Years later he would end the life of his oldest son, for unknown reasons, his sword plunged into the lad’s chest. He would marry again, Eleonora d’Este of Ferrara, threaten her, take the life of the boy she gave him, his third son, and meet his own death immediately afterwards, at the hands of Eleonora--a dagger to the neck as he slept--who knew it was her only means of survival.
A sadomasochist, it’s unknown if his sadomasochism began before the Palazzo San Serero massacre or was a result of it. He himself had been unfaithful, finding sexual release with young men, eventually allowing himself to be flagellated by male servants.
Gesualdo was a recognized musician who had written six books on madrigals and three on sacred works. He was an accomplished player of the guitar, the lute and the harpsichord, although some critics wonder if his talent was real or a byproduct of the reputation he gained as a murderer. It is known, however, that Stravinsky was influenced by his oeuvre.
He suffered from depression but, again, whether before or as a result of the killings is a mystery. It is known however that he sought treatment of sorts by attempting to obtain relics from the body of his uncle, a cardinal who later became Saint Borromeo, relics valued for their curative purposes--without success as the church refused to turn them over.
He also consorted with witches, two of which his second wife had had condemned by a tribunal, but in the same way that his nobility had been the reason why he had escaped punishment for his murders--and the fact that he was the wealthiest man in Naples--he was able to have them imprisoned in his own palace, where he had sexual access to both.
Because the following details were recorded during the trial of the two witches and are therefore authentic (which is very rare for events dating back 400 years), I’ll grudgingly include them: To heal Gesualdo from his depression and other ills, the witches had him impregnate them while they were menstruating. Bread was then stuffed into the vagina that he then consumed. Sorry.
Carlo Gesualdo
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE
1564 – 1593
What is surprising about Marlowe is that he was just two months older than Shakespeare, and a highly valued, fully recognized poet and playwright during his time. Surprising due to his entry into obscurity since his death, fully eclipsed by Shakespeare and by
Molière.
Perhaps a spy recruited in Cambridge in the tradition of the homosexuals Burgess and Blunt, he received degrees there, in part, for unspecified good services to Queen Elizabeth. The mystery is total concerning his life and death, and until documents hidden somewhere come to light, it will remain so. He is known to have passed unexplained periods away from Cambridge, and that his spending habits far exceeded what he, the son of a shoemaker, was earning during his school years. He was arrested multiple times for dueling, for fights, disturbing the peace, counterfeiting, heresy due to the content of several of his plays and heretical tracts, but got off each time as though aided by stellar sources of influence.
Marlowe liked taverns, drinking and rough sex with men and boys, a life far closer to Caravaggio, a hoodlum who courted violence, than that of the puppy-and-cute-boy-loving Henry III whose clothes were laden with pearls and whose hair tolerated not a single loose curl. Some claim Marlowe said, ‘’Those that love not tobacco and boys are fools,’’ a litotes of his true passions.
One author, Charles Nicholl in his excellent The Murder of Christopher Marlow, states ‘’It all happened a long time ago, but I believe it was a case of murder, and an unsolved murder does not really age.’’ I read his book--twice--as well as others, and on the Net there are scores of fascinating articles concerning Marlowe and his death. But as Nicholl wrote, a lot of time has passed, and we only know that something unsolved took place. The bare facts are so few that we can speak of a veritable dearth. The only surprise for me is the ingenuity of some writers, prolonging a spoonful of sugar into one of those huge cotton candies found on fair grounds; one such tome on Marlowe’s life even hits the 600-page mark!
Marlowe was involved with Thomas Walsingham who was second cousin to the renowned spymaster Francis Walsingham. Spying already at age 17, Thomas worked with both Robert Poley and Nicolas Skeres, both at the table when Ingram Frizer knifed Marlowe through the eye. Thomas’s relationship with Marlowe is summed up by Nicholl: ‘’If I were going to speculate about Thomas Walsingham and his relations with Marlowe, I would not say that he was the man who ordered Marlowe’s death, nor that he was Marlowe’s gay lover. I would say that he was Marlowe’s contact in the Elizabethan intelligence service.’’ On the other hand, Thomas’s wife divorced him after Marlowe’s death, citing his love affaire with Marlowe. What Marlowe did in the secret service, like the rest of his life, is basically unknown, but we are sure that he was stationed in Flanders, which was under Catholic Spanish control, as were Milan, Naples and the whole of the south of Italy. Marlowe was there to spy on Catholics, especially the priests, some of whom had for mission the infiltration and reconversion of Protestant England, beginning with the assassination of Protestant Elizabeth herself. The hatred between Catholics and Protestants was such that massacres in France and England comprised the killing of children in front of their parents, a wife violated and her throat slit before her husband, a husband’s genitals stuffed down his mouth while he still lived, in front of hooting troops.
Marlowe’s interest in all this seems clear cut: espionage offered him money and a way into the upper reaches of society, which in turn could make the difference of his having a successful career as a writer or anonymity. One man who knew Marlowe said he was cruel and a danger to men and it is doubtful that he was the temperate sweetheart played by Rupert Everett in Shakespeare in Love. Like Caravaggio, Marlowe may have been a hoodlum with talent, albeit with nothing of Caravaggio’s tortured genius. Other British writers have sought excitement through work as spies, Graham Greene, Kipling, Maugham, Fleming and Le Carré. There is something unique in British brains that open them to the world of spooks, as well as--perhaps due to indelible first-love boarding-school memories--tolerance of homosexuality, allowing their sons to sport green hair, earrings and other efforts at individualism.
The theories of why Marlowe was killed abound. Several sources say it was due to his atheism, others that he had drunkenly claimed that he would ‘’out’’ the atheists in Elizabeth’s Privy Council. Still others accused him of being a closet Catholic in Elizabeth’s Protestant homeland. He was said, by a few, to have been assassinated by Walter Raleigh because he knew too much about Raleigh’s illicit sexual affaires, alas unspecified, others that he was killed so that Raleigh would be implicated, a way of doing away with Raleigh himself, a man far more influential than a mere playwright.
The study of Marlowe is disappointing because not only do we know so little about his death, but we now nearly nothing about his life, his life’s work and loves. Authors naturally--and certainly honestly--support the theories culminating in his murder. They want their books to be read--but a book won’t sell if the hero succumbed during a banal bar fight. And that’s exactly what may have happened to Marlowe. He had spent the day with three palls, Robert Poley, Nicholas Skeres and Ingram Frizer. The men were spies like Marlowe, working for Francis Walsingham, and were known to have been deceitful, predatory, devious swindlers, specialized in depriving boys of their family’s fortunes through various money schemes, far more profitable than their spying. Just before his death Marlowe was spread out on a couch, the other three were playing a game, seated around a table, some say in the private room of a tavern, others at a private home where meals were provided for pay. The fight allegedly began concerning who would settle the bill for the dinner they’d just had. Marlowe was used to fighting and only the previous week he had been directly involved in a knife fight in Canterbury. The argument was heating up between Marlowe and Frizer when Marlowe suddenly jumped up from the couch and, moving closely behind Frizer, took his exposed dagger and hit him about the head. The word pummeled is often used, meaning that Frizer was struck by the pommel, or hilt, of the dagger. At any rate he received two wounds, about two inches long but not deep. He was able to wrestle the knife away from Marlowe, who had perhaps drunk too much, and thrust it into the writer’s right eye, piercing his brain, bringing instant death--or at least instant unconsciousness, after which Marlowe died. Frizer was not charged because he had only defended himself. Others maintain that he hadn’t been charged because he was protected by Walsingham.
Frizer
Another version has him knifed to death in a male whorehouse by a man who wanted the same rent-boy as did Marlowe. Several days before his murder Marlowe had been arrested for heresy, but released. As a consequence of the arrest, rumor had it that Marlowe wasn’t dead at all, but that his murder had been staged in order to extract him from a future conviction for heresy. Added to this is the fact that all concerned--Marlowe, Poley, Skeres, Frizer--were low-grade spies sent on low-grade assignments to procure low-grade intelligence, hardly the stuff for first-class biographies.
At any rate, Marlowe was a Churchillian riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.
Marlowe
THE MURDERS OF RIZZIO, 1566,
and DARNLEY, 1567
Rizzio shared Darnley’s body before and after Darnley’s marriage.
Even as a child bloodshed irrupted around Mary Queen of Scots. Henry VIII wanted her for a bride for his deeply cherished son Prince Edward. When Scotland consented to the match and then reneged, Henry sent troops to make them honor their pledge, bringing death and devastation to hundreds, a period of instability known in history as the Rough Wooing. Eleven children of nobles had been taken hostage, and when their fathers refused to surrender to Henry’s men, they were massacred, a dastardly, cowardly act remembered and reviled by the Scots to this very day.
As Scotland had had privileged relations with France for generations, Mary, age 5, left for Paris where she was promised to the dauphin, little François, Henri II’s child. Described as a moral cesspool, Mary was soon debauched at the court of Henri II as Anne Boleyn had been. Afternoons and nights spent in giving boys pleasure, girls could maintain an intact hymen while reaching orgasm through manual and anal stimulation. A young girl’s mouth replaced her sex and lads copulated freely among themselves.
Mary, age
15, was married to Henri’s son François, 14. As puberty came much later than today, it is unknown if the marriage was consummated, especially as some believe François’s balls had not as yet descended. When Queen Mary of England died, Henri II proclaimed that Mary Queen of Scots was now also Queen of England, as she had descended from Henry VIII’s sister.
Henri II was killed during a tournament when a lance pierced his eye and throat. François became King of France and Mary Queen of France, Scotland and England. At François’s coronation a man and a boy were present, Bothwell, around age 20, and Lord Darnley, age 12. Both would become Mary’s husbands. Bothwell was known as a tireless fornicator; Darnley was as yet sexually inoperative. The irony is that Mary, the most crowned woman in the world, would lose every title and all her husbands would come to inglorious ends, beginning with François II who, at age 16, had an ear infection that entered his brain. The throne went to his brother Charles IX and Mary lost her title of Queen of France. In Scotland Mary’s mother died and to quell revolt with England, Scotland became as Protestant as Elizabeth. To soothe things further, the Scottish nobles declared that Mary was deprived of the title of Queen of England, a decision she would never agree to, perhaps the main reason for her later execution.
The real power behind the throne in France was the remarkable Catherine de’ Medici, wife of Henri II and mother of François II and Charles IX. She sent Mary packing. Bothwell was sent to fetch her, cementing their relationship. The country she discovered, Scotland, had around half a million drab, violent, clannish, uncouth, ignorant, superstitious, proud and vindictive inhabitants. The capital was Edinburgh, awash in excrement due to a total absence of sanitation (in this, Paris was little better).
