THE BORGIAS

Cue (NZERS), Issue 9, 15 October 1944, Page 11

THE BORGIAS

(By

I N this second and closing in- -* stalment on the Borgia Family, the story begins on Good Friday, 1497, when Giovanni Sforza, Count of Pesaro, perceiving an increasing danger of veiled Borgia hostility, secretly fled. - Before long dynastic ambitions and injured pride made it desirable for Lucrezia to repudiate Sforza and the marriage was annulled on the grounds of her husband’s impotence, to which effect Sforza signed an admission much in the spirit of Galileo. During the negotiations, Pedro Caldes, a Spanish envoy, appears to have consoled her and shortly afterwards the newly freed

Lucrezia was unable to conceal from Cesare the fact of her pregnancy. Cesare’s rage at losing such a valuable pawn was. followed by action and the bodies. of Pedro and Lucrezia’s lady-in-waiting, Pantansilea, were found tied hand and foot in the Tiber. They were the forerunners of a long series of victims which the Tiber boatmen were to drag up from time to time. Despite the inconvenience of Lucrezia’s by now patent loss of virginity, a new marriage was concluded with Alphonso, natural son •of the King of /Naples, and this unfortunate nobleman was only too pleased to leave Rome and return to his estates. He was

the Duke of Bisceglie and his lands were /..far from Rome. Lucrezia was. sent 1 to govern Spoleto and was there- joined by her husband to whom she became quite attached. In 1500, the . Duke Of Bisceglie became an obstacle .to Cesare Borgia’s plans and in the vicinity - of St Peter’s was , attacked and wounded, but nursed • carefully by Lucrezia and her women in the protection of- the Vatican he almost recovered his health. Alas, one ’ day ‘in August during the ’ momentary absence of •- his wife/ he was set upon- and smothered by some of Cesare’s, supporters. - The grief 'of Luprezia was real and intense, but, as on the earlier occasion, , she was not able, for long to escape the ambitious .indentions of her father and brother : who were already planning a new alliance. ■ .. . . : As may -be supposed the person upon whom the choice fell, Alphonso D’Este, son of the Duke of Ferrara, was by no means happy especially when he considered the fate of Lucrezia’s previous husbands and lover. Nevertheless, on 6th January, 1502, the marriage was celebrated in. Rome and Lucrezia D’Este left the city never to return. ’ - In Ferrara, she gradually built around herself a distinguished court which attracted well known writers and wits. She devoted herself to the good government of Ferrara and the bearing of eight children, while her husband interested himself in the . many campaigns of the day. Alphonso D’Este was a somewhat coarse and rude personality, more interested in the development of artillery than in the cultivation of the arts or the government of his dominions, and Lucrezia was forced to seek intellectual interests elsewhere. In 1519 she died in childbirth at the age of 39 years. •' J" During. 1 her last years she was Scrupulous in her religious duties and for a long time wore the hair shirt, of the ascetic. ■/

Let us return to Cesare. . After a short dalliance with Sancia of Arragon, the beautiful wife of his 12-year-old brother, Joffredo, he turned to more active fields. . He soon proved himself a formidable and unscrupulous commander. Hereduced the petty states of the Romagna to‘obedience, conquering: in turn the cities and dependencies of Umbria, much of Tuscany, and the cities of the - Marches. By October, .1499, Pesaro, Imola, Urbino ~and other .places north ,of the Apperimes. had already fallen to the Holy' See and the French danger of Charles VIII was definitely gone/. ; . /

In' his train:-the great Leonardo Da Vinci was superintendent of military; engineering and Niccolo Machiavelli was his political adviser if, indeed, he needed any* advice in the arts of princely cunning. He. left governors in the conquered territories and the key posts remained with Romans and Spaniards. The new states paid their tithes and his return to Rome in 1500 was indeed a tritriumphal procession. In Rome, his association incognito with the notorious Fiametta ; Micheli has given , rise to some famous pretended dialogues and many stories of which may be cited. One evening in the St Angelo quarter / he was dining with Fiametta and discussing how she should launch her 14-year-old daughter , on her chosen career of courtesan. A fortune . teller entered and after looking at Cesare’s hand refused to. reveal the future. - Cesare pinned the hand of the fortune teller to the / table with his dagger and threatened to remove her tongue if x she did not reveal all. She did and left with a bag of coin. She had foreseen his death in exile. " Plots were naturally formed against Cesare and of these the Magione conspiracy of 1502 is typical. On learning of the plot Cesare wrote separately to all the conspirators and invited them to

visit him at the Castle at Senigallia, the Rocca Priora, for a New Year’s feast. ' As each - guest arrived?, he was summoned to Cesare’s room, strangled, .and the body, returned to., the attendants. Only one escaped and the Castle of St Angelo greeted the news as yet another occasion . for public rejoicing. . ' The year 1503. was, however, destined to. end badly. On the 10th August a banquet was'held in the ; Vatican, following which all the guests, including Cardinal di Corneto, popularly supposed to be next due for disappearance, were seized with a violent sickness. Alexander VI, then oyer 70 years of age, lingered for eight days. ' > <■■■•

Cesare had himself placed in the bowels of . a newly killed horse, and there he sweated out the acute phase of his fever, recovering in time to hide himself against the Spanish purge which he knew, must follow his father’s death. The body of Alexander VI underwent an amazingly rapid change and within a few hours was black, swollen to twice its size, with fluid oozing out of every orifice while lying in state — a fact strongly in favour of an infectious and not a poison death. ‘ Thus passed* one of the ablest and strongest characters of the day whose ‘greatest vice was probably that of being an over-indulgent father. • ■

* , ■ In a few days the new Pontiff proved to be one well-disposed towards- Cesare, but he too died after a reign of only 20 days and a Della Rovere, mortal enemy of the Borgias, was elected. Cesare was imprisoned first in Rome in the same apartment in which Alphonso of Bisceglie was murdered, and then at Chinchilla in Spain, finally attaining a precarious freedom only to die heroically in battle in 1507. The Borgia genius was not, however, spent and the grandson of the murdered Juan, Duke of Gandia, became renowned for his

learning, asceticism, and \ saintly life*, concentrating within himself .that -ascetic- strain which was so noticeable in Callixtus 111 and during the later years- of Lucrezia. • ■ ' ; <•. Francesco became -? DirectorGeneral of. the Jesuit Order. and almost ■ immediately after - his death in 1572 was. canonised. Another Borgia became Viceroy of Peru. . Thus, this, gifted \ but unprincipled family produced in the Space of 130 years two Popes; nine Cardinals/ •' eight ■ feigning, princess' or dukes?and a 'saint. ?

... The cunning and. meticulous, industry of Burckardt was, however, to bring about what he perhaps foresaw. The chronicle in which ceremonies, audiences, acts of state,, frivolities and the every day incidents, both seen and. reported, found equal and com r mentless mention, helped to keep alive the bad memories. • . • ' In 1610 the bodies of ' Gallixtus. 11l and Alexander VI were dug up and thrown into .an . obscure vault. In 1931, during the revolution in Spain, the body of St Francesco Borgia was similarly treated by the Madrid mob and in Valencia even the statue of Callixtus 111 was destroyed. Before concluding,, a word as to the Borgia poison. It is by no means certain , that many, if any,, of the deaths attributed to it were indeed carried out by members of the family, nor is it certain that the. fatal illness of Alexander was due to poison or food-poisoning. If poison were used'in some cases it was almost certainly arsenic. A final word on the Borgia women. If any of Cesare’s contemporaries deserved a reputation for licentiousness, it was the beautiful Sancia of Arragon, whose behaviour in /Naples compelled the Borgias to bring her to Rome. There, with Julia Farnese and others, she took a prominent: part in the festivities dryly recorded by ■ Burckardt. Lucrezia seems, to have been much as her later , portraits suggest—an able, intelligent woman. ' •