CHAPTER XXXII
MRS. Q. AND THE BORGIA FAMILY
“I AM going to introduce you to such a nice woman,” Mrs. Barfleur told me the second morning I was in Rome, in her very enthusiastic way. “She is charming. I am sure you will like her. She comes from America somewhere—New York, I think. Her husband is an author, I believe. I heard so.” She chattered on in her genial, talk-making way. “I don’t understand these American women; they go traveling about Europe without their husbands in such a strange way. Now, you know in England we would not think of doing anything of that kind.”
Mrs. Barfleur was decidedly conservative in her views and English in manner and speech, but she had the saving proclivity of being intensely interested in life, and realized that all is not gold that glitters. She preferred to be among people who know and maintain good form, who are interested in maintaining the social virtues as they stand accepted and who, if they do not actually observe all of the laws and tenets of society, at least maintain a deceiving pretense. She had a little coterie of friends in the hotel, as I found, and friends outside, such as artists, newspaper correspondents and officials connected with the Italian court and the papal court. I never knew a more industrious social mentor in the shape of a woman, though among men her son outstripped her. She was apparently here, there and everywhere about the hotel, in the breakfast-room, in the dining-room, in the card-room, in the writing-room, greeting her friends, planning games, planning engagements, planning sightseeing trips. She was pleasant, too; delightful; for she knew what to do and when to do it, and if she was not impelled by a large constructive motive of any kind, nevertheless she had a sincere and discriminating love of the beautiful which caused her to excuse much for the sake of art. I found her well-disposed, kindly, sympathetic and very anxious to make the best of this sometimes dull existence, not only for herself, but for every one else. I liked her very much.
Mrs. Q. I found on introduction, to be a beautiful woman of perhaps thirty-three or four, with two of the healthiest, prettiest, best-behaved children I have ever seen. I found her to be an intellectual and brilliant woman with an overwhelming interest in the psychology of history and current human action.
“I trust I see an unalienated American,” I observed as Mrs. Barfleur brought her forward, encouraged by her brisk, quizzical smile.
“You do, you do,” she replied smartly, “as yet. Nothing has happened to my Americanism except Italy, and that’s only a second love.”
She had a hoarse little laugh which was nevertheless agreeable. I felt the impact of a strong, vital temperament, self-willed, self-controlled, intensely eager and ambitious. I soon discovered she was genuinely interested in history, which is one of my great failings and delights. She liked vital, unillusioned biography such as that of Jean Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions, Cellini’s Diary, and the personal reminiscences of various court favorites in different lands. She was interested in some plays, but cared little for fiction, which I take to be commendable. Her great passion at the moment, she told me, was the tracing out in all its ramifications of the history and mental attitude of the Borgia family especially Cæsar and Lucrezia—which I look upon as a remarkable passion for a woman. It takes a strong, healthy, clear-thinking temperament to enjoy the mental vagaries of the Borgias—father, son and daughter. She had conceived a sincere admiration for the courage, audacity, passion and directness of action of Cæsar, to say nothing of the lymphatic pliability and lure of Lucrezia, and the strange philosophic anarchism and despotic individualism of their father, Alexander VI.
I wonder how much the average reader knows of the secret history of the Borgias. It is as modern as desire, as strange as the strangest vagaries of which the mind is capable. I am going to give here the outline of the Borgia family history as Mrs. Q. crisply related it to me, on almost the first evening we met, for I, like so many Americans, while knowing something of these curious details in times past had but the haziest recollection then. To be told it in Rome itself by a breezy American who used the vernacular and who simply could not suppress her Yankee sense of humor, was as refreshing an experience as occurred in my whole trip. Let me say first that Mrs. Q. admired beyond words the Italian subtlety, craft, artistic insight, political and social wisdom, governing ability, and as much as anything their money-getting and money-keeping capacities. The raw practicality of this Italian family thrilled her.
You will remember that Rodrigo Lanzol, a Spaniard who afterwards assumed the name of Rodrigo Borgia, because his maternal uncle of that name was fortunate enough to succeed to the papacy as Calixtus III, and could do him many good turns afterwards, himself succeeded to the papacy by bribery and other outrages under the title of Alexander VI. That was August 10, 1442. Before that, however, as nephew to Calixtus III, he had been made bishop, cardinal, and vice-chancellor of the Church solely because he was a relative and favored by his uncle; and all this before he was thirty-five. He had proceeded to Rome, established himself with many mistresses at his call in a magnificent palace, and at the age of thirty-seven, his uncle Calixtus III having died, was reprimanded by Pius II, the new pope, for his riotous and adulterous life. By 1470, when he was forty-nine he took to himself, as his favorite, Vanozza dei Cattani, the former wife of three different husbands. By Vanozza, who was very charming, he had four children, all of whom he prized highly—Giovanni, afterwards Duke of Gandia, born 1474; Cæsar, 1476; Lucrezia, 1480; Geoffreddo or Giuffré, born 1481 or 1482. There were other children—Girolamo, Isabella and Pier Luigi, whose parentage on the mother’s side is uncertain; and still another child, Laura, whom he acquired via Giulia Farnese, the daughter of the famous family of that name, who was his mistress after he tired, some years later, of Vanozza. Meanwhile his children had grown up or were fairly well-grown when he became pope, which opened the most astonishing chapter of the history of this strange family.
Alexander was a curious compound of paternal affection, love of gold, love of women, vanity, and other things. He certainly was fond of his children or he would not have torn Italy with dissension in order to advantage them in their fortunes. His career is the most ruthless and weird of any that I know.
He was no sooner pope (about April, 1493) than he proposed to carve out careers for his family—his favored children by his favorite mistress. In 1492, the same year he was made pope, he created Cæsar, his sixteen-year-old son, studying at Pisa, a cardinal, showing the state of the papacy in those days. He proposed to marry his daughter Lucrezia well, and having the year before, when she was only eleven, betrothed her to one Don Cherubin de Centelles, a Spaniard, he broke this arrangement and had Lucrezia married by proxy to Don Gasparo de Procida, son of the Count of Aversa, a man of much more importance, who, he thought, could better advance her fortune.
Italy, however, was in a very divided and disorganized state. There was a King of Naples, a Duke of Venice, a Duke of Milan, a separate state life at Pisa, Genoa, Florence and elsewhere. In order to build himself up and become very powerful, and to give preferment to each of his sons, some of these states had to be conquered and controlled; and so the old gentleman, without conscience and without mercy except as suited his whim, was for playing politics, making war, exercising treachery, murdering, poisoning, persuading, bribing—anything and everything to obtain his ends. He must have been well thought of as a man of his word, for when he had made a deal with Charles VIII of France to assist him in invading and conquering Naples, the king demanded and obtained Cæsar, Alexander’s son, aged twenty-one, as a hostage for faithful performance of agreement. He had not taken him very far, however, before the young devil escaped and returned to Rome, where subsequently his father, finding it beneficial to turn against the King of France, did so.
But to continue. While his father was politicking and trafficking in this way for the benefit of himself and his dear family, young Cæsar was beginning to develop a few thoughts and tendencies of his own. Alexander VI was planning to create fiefs or dukedoms out of the papal states and out of the Kingdom of Naples and give them to his eldest son, Giovanni, and his youngest, Giuffré. Cæsar would have none of this. He saw himself as a young cardinal being left out in the cold. Besides, there was a cause of friction between him and his brother Giovanni over the affections of their youngest brother Giuffré’s wife, Sancha. They were both sharing the latter’s favors, and so one day, in order to clear matters up and teach his father (whose favorite he was) where to bestow his benefits and so that he might have Sancha all to himself—he murdered his brother Giovanni. The latter’s body, after a sudden and strange absence, was found in the Tiber, knife-marked, and all was local uproar until the young cardinal was suspected, when matters quieted down and nothing more was thought of it. There was also thought to be some rivalry between Cæsar and Giovanni over the affections of their sister Lucrezia.
After this magnificent evidence of ability, the way was clear for Cæsar. He was at once (July, 1497) sent as papal legate to Naples to crown Frederick of Aragon; and it was while there that he met Carlotta, the daughter of the king, and wanted to marry her. She would have none of him. “What, marry that priest, that bastard of a priest!” she is alleged to have said; and that settled the matter. This may have had something to do with Cæsar’s desire to get out of Holy Orders and return to civil life, for the next year (1498) he asked leave of the papal consistory not to be a cardinal any longer and was granted this privilege “for the good of his soul.” He then undertook the pleasant task, as papal legate, of carrying to Louis XII of France the pope’s bull annulling the marriage of Louis with Jeanne of France in order that he might marry Anne of Brittany. On this journey he met Charlotte d’Albret, sister of the King of Navarre, whom he married. He was given the duchy of Valentinois for his gracious service to Louis XII and, loaded with honors, returned to Rome in order to further his personal fortunes with his father’s aid.
In the meanwhile there were a number of small principalities in Romagna, a territory near Milan, which his father Alexander VI was viewing with a covetous eye. One of these was controlled by Giovanni Sforza, Lord of Pesaro, whom Alexander, at a time when he wanted to pit the strength of Milan against the subtle machinations of the King of Naples—caused Lucrezia his daughter, then only thirteen years of age, to marry, her union with the Count of Aversa having by this time been severed. Alexander having won the friendship of the King of Naples, he decided to proceed against the princelings of Romagna and confiscated their property. Cæsar was tolled off as general to accomplish this for himself, being provided men and means. Young Sforza, who had married Lucrezia, found himself in a treacherous position,—his own brother-in-law, with the assistance of his father-in-law, plotting against his life,—and fled with his wife, the fair Lucrezia, aged fifteen, to Pesaro. There he was fought by Cæsar who, however, not having sufficient troops was checked for the time being and returned to Rome. A year or so later, Pope Alexander being in a gentler frame of mind—it was Christmas and he desired all his children about him—invited them all home, including Lucrezia and her husband. Then followed a series of magnificent fêtes and exhibitions in honor of all this at Rome, and the family, including the uncertain son-in-law, husband of Lucrezia, seemed to be fairly well united in bonds of peace.
Unfortunately, however, a little later (1497) the pope’s mood changed again. He was now, after some intermediate quarrels, once more friendly with the King of Naples and decided that Sforza was no longer a fit husband for Lucrezia. Then came the annulment of this marriage and the remarriage of Lucrezia to Alphonso of Aragon, Duke of Bisceglie, a relative and favorite of the King of Naples, aged eighteen and handsome. But, alas! no sooner is this fairly begun than new complications arise. The pope thinks he sees an opportunity to destroy the power of Naples as a rival with the aid of the King of France, Louis XII. He lends assistance to the latter, who comes to invade Naples, and young Bisceglie, now fearing for his life at the hands of his treacherous father-in-law, deserts Rome and Lucrezia and flees. Louis XII proceeds against Naples. Spoleto falls and Lucrezia, Bisceglie’s wife, as representative of the pope (aged eighteen) is sent to receive the homage of Spoleto!
But the plot merely thickens. There comes a nice point in here on which historians comment variously. Incest is the basis. It was one time assumed that Alexander, the father, during all these various shifts treated his daughter as his mistress. Her brother Cæsar also bore the same relation to her. Father and son were rivals, then, for the affections and favors of the daughter-sister. To offset the affections of the son the father has the daughter lure her husband, Bisceglie, back to Rome. From all accounts he was very much in love with his wife who was beautiful but dangerous because of her charms and the manner in which she was coveted by others. In 1499, when he was twenty and Cæsar twenty-three, he was lured back and the next year, because of Cæsar’s jealousy of his monopoly of his own wife (Cæsar being perhaps denied his usual freedom) Bisceglie was stabbed while going up the steps of the papal palace by Cæsar Borgia, his brother-in-law, and that in the presence of his father-in-law, Alexander VI, the pope of Rome. According to one account, on sight of Cæsar, jumping out from behind a column, Alphonso sought refuge behind Alexander, the pope, who spread out his purple robe to protect him, through which Cæsar drove his knife into the bosom of his brother-in-law. The dear old father and father-in-law was severely shocked. He was quite depressed, in fact. He shook his head dismally. The wound was not fatal, however. Bisceglie was removed to the house of a cardinal near-by, where he was attended by his wife, Lucrezia, and his sister-in-law, Sancha, wife of Giuffré, both of whom he apparently feared a little, for they were compelled first to partake of all food presented in order to prove that it was not poisoned. In this house—in this sick-chamber doorway—suddenly and unexpectedly one day there appears the figure of Cæsar. The ensuing scene (Lucrezia and Sancha present) is not given. Bisceglie is stabbed in his bed and this time dies. Is the crime avenged? Not at all. This is Papa Alexander’s own dominion. This is a family affair, and father is very fond of Cæsar, so the matter is hushed up.
Witness the interesting final chapters. Cæsar goes off, October, 1500, to fight the princes in Romagna once more, among whom are Giovanni, and Sforza, one of Lucrezia’s ex-husbands. July, 1501, Alexander leaves the papal palace in Rome to fight the Colonna, one of the two powerful families of Rome, with the assistance of the other powerful family, the Orsini. In his absence Lucrezia, his beloved, is acting-pope! January first (or thereabouts), 1501, Lucrezia is betrothed to Alphonso, son and heir to Ercole d’Este, whose famous villa near Rome is still to be seen. Neither Alphonso nor his father was anxious for this union, but Papa Alexander, Pope of Rome, has set his heart on it. By bribes and threats he brings about a proxy marriage—Alphonso not being present—celebrated with great pomp at St. Peter’s. January, 1502, Lucrezia arrives in the presence of her new husband who falls seriously in love with her. Her fate is now to settle down, and no further tragedies befall on account of her, except one. A certain Ercole Strozzi, an Italian noble, appears on the scene and falls violently in love with her. She is only twenty-three or four even now. Alphonso d’Este, her new husband, becomes violently jealous and murders Ercole. Result: further peace until her death in 1511 in her thirty-ninth year, during which period she had four children by Alphonso—three boys and one girl.
As for brother Cæsar he was, unfortunately, leading a more checkered career. On December 21, 1502, when he was only twenty-six, as a general fighting the allied minor princes in Romagna, he caused to be strangled in his headquarters at Senigallia, Vitellozzo Viletti and Oliveralto da Fermo, two princelings who with others had conspired against him some time before at Perugia. Awed by his growing power, they had been so foolish as to endeavor to placate him by capturing Senigallia for him from their allies and presenting it to him and allowing themselves to be lured to his house by protestations of friendship. Result: strangulation.
August 18, 1503, Father Borgia, Pope Alexander VI, charming society figure, polished gentleman, lover of the chase, patron of the arts, for whom Raphael, Michelangelo and Brabante had worked, breathes his last. He and Cæsar had fallen desperately sick at the same time of a fever. When Cæsar recovers sufficiently to attend to his affairs, things are already in a bad way. The cardinals are plotting to seat a pope unfriendly to the Borgias. The Spanish cardinals on whom he has relied do not prove friendly and he loses his control. The funds which Papa Borgia was wont to supply for his campaigns are no longer forthcoming. Pope Julius II succeeding to the throne, takes away from Cæsar the territories assigned to him by his father “for the honor of recovering what our predecessors have wrongfully alienated.” In May, 1504, having gone to Naples on a safe conduct for the Spanish governor of that city, he is arrested and sent to Spain, where he is thrown into prison. At the end of two years he manages to escape and flees to the court of his brother-in-law, the King of Navarre, who permits him to aid in besieging the castle of a refractory subject. Here, March 12, 1507, while Lucrezia elsewhere is peacefully residing with her spouse, he is killed.
I have given but a feeble outline of this charming Renaissance idyl. Mixed in with it are constant murders or poisonings of wealthy cardinals and the confiscation of their estates whenever cash for the prosecution of Cæsar’s wars or the protection of papal properties are needed. The uxorious and child-loving old pope was exceedingly nonchalant about these little matters of human life. When he died there was a fight over his coffin between priests of different factions and mercenaries belonging to Cæsar Borgia. The coffin being too short, his body was jammed down in it, minus his miter, and finally upset. Think of so much ambition coming to such a shameful end! He achieved his desire, however. He wrote his name large, if not in fame, at least in infamy. He lived in astonishing grandeur and splendor. By his picturesque iniquities he really helped to bring about the Reformation. He had a curious affection for his children and he died immensely rich—and, pope. The fair Lucrezia stands out as a strange chemical magnet of disaster. To love her was fear, disappointment, or death. And it was she and her brother Cæsar, who particularly interested Mrs. Q., although the aged Alexander amused her.
During her vigorous recital I forgot the corner drug store and modern street cars of Rome, enthralled by the glamour of the ancient city. It was a delight to find that we had an intellectual affinity in the study of the vagaries of this strange phantasmagoria called human life, in which to be dull is to be a bond-slave, and to be wise is to be a mad philosopher, knowing neither right from wrong nor black from white.
Together Mrs. Q. and I visited the Borghese and Barberini Palaces, the Villa Doria, the Villa Umberto, the Villa d’Este and the Appian Way. We paid a return visit to the Colosseum and idled together in the gardens of the Pincian, the paths of the Gianicolo, the gardens of the Vatican and along the Tiber. It was a pleasure to step into some old court of a palace where the walls were encrusted with fragments of monuments, inscriptions, portions of sarcophagi and the like, found on the place or in excavating, and set into the walls to preserve them—and to listen to this clever, wholesome woman comment on the way the spirit of life builds shells and casts them off. She was not in the least morbid. The horror and cruelties of lust and ambition held no terrors for her. She liked life as a spectacle.