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Title: The Borgias

Author: Alexandre Dumas

Release date: September 22, 2004 [eBook #2741]
Most recently updated: October 4, 2018

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2741

Credits: Produced by David Widger

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BORGIAS
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THE BORGIAS

By

Alexandre Dumas, Pere

From Eight Volumes of "Celebrated Crimes"

1910

CONTENTS

THE BORGIAS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
EPILOGUE

THE BORGIAS

PROLOGUE

On the 8th of April, 1492, in a bedroom of the Carneggi Palace, about
three miles from Florence, were three men grouped about a bed whereon a
fourth lay dying.
The first of these three men, sitting at the foot of the bed, and half
hidden, that he might conceal his tears, in the gold-brocaded curtains, was
Ermolao Barbaro, author of the treatise 'On Celibacy', and of 'Studies in
Pliny': the year before, when he was at Rome in the capacity of ambassador
of the Florentine Republic, he had been appointed Patriarch of Aquileia by
Innocent VIII.
The second, who was kneeling and holding one hand of the dying man
between his own, was Angelo Poliziano, the Catullus of the fifteenth
century, a classic of the lighter sort, who in his Latin verses might have
been mistaken for a poet of the Augustan age.
The third, who was standing up and leaning against one of the twisted
columns of the bed-head, following with profound sadness the progress of
the malady which he read in the face of his departing friend, was the
famous Pico della Mirandola, who at the age of twenty could speak twenty-
two languages, and who had offered to reply in each of these languages to
any seven hundred questions that might be put to him by the twenty most
learned men in the whole world, if they could be assembled at Florence.
The man on the bed was Lorenzo the Magnificent, who at the
beginning of the year had been attacked by a severe and deep-seated fever,

to which was added the gout, a hereditary ailment in his family. He had
found at last that the draughts containing dissolved pearls which the quack
doctor, Leoni di Spoleto, prescribed for him (as if he desired to adapt his
remedies rather to the riches of his patient than to his necessities) were
useless and unavailing, and so he had come to understand that he must part
from those gentle-tongued women of his, those sweet-voiced poets, his
palaces and their rich hangings; therefore he had summoned to give him
absolution for his sins—in a man of less high place they might perhaps have
been called crimes—the Dominican, Giralamo Francesco Savonarola.
It was not, however, without an inward fear, against which the praises
of his friends availed nothing, that the pleasure-seeker and usurper awaited
that severe and gloomy preacher by whose words all Florence was stirred,
and on whose pardon henceforth depended all his hope for another world.
Indeed, Savonarola was one of those men of stone, coming, like the
statue of the Commandante, to knock at the door of a Don Giovanni, and in
the midst of feast and orgy to announce that it is even now the moment to
begin to think of Heaven. He had been born at Ferrara, whither his family,
one of the most illustrious of Padua, had been called by Niccolo, Marchese
d'Este, and at the age of twenty-three, summoned by an irresistible
vocation, had fled from his father's house, and had taken the vows in the
cloister of Dominican monks at Florence. There, where he was appointed
by his superiors to give lessons in philosophy, the young novice had from
the first to battle against the defects of a voice that was both harsh and
weak, a defective pronunciation, and above all, the depression of his
physical powers, exhausted as they were by too severe abstinence.
Savonarola from that time condemned himself to the most absolute
seclusion, and disappeared in the depths of his convent, as if the slab of his
tomb had already fallen over him. There, kneeling on the flags, praying

unceasingly before a wooden crucifix, fevered by vigils and penances, he
soon passed out of contemplation into ecstasy, and began to feel in himself
that inward prophetic impulse which summoned him to preach the
reformation of the Church.
Nevertheless, the reformation of Savonarola, more reverential than
Luther's, which followed about five-and-twenty years later, respected the
thing while attacking the man, and had as its aim the altering of teaching
that was human, not faith that was of God. He did not work, like the
German monk, by reasoning, but by enthusiasm. With him logic always
gave way before inspiration: he was not a theologian, but a prophet. Yet,
although hitherto he had bowed his head before the authority of the Church,
he had already raised it against the temporal power. To him religion and
liberty appeared as two virgins equally sacred; so that, in his view, Lorenzo
in subjugating the one was as culpable as Pope Innocent VIII in
dishonouring the other. The result of this was that, so long as Lorenzo lived
in riches, happiness, and magnificence, Savonarola had never been willing,
whatever entreaties were made, to sanction by his presence a power which
he considered illegitimate. But Lorenzo on his deathbed sent for him, and
that was another matter. The austere preacher set forth at once, bareheaded
and barefoot, hoping to save not only the soul of the dying man but also the
liberty of the republic.
Lorenzo, as we have said, was awaiting the arrival of Savonarola with
an impatience mixed with uneasiness; so that, when he heard the sound of
his steps, his pale face took a yet more deathlike tinge, while at the same
time he raised himself on his elbow and ordered his three friends to go
away. They obeyed at once, and scarcely had they left by one door than the
curtain of the other was raised, and the monk, pale, immovable, solemn,
appeared on the threshold. When he perceived him, Lorenzo dei Medici,

reading in his marble brow the inflexibility of a statue, fell back on his bed,
breathing a sigh so profound that one might have supposed it was his last.
The monk glanced round the room as though to assure himself that he
was really alone with the dying man; then he advanced with a slow and
solemn step towards the bed. Lorenzo watched his approach with terror;
then, when he was close beside him, he cried:
"O my father, I have been a very great sinner!"
"The mercy of God is infinite," replied the monk; "and I come into
your presence laden with the divine mercy."
"You believe, then, that God will forgive my sins?" cried the dying
man, renewing his hope as he heard from the lips of the monk such
unexpected words.
"Your sins and also your crimes, God will forgive them all," replied
Savonarola. "God will forgive your vanities, your adulterous pleasures,
your obscene festivals; so much for your sins. God will forgive you for
promising two thousand florins reward to the man who should bring you the
head of Dietisalvi, Nerone Nigi, Angelo Antinori, Niccalo Soderini, and
twice the money if they were handed over alive; God will forgive you for
dooming to the scaffold or the gibbet the son of Papi Orlandi, Francesco di
Brisighella, Bernardo Nardi, Jacopo Frescobaldi, Amoretto Baldovinetti,
Pietro Balducci, Bernardo di Banding, Francesco Frescobaldi, and more
than three hundred others whose names were none the less dear to Florence
because they were less renowned; so much for your crimes." And at each of
these names which Savonarola pronounced slowly, his eyes fixed on the
dying man, he replied with a groan which proved the monk's memory to be
only too true. Then at last, when he had finished, Lorenzo asked in a
doubtful tone:

"Then do you believe, my father, that God will forgive me everything,
both my sins and my crimes?"
"Everything," said Savonarola, "but on three conditions."
"What are they?" asked the dying man.
"The first," said Savonarola, "is that you feel a complete faith in the
power and the mercy of God."
"My father," replied Lorenzo eagerly, "I feel this faith in the very
depths of my heart."
"The second," said Savonarola, "is that you give back the property of
others which you have unjustly confiscated and kept."
"My father, shall I have time?" asked the dying man.
"God will give it to you," replied the monk.
Lorenzo shut his eyes, as though to reflect more at his ease; then, after
a moment's silence, he replied:
"Yes, my father, I will do it."
"The third," resumed Savonarola, "is that you restore to the republic
her ancient independence and her former liberty."
Lorenzo sat up on his bed, shaken by a convulsive movement, and
questioned with his eyes the eyes of the Dominican, as though he would
find out if he had deceived himself and not heard aright. Savonarola
repeated the same words.
"Never! never!" exclaimed Lorenzo, falling back on his bed and
shaking his head,—"never!"
The monk, without replying a single word, made a step to withdraw.
"My father, my father," said the dying man, "do not leave me thus:
have pity on me!"
"Have pity on Florence," said the monk.
"But, my father," cried Lorenzo, "Florence is free, Florence is happy."

"Florence is a slave, Florence is poor," cried Savonarola, "poor in
genius, poor in money, and poor in courage; poor in genius, because after
you, Lorenzo, will come your son Piero; poor in money, because from the
funds of the republic you have kept up the magnificence of your family and
the credit of your business houses; poor in courage, because you have
robbed the rightful magistrates of the authority which was constitutionally
theirs, and diverted the citizens from the double path of military and civil
life, wherein, before they were enervated by your luxuries, they had
displayed the virtues of the ancients; and therefore, when the day shall
dawn which is not far distant," continued the monk, his eyes fixed and
glowing as if he were reading in the future, "whereon the barbarians shall
descend from the mountains, the walls of our towns, like those of Jericho,
shall fall at the blast of their trumpets."
"And do you desire that I should yield up on my deathbed the power
that has made the glory of my whole life?" cried Lorenzo dei Medici.
"It is not I who desire it; it is the Lord," replied Savonarola coldly.
"Impossible, impossible!" murmured Lorenzo.
"Very well; then die as you have lived!" cried the monk, "in the midst
of your courtiers and flatterers; let them ruin your soul as they have ruined
your body!" And at these words, the austere Dominican, without listening to
the cries of the dying man, left the room as he had entered it, with face and
step unaltered; far above human things he seemed to soar, a spirit already
detached from the earth.
At the cry which broke from Lorenzo dei Medici when he saw him
disappear, Ermolao, Poliziano, and Pico dellaMirandola, who had heard all,
returned into the room, and found their friend convulsively clutching in his
arms a magnificent crucifix which he had just taken down from the bed-
head. In vain did they try to reassure him with friendly words. Lorenzo the

Magnificent only replied with sobs; and one hour after the scene which we
have just related, his lips clinging to the feet of the Christ, he breathed his
last in the arms of these three men, of whom the most fortunate—though all
three were young—was not destined to survive him more than two years.
"Since his death was to bring about many calamities," says Niccolo
Macchiavelli, "it was the will of Heaven to show this by omens only too
certain: the dome of the church of Santa Regarata was struck by lightning,
and Roderigo Borgia was elected pope."

CHAPTER I

Towards the end of the fifteenth century—that is to say, at the epoch when
our history opens the Piazza of St. Peter's at Rome was far from presenting
so noble an aspect as that which is offered in our own day to anyone who
approaches it by the Piazza dei Rusticucci.
In fact, the Basilica of Constantine existed no longer, while that of
Michael Angelo, the masterpiece of thirty popes, which cost the labour of
three centuries and the expense of two hundred and sixty millions, existed
not yet. The ancient edifice, which had lasted for eleven hundred and forty-
five years, had been threatening to fall in about 1440, and Nicholas V,
artistic forerunner of Julius II and Leo X, had had it pulled down, together
with the temple of Probus Anicius which adjoined it. In their place he had
had the foundations of a new temple laid by the architects Rossellini and
Battista Alberti; but some years later, after the death of Nicholas V, Paul II,
the Venetian, had not been able to give more than five thousand crowns to
continue the project of his predecessor, and thus the building was arrested
when it had scarcely risen above the ground, and presented the appearance
of a still-born edifice, even sadder than that of a ruin.
As to the piazza itself, it had not yet, as the reader will understand
from the foregoing explanation, either the fine colonnade of Bernini, or the
dancing fountains, or that Egyptian obelisk which, according to Pliny, was
set up by the Pharaoh at Heliopolis, and transferred to Rome by Caligula,
who set it up in Nero's Circus, where it remained till 1586. Now, as Nero's

Circus was situated on the very ground where St. Peter's now stands, and
the base of this obelisk covered the actual site where the vestry now is, it
looked like a gigantic needle shooting up from the middle of truncated
columns, walls of unequal height, and half-carved stones.
On the right of this building, a ruin from its cradle, arose the Vatican, a
splendid Tower of Babel, to which all the celebrated architects of the
Roman school contributed their work for a thousand years: at this epoch the
two magnificent chapels did not exist, nor the twelve great halls, the two-
and-twenty courts, the thirty staircases, and the two thousand bedchambers;
for Pope Sixtus V, the sublime swineherd, who did so many things in a five
years' reign, had not yet been able to add the immense building which on
the eastern side towers above the court of St. Damasius; still, it was truly
the old sacred edifice, with its venerable associations, in which
Charlemagne received hospitality when he was crowned emperor by Pope
Leo III.
All the same, on the 9th of August, 1492, the whole of Rome, from the
People's Gate to the Coliseum and from the Baths of Diocletian to the castle
of Sant' Angelo, seemed to have made an appointment on this piazza: the
multitude thronging it was so great as to overflow into all the neighbouring
streets, which started from this centre like the rays of a star. The crowds of
people, looking like a motley moving carpet, were climbing up into the
basilica, grouping themselves upon the stones, hanging on the columns,
standing up against the walls; they entered by the doors of houses and
reappeared at the windows, so numerous and so densely packed that one
might have said each window was walled up with heads. Now all this
multitude had its eyes fixed on one single point in the Vatican; for in the
Vatican was the Conclave, and as Innocent VIII had been dead for sixteen
days, the Conclave was in the act of electing a pope.

Rome is the town of elections: since her foundation down to our own
day—that is to say, in the course of nearly twenty-six centuries—she has
constantly elected her kings, consuls, tribunes, emperors, and popes: thus
Rome during the days of Conclave appears to be attacked by a strange fever
which drives everyone to the Vatican or to Monte Cavallo, according as the
scarlet-robed assembly is held in one or the other of these two palaces: it is,
in fact, because the raising up of a new pontiff is a great event for
everybody; for, according to the average established in the period between
St. Peter and Gregory XVI, every pope lasts about eight years, and these
eight years, according to the character of the man who is elected, are a
period either of tranquillity or of disorder, of justice or of venality, of peace
or of war.
Never perhaps since the day when the first successor of St. Peter took
his seat on the, pontifical throne until the interregnum which now occurred,
had so great an agitation been shown as there was at this moment, when, as
we have shown, all these people were thronging on the Piazza of St. Peter
and in the streets which led to it. It is true that this was not without reason;
for Innocent VIII—who was called the father of his people because he had
added to his subjects eight sons and the same number of daughters—had, as
we have said, after living a life of self-indulgence, just died, after a death-
struggle during which, if the journal of Stefano Infessura may be believed,
two hundred and twenty murders were committed in the streets of Rome.
The authority had then devolved in the customary way upon the Cardinal
Camerlengo, who during the interregnum had sovereign powers; but as he
had been obliged to fulfil all the duties of his office—that is, to get money
coined in his name and bearing his arms, to take the fisherman's ring from
the finger of the dead pope, to dress, shave and paint him, to have the
corpse embalmed, to lower the coffin after nine days' obsequies into the

provisional niche where the last deceased pope has to remain until his
successor comes to take his place and consign him to his final tomb; lastly,
as he had been obliged to wall up the door of the Conclave and the window
of the balcony from which the pontifical election is proclaimed, he had not
had a single moment for busying himself with the police; so that the
assassinations had continued in goodly fashion, and there were loud cries
for an energetic hand which should make all these swords and all these
daggers retire into their sheaths.
Now the eyes of this multitude were fixed, as we have said, upon the
Vatican, and particularly upon one chimney, from which would come the
first signal, when suddenly, at the moment of the 'Ave Maria'—that is to
say, at the hour when the day begins to decline—great cries went up from
all the crowd mixed with bursts of laughter, a discordant murmur of threats
and raillery, the cause being that they had just perceived at the top of the
chimney a thin smoke, which seemed like a light cloud to go up
perpendicularly into the sky. This smoke announced that Rome was still
without a master, and that the world still had no pope; for this was the
smoke of the voting tickets which were being burned, a proof that the
cardinals had not yet come to an agreement.
Scarcely had this smoke appeared, to vanish almost immediately, when
all the innumerable crowd, knowing well that there was nothing else to wait
for, and that all was said and done until ten o'clock the next morning, the
time when the cardinals had their first voting, went off in a tumult of noisy
joking, just as they would after the last rocket of a firework display; so that
at the end of one minute nobody was there where a quarter of an hour
before there had been an excited crowd, except a few curious laggards,
who, living in the neighbourhood or on the very piazza itself; were less in a
hurry than the rest to get back to their homes; again, little by little, these last

groups insensibly diminished; for half-past nine had just struck, and at this
hour the streets of Rome began already to be far from safe; then after these
groups followed some solitary passer-by, hurrying his steps; one after
another the doors were closed, one after another the windows were
darkened; at last, when ten o'clock struck, with the single exception of one
window in the Vatican where a lamp might be seen keeping obstinate vigil,
all the houses, piazzas, and streets were plunged in the deepest obscurity.
At this moment a man wrapped in a cloak stood up like a ghost against
one of the columns of the uncompleted basilica, and gliding slowly and
carefully among the stones which were lying about round the foundations of
the new church, advanced as far as the fountain which, formed the centre of
the piazza, erected in the very place where the obelisk is now set up of
which we have spoken already; when he reached this spot he stopped,
doubly concealed by the darkness of the night and by the shade of the
monument, and after looking around him to see if he were really alone,
drew his sword, and with its point rapping three times on the pavement of
the piazza, each time made the sparks fly. This signal, for signal it was, was
not lost: the last lamp which still kept vigil in the Vatican went out, and at
the same instant an object thrown out of the window fell a few paces off
from the young man in the cloak: he, guided by the silvery sound it had
made in touching the flags, lost no time in laying his hands upon it in spite
of the darkness, and when he had it in his possession hurried quickly away.
Thus the unknown walked without turning round half-way along the
Borgo Vecchio; but there he turned to the right and took a street at the other
end of which was set up a Madonna with a lamp: he approached the light,
and drew from his pocket the object he had picked up, which was nothing
else than a Roman crown piece; but this crown unscrewed, and in a cavity
hollowed in its thickness enclosed a letter, which the man to whom it was

addressed began to read at the risk of being recognised, so great was his
haste to know what it contained.
We say at the risk of being recognised, for in his eagerness the
recipient of this nocturnal missive had thrown back the hood of his cloak;
and as his head was wholly within the luminous circle cast by the lamp, it
was easy to distinguish in the light the head of a handsome young man of
about five or six and twenty, dressed in a purple doublet slashed at the
shoulder and elbow to let the shirt come through, and wearing on his head a
cap of the same colour with a long black feather falling to his shoulder. It is
true that he did not stand there long; for scarcely had he finished the letter,
or rather the note, which he had just received in so strange and mysterious a
manner, when he replaced it in its silver receptacle, and readjusting his
cloak so as to hide all the lower part of his face, resumed his walk with a
rapid step, crossed Borgo San Spirito, and took the street of the Longara,
which he followed as far as the church of Regina Coeli. When he arrived at
this place, he gave three rapid knocks on the door of a house of good
appearance, which immediately opened; then slowly mounting the stairs he
entered a room where two women were awaiting him with an impatience so
unconcealed that both as they saw him exclaimed together:
"Well, Francesco, what news?"
"Good news, my mother; good, my sister," replied the young man,
kissing the one and giving his hand to the other. "Our father has gained
three votes to-day, but he still needs six to have the majority."
"Then is there no means of buying them?" cried the elder of the two
women, while the younger, instead of speaking, asked him with a look.
"Certainly, my mother, certainly," replied the young man; "and it is just
about that that my father has been thinking. He is giving Cardinal Orsini his
palace at Rome and his two castles of Monticello and Soriano; to Cardinal

Colanna his abbey of Subiaca; he gives Cardinal Sant' Angelo the bishopric
of Porto, with the furniture and cellar; to the Cardinal of Parma the town of
Nepi; to the Cardinal of Genoa the church of Santa Maria-in-Via-Lata; and
lastly, to Cardinal Savelli the church of Santa Maria Maggiore and the town
of Civita Castellana; as to Cardinal Ascanio-Sforza, he knows already that
the day before yesterday we sent to his house four mules laden with silver
and plate, and out of this treasure he has engaged to give five thousand
ducats to the Cardinal Patriarch of Venice."
"But how shall we get the others to know the intentions of Roderigo?"
asked the elder of the two women.
"My father has provided for everything, and proposes an easy method;
you know, my mother, with what sort of ceremonial the cardinals' dinner is
carried in."
"Yes, on a litter, in a large basket with the arms of the cardinal for
whom the meal is prepared."
"My father has bribed the bishop who examines it: to-morrow is a
feast-day; to the Cardinals Orsini, Colonna, Savelli, Sant' Angelo, and the
Cardinals of Parma and of Genoa, chickens will be sent for hot meat, and
each chicken will contain a deed of gift duly drawn up, made by me in my
father's name, of the houses, palaces, or churches which are destined for
each."
"Capital!" said the elder of the two women; "now, I am certain, all will
go well."
"And by the grace of God," added the younger, with a strangely
mocking smile, "our father will be pope."
"Oh, it will be a fine day for us!" cried Francesco.
"And for Christendom," replied his sister, with a still more ironical
expression.

"Lucrezia, Lucrezia," said the mother, "you do not deserve the
happiness which is coming to us."
"What does that matter, if it comes all the same? Besides, you know
the proverb; mother: 'Large families are blessed of the Lord'; and still more
so our family, which is so patriarchal."
At the same time she cast on her brother a look so wanton that the
young man blushed under it: but as at the moment he had to think of other
things than his illicit loves, he ordered that four servants should be
awakened; and while they were getting armed to accompany him, he drew
up and signed the six deeds of gift which were to be carried the next day to
the cardinals; for, not wishing to be seen at their houses, he thought he
would profit by the night-time to carry them himself to certain persons in
his confidence who would have them passed in, as had been arranged, at the
dinner-hour. Then, when the deeds were quite ready and the servants also,
Francesco went out with them, leaving the two women to dream golden
dreams of their future greatness.
From the first dawn of day the people hurried anew, as ardent and
interested as on the evening before, to the Piazza of the Vatican, where; at
the ordinary time, that is, at ten o'clock in the morning,—the smoke rose
again as usual, evoking laughter and murmuring, as it announced that none
of the cardinals had secured the majority. A report, however, began to be
spread about that the chances were divided between three candidates, who
were Roderigo Borgia, Giuliano dellaRovera, and Ascanio Sforza; for the
people as yet knew nothing of the four mules laden with plate and silver
which had been led to Sforza's house, by reason of which he had given up
his own votes to his rival. In the midst of the agitation excited in the crowd
by this new report a solemn chanting was heard; it proceeded from a
procession, led by the Cardinal Camerlengo, with the object of obtaining

from Heaven the speedy election of a pope: this procession, starting from
the church of Ara Coeli at the Capitol, was to make stations before the
principal Madonnas and the most frequented churches. As soon as the silver
crucifix was perceived which went in front, the most profound silence
prevailed, and everyone fell on his knees; thus a supreme calm followed the
tumult and uproar which had been heard a few minutes before, and which at
each appearance of the smoke had assumed a more threatening character:
there was a shrewd suspicion that the procession, as well as having a
religious end in view, had a political object also, and that its influence was
intended to be as great on earth as in heaven. In any case, if such had been
the design of the Cardinal Camerlengo, he had not deceived himself, and
the effect was what he desired: when the procession had gone past, the
laughing and joking continued, but the cries and threats had completely
ceased.
The whole day passed thus; for in Rome nobody works. You are either
a cardinal or a lacquey, and you live, nobody knows how. The crowd was
still extremely numerous, when, towards two o'clock in the afternoon,
another procession, which had quite as much power of provoking noise as
the first of imposing silence, traversed in its turn the Piazza of St. Peter's:
this was the dinner procession. The people received it with the usual bursts
of laughter, without suspecting, for all their irreverence, that this
procession, more efficacious than the former, had just settled the election of
the new pope.
The hour of the Ave Maria came as on the evening before; but, as on
the evening before, the waiting of the whole day was lost; for, as half-past
eight struck, the daily smoke reappeared at the top of the chimney. But
when at the same moment rumours which came from the inside of the
Vatican were spread abroad, announcing that, in all probability, the election

would take place the next day, the good people preserved their patience.
Besides, it had been very hot that day, and they were so broken with fatigue
and roasted by the sun, these dwellers in shade and idleness, that they had
no strength left to complain.
The morning of the next day, which was the 11th of August, 1492,
arose stormy and dark; this did not hinder the multitude from thronging the
piazzas, streets, doors, houses, churches. Moreover, this disposition of the
weather was a real blessing from Heaven; for if there were heat, at least
there would be no sun. Towards nine o'clock threatening storm-clouds were
heaped up over all the Trastevere; but to this crowd what mattered rain,
lightning, or thunder? They were preoccupied with a concern of a very
different nature; they were waiting for their pope: a promise had been made
them for to-day, and it could be seen by the manner of all, that if the day
should pass without any election taking place, the end of it might very well
be a riot; therefore, in proportion as the time advanced, the agitation grew
greater. Nine o'clock, half-past nine, a quarter to ten struck, without
anything happening to confirm or destroy their hopes. At last the first stroke
of ten was heard; all eyes turned towards the chimney: ten o'clock struck
slowly, each stroke vibrating in the heart of the multitude. At last the tenth
stroke trembled, then vanished shuddering into space, and, a great cry
breaking simultaneously from a hundred thousand breasts followed the
silence "Non v'e fumo! There is no smoke!" In other words, "We have a
pope."
At this moment the rain began to fall; but no one paid any attention to
it, so great were the transports of joy and impatience among all the people.
At last a little stone was detached from the walled window which gave on
the balcony and upon which all eyes were fixed: a general shout saluted its

fall; little by little the aperture grew larger, and in a few minutes it was large
enough to allow a man to come out on the balcony.
The Cardinal Ascanio Sforza appeared; but at the moment when he
was on the point of coming out, frightened by the rain and the lightning, he
hesitated an instant, and finally drew back: immediately the multitude in
their turn broke out like a tempest into cries, curses, howls, threatening to
tear down the Vatican and to go and seek their pope themselves. At this
noise Cardinal Sforza, more terrified by the popular storm than by the storm
in the heavens, advanced on the balcony, and between two thunderclaps, in
a moment of silence astonishing to anyone who had just heard the clamour
that went before, made the following proclamation:
"I announce to you a great joy: the most Eminent and most Reverend
Signor Roderigo Lenzuolo Borgia, Archbishop of Valencia, Cardinal-
Deacon of San Nicolao-in-Carcere, Vice-Chancellor of the Church, has now
been elected Pope, and has assumed the name of Alexander VI."
The news of this nomination was received with strange joy. Roderigo
Borgia had the reputation of a dissolute man, it is true, but libertinism had
mounted the throne with Sixtus IV and Innocent VIII, so that for the
Romans there was nothing new in the singular situation of a pope with a
mistress and five children. The great thing for the moment was that the
power fell into strong hands; and it was more important for the tranquillity
of Rome that the new pope inherited the sword of St. Paul than that he
inherited the keys of St. Peter.
And so, in the feasts that were given on this occasion, the dominant
character was much more warlike than religious, and would have appeared
rather to suit with the election of some young conqueror than the exaltation
of an old pontiff: there was no limit to the pleasantries and prophetic
epigrams on the name of Alexander, which for the second time seemed to

promise the Romans the empire of the world; and the same evening, in the
midst of brilliant illuminations and bonfires, which seemed to turn the town
into a lake of flame, the following epigram was read, amid the acclamation
of the people:

"Rome under Caesar's rule in ancient story
At home and o'er the world victorious trod;
But Alexander still extends his glory:
Caesar was man, but Alexander God."

As to the new pope, scarcely had he completed the formalities of etiquette
which his exaltation imposed upon him, and paid to each man the price of
his simony, when from the height of the Vatican he cast his eyes upon
Europe, a vast political game of chess, which he cherished the hope of
directing at the will of his own genius.

CHAPTER II

The world had now arrived at one of those supreme moments of history
when every thing is transformed between the end of one period and the
beginning of another: in the East Turkey, in the South Spain, in the West
France, and in the North German, all were going to assume, together with
the title of great Powers, that influence which they were destined to exert in
the future over the secondary States. Accordingly we too, with Alexander
VI, will cast a rapid glance over them, and see what were their respective
situations in regard to Italy, which they all coveted as a prize.
Constantine, Palaeologos Dragozes, besieged by three hundred
thousand Turks, after having appealed in vain for aid to the whole of
Christendom, had not been willing to survive the loss of his empire, and had
been found in the midst of the dead, close to the Tophana Gate; and on the
30th of May, 1453, Mahomet II had made his entry into Constantinople,
where, after a reign which had earned for him the surname of 'Fatile', or the
Conqueror, he had died leaving two sons, the elder of whom had ascended
the throne under the name of Bajazet II.
The accession of the new sultan, however, had not taken place with the
tranquillity which his right as elder brother and his father's choice of him
should have promised. His younger brother, D'jem, better known under the
name of Zizimeh, had argued that whereas he was born in the purple—that
is, born during the reign of Mahomet—Bajazet was born prior to his epoch,
and was therefore the son of a private individual. This was rather a poor

trick; but where force is all and right is naught, it was good enough to stir
up a war. The two brothers, each at the head of an army, met accordingly in
Asia in 1482. D'jem was defeated after a seven hours' fight, and pursued by
his brother, who gave him no time to rally his army: he was obliged to
embark from Cilicia, and took refuge in Rhodes, where he implored the
protection of the Knights of St. John. They, not daring to give him an
asylum in their island so near to Asia, sent him to France, where they had
him carefully guarded in one of their commanderies, in spite of the urgency
of Cait Bey, Sultan of Egypt, who, having revolted against Bajazet, desired
to have the young prince in his army to give his rebellion the appearance of
legitimate warfare. The same demand, moreover, with the same political
object, had been made successively by Mathias Corvinus, King of Hungary,
by Ferdinand, King of Aragon and Sicily, and by Ferdinand, King of
Naples.
On his side Bajazet, who knew all the importance of such a rival, if he
once allied himself with any one of the princes with whom he was at war,
had sent ambassadors to Charles VIII, offering, if he would consent to keep
D'jem with him, to give him a considerable pension, and to give to France
the sovereignty of the Holy Land, so soon as Jerusalem should be
conquered by the Sultan of Egypt. The King of France had accepted these
terms.
But then Innocent VIII had intervened, and in his turn had claimed
D'jem, ostensibly to give support by the claims of the refugee to a crusade
which he was preaching against the Turks, but in reality to appropriate the
pension of 40,000 ducats to be given by Bajazet to any one of the Christian
princes who would undertake to be his brother's gaoler. Charles VIII had
not dared to refuse to the spiritual head of Christendom a request supported
by such holy reasons; and therefore D'jem had quitted France, accompanied

by the Grand Master d'Aubusson, under whose direct charge he was; but his
guardian had consented, for the sake of a cardinal's hat, to yield up his
prisoner. Thus, on the 13th of March, 1489, the unhappy young man,
cynosure of so many interested eyes, made his solemn entry into Rome,
mounted on a superb horse, clothed in a magnificent oriental costume,
between the Prior of Auvergne, nephew of the Grand Master d'Aubusson,
and Francesco Cibo, the son of the pope.
After this he had remained there, and Bajazet, faithful to promises
which it was so much his interest to fulfil, had punctually paid to the
sovereign pontiff a pension of 40,000 ducats.
So much for Turkey.
Ferdinand and Isabella were reigning in Spain, and were laying the
foundations of that vast power which was destined, five-and-twenty years
later, to make Charles V declare that the sun never set on his dominions. In
fact, these two sovereigns, on whom history has bestowed the name of
Catholic, had reconquered in succession nearly all Spain, and driven the
Moors out of Granada, their last entrenchment; while two men of genius,
Bartolome Diaz and Christopher Columbus, had succeeded, much to the
profit of Spain, the one in recovering a lost world, the other in conquering a
world yet unknown. They had accordingly, thanks to their victories in the
ancient world and their discoveries in the new, acquired an influence at the
court of Rome which had never been enjoyed by any of their predecessors.
So much for Spain.
In France, Charles VIII had succeeded his father, Louis XI, on the 30th
of August, 1483. Louis by dint of executions, had tranquillised his kingdom
and smoothed the way for a child who ascended the throne under the
regency of a woman. And the regency had been a glorious one, and had put
down the pretensions of princes of the blood, put an end to civil wars, and

united to the crown all that yet remained of the great independent fiefs. The
result was that at the epoch where we now are, here was Charles VIII, about
twenty-two years of age, a prince (if we are to believe La Tremouille) little
of body but great of heart; a child (if we are to believe Commines) only
now making his first flight from the nest, destitute of both sense and money,
feeble in person, full of self-will, and consorting rather with fools than with
the wise; lastly, if we are to believe Guicciardini, who was an Italian, might
well have brought a somewhat partial judgment to bear upon the subject, a
young man of little wit concerning the actions of men, but carried away by
an ardent desire for rule and the acquisition of glory, a desire based far more
on his shallow character and impetuosity than on any consciousness of
genius: he was an enemy to all fatigue and all business, and when he tried
to give his attention to it he showed himself always totally wanting in
prudence and judgment. If anything in him appeared at first sight to be
worthy of praise, on a closer inspection it was found to be something nearer
akin to vice than to virtue. He was liberal, it is true, but without thought,
with no measure and no discrimination. He was sometimes inflexible in
will; but this was through obstinacy rather than a constant mind; and what
his flatterers called goodness deserved far more the name of insensibility to
injuries or poverty of spirit.
As to his physical appearance, if we are to believe the same author, it
was still less admirable, and answered marvellously to his weakness of
mind and character. He was small, with a large head, a short thick neck,
broad chest, and high shoulders; his thighs and legs were long and thin; and
as his face also was ugly—and was only redeemed by the dignity and force
of his glance—and all his limbs were disproportionate with one another, he
had rather the appearance of a monster than a man. Such was he whom

Fortune was destined to make a conqueror, for whom Heaven was reserving
more glory than he had power to carry.
So much for France.
The Imperial throne was occupied by Frederic III, who had been
rightly named the Peaceful, not for the reason that he had always
maintained peace, but because, having constantly been beaten, he had
always been forced to make it. The first proof he had given of this very
philosophical forbearance was during his journey to Rome, whither he
betook himself to be consecrated. In crossing the Apennines he was
attacked by brigands. They robbed him, but he made no pursuit. And so,
encouraged by example and by the impunity of lesser thieves, the greater
ones soon took part in the robberies. Amurath seized part of Hungary.
Mathias Corvinus took Lower Austria, and Frederic consoled himself for
these usurpations by repeating the maxim, Forgetfulness is the best cure for
the losses we suffer. At the time we have now reached, he had just, after a
reign of fifty-three years, affianced his son Maximilian to Marie of
Burgundy and had put under the ban of the Empire his son-in-law, Albert of
Bavaria, who laid claim to the ownership of the Tyrol. He was therefore too
full of his family affairs to be troubled about Italy. Besides, he was busy
looking for a motto for the house of Austria, an occupation of the highest
importance for a man of the character of Frederic III. This motto, which
Charles V was destined almost to render true, was at last discovered, to the
great joy of the old emperor, who, judging that he had nothing more to do
on earth after he had given this last proof of sagacity, died on the 19th of
August, 1493; leaving the empire to his son Maximilian.
This motto was simply founded on the five vowels, a, e, i, o, u, the
initial letters of these five words

"AUSTRIAE EST IMPERARE ORBI UNIVERSO."

This means
"It is the destiny of Austria to rule over the whole world."
So much for Germany.
Now that we have cast a glance over the four nations which were on
the way, as we said before, to become European Powers, let us turn our
attention to those secondary States which formed a circle more contiguous
to Rome, and whose business it was to serve as armour, so to speak, to the
spiritual queen of the world, should it please any of these political giants
whom we have described to make encroachments with a view to an attack,
on the seas or the mountains, the Adriatic Gulf or the Alps, the
Mediterranean or the Apennines.
These were the kingdom of Naples, the duchy of Milan, the
magnificent republic of Florence, and the most serene republic of Venice.
The kingdom of Naples was in the hands of the old Ferdinand, whose
birth was not only illegitimate, but probably also well within the prohibited
degrees. His father, Alfonso of Aragon, received his crown from Giovanna
of Naples, who had adopted him as her successor. But since, in the fear of
having no heir, the queen on her deathbed had named two instead of one,
Alfonso had to sustain his rights against Rene. The two aspirants for some
time disputed the crown. At last the house of Aragon carried the day over
the house of Anjou, and in the course of the year 1442, Alfonso definitely
secured his seat on the throne. Of this sort were the claims of the defeated
rival which we shall see Charles VIII maintaining later on. Ferdinand had
neither the courage nor the genius of his father, and yet he triumphed over
his enemies, one after another he had two rivals, both for superior in merit
to him self. The one was his nephew, the Count of Viana, who, basing his

claim on his uncle's shameful birth, commanded the whole Aragonese party;
the other was Duke John of Calabria, who commanded the whole Angevin
party. Still he managed to hold the two apart, and to keep himself on the
throne by dint of his prudence, which often verged upon duplicity. He had a
cultivated mind, and had studied the sciences—above all, law. He was of
middle height, with a large handsome head, his brow open and admirably
framed in beautiful white hair, which fell nearly down to his shoulders.
Moreover, though he had rarely exercised his physical strength in arms, this
strength was so great that one day, when he happened to be on the square of
the Mercato Nuovo at Naples, he seized by the horns a bull that had escaped
and stopped him short, in spite of all the efforts the animal made to escape
from his hands. Now the election of Alexander had caused him great
uneasiness, and in spite of his usual prudence he had not been able to
restrain himself from saying before the bearer of the news that not only did
he fail to rejoice in this election, but also that he did not think that any
Christian could rejoice in it, seeing that Borgia, having always been a bad
man, would certainly make a bad pope. To this he added that, even were the
choice an excellent one and such as would please everybody else, it would
be none the less fatal to the house of Aragon, although Roderigo was born
her subject and owed to her the origin and progress of his fortunes; for
wherever reasons of state come in, the ties of blood and parentage are soon
forgotten, and, 'a fortiori', relations arising from the obligations of
nationality.
Thus, one may see that Ferdinand judged Alexander VI with his usual
perspicacity; this, however, did not hinder him, as we shall soon perceive,
from being the first to contract an alliance with him.
The duchy of Milan belonged nominally to John Galeazzo, grandson
of Francesco Sforza, who had seized it by violence on the 26th of February,

1450, and bequeathed it to his son, Galeazzo Maria, father of the young
prince now reigning; we say nominally, because the real master of the
Milanese was at this period not the legitimate heir who was supposed to
possess it, but his uncle Ludovico, surnamed 'il Moro', because of the
mulberry tree which he bore in his arms. After being exiled with his two
brothers, Philip who died of poison in 1479, and Ascanio who became the
cardinal, he returned to Milan some days after the assassination of Galeazzo
Maria, which took place on the 26th of December 1476, in St. Stephen's
Church, and assumed the regency for the young duke, who at that time was
only eight years old. From now onward, even after his nephew had reached
the age of two-and-twenty, Ludovico continued to rule, and according to all
probabilities was destined to rule a long time yet; for, some days after the
poor young man had shown a desire to take the reins himself, he had fallen
sick, and it was said, and not in a whisper, that he had taken one of those
slow but mortal poisons of which princes made so frequent a use at this
period, that, even when a malady was natural, a cause was always sought
connected with some great man's interests. However it may have been,
Ludovico had relegated his nephew, now too weak to busy himself
henceforward with the affairs of his duchy, to the castle of Pavia, where he
lay and languished under the eyes of his wife Isabella, daughter of King
Ferdinand of Naples.
As to Ludovico, he was an ambitious man, full of courage and
astuteness, familiar with the sword and with poison, which he used
alternately, according to the occasion, without feeling any repugnance or
any predilection for either of them; but quite decided to be his nephew's heir
whether he died or lived.
Florence, although she had preserved the name of a republic, had little
by little lost all her liberties, and belonged in fact, if not by right, to Piero

dei Medici, to whom she had been bequeathed as a paternal legacy by
Lorenzo, as we have seen, at the risk of his soul's salvation.
The son, unfortunately, was far from having the genius of his father: he
was handsome, it is true, whereas Lorenzo, on the contrary, was remarkably
ugly; he had an agreeable, musical voice, whereas Lorenzo had always
spoken through his nose; he was instructed in Latin and Greek, his
conversation was pleasant and easy, and he improvised verses almost as
well as the so-called Magnificent; but he was both ignorant of political
affairs and haughtily insolent in his behaviour to those who had made them
their study. Added to this, he was an ardent lover of pleasure, passionately
addicted to women, incessantly occupied with bodily exercises that should
make him shine in their eyes, above all with tennis, a game at which he very
highly excelled: he promised himself that, when the period of mourning
was fast, he would occupy the attention not only of Florence but of the
whole of Italy, by the splendour of his courts and the renown of his fetes.
Piero dei Medici had at any rate formed this plan; but Heaven decreed
otherwise.
As to the most serene republic of Venice, whose doge was Agostino
Barbarigo, she had attained, at the time we have reached, to her highest
degree of power and splendour. From Cadiz to the Palus Maeotis, there was
no port that was not open to her thousand ships; she possessed in Italy,
beyond the coastline of the canals and the ancient duchy of Venice, the
provinces of Bergamo, Brescia, Crema, Verona, Vicenza, and Padua; she
owned the marches of Treviso, which comprehend the districts of Feltre,
Belluno, Cadore, Polesella of Rovigo, and the principality of Ravenna; she
also owned the Friuli, except Aquileia; Istria, except Trieste; she owned, on
the east side of the Gulf, Zara, Spalatra, and the shore of Albania; in the
Ionian Sea, the islands of Zante and Corfu; in Greece, Lepanto and Patras;

in the Morea, Morone, Corone, Neapolis, and Argos; lastly, in the
Archipelago, besides several little towns and stations on the coast, she
owned Candia and the kingdom of Cyprus.
Thus from the mouth of the Po to the eastern extremity of the
Mediterranean, the most serene republic was mistress of the whole
coastline, and Italy and Greece seemed to be mere suburbs of Venice.
In the intervals of space left free between Naples, Milan, Florence, and
Venice, petty tyrants had arisen who exercised an absolute sovereignty over
their territories: thus the Colonnas were at Ostia and at Nettuna, the
Montefeltri at Urbino, the Manfredi at Faenza, the Bentivogli at Bologna,
the Malatesta family at Rimini, the Vitelli at Citta di Castello, the Baglioni
at Perugia, the Orsini at Vicovaro, and the princes of Este at Ferrara.
Finally, in the centre of this immense circle, composed of great
Powers, of secondary States, and of little tyrannies, Rome was set on high,
the most exalted, yet the weakest of all, without influence, without lands,
without an army, without gold. It was the concern of the new pope to secure
all this: let us see, therefore, what manner of man was this Alexander VI,
for undertaking and accomplishing such a project.

CHAPTER III

RODERIGO LENZUOLO was born at Valencia, in Spain, in 1430 or
1431, and on his mother's side was descended, as some writers declare, of a
family of royal blood, which had cast its eyes on the tiara only after
cherishing hopes of the crowns of Aragon and Valencia. Roderigo from his
infancy had shown signs of a marvellous quickness of mind, and as he grew
older he exhibited an intelligence extremely apt for the study of sciences,
especially law and jurisprudence: the result was that his first distinctions
were gained in the law, a profession wherein he soon made a great
reputation by his ability in the discussion of the most thorny cases. All the
same, he was not slow to leave this career, and abandoned it quite suddenly
for the military profession, which his father had followed; but after various
actions which served to display his presence of mind and courage, he was
as much disgusted with this profession as with the other; and since it
happened that at the very time he began to feel this disgust his father died,
leaving a considerable fortune, he resolved to do no more work, but to live
according to his own fancies and caprices. About this time he became the
lover of a widow who had two daughters. The widow dying, Roderigo took
the girls under his protection, put one into a convent, and as the other was
one of the loveliest women imaginable, made her his mistress. This was the
notorious Rosa Vanozza, by whom he had five children—Francesco,
Caesar, Lucrezia, and Goffredo; the name of the fifth is unknown.

Roderigo, retired from public affairs, was given up entirely to the
affections of a lover and a father, when he heard that his uncle, who loved
him like a son, had been elected pope under the name of Calixtus III. But
the young man was at this time so much a lover that love imposed silence
on ambition; and indeed he was almost terrified at the exaltation of his
uncle, which was no doubt destined to force him once more into public life.
Consequently, instead of hurrying to Rome, as anyone else in his place
would have done, he was content to indite to His Holiness a letter in which
he begged for the continuation of his favours, and wished him a long and
happy reign.
This reserve on the part of one of his relatives, contrasted with the
ambitious schemes which beset the new pope at every step, struck Calixtus
III in a singular way: he knew the stuff that was in young Roderigo, and at a
time when he was besieged on all sides by mediocrities, this powerful
nature holding modestly aside gained new grandeur in his eyes so he replied
instantly to Roderigo that on the receipt of his letter he must quit Spain for
Italy, Valencia for Rome.
This letter uprooted Roderigo from the centre of happiness he had
created for himself, and where he might perhaps have slumbered on like an
ordinary man, if fortune had not thus interposed to drag him forcibly away.
Roderigo was happy, Roderigo was rich; the evil passions which were
natural to him had been, if not extinguished,—at least lulled; he was
frightened himself at the idea of changing the quiet life he was leading for
the ambitious, agitated career that was promised him; and instead of
obeying his uncle, he delayed the preparations for departure, hoping that
Calixtus would forget him. It was not so: two months after he received the
letter from the pope, there arrived at Valencia a prelate from Rome, the
bearer of Roderigo's nomination to a benefice worth 20,000 ducats a year,

and also a positive order to the holder of the post to come and take
possession of his charge as soon as possible.
Holding back was no longer feasible: so Roderigo obeyed; but as he
did not wish to be separated from the source whence had sprung eight years
of happiness, Rosa Vanozza also left Spain, and while he was going to
Rome, she betook herself to Venice, accompanied by two confidential
servants, and under the protection of a Spanish gentleman named Manuel
Melchior.
Fortune kept the promises she had made to Roderigo: the pope
received him as a son, and made him successively Archbishop of Valencia,
Cardinal-Deacon, and Vice-Chancellor. To all these favours Calixtus added
a revenue of 20,000 ducats, so that at the age of scarcely thirty-five
Roderigo found himself the equal of a prince in riches and power.
Roderigo had had some reluctance about accepting the cardinalship,
which kept him fast at Rome, and would have preferred to be General of the
Church, a position which would have allowed him more liberty for seeing
his mistress and his family; but his uncle Calixtus made him reckon with
the possibility of being his successor some day, and from that moment the
idea of being the supreme head of kings and nations took such hold of
Roderigo, that he no longer had any end in view but that which his uncle
had made him entertain.
From that day forward, there began to grow up in the young cardinal
that talent for hypocrisy which made of him the most perfect incarnation of
the devil that has perhaps ever existed; and Roderigo was no longer the
same man: with words of repentance and humility on his lips, his head
bowed as though he were bearing the weight of his past sins, disparaging
the riches which he had acquired and which, according to him, were the
wealth of the poor and ought to return to the poor, he passed his life in

churches, monasteries, and hospitals, acquiring, his historian tells us, even
in the eyes of his enemies, the reputation of a Solomon for wisdom, of a Job
for patience, and of a very Moses for his promulgation of the word of God:
Rosa Vanozza was the only person in the world who could appreciate the
value of this pious cardinal's conversion.
It proved a lucky thing for Roderigo that he had assumed this pious
attitude, for his protector died after a reign of three years three months and
nineteen days, and he was now sustained by his own merit alone against the
numerous enemies he had made by his rapid rise to fortune: so during the
whole of the reign of Pius II he lived always apart from public affairs, and
only reappeared in the days of Sixtus IV, who made him the gift of the
abbacy of Subiaco, and sent him in the capacity of ambassador to the kings
of Aragon and Portugal. On his return, which took place during the
pontificate of Innocent VIII, he decided to fetch his family at last to Rome:
thither they came, escorted by Don Manuel Melchior, who from that
moment passed as the husband of Rosa Vanozza, and took the name of
Count Ferdinand of Castile. The Cardinal Roderigo received the noble
Spaniard as a countryman and a friend; and he, who expected to lead a most
retired life, engaged a house in the street of the Lungara, near the church of
Regina Coeli, on the banks of the Tiber. There it was that, after passing the
day in prayers and pious works, Cardinal Roderigo used to repair each
evening and lay aside his mask. And it was said, though nobody could
prove it, that in this house infamous scenes passed: Report said the
dissipations were of so dissolute a character that their equals had never been
seen in Rome. With a view to checking the rumours that began to spread
abroad, Roderigo sent Caesar to study at Pisa, and married Lucrezia to a
young gentleman of Aragon; thus there only remained at home Rosa

Vanozza and her two sons: such was the state of things when Innocent VIII
died and Roderigo Borgia was proclaimed pope.
We have seen by what means the nomination was effected; and so the
five cardinals who had taken no part in this simony—namely, the Cardinals
of Naples, Sierra, Portugal, Santa Maria-in-Porticu, and St. Peter-in-
Vinculis—protested loudly against this election, which they treated as a
piece of jobbery; but Roderigo had none the less, however it was done,
secured his majority; Roderigo was none the less the two hundred and
sixtieth successor of St. Peter.
Alexander VI, however, though he had arrived at his object, did not
dare throw off at first the mask which the Cardinal Borgia had worn so
long, although when he was apprised of his election he could not
dissimulate his joy; indeed, on hearing the favourable result of the scrutiny,
he lifted his hands to heaven and cried, in the accents of satisfied ambition,
"Am I then pope? Am I then Christ's vicar? Am I then the keystone of the
Christian world?"
"Yes, holy father," replied Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, the same who had
sold to Roderigo the nine votes that were at his disposal at the Conclave for
four mules laden with silver; "and we hope by your election to give glory to
God, repose to the Church, and joy to Christendom, seeing that you have
been chosen by the Almighty Himself as the most worthy among all your
brethren."
But in the short interval occupied by this reply, the new pope had
already assumed the papal authority, and in a humble voice and with hands
crossed upon his breast, he spoke:
"We hope that God will grant us His powerful aid, in spite of our
weakness, and that He will do for us that which He did for the apostle when
aforetime He put into his hands the keys of heaven and entrusted to him the

government of the Church, a government which without the aid of God
would prove too heavy a burden for mortal man; but God promised that His
Spirit should direct him; God will do the same, I trust, for us; and for your
part we fear not lest any of you fail in that holy obedience which is due unto
the head of the Church, even as the flock of Christ was bidden to follow the
prince of the apostles."
Having spoken these words, Alexander donned the pontifical robes,
and through the windows of the Vatican had strips of paper thrown out on
which his name was written in Latin. These, blown by the wind, seemed to
convey to the whole world the news of the great event which was about to
change the face of Italy. The same day couriers started for all the courts of
Europe.
Caesar Borgia learned the news of his father's election at the
University of Pisa, where he was a student. His ambition had sometimes
dreamed of such good fortune, yet his joy was little short of madness. He
was then a young man, about twenty-two or twenty-four years of age,
skilful in all bodily exercises, and especially in fencing; he could ride
barebacked the most fiery steeds, could cut off the head of a bull at a single
sword-stroke; moreover, he was arrogant, jealous, and insincere. According
to Tammasi, he was great among the godless, as his brother Francesco was
good among the great. As to his face, even contemporary authors have left
utterly different descriptions; for same have painted him as a monster of
ugliness, while others, on the contrary, extol his beauty. This contradiction
is due to the fact that at certain times of the year, and especially in the
spring, his face was covered with an eruption which, so long as it lasted,
made him an object of horror and disgust, while all the rest of the year he
was the sombre, black-haired cavalier with pale skin and tawny beard
whom Raphael shows us in the fine portrait he made of him. And historians,

both chroniclers and painters, agree as to his fixed and powerful gaze,
behind which burned a ceaseless flame, giving to his face something
infernal and superhuman. Such was the man whose fortune was to fulfil all
his desires. He had taken for his motto, 'Aut Caesar, aut nihil': Caesar or
nothing.
Caesar posted to Rome with certain of his friends, and scarcely was he
recognised at the gates of the city when the deference shown to him gave
instant proof of the change in his fortunes: at the Vatican the respect was
twice as great; mighty men bowed down before him as before one mightier
than themselves. And so, in his impatience, he stayed not to visit his mother
or any other member of his family, but went straight to the pope to kiss his
feet; and as the pope had been forewarned of his coming, he awaited him in
the midst of a brilliant and numerous assemblage of cardinals, with the
three other brothers standing behind him. His Holiness received Caesar with
a gracious countenance; still, he did not allow himself any demonstration of
his paternal love, but, bending towards him, kissed him on the forehead,
and inquired how he was and how he had fared on his journey. Caesar
replied that he was wonderfully well, and altogether at the service of His
Holiness: that, as to the journey, the trifling inconveniences and short
fatigue had been compensated, and far more than compensated, by the joy
which he felt in being able to adore upon the papal throne a pope who was
so worthy. At these words, leaving Caesar still on his knees, and reseating
himself—for he had risen from his seat to embrace him—the pope assumed
a grave and composed expression of face, and spoke as follows, loud
enough to be heard by all, and slowly enough for everyone present to be
able to ponder and retain in his memory even the least of his words:
"We are convinced, Caesar, that you are peculiarly rejoiced in
beholding us on this sublime height, so far above our deserts, whereto it has

pleased the Divine goodness to exalt us. This joy of yours is first of all our
due because of the love we have always borne you and which we bear you
still, and in the second place is prompted by your own personal interest,
since henceforth you may feel sure of receiving from our pontifical hand
those benefits which your own good works shall deserve. But if your joy—
and this we say to you as we have even now said to your brothers—if your
joy is founded on ought else than this, you are very greatly mistaken,
Caesar, and you will find yourself sadly deceived. Perhaps we have been
ambitious—we confess this humbly before the face of all men—
passionately and immoderately ambitious to attain to the dignity of
sovereign pontiff, and to reach this end we have followed every path that is
open to human industry; but we have acted thus, vowing an inward vow
that when once we had reached our goal, we would follow no other path but
that which conduces best to the service of God and to the advancement of
the Holy See, so that the glorious memory of the deeds that we shall do may
efface the shameful recollection of the deeds we have already done. Thus
shall we, let us hope, leave to those who follow us a track where upon if
they find not the footsteps of a saint, they may at least tread in the path of a
true pontiff. God, who has furthered the means, claims at our hands the
fruits, and we desire to discharge to the full this mighty debt that we have
incurred to Him; and accordingly we refuse to arouse by any deceit the
stern rigour of His judgments. One sole hindrance could have power to
shake our good intentions, and that might happen should we feel too keen
an interest in your fortunes. Therefore are we armed beforehand against our
love, and therefore have we prayed to God beforehand that we stumble not
because of you; for in the path of favouritism a pope cannot slip without a
fall, and cannot fall without injury and dishonour to the Holy See. Even to
the end of our life we shall deplore the faults which have brought this

experience home to us; and may it please God that our uncle Calixtus of
blessed memory bear not this day in purgatory the burden of our sins, more
heavy, alas, than his own! Ah, he was rich in every virtue, he was full of
good intentions; but he loved too much his own people, and among them he
loved me chief. And so he suffered this love to lead him blindly astray, all
this love that he bore to his kindred, who to him were too truly flesh of his
flesh, so that he heaped upon the heads of a few persons only, and those
perhaps the least worthy, benefits which would more fittingly have
rewarded the deserts of many. In truth, he bestowed upon our house
treasures that should never have been amassed at the expense of the poor, or
else should have been turned to a better purpose. He severed from the
ecclesiastical State, already weak and poor, the duchy of Spoleto and other
wealthy properties, that he might make them fiefs to us; he confided to our
weak hands the vice-chancellorship, the vice-prefecture of Rome, the
generalship of the Church, and all the other most important offices, which,
instead of being monopolised by us, should have been conferred on those
who were most meritorious. Moreover, there were persons who were raised
on our recommendation to posts of great dignity, although they had no
claims but such as our undue partiality accorded them; others were left out
with no reason for their failure except the jealousy excited in us by their
virtues. To rob Ferdinand of Aragon of the kingdom of Naples, Calixtus
kindled a terrible war, which by a happy issue only served to increase our
fortune, and by an unfortunate issue must have brought shame and disaster
upon the Holy See. Lastly, by allowing himself to be governed by men who
sacrificed public good to their private interests, he inflicted an injury, not
only upon the pontifical throne and his own reputation, but what is far
worse, far more deadly, upon his own conscience. And yet, O wise
judgments of God! hard and incessantly though he toiled to establish our

fortunes, scarcely had he left empty that supreme seat which we occupy to-
day, when we were cast down from the pinnacle whereon we had climbed,
abandoned to the fury of the rabble and the vindictive hatred of the Roman
barons, who chose to feel offended by our goodness to their enemies. Thus,
not only, we tell you, Caesar, not only did we plunge headlong from the
summit of our grandeur, losing the worldly goods and dignities which our
uncle had heaped at our feet, but for very peril of our life we were
condemned to a voluntary exile, we and our friends, and in this way only
did we contrive to escape the storm which our too good fortune had stirred
up against us. Now this is a plain proof that God mocks at men's designs
when they are bad ones. How great an error is it for any pope to devote
more care to the welfare of a house, which cannot last more than a few
years, than to the glory of the Church, which will last for ever! What utter
folly for any public man whose position is not inherited and cannot be
bequeathed to his posterity, to support the edifice of his grandeur on any
other basis than the noblest virtue practised for the general good, and to
suppose that he can ensure the continuance of his own fortune otherwise
than by taking all precautions against sudden whirlwinds which are want to
arise in the midst of a calm, and to blow up the storm-clouds I mean the
host of enemies. Now any one of these enemies who does his worst can
cause injuries far more powerful than any help that is at all likely to come
from a hundred friends and their lying promises. If you and your brothers
walk in the path of virtue which we shall now open for you, every wish of
your heart shall be instantly accomplished; but if you take the other path, if
you have ever hoped that our affection will wink at disorderly life, then you
will very soon find out that we are truly pope, Father of the Church, not
father of the family; that, vicar of Christ as we are, we shall act as we deem
best for Christendom, and not as you deem best for your own private good.

And now that we have come to a thorough understanding, Caesar, receive
our pontifical blessing." And with these words, Alexander VI rose up, laid
his hands upon his son's head, for Caesar was still kneeling, and then retired
into his apartments, without inviting him to follow.
The young man remained awhile stupefied at this discourse, so utterly
unexpected, so utterly destructive at one fell blow to his most cherished
hopes. He rose giddy and staggering like a drunken man, and at once
leaving the Vatican, hurried to his mother, whom he had forgotten before,
but sought now in his despair. Rosa Vanozza possessed all the vices and all
the virtues of a Spanish courtesan; her devotion to the Virgin amounted to
superstition, her fondness for her children to weakness, and her love for
Roderigo to sensuality. In the depth of her heart she relied on the influence
she had been able to exercise over him for nearly thirty years; and like a
snake, she knew how to envelop him in her coils when the fascination of
her glance had lost its power. Rosa knew of old the profound hypocrisy of
her lover, and thus she was in no difficulty about reassuring Caesar.
Lucrezia was with her mother when Caesar arrived; the two young
people exchanged a lover-like kiss beneath her very eyes: and before he left
Caesar had made an appointment for the same evening with Lucrezia, who
was now living apart from her husband, to whom Roderigo paid a pension
in her palace of the Via del Pelegrino, opposite the Campo dei Fiori, and
there enjoying perfect liberty.
In the evening, at the hour fixed, Caesar appeared at Lucrezia's; but he
found there his brother Francesco. The two young men had never been
friends. Still, as their tastes were very different, hatred with Francesco was
only the fear of the deer for the hunter; but with Caesar it was the desire for
vengeance and that lust for blood which lurks perpetually in the heart of a
tiger. The two brothers none the less embraced, one from general kindly

feeling, the other from hypocrisy; but at first sight of one another the
sentiment of a double rivalry, first in their father's and then in their sister's
good graces, had sent the blood mantling to the cheek of Francesco, and
called a deadly pallor into Caesar's. So the two young men sat on, each
resolved not to be the first to leave, when all at once there was a knock at
the door, and a rival was announced before whom both of them were bound
to give way: it was their father.
Rosa Vanazza was quite right in comforting Caesar. Indeed, although
Alexander VI had repudiated the abuses of nepotism, he understood very
well the part that was to be played for his benefit by his sons and his
daughter; for he knew he could always count on Lucrezia and Caesar, if not
on Francesco and Goffredo. In these matters the sister was quite worthy of
her brother. Lucrezia was wanton in imagination, godless by nature,
ambitious and designing: she had a craving for pleasure, admiration,
honours, money, jewels, gorgeous stuffs, and magnificent mansions. A true
Spaniard beneath her golden tresses, a courtesan beneath her frank looks,
she carried the head of a Raphael Madonna, and concealed the heart of a
Messalina. She was dear to Roderigo both as daughter and as mistress, and
he saw himself reflected in her as in a magic mirror, every passion and
every vice. Lucrezia and Caesar were accordingly the best beloved of his
heart, and the three composed that diabolical trio which for eleven years
occupied the pontifical throne, like a mocking parody of the heavenly
Trinity.
Nothing occurred at first to give the lie to Alexander's professions of
principle in the discourse he addressed to Caesar, and the first year of his
pontificate exceeded all the hopes of Rome at the time of his election. He
arranged for the provision of stores in the public granaries with such
liberality, that within the memory of man there had never been such

astonishing abundance; and with a view to extending the general prosperity
to the lowest class, he organised numerous doles to be paid out of his
private fortune, which made it possible for the very poor to participate in
the general banquet from which they had been excluded for long enough.
The safety of the city was secured, from the very first days of his accession,
by the establishment of a strong and vigilant police force, and a tribunal
consisting of four magistrates of irreproachable character, empowered to
prosecute all nocturnal crimes, which during the last pontificate had been so
common that their very numbers made impunity certain: these judges from
the first showed a severity which neither the rank nor the purse of the
culprit could modify. This presented such a great contrast to the corruption
of the last reign,—in the course of which the vice-chamberlain one day
remarked in public, when certain people were complaining of the venality
of justice, "God wills not that a sinner die, but that he live and pay,"—that
the capital of the Christian world felt for one brief moment restored to the
happy days of the papacy. So, at the end of a year, Alexander VI had
reconquered that spiritual credit, so to speak, which his predecessors lost.
His political credit was still to be established, if he was to carry out the first
part of his gigantic scheme. To arrive at this, he must employ two agencies
—alliances and conquests. His plan was to begin with alliances. The
gentleman of Aragon who had married Lucrezia when she was only the
daughter of Cardinal Roderigo Borgia was not a man powerful enough,
either by birth and fortune or by intellect, to enter with any sort of effect
into the plots and plans of Alexander VI; the separation was therefore
changed into a divorce, and Lucrezia Borgia was now free to remarry.
Alexander opened up two negotiations at the same time: he needed an ally
to keep a watch on the policy of the neighbouring States. John Sforza,
grandson of Alexander Sforza, brother of the great Francis I, Duke of

Milan, was lord of Pesaro; the geographical situation of this place, on the
coast, on the way between Florence and Venice, was wonderfully
convenient for his purpose; so Alexander first cast an eye upon him, and as
the interest of both parties was evidently the same, it came about that John
Sforza was very soon Lucrezia's second husband.
At the same time overtures had been made to Alfonso of Aragon, heir
presumptive to the crown of Naples, to arrange a marriage between Dana
Sancia, his illegitimate daughter, and Goffreda, the pope's third son; but as
the old Ferdinand wanted to make the best bargain he could out of it; he
dragged on the negotiations as long as possible, urging that the two children
were not of marriageable age, and so, highly honoured as he felt in such a
prospective alliance, there was no hurry about the engagement. Matters
stopped at this point, to the great annoyance of Alexander VI, who saw
through this excuse, and understood that the postponement was nothing
more or less than a refusal. Accordingly Alexander and Ferdinand remained
in statu quo, equals in the political game, both on the watch till events
should declare for one or other. The turn of fortune was for Alexander.
Italy, though tranquil, was instinctively conscious that her calm was
nothing but the lull which goes before a storm. She was too rich and too
happy to escape the envy of other nations. As yet the plains of Pisa had not
been reduced to marsh-lands by the combined negligence and jealousy of
the Florentine Republic, neither had the rich country that lay around Rome
been converted into a barren desert by the wars of the Colonna and Orsini
families; not yet had the Marquis of Marignan razed to the ground a
hundred and twenty villages in the republic of Siena alone; and though the
Maremma was unhealthy, it was not yet a poisonous marsh: it is a fact that
Flavio Blando, writing in 1450, describes Ostia as being merely less

flourishing than in the days of the Romans, when she had numbered 50,000
inhabitants, whereas now in our own day there are barely 30 in all.
The Italian peasants were perhaps the most blest on the face of the
earth: instead of living scattered about the country in solitary fashion, they
lived in villages that were enclosed by walls as a protection for their
harvests, animals, and farm implements; their houses—at any rate those that
yet stand—prove that they lived in much more comfortable and beautiful
surroundings than the ordinary townsman of our day. Further, there was a
community of interests, and many people collected together in the fortified
villages, with the result that little by little they attained to an importance
never acquired by the boorish French peasants or the German serfs; they
bore arms, they had a common treasury, they elected their own magistrates,
and whenever they went out to fight, it was to save their common country.
Also commerce was no less flourishing than agriculture; Italy at this
period was rich in industries—silk, wool, hemp, fur, alum, sulphur,
bitumen; those products which the Italian soil could not bring forth were
imported, from the Black Sea, from Egypt, from Spain, from France, and
often returned whence they came, their worth doubled by labour and fine
workmanship. The rich man brought his merchandise, the poor his industry:
the one was sure of finding workmen, the other was sure of finding work.
Art also was by no means behindhand: Dante, Giotto, Brunelleschi,
and Donatello were dead, but Ariosto, Raphael, Bramante, and Michael
Angelo were now living. Rome, Florence, and Naples had inherited the
masterpieces of antiquity; and the manuscripts of AEschylus, Sophocles,
and Euripides had come (thanks to the conquest of Mahomet II) to rejoin
the statue of Xanthippus and the works of Phidias and Praxiteles. The
principal sovereigns of Italy had come to understand, when they let their
eyes dwell upon the fat harvests, the wealthy villages, the flourishing

manufactories, and the marvellous churches, and then compared with them
the poor and rude nations of fighting men who surrounded them on all
sides, that some day or other they were destined to become for other
countries what America was for Spain, a vast gold-mine for them to work.
In consequence of this, a league offensive and defensive had been signed,
about 1480, by Naples, Milan, Florence, and Ferrara, prepared to take a
stand against enemies within or without, in Italy or outside. Ludovico
Sforza, who was more than anyone else interested in maintaining this
league, because he was nearest to France, whence the storm seemed to
threaten, saw in the new pope's election means not only of strengthening the
league, but of making its power and unity conspicuous in the sight of
Europe.

CHAPTER IV

On the occasion of each new election to the papacy, it is the custom for all
the Christian States to send a solemn embassy to Rome, to renew their oath
of allegiance to the Holy Father. Ludovico Sforza conceived the idea that
the ambassadors of the four Powers should unite and make their entry into
Rome on the same day, appointing one of their envoys, viz. the
representative of the King of Naples, to be spokesman for all four.
Unluckily, this plan did not agree with the magnificent projects of Piero dei
Medici. That proud youth, who had been appointed ambassador of the
Florentine Republic, had seen in the mission entrusted to him by his fellow-
citizens the means of making a brilliant display of his own wealth. From the
day of his nomination onwards, his palace was constantly filled with tailors,
jewellers, and merchants of priceless stuffs; magnificent clothes had been
made for him, embroidered with precious stones which he had selected
from the family treasures. All his jewels, perhaps the richest in Italy, were
distributed about the liveries of his pages, and one of them, his favourite,
was to wear a collar of pearls valued by itself at 100,000 ducats, or almost,
a million of our francs. In his party the Bishop of Arezzo, Gentile, who had
once been Lorenzo dei Medici's tutor, was elected as second ambassador,
and it was his duty to speak. Now Gentile, who had prepared his speech,
counted on his eloquence to charm the ear quite as much as Piero counted
on his riches to dazzle the eye. But the eloquence of Gentile would be lost
completely if nobody was to speak but the ambassador of the King of

Naples; and the magnificence of Piero dei Medici would never be noticed at
all if he went to Rome mixed up with all the other ambassadors. These two
important interests, compromised by the Duke of Milan's proposition,
changed the whole face of Italy.
Ludovico Sforza had already made sure of Ferdinand's promise to
conform to the plan he had invented, when the old king, at the solicitation
of Piero, suddenly drew back. Sforza found out how this change had come
about, and learned that it was Piero's influence that had overmastered his
own. He could not disentangle the real motives that had promised the
change, and imagined there was some secret league against himself: he
attributed the changed political programme to the death of Lorenzo dei
Medici. But whatever its cause might be, it was evidently prejudicial to his
own interests: Florence, Milan's old ally, was abandoning her for Naples.
He resolved to throw a counter weight into the scales; so, betraying to
Alexander the policy of Piero and Ferdinand, he proposed to form a
defensive and offensive alliance with him and admit the republic of Venice;
Duke Hercules III of Ferrara was also to be summoned to pronounce for
one or other of the two leagues. Alexander VI, wounded by Ferdinand's
treatment of himself, accepted Ludovico Sforza's proposition, and an Act of
Confederation was signed on the 22nd of April, 1493, by which the new
allies pledged themselves to set on foot for the maintenance of the public
peace an army of 20,000 horse and 6,000 infantry.
Ferdinand was frightened when he beheld the formation of this league;
but he thought he could neutralise its effects by depriving Ludovico Sforza
of his regency, which he had already kept beyond the proper time, though as
yet he was not strictly an usurper. Although the young Galeazzo, his
nephew, had reached the age of two-and-twenty, Ludovico Sforza none the
less continued regent. Now Ferdinand definitely proposed to the Duke of

Milan that he should resign the sovereign power into the hands of his
nephew, on pain of being declared an usurper.
This was a bold stroke; but there was a risk of inciting Ludovico
Sforza to start one of those political plots that he was so familiar with, never
recoiling from any situation, however dangerous it might be. This was
exactly what happened: Sforza, uneasy about his duchy, resolved to threaten
Ferdinand's kingdom.
Nothing could be easier: he knew the warlike notions of Charles VIII,
and the pretensions of the house of France to the kingdom of Naples. He
sent two ambassadors to invite the young king to claim the rights of Anjou
usurped by Aragon; and with a view to reconciling Charles to so distant and
hazardous an expedition, offered him a free and friendly passage through
his own States.
Such a proposition was welcome to Charles VIII, as we might suppose
from our knowledge of his character; a magnificent prospect was opened to
him as by an enchanter: what Ludovica Sforza was offering him was
virtually the command of the Mediterranean, the protectorship of the whole
of Italy; it was an open road, through Naples and Venice, that well might
lead to the conquest of Turkey or the Holy Land, if he ever had the fancy to
avenge the disasters of Nicapolis and Mansourah. So the proposition was
accepted, and a secret alliance was signed, with Count Charles di Belgiojasa
and the Count of Cajazza acting for Ludovica Sforza, and the Bishop of St.
Malo and Seneschal de Beaucaire for Charles VIII. By this treaty it was
agreed:—
That the King of France should attempt the conquest of the kingdom of
Naples;
That the Duke of Milan should grant a passage to the King of France
through his territories, and accompany him with five hundred lances;

That the Duke of Milan should permit the King of France to send out
as many ships of war as he pleased from Genoa;
Lastly, that the Duke of Milan should lend the King of France 200,000
ducats, payable when he started.
On his side, Charles VIII agreed:—
To defend the personal authority of Ludowico Sforza over the duchy of
Milan against anyone who might attempt to turn him out;
To keep two hundred French lances always in readiness to help the
house of Sforza, at Asti, a town belonging to the Duke of Orleans by the
inheritance of his mother, Valentina Visconti;
Lastly, to hand over to his ally the principality of Tarentum
immediately after the conquest of Naples was effected.
This treaty was scarcely concluded when Charles VIII, who
exaggerated its advantages, began to dream of freeing himself from every
let or hindrance to the expedition. Precautions were necessary; for his
relations with the great Powers were far from being what he could have
wished.
Indeed, Henry VII had disembarked at Calais with a formidable army,
and was threatening France with another invasion.
Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, if they had not assisted at the fall of
the house of Anjou, had at any rate helped the Aragon party with men and
money.
Lastly, the war with the emperor acquired a fresh impetus when
Charles VIII sent back Margaret of Burgundy to her father Maximilian, and
contracted a marriage with Anne of Brittany.
By the treaty of Etaples, on the 3rd of November, 1492, Henry VII
cancelled the alliance with the King of the Romans, and pledged himself
not to follow his conquests.

This cost Charles VIII 745,000 gold crowns and the expenses of the
war with England.
By the treaty of Barcelona, dated the 19th of January, 1493, Ferdinand
the Catholic and Isabella agreed never to grant aid to their cousin,
Ferdinand of Naples, and never to put obstacles in the way of the French
king in Italy.
This cost Charles VIII Perpignan, Roussillon, and the Cerdagne, which
had all been given to Louis XI as a hostage for the sum of 300,000 ducats
by John of Aragon; but at the time agreed upon, Louis XI would not give
them up for the money, for the old fox knew very well how important were
these doors to the Pyrenees, and proposed in case of war to keep them shut.
Lastly, by the treaty of Senlis, dated the 23rd of May, 1493,
Maximilian granted a gracious pardon to France for the insult her king had
offered him.
It cost Charles VIII the counties of Burgundy, Artois, Charalais, and
the seigniory of Noyers, which had come to him as Margaret's dowry, and
also the towns of Aire, Hesdin, and Bethune, which he promised to deliver
up to Philip of Austria on the day he came of age.
By dint of all these sacrifices the young king made peace with his
neighbours, and could set on foot the enterprise that Ludavico Sforza had
proposed. We have already explained that the project came into Sforza's
mind when his plan about the deputation was refused, and that the refusal
was due to Piero dei Medici's desire to make an exhibition of his
magnificent jewels, and Gentile's desire to make his speech.
Thus the vanity of a tutor and the pride of his scholar together
combined to agitate the civilized world from the Gulf of Tarentum to the
Pyrenees.

Alexander VI was in the very centre of the impending earthquake, and
before Italy had any idea that the earliest shocks were at hand he had
profited by the perturbed preoccupation of other people to give the lie to
that famous speech we have reported. He created cardinal John Borgia, a
nephew, who during the last pontificate had been elected Archbishop of
Montreal and Governor of Rome. This promotion caused no discontent,
because of John's antecedents; and Alexander, encouraged by the success of
this, promised to Caesar Borgia the archbishopric of Valencia, a benefice he
had himself enjoyed before his elevation to the papacy. But here the
difficulty arose on the side of the recipient. The young man, full-blooded,
with all the vices and natural instincts of a captain of condottieri, had very
great trouble in assuming even the appearance of a Churchman's virtue; but
as he knew from his own father's mouth that the highest secular dignities
were reserved for his elder brother, he decided to take what he could get, for
fear of getting nothing; but his hatred for Francesco grew stronger, for from
henceforth he was doubly his rival, both in love and ambition.
Suddenly Alexander beheld the old King Ferdinand returning to his
side, and at the very moment when he least expected it. The pope was too
clever a politician to accept a reconciliation without finding out the cause of
it; he soon learned what plots were hatching at the French court against the
kingdom of Naples, and the whole situation was explained.
Now it was his turn to impose conditions.
He demanded the completion of a marriage between Goffreda, his
third son, and Dada Sancia, Alfonso's illegitimate daughter.
He demanded that she should bring her husband as dowry the
principality of Squillace and the county of Cariati, with an income of
10,000 ducats and the office of protonotary, one of the seven great crown
offices which are independent of royal control.

He demanded for his eldest son, whom Ferdinand the Catholic had just
made Duke of Gandia, the principality of Tricarico, the counties of
Chiaramonte, Lauria, and Carinola, an income of 12,000 ducats, and the
first of the seven great offices which should fall vacant.
He demanded that Virginio Orsini, his ambassador at the Neapolitan
court, should be given a third great office, viz. that of Constable, the most
important of them all.
Lastly, he demanded that Giuliano della Rovere, one of the five
cardinals who had opposed his election and was now taking refuge at Ostia,
where the oak whence he took his name and bearings is still to be seen
carved on all the walls, should be driven out of that town, and the town
itself given over to him.
In exchange, he merely pledged himself never to withdraw from the
house of Aragon the investiture of the kingdom of Naples accorded by his
predecessors. Ferdinand was paying somewhat dearly for a simple promise;
but on the keeping of this promise the legitimacy of his power wholly
depended. For the kingdom of Naples was a fief of the Holy See; and to the
pope alone belonged the right of pronouncing on the justice of each
competitor's pretensions; the continuance of this investiture was therefore of
the highest conceivable importance to Aragon just at the time when Anjou
was rising up with an army at her back to dispossess her.
For a year after he mounted the papal throne, Alexander VI had made
great strides, as we see, in the extension of his temporal power. In his own
hands he held, to be sure, only the least in size of the Italian territories; but
by the marriage of his daughter Lucrezia with the lord of Pesaro he was
stretching out one hand as far as Venice, while by the marriage of the Prince
of Squillace with Dona Sancia, and the territories conceded to the Duke of
Sandia, he was touching with the other hand the boundary of Calabria.

When this treaty, so advantageous for himself, was duly signed, he
made Caesar Cardinal of Santa Maria Novella, for Caesar was always
complaining of being left out in the distribution of his father's favours.
Only, as there was as yet no precedent in Church history for a bastard's
donning the scarlet, the pope hunted up four false witnesses who declared
that Caesar was the son of Count Ferdinand of Castile; who was, as we
know, that valuable person Don Manuel Melchior, and who played the
father's part with just as much solemnity as he had played the husband's.
The wedding of the two bastards was most splendid, rich with the
double pomp of Church and King. As the pope had settled that the young
bridal pair should live near him, Caesar Borgia, the new cardinal, undertook
to manage the ceremony of their entry into Rome and the reception, and
Lucrezia, who enjoyed at her father's side an amount of favour hitherto
unheard of at the papal court, desired on her part to contribute all the
splendour she had it in her power to add. He therefore went to receive the
young people with a stately and magnificent escort of lords and cardinals,
while she awaited them attended by the loveliest and noblest ladies of
Rome, in one of the halls of the Vatican. A throne was there prepared for the
pope, and at his feet were cushions for Lucrezia and Dona Sancia. "Thus,"
writes Tommaso Tommasi, "by the look of the assembly and the sort of
conversation that went on for hours, you would suppose you were present at
some magnificent and voluptuous royal audience of ancient Assyria, rather
than at the severe consistory of a Roman pontiff, whose solemn duty it is to
exhibit in every act the sanctity of the name he bears. But," continues the
same historian, "if the Eve of Pentecost was spent in such worthy functions,
the celebrations of the coming of the Holy Ghost on the following day were
no less decorous and becoming to the spirit of the Church; for thus writes
the master of the ceremonies in his journal:

"'The pope made his entry into the Church of the Holy Apostles, and
beside him on the marble steps of the pulpit where the canons of St. Peter
are wont to chant the Epistle and Gospel, sat Lucrezia his daughter and
Sancia his son's wife: round about them, a disgrace to the Church and a
public scandal, were grouped a number of other Roman ladies far more fit
to dwell in Messalina's city than in St. Peter's.'"
So at Rome and Naples did men slumber while ruin was at hand; so
did they waste their time and squander their money in a vain display of
pride; and this was going on while the French, thoroughly alive, were busy
laying hands upon the torches with which they would presently set Italy on
fire.
Indeed, the designs of Charles VIII for conquest were no longer for
anybody a matter of doubt. The young king had sent an embassy to the
various Italian States, composed of Perrone dei Baschi, Brigonnet,
d'Aubigny, and the president of the Provencal Parliament. The mission of
this embassy was to demand from the Italian princes their co-operation in
recovering the rights of the crown of Naples for the house of Anjou.
The embassy first approached the Venetians, demanding aid and
counsel for the king their master. But the Venetians, faithful to their political
tradition, which had gained for them the sobriquet of "the Jews of
Christendom," replied that they were not in a position to give any aid to the
young king, so long as they had to keep ceaselessly on guard against the
Turks; that, as to advice, it would be too great a presumption in them to
give advice to a prince who was surrounded by such experienced generals
and such able ministers.
Perrone dei Baschi, when he found he could get no other answer, next
made for Florence. Piero dei Medici received him at a grand council, for he
summoned on this occasion not only the seventy, but also the gonfalonieri

who had sat for the last thirty-four years in the Signoria. The French
ambassador put forward his proposal, that the republic should permit their
army to pass through her States, and pledge herself in that case to supply for
ready money all the necessary victual and fodder. The magnificent republic
replied that if Charles VIII had been marching against the Turks instead of
against Ferdinand, she would be only too ready to grant everything he
wished; but being bound to the house of Aragon by a treaty, she could not
betray her ally by yielding to the demands of the King of France.
The ambassadors next turned their steps to Siena. The poor little
republic, terrified by the honour of being considered at all, replied that it
was her desire to preserve a strict neutrality, that she was too weak to
declare beforehand either for or against such mighty rivals, for she would
naturally be obliged to join the stronger party. Furnished with this reply,
which had at least the merit of frankness, the French envoys proceeded to
Rome, and were conducted into the pope's presence, where they demanded
the investiture of the kingdom of Naples for their king.
Alexander VI replied that, as his predecessors had granted this
investiture to the house of Aragon, he could not take it away, unless it were
first established that the house of Anjou had a better claim than the house
that was to be dispossessed. Then he represented to Perrone dei Baschi that,
as Naples was a fief of the Holy See, to the pope alone the choice of her
sovereign properly belonged, and that in consequence to attack the reigning
sovereign was to attack the Church itself.
The result of the embassy, we see, was not very promising for Charles
VIII; so he resolved to rely on his ally Ludovico Sforza alone, and to
relegate all other questions to the fortunes of war.
A piece of news that reached him about this time strengthened him in
this resolution: this was the death of Ferdinand. The old king had caught a

severe cold and cough on his return from the hunting field, and in two days
he was at his last gasp. On the 25th of January, 1494, he passed away, at the
age of seventy, after a thirty-six years' reign, leaving the throne to his elder
son, Alfonso, who was immediately chosen as his successor.
Ferdinand never belied his title of "the happy ruler." His death
occurred at the very moment when the fortune of his family was changing.
The new king, Alfonso, was not a novice in arms: he had already
fought successfully against Florence and Venice, and had driven the Turks
out of Otranto; besides, he had the name of being as cunning as his father in
the tortuous game of politics so much in vogue at the Italian courts. He did
not despair of counting among his allies the very enemy he was at war with
when Charles VIII first put forward his pretensions, we mean Bajazet II. So
he despatched to Bajazet one of his confidential ministers, Camillo
Pandone, to give the Turkish emperor to understand that the expedition to
Italy was to the King of France nothing but a blind for approaching the
scene of Mahomedan conquests, and that if Charles VIII were once at the
Adriatic it would only take him a day or two to get across and attack
Macedonia; from there he could easily go by land to Constantinople.
Consequently he suggested that Bajazet for the maintenance of their
common interests should supply six thousand horse and six thousand
infantry; he himself would furnish their pay so long as they were in Italy. It
was settled that Pandone should be joined at Tarentum by Giorgia
Bucciarda, Alexander VI's envoy, who was commissioned by the pope to
engage the Turks to help him against the Christians. But while he was
waiting for Bajazet's reply, which might involve a delay of several months,
Alfonso requested that a meeting might take place between Piero dei
Medici, the pope, and himself, to take counsel together about important

affairs. This meeting was arranged at Vicovaro, near Tivoli, and the three
interested parties duly met on the appointed day.
The intention of Alfonso, who before leaving Naples had settled the
disposition of his naval forces, and given his brother Frederic the command
of a fleet that consisted of thirty-six galleys, eighteen large and twelve small
vessels, with injunctions to wait at Livorno and keep a watch on the fleet
Charles VIII was getting ready at the port of Genoa, was above all things to
check with the aid of his allies the progress of operations on land. Without
counting the contingent he expected his allies to furnish, he had at his
immediate disposal a hundred squadrons of heavy cavalry, twenty men in
each, and three thousand bowmen and light horse. He proposed, therefore,
to advance at once into Lombardy, to get up a revolution in favour of his
nephew Galeazzo, and to drive Ludovico Sforza out of Milan before he
could get help from France; so that Charles VIII, at the very time of
crossing the Alps, would find an enemy to fight instead of a friend who had
promised him a safe passage, men, and money.
This was the scheme of a great politician and a bold commander; but
as everybody had come in pursuit of his own interests, regardless of the
common agreemnent this plan was very coldly received by Piero dei
Medici, who was afraid lest in the war he should play only the same poor
part he had been threatened with in the affair of the embassy; by Alexander
VI it was rejected, because he reckoned on employing the troops of Alfonso
an his own account. He reminded the King of Naples of one of the
conditions of the investiture he had promised him, viz. that he should drive
out the Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere from the town of Ostia, and give up
the town to him, according to the stipulation already agreed upon. Besides,
the advantages that had accrued to Virginio Orsini, Alexander's favourite,
from his embassy to Naples had brought upon him the ill-will of Prospero

and Fabrizio Colonna, who owned nearly all the villages round about
Rome. Now the pope could not endure to live in the midst of such powerful
enemies, and the most important matter was to deliver him from all of them,
seeing that it was really of moment that he should be at peace who was the
head and soul of the league whereof the others were only the body and
limbs.
Although Alfonso had clearly seen through the motives of Piero's
coldness, and Alexander had not even given him the trouble of seeking his,
he was none the less obliged to bow to the will of his allies, leaving the one
to defend the Apennines against the French, and helping the other to shake
himself free of his neighbours in the Romagna. Consequently he, pressed on
the siege of Ostia, and added to Virginio's forces, which already amounted
to two hundred men of the papal army, a body of his own light horse; this
little army was to be stationed round about Rome, and was to enforce
obedience from the Colonnas. The rest of his troops Alfonso divided into
two parties: one he left in the hands of his son Ferdinand, with orders to
scour the Romagna and worry, the petty princes into levying and supporting
the contingent they had promised, while with the other he himself defended
the defiles of the Abruzzi.
On the 23rd of April, at three o'clock in the morning, Alexander VI
was freed from the first and fiercest of his foes; Giuliano della Rovere,
seeing the impossibility of holding out any longer against Alfonso's troops,
embarked on a brigantine which was to carry him to Savona.
From that day forward Virginio Orsini began that famous partisan
warfare which reduced the country about Rome to the most pathetic
desolation the world has ever seen. During all this time Charles VIII was at
Lyons, not only uncertain as to the route he ought to take for getting into
Italy, but even beginning to reflect a little on the chances and risks of such

an expedition. He had found no sympathy anywhere except with Ludovico
Sforza; so it appeared not unlikely that he would have to fight not the
kingdom of Naples alone, but the whole of Italy to boot. In his preparations
for war he had spent almost all the money at his disposal; the Lady of
Beaujeu and the Duke of Bourbon both condemned his enterprise;
Briconnet, who had advised it, did not venture to support it now; at last
Charles, more irresolute than ever, had recalled several regiments that had
actually started, when Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, driven out of Italy by
the pope, arrived at Lyons, and presented himself before the king.
The cardinal, full of hatred, full of hope, hastened to Charles, and
found him on the point of abandoning that enterprise on which, as
Alexander's enemy, della Rovere rested his whole expectation of
vengeance. He informed Charles of the quarrelling among his enemies; he
showed him that each of them was seeking his own ends—Piero dei Medici
the gratification of his pride, the pope the aggrandisement of his house. He
pointed out that armed fleets were in the ports of Villefranche, Marseilles,
and Genoa, and that these armaments would be lost; he reminded him that
he had sent Pierre d'Urfe, his grand equerry, on in advance, to have splendid
accommodation prepared in the Spinola and Doria palaces. Lastly, he urged
that ridicule and disgrace would fall on him from every side if he renounced
an enterprise so loudly vaunted beforehand, for whose successful execution,
moreover, he had been obliged to sign three treaties of peace that were all
vexatious enough, viz. with Henry VII, with Maximilian, and with
Ferdinand the Catholic. Giuliano della Rovere had exercised true insight in
probing the vanity of the young king, and Charles did not hesitate for a
single moment. He ordered his cousin, the Duke of Orleans (who later on
became Louis XII) to take command of the French fleet and bring it to
Genoa; he despatched a courier to Antoine de Bessay, Baron de Tricastel,

bidding him take to Asti the 2000 Swiss foot-soldiers he had levied in the
cantons; lastly, he started himself from Vienne, in Dauphine, on the 23rd of
August, 1494, crossed the Alps by Mont Genevre, without encountering a
single body of troops to dispute his passage, descended into Piedmont and
Monferrato, both just then governed by women regents, the sovereigns of
both principalities being children, Charles John Aime and William John,
aged respectively six and eight.
The two regents appeared before Charles VIII, one at Turin, one at
Casale, each at the head of a numerous and brilliant court, and both
glittering with jewels and precious stones. Charles, although he quite well
knew that for all these friendly demonstrations they were both bound by
treaty to his enemy, Alfonso of Naples, treated them all the same with the
greatest politeness, and when they made protestations of friendship, asked
them to let him have a proof of it, suggesting that they should lend him the
diamonds they were covered with. The two regents could do no less than
obey the invitation which was really a command. They took off necklaces,
rings, and earrings. Charles VIII gave them a receipt accurately drawn up,
and pledged the jewels for 20,000 ducats. Then, enriched by this money, he
resumed his journey and made his way towards Asti. The Duke of Orleans
held the sovereignty of Asti, as we said before, and hither came to meet
Charles both Ludovico Sforza and his father-in-law, Hercules d'Este, Duke
of Ferrara. They brought with them not only the promised troops and
money, but also a court composed of the loveliest women in Italy.
The balls, fetes, and tourneys began with a magnificence surpassing
anything that Italy had ever seen before. But suddenly they were interrupted
by the king's illness. This was the first example in Italy of the disease
brought by Christopher Columbus from the New World, and was called by
Italians the French, by Frenchmen the Italian disease. The probability is that

some of Columbus's crew who were at Genoa or thereabouts had already
brought over this strange and cruel complaint that counter balanced the
gains of the American gold-mines.
The king's indisposition, however, did not prove so grave as was at
first supposed. He was cured by the end of a few weeks, and proceeded on
his way towards Pavia, where the young Duke John Galeazzo lay dying. He
and the King of France were first cousins, sons of two sisters of the house
of Savoy. So Charles VIII was obliged to see him, and went to visit him in
the castle where he lived more like prisoner than lord. He found him half
reclining on a couch, pale and emaciated, some said in consequence of
luxurious living, others from the effects of a slow but deadly poison. But
whether or not the poor young man was desirous of pouring out a complaint
to Charles, he did not dare say a word; for his uncle, Ludovico Sforza,
never left the King of France for an instant. But at the very moment when
Charles VIII was getting up to go, the door opened, and a young woman
appeared and threw herself at the king's feet; she was the wife of the
unlucky John Galeazzo, and came to entreat his cousin to do nothing
against her father Alfonso, nor against her brother Ferdinand. At sight of
her; Sforza scowled with an anxious and threatening aspect, for he knew not
what impression might be produced on his ally by this scene. But he was
soon reassured; for Charles replied that he had advanced too far to draw
back now, and that the glory of his name was at stake as well as the interests
of his kingdom, and that these two motives were far too important to be
sacrificed to any sentiment of pity he might feel, however real and deep it
might be and was. The poor young woman, who had based her last hope an
this appeal, then rose from her knees and threw herself sobbing into her
husband's arms. Charles VIII and Ludavico Sforza, took their leave: John
Galeazzo was doomed.

Two days after, Charles VIII left for Florence, accompanied by his
ally; but scarcely had they reached Parma when a messenger caught them
up, and announced to Ludovico that his nephew was just dead: Ludovico at
once begged Charles to excuse his leaving him to finish the journey alone;
the interests which called him back to Milan were so important, he said, that
he could not under the circumstances stay away a single day longer. As a
fact he had to make sure of succeeding the man he had assassinated.
But Charles VIII continued his road not without some uneasiness. The
sight of the young prince on his deathbed had moved him deeply, for at the
bottom of his heart he was convinced that Ludovico Sforza was his
murderer; and a murderer might very well be a traitor. He was going
forward into an unfamiliar country, with a declared enemy in front of him
and a doubtful friend behind: he was now at the entrance to the mountains,
and as his army had no store of provisions and only lived from hand to
mouth, a forced delay, however short, would mean famine. In front of him
was Fivizzano, nothing, it is true, but a village surrounded by walls, but
beyond Fivizzano lay Sarzano and Pietra Santa, both of them considered
impregnable fortresses; worse than this, they were coming into a part of the
country that was especially unhealthy in October, had no natural product
except oil, and even procured its own corn from neighbouring provinces; it
was plain that a whole army might perish there in a few days either from
scarcity of food or from the unwholesome air, both of which were more
disastrous than the impediments offered at every step by the nature of the
ground. The situation was grave; but the pride of Piero dei Medici came
once more to the rescue of the fortunes of Charles VIII.

CHAPTER V

PIERO DEI MEDICI had, as we may remember, undertaken to hold the
entrance to Tuscany against the French; when, however, he saw his enemy
coming dawn from the Alps, he felt less confident about his own strength,
and demanded help from the pope; but scarcely had the rumour of foreign
invasion began to spread in the Romagna, than the Colonna family declared
themselves the French king's men, and collecting all their forces seized
Ostia, and there awaited the coming of the French fleet to offer a passage
through Rome. The pope, therefore, instead of sending troops to Florence,
was obliged to recall all his soldiers to be near the capital; the only promise
he made to Piero was that if Bajazet should send him the troops that he had
been asking for, he would despatch that army for him to make use of. Piero
dei Medici had not yet taken any resolution or formed any plan, when he
suddenly heard two startling pieces of news. A jealous neighbour of his, the
Marquis of Torderiovo, had betrayed to the French the weak side of
Fivizzano, so that they had taken it by storm, and had put its soldiers and
inhabitants to the edge of the sword; on another side, Gilbert of
Montpensier, who had been lighting up the sea-coast so as to keep open the
communications between the French army and their fleet, had met with a
detachment sent by Paolo Orsini to Sarzano, to reinforce the garrison there,
and after an hour's fighting had cut it to pieces. No quarter had been granted
to any of the prisoners; every man the French could get hold of they had
massacred.

This was the first occasion on which the Italians, accustomed as they
were to the chivalrous contests of the fifteenth century, found themselves in
contact with savage foreigners who, less advanced in civilisation, had not
yet come to consider war as a clever game, but looked upon it as simply a
mortal conflict. So the news of these two butcheries produced a tremendous
sensation at Florence, the richest city in Italy, and the most prosperous in
commerce and in art. Every Florentine imagined the French to be like an
army of those ancient barbarians who were wont to extinguish fire with
blood. The prophecies of Savonarola, who had predicted the foreign
invasion and the destruction that should follow it, were recalled to the
minds of all; and so much perturbation was evinced that Piero dei Medici,
bent on getting peace at any price, forced a decree upon the republic
whereby she was to send an embassy to the conqueror; and obtained leave,
resolved as he was to deliver himself in person into the hands of the French
monarch, to act as one of the ambassadors. He accordingly quitted
Florence, accompanied by four other messengers, and on his arrival at
Pietra Santa, sent to ask from Charles VIII a safe-conduct for himself alone.
The day after he made this request, Brigonnet and de Piennes came to fetch
him, and led him into the presence of Charles VIII.
Piero dei Medici, in spite of his name and influence, was in the eyes of
the French nobility, who considered it a dishonourable thing to concern
oneself with art or industry, nothing more than a rich merchant, with whom
it would be absurd to stand upon any very strict ceremony. So Charles VIII
received him on horseback, and addressing him with a haughty air, as a
master might address a servant, demanded whence came this pride of his
that made him dispute his entrance into Tuscany. Piero dei Medici replied,
that, with the actual consent of Louis XI, his father Lorenzo had concluded
a treaty of alliance with Ferdinand of Naples; that accordingly he had acted

in obedience to prior obligations, but as he did not wish to push too far his
devotion to the house of Aragon or his opposition to France, he was ready
to do whatever Charles VIII might demand of him. The king, who had
never looked for such humility in his enemy, demanded that Sarzano should
be given up to him: to this Piero dei Medici at once consented. Then the
conqueror, wishing to see how far the ambassador of the magnificent
republic would extend his politeness, replied that this concession was far
from satisfying him, and that he still must have the keys of Pietra Santa,
Pisa, Librafatta, and Livorno. Piero saw no more difficulty about these than
about Sarzano, and consented on Charles's mere promise by word of mouth
to restore the town when he had achieved the conquest of Naples. At last
Charles VIII, seeing that this man who had been sent out to negotiate with
him was very easy to manage, exacted as a final condition, a 'sine qua non',
however, of his royal protection, that the magnificent republic should lend
him the sum of 200,000 florins. Piero found it no harder to dispose of
money than of fortresses, and replied that his fellow-citizens would be
happy to render this service to their new ally. Then Charles VIII set him on
horseback, and ordered him to go on in front, so as to begin to carry out his
promises by yielding up the four fortresses he had insisted on having. Piero
obeyed, and the French army, led by the grandson of Cosimo the Great and
the son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, continued its triumphal march through
Tuscany.
On his arrival at Lucca, Piero dei Medici learnt that his concessions to
the King of France were making a terrible commotion at Florence. The
magnificent republic had supposed that what Charles VIII wanted was
simply a passage through her territory, so when the news came there was a
general feeling of discontent, which was augmented by the return of the
other ambassadors, whom Piero had not even consulted when he took

action as he did. Piero considered it necessary that he should return, so he
asked Charles's permission to precede him to the capital. As he had fulfilled
all his promises, except the matter of the loan, which could not be settled
anywhere but at Florence, the king saw no objection, and the very evening
after he quitted the French army Piero returned incognito to his palace in
the Via Largo.
The next day he proposed to present himself before the Signoria, but
when he arrived at the Piazza del Palazzo Vecchio, he perceived the
gonfaloniere Jacopo de Nerli coming towards him, signalling to him that it
was useless to attempt to go farther, and pointing out to him the figure of
Luca Corsini standing at the gate, sword in hand: behind him stood guards,
ordered, if need-were, to dispute his passage. Piero dei Medici, amazed by
an opposition that he was experiencing for the first time in his life, did not
attempt resistance. He went home, and wrote to his brother-in-law, Paolo
Orsini, to come and help him with his gendarmes. Unluckily for him, his
letter was intercepted. The Signoria considered that it was an attempt at
rebellion. They summoned the citizens to their aid; they armed hastily,
sallied forth in crowds, and thronged about the piazza of the palace.
Meanwhile Cardinal Gian dei Medici had mounted on horseback, and under
the impression that the Orsini were coming to the rescue, was riding about
the streets of Florence, accompanied by his servants and uttering his battle
cry, "Palle, Palle." But times had changed: there was no echo to the cry, and
when the cardinal reached the Via dei Calizaioli, a threatening murmur was
the only response, and he understood that instead of trying to arouse
Florence he had much better get away before the excitement ran too high.
He promptly retired to his own palace, expecting to find there his two
brothers, Piero and Giuliano. But they, under the protection of Orsini and
his gendarmes, had made their escape by the Porto San Gallo. The peril was

imminent, and Gian dei Medici wished to follow their example; but
wherever he went he was met by a clamour that grew more and more
threatening. At last, as he saw that the danger was constantly increasing, he
dismounted from his horse and ran into a house that he found standing
open. This house by a lucky chance communicated with a convent of
Franciscans; one of the friars lent the fugitive his dress, and the cardinal,
under the protection of this humble incognito, contrived at last to get
outside Florence, and joined his two brothers in the Apennines.
The same day the Medici were declared traitors and rebels, and
ambassadors were sent to the King of France. They found him at Pisa,
where he was granting independence to the town which eighty-seven years
ago had fallen under the rule of the Florentines. Charles VIII made no reply
to the envoys, but merely announced that he was going to march on
Florence.
Such a reply, one may easily understand, terrified the republic.
Florence had no time to prepare a defence, and no strength in her present
state to make one. But all the powerful houses assembled and armed their
own servants and retainers, and awaited the issue, intending not to begin
hostilities, but to defend themselves should the French make an attack. It
was agreed that if any necessity should arise for taking up arms, the bells of
the various churches in the town should ring a peal and so serve as a general
signal. Such a resolution was perhaps of more significant moment in
Florence than it could have been in any other town. For the palaces that still
remain from that period are virtually fortresses and the eternal fights
between Guelphs and Ghibellines had familiarised the Tuscan people with
street warfare.
The king appeared, an the 17th of November, in the evening, at the
gate of San Friano. He found there the nobles of Florence clad in their most

magnificent apparel, accompanied by priests chanting hymns, and by a mob
who were full of joy at any prospect of change, and hoped for a return of
liberty after the fall of the Medici. Charles VIII stopped for a moment under
a sort of gilded canopy that had been prepared for him, and replied in a few
evasive words to the welcoming speeches which were addressed to him by
the Signoria; then he asked for his lance, he set it in rest, and gave the order
to enter the town, the whole of which he paraded with his army following
him with arms erect, and then went down to the palace of the Medici, which
had been prepared for him.
The next day negotiations commenced; but everyone was out of his
reckoning. The Florentines had received Charles VIII as a guest, but he had
entered the city as a conqueror. So when the deputies of the Signoria spoke
of ratifying the treaty of Piero dei Medici, the king replied that such a treaty
no longer existed, as they had banished the man who made it; that he had
conquered Florence, as he proved the night before, when he entered lance in
hand; that he should retain the sovereignty, and would make any further
decision whenever it pleased him to do so; further, he would let them know
later on whether he would reinstate the Medici or whether he would
delegate his authority to the Signoria: all they had to do was to come back
the next day, and he would give them his ultimatum in writing.
This reply threw Florence into a great state of consternation; but the
Florentines were confirmed in their resolution of making a stand. Charles,
for his part, had been astonished by the great number of the inhabitants; not
only was every street he had passed through thickly lined with people, but
every house from garret to basement seemed overflowing with human
beings. Florence indeed, thanks to her rapid increase in population, could
muster nearly 150,000 souls.

The next day, at the appointed hour, the deputies made their
appearance to meet the king. They were again introduced into his presence,
and the discussion was reopened. At last, as they were coming to no sort of
understanding, the royal secretary, standing at the foot of the throne upon
which Charles viii sat with covered head, unfolded a paper and began to
read, article by article, the conditions imposed by the King of France. But
scarcely had he read a third of the document when the discussion began
more hotly than ever before. Then Charles VIII said that thus it should be,
or he would order his trumpets to be sounded. Hereupon Piero Capponi,
secretary to the republic, commonly called the Scipio of Florence, snatched
from the royal secretary's hand the shameful proposal of capitulation, and
tearing it to pieces, exclaimed:—
"Very good, sire; blow your trumpets, and we will ring our bells."
He threw the pieces in the face of the amazed reader, and dashed out of
the room to give the terrible order that would convert the street of Florence
into a battlefield.
Still, against all probabilities, this bold answer saved the town. The
French supposed, from such audacious words, addressed as they were to
men who so far had encountered no single obstacle, that the Florentines
were possessed of sure resources, to them unknown: the few prudent men
who retained any influence over the king advised him accordingly to abate
his pretensions; the result was that Charles VIII offered new and more
reasonable conditions, which were accepted, signed by both parties, and
proclaimed on the 26th of November during mass in the cathedral of Santa
Maria Del Fiore.
These were the conditions:
The Signoria were to pay to Charles VIII, as subsidy, the sum of
120,000 florins, in three instalments;

The Signoria were to remove the sequestration imposed upon the
property of the Medici, and to recall the decree that set a price on their
heads;
The Signoria were to engage to pardon the Pisans, on condition of their
again submitting to the rule of Florence;
Lastly, the Signoria were to recognise the claims of the Duke of Milan
over Sarzano and Pietra Santa, and these claims thus recognised, were to be
settled by arbitration.
In exchange for this, the King of France pledged himself to restore the
fortresses that had been given up to him, either after he had made himself
master of the town of Naples, or when this war should be ended by a peace
or a two years' truce, or else when, for any reason whatsoever, he should
have quitted Italy.
Two days after this proclamation, Charles VIII, much to the joy of the
Signoria, left Florence, and advanced towards Rome by the route of
Poggibondi and Siena.
The pope began to be affected by the general terror: he had heard of
the massacres of Fivizzano, of Lunigiane, and of Imola; he knew that Piero
dei Medici had handed over the Tuscan fortresses, that Florence had
succumbed, and that Catherine Sforza had made terms with the conqueror;
he saw the broken remnants of the Neapolitan troops pass disheartened
through Rome, to rally their strength in the Abruzzi, and thus he found
himself exposed to an enemy who was advancing upon him with the whole
of the Romagna under his control from one sea to the other, in a line of
march extending from Piombina to Ancona.
It was at this juncture that Alexander VI received his answer from
Bajazet II: the reason of so long a delay was that the pope's envoy and the
Neapolitan ambassador had been stopped by Gian della Rovere, the

Cardinal Giuliano's brother, just as they were disembarking at Sinigaglia.
They were charged with a verbal answer, which was that the sultan at this
moment was busied with a triple war, first with the Sultan of Egypt,
secondly with the King of Hungary, and thirdly with the Greeks of
Macedonia and Epirus; and therefore he could not, with all the will in the
world, help His Holiness with armed men. But the envoys were
accompanied by a favourite of the sultan's bearing a private letter to
Alexander VI, in which Bajazet offered on certain conditions to help him
with money. Although, as we see, the messengers had been stopped on the
way, the Turkish envoy had all the same found a means of getting his
despatch sent to the pope: we give it here in all its naivete.
"Bajazet the Sultan, son of the Sultan Mahomet II, by the grace of God
Emperor of Asia and Europe, to the Father and Lord of all the Christians,
Alexander VI, Roman pontiff and pope by the will of heavenly Providence,
first, greetings that we owe him and bestow with all our heart. We make
known to your Highness, by the envoy of your Mightiness, Giorgio
Bucciarda, that we have been apprised of your convalescence, and received
the news thereof with great joy and comfort. Among other matters, the said
Bucciarda has brought us word that the King of France, now marching
against your Highness, has shown a desire to take under his protection our
brother D'jem, who is now under yours—a thing which is not only against
our will, but which would also be the cause of great injury to your Highness
and to all Christendom. In turning the matter over with your envoy Giorgio
we have devised a scheme most conducive to peace and most advantageous
and honourable for your Highness; at the same time satisfactory to
ourselves personally; it would be well if our aforesaid brother D'jem, who
being a man is liable to death, and who is now in the hands of your
Highness, should quit this world as soon as possible, seeing that his

departure, a real good to him in his position, would be of great use to your
Highness, and very conducive to your peace, while at the same time it
would be very agreeable to us, your friend. If this proposition is favourably
received, as we hope, by your Highness, in your desire to be friendly
towards us, it would be advisable both in the interests of your Highness and
for our own satisfaction that it should occur rather sooner than later, and by
the surest means you might be pleased to employ; so that our said brother
D'jem might pass from the pains of this world into a better and more
peaceful life, where at last he may find repose. If your Highness should
adapt this plan and send us the body of our brother, We, the above-named
Sultan Bajazet, pledge ourselves to send to your Highness, wheresoever and
by whatsoever hands you please, the sum of 300,000 ducats, With which
sum you could purchase some fair domain for your children. In order to
facilitate this purchase, we would be willing, while awaiting the issue, to
place the 300,000 ducats in the hands of a third party, so that your Highness
might be quite certain of receiving the money on an appointed day, in return
for the despatch of our brother's body. Moreover, we promise your
Highness herewith, for your greater satisfaction, that never, so long as you
shall remain on the pontifical throne, shall there be any hurt done to the
Christians, neither by us, nor by our servants, nor by any of our
compatriots, of whatsoever kind or condition they may be, neither on sea
nor on land. And for the still further satisfaction of your Highness, and in
order that no doubt whatever may remain concerning the fulfilment of our
promises, we have sworn and affirmed in the presence of Bucciarda, your
envoy, by the true God whom we adore and by our holy Gospels, that they
shall be faithfully kept from the first point unto the last. And now for the
final and complete assurance of your Highness, in order that no doubt may
still remain in your heart, and that you may be once again and profoundly

convinced of our good faith, we the aforesaid Sultan Bajazet do swear by
the true God, who has created the heavens and the earth and all that therein
is, that we will religiously observe all that has been above said and
declared, and in the future will do nothing and undertake nothing that may
be contrary to the interests of your Highness.
"Given at Constantinople, in our palace, on the 12th of September
A.D. 1494."
This letter was the cause of great joy to the Holy Father: the aid of four
or five thousand Turks would be insufficient under the present
circumstances, and would only serve to compromise the head of
Christendom, while the sum of 300,000 ducats—that is, nearly a million
francs—was good to get in any sort of circumstances. It is true that, so long
as D'jem lived, Alexander was drawing an income of 180,000 livres, which
as a life annuity represented a capital of nearly two millions; but when one
needs ready money, one ought to be able to make a sacrifice in the way of
discount. All the same, Alexander formed no definite plan, resolved on
acting as circumstances should indicate.
But it was a more pressing business to decide how he should behave to
the King of France: he had never anticipated the success of the French in
Italy, and we have seen that he laid all the foundations of his family's future
grandeur upon his alliance with the house of Aragon. But here was this
house tattering, and a volcano more terrible than her own Vesuvius was
threatening to swallow up Naples. He must therefore change his policy, and
attach himself to the victor,—no easy matter, for Charles VIII was bitterly
annoyed with the pope for having refused him the investiture and given it to
Aragon.
In consequence, he sent Cardinal Francesco Piccolomini as an envoy
to the king. This choice looked like a mistake at first, seeing that the

ambassador was a nephew of Pius II, who had vigorously opposed the
house of Anjou; but Alexander in acting thus had a second design, which
could not be discerned by those around him. In fact, he had divined that
Charles would not be quick to receive his envoy, and that, in the parleyings
to which his unwillingness must give rise, Piccolomini would necessarily be
brought into contact with the young king's advisers. Now, besides his
ostensible mission to the king, Piccalamini had also secret instructions for
the more influential among his counsellors. These were Briconnet and
Philippe de Luxembourg; and Piccolomini was authorised to promise a
cardinal's hat to each of them. The result was just what Alexander had
foreseen: his envoy could not gain admission to Charles, and was obliged to
confer with the people about him. This was what the pope wished.
Piccolomini returned to Rome with the king's refusal, but with a promise
from Briconnet and Philippe de Luxembourg that they would use all their
influence with Charles in favour of the Holy Father, and prepare him to
receive a fresh embassy.
But the French all this time were advancing, and never stopped more
than forty-eight hours in any town, so that it became more and more urgent
to get something settled with Charles. The king had entered Siena and
Viterbo without striking a blow; Yves d' Alegre and Louis de Ligny had
taken over Ostia from the hands of the Colonnas; Civita Vecchia and
Corneto had opened their gates; the Orsini had submitted; even Gian
Sforza, the pope's son-in-law, had retired from the alliance with Aragon.
Alexander accordingly judged that the moment had came to abandon his
ally, and sent to Charles the Bishops of Concordia and Terni, and his
confessor, Mansignore Graziano. They were charged to renew to Briconnet
and Philippe de Luxembourg the promise of the cardinalship, and had full
powers of negotiation in the name of their master, both in case Charles

should wish to include Alfonso II in the treaty, and in case he should refuse
to sign an agreement with any other but the pope alone. They found the
mind of Charles influenced now by the insinuation of Giuliano della
Rovere, who, himself a witness of the pope's simony, pressed the king to
summon a council and depose the head of the Church, and now by the
secret support given him by the Bishops of Mans and St. Malo. The end of
it was that the king decided to form his own opinion about the matter and
settle nothing beforehand, and continued this route, sending the
ambassadors back to the pope, with the addition of the Marechal de Gie, the
Seneschal de Beaucaire, and Jean de Gannay, first president of the Paris
Parliament. They were ordered to say to the pope—

1. That the king wished above all things to be admitted into Rome
without resistance; that, on condition of a voluntary, frank, and loyal
admission, he would respect the authority of the Holy Father and the
privileges of the Church;
2. That the king desired that D'jem should be given up to him, in order
that he might make use of him against the sultan when he should carry
the war into Macedonia or Turkey or the Holy Land;
3. That the remaining conditions were so unimportant that they could be
brought forward at the first conference.

The ambassadors added that the French army was now only two days
distant from Rome, and that in the evening of the day after next Charles
would probably arrive in person to demand an answer from His Holiness.
It was useless to think of parleying with a prince who acted in such
expeditious fashion as this. Alexander accordingly warned Ferdinand to quit
Rome as soon as possible, in the interests of his own personal safety. But

Ferdinand refused to listen to a word, and declared that he would not go out
at one gate while Charles VIII came in at another. His sojourn was not long.
Two days later, about eleven o'clock in the morning, a sentinel placed on a
watch-tower at the top of the Castle S. Angelo, whither the pope had retired,
cried out that the vanguard of the enemy was visible on the horizon. At once
Alexander and the Duke of Calabria went up on the terrace which tops the
fortress, and assured themselves with their own eyes that what the soldier
said was true. Then, and not till then, did the duke of Calabria mount on
horseback, and, to use his own words, went out at the gate of San
Sebastiana, at the same moment that the French vanguard halted five
hundred feet from the Gate of the People. This was on the 31st of December
1494.
At three in the afternoon the whole army had arrived, and the vanguard
began their march, drums beating, ensigns unfurled. It was composed, says
Paolo Giove, an eye-witness (book ii, p. 41 of his History), of Swiss and
German soldiers, with short tight coats of various colours: they were armed
with short swords, with steel edges like those of the ancient Romans, and
carried ashen lances ten feet long, with straight and sharp iron spikes: only
one-fourth of their number bore halberts instead of lances, the spikes cut
into the form of an axe and surmounted by a four-cornered spike, to be used
both for cutting like an axe and piercing like a bayonet: the first row of each
battalion wore helmets and cuirasses which protected the head and chest,
and when the men were drawn up for battle they presented to the enemy a
triple array of iron spikes, which they could raise or lower like the spines of
a porcupine. To each thousand of the soldiery were attached a hundred
fusiliers: their officers, to distinguish them from the men, wore lofty plumes
on their helmets.

After the Swiss infantry came the archers of Gascony: there were five
thousand of them, wearing a very simple dress, that contrasted with the rich
costume of the Swiss soldiers, the shortest of whom would have been a
head higher than the tallest of the Gascons. But they were excellent
soldiers, full of courage, very light, and with a special reputation for
quickness in stringing and drawing their iron bows.
Behind them rode the cavalry, the flower of the French nobility, with
their gilded helmets and neck bands, their velvet and silk surcoats, their
swords each of which had its own name, their shields each telling of
territorial estates, and their colours each telling of a lady-love. Besides
defensive arms, each man bore a lance in his hand, like an Italian gendarme,
with a solid grooved end, and on his saddle bow a quantity of weapons,
some for cutting and some for thrusting. Their horses were large and strong,
but they had their tails and ears cropped according to the French custom.
These horses, unlike those of the Italian gendarmes, wore no caparisons of
dressed leather, which made them more exposed to attack. Every knight was
followed by three horses—the first ridden by a page in armour like his own,
the two others by equerries who were called lateral auxiliaries, because in a
fray they fought to right and left of their chief. This troop was not only the
most magnificent, but the most considerable in the whole army; for as there
were 2500 knights, they formed each with their three followers a total of
10,000 men. Five thousand light horse rode next, who carried huge wooden
bows, and shot long arrows from a distance like English archers. They were
a great help in battle, for moving rapidly wherever aid was required, they
could fly in a moment from one wing to another, from the rear to the van,
then when their quivers were empty could go off at so swift a gallop that
neither infantry or heavy cavalry could pursue them. Their defensive
armour consisted of a helmet and half-cuirass; some of them carried a short

lance as well, with which to pin their stricken foe to the ground; they all
wore long cloaks adorned with shoulder-knots, and plates of silver whereon
the arms of their chief were emblazoned.
At last came the young king's escort; there were four hundred archers,
among whom a hundred Scots formed a line on each side, while two
hundred of the most illustrious knights marched on foot beside the prince,
carrying heavy arms on their shoulders. In the midst of this magnificent
escort advanced Charles VIII, both he and his horse covered with splendid
armour; an his right and left marched Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, the Duke of
Milan's brother, and Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, of whom we have
spoken so often, who was afterwards Pope Julius II. The Cardinals Colonna
and Savelli followed immediately after, and behind them came Prospero
and Fabrizia Colonna, and all the Italian princes and generals who had
thrown in their lot with the conqueror, and were marching intermingled
with the great French lords.
For a long time the crowd that had collected to see all these foreign
soldiers go by, a sight so new and strange, listened uneasily to a dull sound
which got nearer and nearer. The earth visibly trembled, the glass shook in
the windows, and behind the king's escort thirty-six bronze cannons were
seen to advance, bumping along as they lay on their gun-carriages. These
cannons were eight feet in length; and as their mouths were large enough to
hold a man's head, it was supposed that each of these terrible machines,
scarcely known as yet to the Italians, weighed nearly six thousand pounds.
After the cannons came culverins sixteen feet long, and then falconets, the
smallest of which shot balls the size of a grenade. This formidable artillery
brought up the rear of the procession, and formed the hindmost guard of the
French army.

It was six hours since the front guard entered the town; and as it was
now night and for every six artillery-men there was a torch-bearer, this
illumination gave to the objects around a more gloomy character than they
would have shown in the sunlight. The young king was to take up his
quarters in the Palazzo di Venezia, and all the artillery was directed towards
the plaza and the neighbouring streets. The remainder of the army was
dispersed about the town. The same evening, they brought to the king, less
to do honour to him than to assure him of his safety, the keys of Rome and
the keys of the Belvedere Garden. Just the same thing had been done for the
Duke of Calabria.
The pope, as we said, had retired to the Castle S. Angelo with only six
cardinals, so from the day after his arrival the young king had around him a
court of very different brilliance from that of the head of the Church. Then
arose anew the question of a convocation to prove Alexander's simony and
proceed to depose him; but the king's chief counsellors, gained over, as we
know, pointed out that this was a bad moment to excite a new schism in the
Church, just when preparations were being made for war against the
infidels. As this was also the king's private opinion, there was not much
trouble in persuading him, and he made up his mind to treat with His
Holiness.
But the negotiations had scarcely begun when they had to be broken
off; for the first thing Charles VIII demanded was the surrender of the
Castle S. Angelo, and as the pope saw in this castle his only refuge, it was
the last thing he chose to give up. Twice, in his youthful impatience,
Charles wanted to take by force what he could not get by goodwill, and had
his cannons directed towards the Holy Father's dwelling-place; but the pope
was unmoved by these demonstrations; and obstinate as he was, this time it
was the French king who gave way.

This article, therefore, was set aside, and the following conditions were
agreed upon:
That there should be from this day forward between His Majesty the
King of France and the Holy Father a sincere friendship and a firm alliance;
Before the completion of the conquest of the kingdom of Naples, the
King of France should occupy, for the advantage and accommodation of his
army, the fortresses of Civita Vecchia, Terracina, and Spoleto;
Lastly, the Cardinal Valentino (this was now the name of Caesar
Borgia, after his archbishopric of Valencia) should accompany the king in
the capacity of apostolic ambassador, really as a hostage.
These conditions fixed, the ceremonial of an interview was arranged.
The king left the Palazzo di Venezia and went to live in the Vatican. At the
appointed time he entered by the door of a garden that adjoined the palace,
while the pope, who had not had to quit the Castle S. Angelo, thanks to a
corridor communicating between the two palaces, came down into the same
garden by another gate. The result of this arrangement was that the king the
next moment perceived the pope, and knelt down, but the pope pretended
not to see him, and the king advancing a few paces, knelt a second time; as
His Holiness was at that moment screened by some masonry, this supplied
him with another excuse, and the king went on with the performance, got up
again, once more advanced several steps, and was on the point of kneeling
down the third time face to face, when the Holy Father at last perceived
him, and, walking towards him as though he would prevent him from
kneeling, took off his own hat, and pressing him to his heart, raised him up
and tenderly kissed his forehead, refusing to cover until the king had put his
cap upon his head, with the aid of the pope's own hands. Then, after they
had stood for a moment, exchanging polite and friendly speeches, the king
lost no time in praying His Holiness to be so good as to receive into the

Sacred College William Bricannet, the Bishop of St. Malo. As this matter
had been agreed upon beforehand by that prelate and His Holiness, though
the king was not aware of it, Alexander was pleased to get credit by
promptly granting the request; and he instantly ordered one of his attendants
to go to the house of his son, Cardinal Valentino, and fetch a cape and hat.
Then taking the king by the hand, he conducted him into the hall of
Papagalli, where the ceremony was to take place of the admission of the
new cardinal. The solemn oath of obedience which was to be taken by
Charles to His Holiness as supreme head of the Christian Church was
postponed till the following day.
When that solemn day arrived, every person important in Rome, noble,
cleric, or soldier, assembled around His Holiness. Charles, on his side,
made his approach to the Vatican with a splendid following of princes,
prelates, and captains. At the threshold of the palace he found four cardinals
who had arrived before him: two of them placed themselves one on each
side of him, the two others behind him, and all his retinue following, they
traversed a long line of apartments full of guards and servants, and at last
arrived in the reception-room, where the pope was seated on his throne,
with his son, Caesar Borgia; behind him. On his arrival at the door, the King
of France began the usual ceremonial, and when he had gone on from
genuflexions to kissing the feet, the hand, and the forehead, he stood up,
while the first president of the Parliament of Paris, in his turn stepping
forward, said in a loud voice:
"Very Holy Father, behold my king ready to offer to your Holiness that
oath of obedience that he owes to you; but in France it is customary that he
who offers himself as vassal to his lord shall receive in exchange therefor
such boons as he may demand. His Majesty, therefore, while he pledges
himself for his own part to behave unto your Holiness with a munificence

even greater than that wherewith your Holiness shall behave unto him, is
here to beg urgently that you accord him three favours. These favours are:
first, the confirmation of privileges already granted to the king, to the queen
his wife, and to the dauphin his son; secondly, the investiture, for himself
and his successors, of the kingdom of Naples; lastly, the surrender to him of
the person of the sultan D'jem, brother of the Turkish emperor."
At this address the pope was for a moment stupefied, for he did not
expect these three demands, which were moreover made so publicly by
Charles that no manner of refusal was possible. But quickly recovering his
presence of mind, he replied to the king that he would willingly confirm the
privileges that had been accorded to the house of France by his
predecessors; that he might therefore consider his first demand granted; that
the investiture of the kingdom was an affair that required deliberation in a
council of cardinals, but he would do all he possibly could to induce them
to accede to the king's desire; lastly, he must defer the affair of the sultan's
brother till a time more opportune for discussing it with the Sacred College,
but would venture to say that, as this surrender could not fail to be for the
good of Christendom, as it was demanded for the purpose of assuring
further the success of a crusade, it would not be his fault if on this point also
the king should not be satisfied.
At this reply, Charles bowed his head in sign of satisfaction, and the
first president stood up, uncovered, and resumed his discourse as follows.
"Very Holy Father, it is an ancient custom among Christian kings,
especially the Most Christian kings of France, to signify, through their
ambassadors, the respect they feel for the Holy See and the sovereign
pontiffs whom Divine Providence places thereon; but the Most Christian
king, having felt a desire to visit the tombs of the holy apostles, has been
pleased to pay this religious debt, which he regards as a sacred duty, not by

ambassadors or by delegates, but in his own person. This is why, Very Holy
Father, His Majesty the King of France is here to acknowledge you as the
true vicar of Christ, the legitimate successor of the apostles St. Peter and St.
Paul, and with promise and vow renders you that filial and respectful
devotion which the kings his predecessors have been accustomed to
promise and vow, devoting himself and all his strength to the service of
your Holiness and the interests of the Holy See."
The pope arose with a joyful heart; for this oath, so publicly made,
removed all his fears about a council; so inclined from this moment to yield
to the King of France anything he might choose to ask, he took him by his
left hand and made him a short and friendly reply, dubbing him the
Church's eldest son. The ceremony over, they left the hall, the pope always
holding the king's hand in his, and in this way they walked as far as the
room where the sacred vestments are put off; the pope feigned a wish to
conduct the king to his own apartments, but the king would not suffer this,
and, embracing once more, they separated, each to retire to his own
domicile.
The king remained eight days longer at the Vatican, then returned to
the Palazzo San Marco. During these eight days all his demands were
debated and settled to his satisfaction. The Bishop of Mans was made
cardinal; the investiture of the kingdom of Naples was promised to the
conqueror; lastly, it was agreed that on his departure the King of France
should receive from the pope's hand the brother of the Emperor of
Constantinople, for a sum of 120,000 livres. But—the pope, desiring to
extend to the utmost the hospitality he had been bestowing, invited D'jem to
dinner on the very day that he was to leave Rome with his new protector.
When the moment of departure arrived, Charles mounted his horse in
full armour, and with a numerous and brilliant following made his way to

the Vatican; arrived at the door, he dismounted, and leaving his escort at the
Piazza of St. Peter, went up with a few gentlemen only. He found His
Holiness waiting for him, with Cardinal Valentino on his right, and on his
left D'jem, who, as we said before, was dining with him, and round the table
thirteen cardinals. The king at once, bending on his knee, demanded the
pope's benediction, and stooped to kiss his feet. But this Alexander would
not suffer; he took him in his arms, and with the lips of a father and heart of
an enemy, kissed him tenderly on his forehead. Then the pope introduced
the son of Mahomet II, who was a fine young man, with something noble
and regal in his air, presenting in his magnificent oriental costume a great
contrast in its fashion and amplitude to the narrow, severe cut of the
Christian apparel. D'jem advanced to Charles without humility and without
pride, and, like an emperor's son treating with a king, kissed his hand and
then his shoulder; then, turning towards the Holy Father, he said in Italian,
which he spoke very well, that he entreated he would recommend him to
the young king, who was prepared to take him under his protection,
assuring the pontiff that he should never have to repent giving him his
liberty, and telling Charles that he hoped he might some day be proud of
him, if after taking Naples he carried out his intention of going on to
Greece. These words were spoken with so much dignity and at the same
time with such gentleness, that the King of France loyally and frankly
grasped the young sultan's hand, as though he were his companion-in-arms.
Then Charles took a final farewell of the pope, and went down to the
piazza. There he was awaited by Cardinal Valentino, who was about to
accompany him, as we know, as a hostage, and who had remained behind to
exchange a few words with his father. In a moment Caesar Borgia appeared,
riding on a splendidly harnessed mule, and behind him were led six
magnificent horses, a present from the Holy Father to the King of France.

Charles at once mounted one of these, to do honour to the gift the pope had
just conferred on him, and leaving Rome with the rest of his troops, pursued
his way towards Marino, where he arrived the same evening.
He learned there that Alfonso, belying his reputation as a clever
politician and great general, had just embarked with all his treasures in a
flotilla of four galleys, leaving the care of the war and the management of
his kingdom to his son Ferdinand. Thus everything went well for the
triumphant march of Charles: the gates of towns opened of themselves at
his approach, his enemies fled without waiting for his coming, and before
he had fought a single battle he had won for himself the surname of
Conqueror.
The day after at dawn the army started once more, and after marching
the whole day, stopped in the evening at Velletri. There the king, who had
been on horseback since the morning, with Cardinal Valentine and D'jem,
left the former at his lodging, and taking D'jem with him, went on to his
own. Then Caesar Borgia, who among the army baggage had twenty very
heavy waggons of his own, had one of these opened, took out a splendid
cabinet with the silver necessary for his table, and gave orders for his
supper to be prepared, as he had done the night before. Meanwhile, night
had come on, and he shut himself up in a private chamber, where, stripping
off his cardinal's costume, he put on a groom's dress. Thanks to this
disguise, he issued from the house that had been assigned for his
accommodation without being recognised, traversed the streets, passed
through the gates, and gained the open country. Nearly half a league outside
the town, a servant awaited him with two swift horses. Caesar, who was an
excellent rider, sprang to the saddle, and he and his companion at full gallop
retraced the road to Rome, where they arrived at break of day. Caesar got
down at the house of one Flores, auditor of the rota, where he procured a

fresh horse and suitable clothes; then he flew at once to his mother, who
gave a cry of joy when she saw him; for so silent and mysterious was the
cardinal for all the world beside, and even for her, that he had not said a
word of his early return to Rome. The cry of joy uttered by Rosa Vanozza
when she beheld her son was far more a cry of vengeance than of love. One
evening, while everybody was at the rejoicings in the Vatican, when Charles
VIII and Alexander VI were swearing a friendship which neither of them
felt, and exchanging oaths that were broken beforehand, a messenger from
Rosa Vanozza had arrived with a letter to Caesar, in which she begged him
to come at once to her house in the Via dellaLongara. Caesar questioned the
messenger, but he only replied that he could tell him nothing, that he would
learn all he cared to know from his mother's own lips. So, as soon as he was
at liberty, Caesar, in layman's dress and wrapped in a large cloak, quitted
the Vatican and made his way towards the church of Regina Coeli, in the
neighbourhood of which, it will be remembered, was the house where the
pope's mistress lived.
As he approached his mother's house, Caesar began to observe the
signs of strange devastation. The street was scattered with the wreck of
furniture and strips of precious stuffs. As he arrived at the foot of the little
flight of steps that led to the entrance gate, he saw that the windows were
broken and the remains of torn curtains were fluttering in front of them. Not
understanding what this disorder could mean, he rushed into the house and
through several deserted and wrecked apartments. At last, seeing light in
one of the rooms, he went in, and there found his mother sitting on the
remains of a chest made of ebony all inlaid with ivory and silver. When she
saw Caesar, she rose, pale and dishevelled, and pointing to the desolation
around her, exclaimed:
"Look, Caesar; behold the work of your new friends."

"But what does it mean, mother?" asked the cardinal. "Whence comes
all this disorder?"
"From the serpent," replied Rosa Vanozza, gnashing her teeth,—"from
the serpent you have warmed in your bosom. He has bitten me, fearing no
doubt that his teeth would be broken on you."
"Who has done this?" cried Caesar. "Tell me, and, by Heaven, mother,
he shall pay, and pay indeed!"
"Who?" replied Rosa. "King Charles VIII has done it, by the hands of
his faithful allies, the Swiss. It was well known that Melchior was away,
and that I was living alone with a few wretched servants; so they came and
broke in the doors, as though they were taking Rome by storm, and while
Cardinal Valentino was making holiday with their master, they pillaged his
mother's house, loading her with insults and outrages which no Turks or
Saracens could possibly have improved upon."
"Very good, very good, mother," said Caesar; "be calm; blood shall
wash out disgrace. Consider a moment; what we have lost is nothing
compared with what we might lose; and my father and I, you may be quite
sure, will give you back more than they have stolen from you."
"I ask for no promises," cried Rosa; "I ask for revenge."
"My mother," said the cardinal, "you shall be avenged, or I will lose
the name of son."
Having by these words reassured his mother, he took her to Lucrezia's
palace, which in consequence of her marriage with Pesaro was unoccupied,
and himself returned to the Vatican, giving orders that his mother's house
should be refurnished more magnificently than before the disaster. These
orders were punctually executed, and it was among her new luxurious
surroundings, but with the same hatred in her heart, that Caesar on this

occasion found his mother. This feeling prompted her cry of joy when she
saw him once more.
The mother and son exchanged a very few words; then Caesar,
mounting on horseback, went to the Vatican, whence as a hostage he had
departed two days before. Alexander, who knew of the flight beforehand,
and not only approved, but as sovereign pontiff had previously absolved his
son of the perjury he was about to commit, received him joyfully, but all the
same advised him to lie concealed, as Charles in all probability would not
be slow to reclaim his hostage:
Indeed, the next day, when the king got up, the absence of Cardinal
Valentino was observed, and as Charles was uneasy at not seeing him, he
sent to inquire what had prevented his appearance. When the messenger
arrived at the house that Caesar had left the evening before, he learned that
he had gone out at nine o'clock in the evening and not returned since. He
went back with this news to the king, who at once suspected that he had
fled, and in the first flush of his anger let the whole army know of his
perjury. The soldiers then remembered the twenty waggons, so heavily
laden, from one of which the cardinal, in the sight of all, had produced such
magnificent gold and silver plate; and never doubting that the cargo of the
others was equally precious, they fetched them down and broke them to
pieces; but inside they found nothing but stones and sand, which proved to
the king that the flight had been planned a long time back, and incensed him
doubly against the pope. So without loss of time he despatched to Rome
Philippe de Bresse, afterwards Duke of Savoy, with orders to intimate to the
Holy Father his displeasure at this conduct. But the pope replied that he
knew nothing whatever about his son's flight, and expressed the sincerest
regret to His Majesty, declaring that he knew nothing of his whereabouts,
but was certain that he was not in Rome. As a fact, the pope was speaking

the truth this time, for Caesar had gone with Cardinal Orsino to one of his
estates, and was temporarily in hiding there. This reply was conveyed to
Charles by two messengers from the pope, the Bishops of Nepi and of Sutri,
and the people also sent an ambassador in their own behalf. He was
Monsignore Porcari, dean of the rota, who was charged to communicate to
the king the displeasure of the Romans when they learned of the cardinal's
breach of faith. Little as Charles was disposed to content himself with
empty words, he had to turn his attention to more serious affairs; so he
continued his march to Naples without stopping, arriving there on Sunday,
the 22nd of February, 1495.
Four days later, the unlucky D'jem, who had fallen sick at Capua died
at Castel Nuovo. When he was leaving, at the farewell banquet, Alexander
had tried on his guest the poison he intended to use so often later on upon
his cardinals, and whose effects he was destined to feel himself,—such is
poetical justice. In this way the pope had secured a double haul; for, in his
twofold speculation in this wretched young man, he had sold him alive to
Charles for 120,000 livres and sold him dead to Bajazet for 300,00 ducats....
But there was a certain delay about the second payment; for the
Turkish emperor, as we remember, was not bound to pay the price of
fratricide till he received the corpse, and by Charles's order the corpse had
been buried at Gaeta.
When Caesar Borgia learned the news, he rightly supposed that the
king would be so busy settling himself in his new capital that he would
have too much to think of to be worrying about him; so he went to Rome
again, and, anxious to keep his promise to his mother, he signalised his
return by a terrible vengeance.
Cardinal Valentino had in his service a certain Spaniard whom he had
made the chief of his bravoes; he was a man of five-and-thirty or forty,

whose whole life had been one long rebellion against society's laws; he
recoiled from no action, provided only he could get his price. This Don
Michele Correglia, who earned his celebrity for bloody deeds under the
name of Michelotto, was just the man Caesar wanted; and whereas
Michelotto felt an unbounded admiration for Caesar, Caesar had unlimited
confidence in Michelotto. It was to him the cardinal entrusted the execution
of one part of his vengeance; the other he kept for himself.
Don Michele received orders to scour the Campagna and cut every
French throat he could find. He began his work at once; and very few days
elapsed before he had obtained most satisfactory results: more than a
hundred persons were robbed or assassinated, and among the last the son of
Cardinal de St. Malo, who was en his way back to France, and on whom
Michelotto found a sum of 3000 crowns.
For himself, Caesar reserved the Swiss; for it was the Swiss in
particular who had despoiled his mother's house. The pope had in his
service about a hundred and fifty soldiers belonging to their nation, who
had settled their families in Rome, and had grown rich partly by their pay
and partly in the exercise of various industries. The cardinal had every one
of them dismissed, with orders to quit Rome within twenty-four hours and
the Roman territories within three days. The poor wretches had all collected
together to obey the order, with their wives and children and baggage, on
the Piazza of St. Peter, when suddenly, by Cardinal Valentino's orders, they
were hemmed in on all sides by two thousand Spaniards, who began to fire
on them with their guns and charge them with their sabres, while Caesar
and his mother looked down upon the carnage from a window. In this way
they killed fifty or perhaps sixty; but the rest coming up, made a charge at
the assassins, and then, without suffering any loss, managed to beat a retreat
to a house, where they stood a siege, and made so valiant a defense that

they gave the pope time—he knew nothing of the author of this butchery—
to send the captain of his guard to the rescue, who, with a strong
detachment, succeeded in getting nearly forty of them safely out of the
town: the rest had been massacred on the piazza or killed in the house.
But this was no real and adequate revenge; for it did not touch Charles
himself, the sole author of all the troubles that the pope and his family had
experienced during the last year. So Caesar soon abandoned vulgar schemes
of this kind and busied himself with loftier concerns, bending all the force
of his genius to restore the league of Italian princes that had been broken by
the defection of Sforza, the exile of Piero dei Medici, and the defeat of
Alfonso. The enterprise was more easily accomplished than the pope could
have anticipated. The Venetians were very uneasy when Charles passed so
near, and they trembled lest, when he was once master of Naples, he might
conceive the idea of conquering the rest of Italy. Ludovico Sforza, on his
side, was beginning to tremble, seeing the rapidity with which the King of
France had dethroned the house of Aragon, lest he might not make much
difference between his allies and his enemies. Maximilian, for his part, was
only seeking an occasion to break the temporary peace which he had
granted for the sake of the concession made to him. Lastly, Ferdinand and
Isabella were allies of the dethroned house. And so it came about that all of
them, for different reasons, felt a common fear, and were soon in agreement
as to the necessity of driving out Charles VIII, not only from Naples, but
from Italy, and pledged themselves to work together to this end, by every
means in their power, by negotiations, by trickery, or by actual force. The
Florentines alone refused to take part in this general levy of arms, and
remained faithful to their promises.
According to the articles of the treaty agreed upon by the confederates,
the alliance was to last for five-and-twenty years, and had for ostensible

object the upholding of the majority of the pope, and the interests of
Christendom; and these preparations might well have been taken for such as
would precede a crusade against the Turks, if Bajazet's ambassador had not
always been present at the deliberations, although the Christian princes
could not have dared for very shame to admit the, sultan by name into their
league. Now the confederates had to set on foot an army of 30,000 horse
and 20,000 infantry, and each of them was taxed for a contingent; thus the
pope was to furnish 4000 horse, Maximilian 6000, the King of Spain, the
Duke of Milan, and the republic of Venice, 8000 each. Every confederate
was, in addition to this, to levy and equip 4000 infantry in the six weeks
following the signature of the treaty. The fleets were to be equipped by the
Maritime States; but any expenses they should incur later on were to be
defrayed by all in equal shares.
The formation of this league was made public on the 12th of April,
1495, Palm Sunday, and in all the Italian States, especially at Rome, was
made the occasion of fetes and immense rejoicings. Almost as soon as the
publicly known articles were announced the secret ones were put into
execution. These obliged Ferdinand and Isabella to send a fleet of sixty
galleys to Ischia, where Alfonso's son had retired, with six hundred
horsemen on board and five thousand infantry, to help him to ascend the
throne once more. Those troops were to be put under the command of
Gonzalvo of Cordova, who had gained the reputation of the greatest general
in Europe after the taking of Granada. The Venetians with a fleet of forty
galleys under the command of Antonio Grimani, were to attack all the
French stations on the coast of Calabria and Naples. The Duke of Milan
promised for his part to check all reinforcements as they should arrive from
France, and to drive the Duke of Orleans out of Asti.

Lastly, there was Maximilian, who had promised to make invasions on
the frontiers, and Bajazet, who was to help with money, ships, and soldiers
either the Venetians or the Spaniards, according as he might be appealed to
by Barberigo or by Ferdinand the Catholic.
This league was all the more disconcerting for Charles, because of the
speedy abatement of the enthusiasm that had hailed his first appearance.
What had happened to him was what generally happens to a conqueror who
has more good luck than talent; instead of making himself a party among
the great Neapolitan and Calabrian vassals, whose roots would be
embedded in the very soil, by confirming their privileges and augmenting
their power, he had wounded their feelings by bestowing all the titles,
offices, and fiefs on those alone who had followed him from France, so that
all the important positions in the kingdom were filled by strangers.
The result was that just when the league was made known, Tropea and
Amantea, which had been presented by Charles to the Seigneur de Precy,
rose in revolt and hoisted the banner of Aragon; and the Spanish fleet had
only to present itself at Reggio, in Calabria, for the town to throw open its
gates, being more discontented with the new rule than the old; and Don
Federiga, Alfonso's brother and Ferdinand's uncle, who had hitherto never
quitted Brindisi, had only to appear at Tarentum to be received there as a
liberator.

CHAPTER VI

CHARLES learned all this news at Naples, and, tired of his late
conquests, which necessitated a labour in organisation for which he was
quite unfitted, turned his eyes towards France, where victorious fetes and
rejoicings were awaiting the victor's return. So he yielded at the first breath
of his advisers, and retraced his road to his kingdom, threatened, as was
said, by the Germans on the north and the Spaniards on the south.
Consequently, he appointed Gilbert de Montpensier, of the house of
Bourbon, viceroy; d'Aubigny, of the Scotch Stuart family, lieutenant in
Calabria; Etienne de Vese, commander at Gaeta; and Don Juliano, Gabriel
de Montfaucon, Guillaume de Villeneuve, George de Lilly, the bailiff of
Vitry, and Graziano Guerra respectively governors of Sant' Angelo,
Manfredonia, Trani, Catanzaro, Aquila, and Sulmone; then leaving behind
in evidence of his claims the half of his Swiss, a party of his Gascons, eight
hundred French lances, and about five hundred Italian men-at-arms, the last
under the command of the prefect of Rome, Prospero and Fabrizio Colonna,
and Antonio Savelli, he left Naples on the 20th of May at two o'clock in the
afternoon, to traverse the whole of the Italian peninsula with the rest of his
army, consisting of eight hundred French lances, two hundred gentlemen of
his guard, one hundred Italian men-at-arms, three thousand Swiss infantry,
one thousand French and one thousand Gascon. He also expected to be
joined by Camillo Vitelli and his brothers in Tuscany, who were to
contribute two hundred and fifty men-at-arms.

A week before he left Naples, Charles had sent to Rome Monseigneur
de Saint-Paul, brother of Cardinal de Luxembourg; and just as he was
starting he despatched thither the new Archbishop of Lyons. They both were
commissioned to assure Alexander that the King of France had the most
sincere desire and the very best intention of remaining his friend. In truth,
Charles wished for nothing so much as to separate the pope from the
league, so as to secure him as a spiritual and temporal support; but a young
king, full of fire, ambition, and courage, was not the neighbour to suit
Alexander; so the latter would listen to nothing, and as the troops he had
demanded from the doge and Ludavico Sforza had not been sent in
sufficient number for the defense of Rome, he was content with
provisioning the castle of S. Angelo, putting in a formidable garrison, and
leaving Cardinal Sant' Anastasio to receive Charles while he himself
withdrew with Caesar to Orvieto. Charles only stayed in Rome three days,
utterly depressed because the pope had refused to receive him in spite of his
entreaties. And in these three days, instead of listening to Giuliano della
Rovere, who was advising him once more to call a council and depose the
pope, he rather hoped to bring the pope round to his side by the virtuous act
of restoring the citadels of Terracina and Civita Vecchia to the authorities of
the Romagna, only keeping for himself Ostia, which he had promised
Giuliano to give back to him. At last, when the three days had elapsed, he
left Rome, and resumed his march in three columns towards Tuscany,
crossed the States of the Church, and on the 13th reached Siena, where he
was joined by Philippe de Commines, who had gone as ambassador
extraordinary to the Venetian Republic, and now announced that the enemy
had forty thousand men under arms and were preparing for battle. This
news produced no other effect on the king and the gentlemen of his army
than to excite their amusement beyond measure; for they had conceived

such a contempt for their enemy by their easy conquest, that they could not
believe that any army, however numerous, would venture to oppose their
passage.
Charles, however, was forced to give way in the face of facts, when he
heard at San Teranza that his vanguard, commanded by Marechal de Gie,
and composed of six hundred lances and fifteen hundred Swiss, when it
arrived at Fornova had come face to face with the confederates, who had
encamped at Guiarole. The marechal had ordered an instant halt, and he too
had pitched his tents, utilising for his defence the natural advantages of the
hilly ground. When these first measures had been taken, he sent out, first, a
herald to the enemy's camp to ask from Francesco di Gonzaga, Marquis of
Mantua, generalissimo of the confederate troops, a passage for his king's
army and provisions at a reasonable price; and secondly, he despatched a
courier to Charles VIII, pressing him to hurry on his march with the artillery
and rearguard. The confederates had given an evasive answer, for they were
pondering whether they ought to jeopardise the whole Italian force in a
single combat, and, putting all to the hazard, attempt to annihilate the King
of France and his army together, so overwhelming the conqueror in the
ruins of his ambition. The messenger found Charles busy superintending the
passage of the last of his cannon over the mountain of Pontremoli. This was
no easy matter, seeing that there was no sort of track, and the guns had to be
lifted up and lowered by main force, and each piece needed the arms of as
many as two hundred men. At last, when all the artillery had arrived without
accident on the other side of the Apennines, Charles started in hot haste for
Fornovo, where he arrived with all his following on the morning of the next
day.
From the top of the mountain where the Marechal de Gie had pitched
his tents, the king beheld both his own camp and the enemy's. Both were on

the right bank of the Taro, and were at either end of a semicircular chain of
hills resembling an amphitheatre; and the space between the two camps, a
vast basin filled during the winter floods by the torrent which now only
marked its boundary, was nothing but a plain covered with gravel, where all
manoeuvres must be equally difficult for horse and infantry. Besides, on the
western slope of the hills there was a little wood which extended from the
enemy's army to the French, and was in the possession of the Stradiotes,
who, by help of its cover, had already engaged in several skirmishes with
the French troops during the two days of halt while they were waiting for
the king.
The situation was not reassuring. From the top of the mountain which
overlooked Fornovo, one could get a view, as we said before, of the two
camps, and could easily calculate the numerical difference between them.
The French army, weakened by the establishment of garrisons in the various
towns and fortresses they had won in Italy, were scarcely eight thousand
strong, while the combined forces of Milan and Venice exceeded a total of
thirty-five thousand. So Charles decided to try once more the methods of
conciliation, and sent Commines, who, as we know, had joined him in
Tuscany, to the Venetian 'proveditori', whose acquaintance he had made
when on his embassy; he having made a great impression on these men,
thanks to a general high opinion of his merits. He was commissioned to tell
the enemy's generals, in the name of the King of France, that his master
only desired to continue his road without doing or receiving any harm; that
therefore he asked to be allowed a free passage across the fair plains of
Lombardy, which he could see from the heights where he now stood,
stretching as far as the eye could reach, away to the foot of the Alps.
Commines found the confederate army deep in discussion: the wish of the
Milanese and Venetian party being to let the king go by, and not attack him;

they said they were only too happy that he should leave Italy in this way,
without causing any further harm; but the ambassadors of Spain and
Germany took quite another view. As their masters had no troops in the
army, and as all the money they had promised was already paid, they must
be the gainer in either case from a battle, whichever way it went: if they
won the day they would gather the fruits of victory, and if they lost they
would experience nothing of the evils of defeat. This want of unanimity was
the reason why the answer to Commines was deferred until the following
day, and why it was settled that on the next day he should hold another
conference with a plenipotentiary to be appointed in the course of that
night. The place of this conference was to be between the two armies.
The king passed the night in great uneasiness. All day the weather had
threatened to turn to rain, and we have already said how rapidly the Taro
could swell; the river, fordable to-day, might from tomorrow onwards prove
an insurmountable obstacle; and possibly the delay had only been asked for
with a view to putting the French army in a worse position. As a fact the
night had scarcely come when a terrible storm arose, and so long as
darkness lasted, great rumblings were heard in the Apennines, and the sky
was brilliant with lightning. At break of day, however, it seemed to be
getting a little calmer, though the Taro, only a streamlet the day before, had
become a torrent by this time, and was rapidly rising. So at six in the
morning, the king, ready armed and on horseback, summoned Commines
and bade him make his way to the rendezvous that the Venetian 'proveditori'
had assigned. But scarcely had he contrived to give the order when loud
cries were heard coming from the extreme right of the French army. The
Stradiotes, under cover of the wood stretching between the two camps, had
surprised an outpost, and first cutting the soldiers' throats, were carrying off
their heads in their usual way at the saddle-bow. A detachment of cavalry

was sent in pursuit; but, like wild animals, they had retreated to their lair in
the woods, and there disappeared.
This unexpected engagement, in all probability arranged beforehand
by the Spanish and German envoys, produced on the whole army the effect
of a spark applied to a train of gunpowder. Commines and the Venetian
'proveditori' each tried in vain to arrest the combat on either side. Light
troops, eager for a skirmish, and, in the usual fashion of those days,
prompted only by that personal courage which led them on to danger, had
already come to blows, rushing down into the plain as though it were an
amphitheatre where they might make a fine display of arms. For a moment
the young king, drawn on by example, was on the point of forgetting the
responsibility of a general in his zeal as a soldier; but this first impulse was
checked by Marechal de Gie, Messire Claude de la Chatre de Guise, and M.
de la Trimauille, who persuaded Charles to adopt the wiser plan, and to
cross the Taro without seeking a battle,—at the same time without trying to
avoid it, should the enemy cross the river from their camp and attempt to
block his passage. The king accordingly, following the advice of his wisest
and bravest captains, thus arranged his divisions.
The first comprised the van and a body of troops whose duty it was to
support them. The van consisted of three hundred and fifty men-at-arms, the
best and bravest of the army, under the command of Marechal de Gie and
Jacques Trivulce; the corps following them consisted of three thousand
Swiss, under the command of Engelbert der Cleves and de Larnay, the
queen's grand equerry; next came three hundred archers of the guard, whom
the king had sent to help the cavalry by fighting in the spaces between
them.
The second division, commanded by the king in person and forming
the middle of the army, was composed of the artillery, under Jean de

Lagrange, a hundred gentlemen of the guard with Gilles Carrone for
standard-bearer, pensioners of the king's household under Aymar de Prie,
some Scots, and two hundred cross-bowmen on horseback, with French
archers besides, led by M. de Crussol.
Lastly, the third division, i.e. the rear, preceded by six thousand beasts
of burden bearing the baggage, was composed of only three hundred men-
at-arms, commanded by de Guise and by de la Trimouille: this was the
weakest part of the army.
When this arrangement was settled, Charles ordered the van to cross
the river, just at the little town of Fornovo. This was done at once, the riders
getting wet up to their knees, and the footmen holding to the horses' tails.
As soon as he saw the last soldiers of his first division on the opposite bank,
he started himself to follow the same road and cross at the same ford, giving
orders to de Guise and de la Trimouille to regulate the march of the rear
guard by that of the centre, just as he had regulated their march by that of
the van. His orders were punctually carried out; and about ten o'clock in the
morning the whole French army was on the left bank of the Taro: at the
same time, when it seemed certain from the enemy's arrangements that
battle was imminent, the baggage, led by the captain, Odet de Reberac, was
separated from the rear guard, and retired to the extreme left.
Now, Francisco de Gonzaga, general-in-chief of the confederate
troops, had modelled his plans on those of the King of France; by his
orders, Count de Cajazzo, with four hundred men-at-arms and two thousand
infantry, had crossed the Taro where the Venetian camp lay, and was to
attack the French van; while Gonzaga himself, following the right bank as
far as Fornovo, would go over the river by the same ford that Charles had
used, with a view to attacking his rear. Lastly, he had placed the Stradiotes
between these two fords, with orders to cross the river in their turn, so soon

as they saw the French army attacked both in van and in the rear, and to fall
upon its flank. Not content with offensive measures, Gonzaga had also
made provision for retreat by leaving three reserve corps on the right bank,
one to guard the camp under the instruction of the Venetian 'provveditori',
and the other two arranged in echelon to support each other, the first
commanded by Antonio di Montefeltro, the second by Annibale
Bentivoglio.
Charles had observed all these arrangements, and had recognised the
cunning Italian strategy which made his opponents the finest generals in the
world; but as there was no means of avoiding the danger, he had decided to
take a sideway course, and had given orders to continue the match; but in a
minute the French army was caught between Count di Cajazzo, barring the
way with his four hundred men-at-arms and his two thousand infantry, and
Gonzaga in pursuit of the rear, as we said before; leading six hundred men-
at-arms, the flower of his army, a squadron of Stradiotes, and more than
five thousand infantry: this division alone was stronger than the whole of
the French army.
When, however, M. de Guise and M. de la Trimouille found
themselves pressed in this way, they ordered their two hundred men-at-arms
to turn right about face, while at the opposite end—that is, at the head of the
army-Marechal de Gie and Trivulce ordered a halt and lances in rest.
Meanwhile, according to custom, the king, who, as we said, was in the
centre, was conferring knighthood on those gentlemen who had earned the
favour either by virtue of their personal powers or the king's special
friendship.
Suddenly there was heard a terrible clash behind. It was the French
rearguard coming to blows with the Marquis of Mantua. In this encounter,
where each man had singled out his own foe as though it were a

tournament, very many lances were broken, especially those of the Italian
knights; for their lances were hollowed so as to be less heavy, and in
consequence had less solidity. Those who were thus disarmed at once seized
their swords. As they were far more numerous than the French, the king saw
them suddenly outflanking his right wing and apparently prepared to
surround it; at the same moment loud cries were heard from a direction
facing the centre: this meant that the Stradiotes were crossing the river to
make their attack.
The king at once ordered his division into two detachments, and giving
one to Bourbon the bastard, to make head against the Stradiotes, he hurried
with the second to the rescue of the van, flinging himself into the very midst
of the melee, striking out like a king, and doing as steady work as the
lowest in rank of his captains. Aided by the reinforcement, the rearguard
made a good stand, though the enemy were five against one, and the combat
in this part continued to rage with wonderful fury.
Obeying his orders, Bourbon had thrown himself upon the Stradiotes;
but unfortunately, carried off by his horse, he had penetrated so far into the
enemy's ranks that he was lost to sight: the disappearance of their chief, the
strange dress of their new antagonists, and the peculiar method of their
fighting produced a considerable effect on those who were to attack them;
and for the moment disorder was the consequence in the centre, and the
horse men scattered instead of serrying their ranks and fighting in a body.
This false move would have done them serious harm, had not most of the
Stradiotes, seeing the baggage alone and undefended, rushed after that in
hope of booty, instead of following up their advantage. A great part of the
troop nevertheless stayed behind to fight, pressing on the French cavalry
and smashing their lances with their fearful scimitars. Happily the king,
who had just repulsed the Marquis of Mantua's attack, perceived what was

going on behind him, and riding back at all possible speed to the succour of
the centre, together with the gentlemen of his household fell upon the
Stradiotes, no longer armed with a lance, for that he had just broken, but
brandishing his long sword, which blazed about him like lightning, and—
either because he was whirled away like Bourbon by his own horse, or
because he had allowed his courage to take him too far—he suddenly found
himself in the thickest ranks of the Stradiotes, accompanied only by eight of
the knights he had just now created, one equerry called Antoine des Ambus,
and his standard-bearer. "France, France!" he cried aloud, to rally round him
all the others who had scattered; they, seeing at last that the danger was less
than they had supposed, began to take their revenge and to pay back with
interest the blows they had received from the Stradiotes. Things were going
still better for the van, which the Marquis de Cajazzo was to attack; for
although he had at first appeared to be animated with a terrible purpose, he
stopped short about ten or twelve feet from the French line and turned right
about face without breaking a single lance. The French wanted to pursue,
but the Marechal de Gie, fearing that this flight might be only a trick to
draw off the vanguard from the centre, ordered every man to stay in his
place. But the Swiss, who were German, and did not understand the order,
or thought it was not meant for them, followed upon their heels, and
although on foot caught them up and killed a hundred of them. This was
quite enough to throw them into disorder, so that some were scattered about
the plain, and others made a rush for the water, so as to cross the river and
rejoin their camp.
When the Marechal de Gie saw this, he detached a hundred of his own
men to go to the aid of the king, who was continuing to fight with unheard-
of courage and running the greatest risks, constantly separated as he was
from his gentlemen, who could not follow him; for wherever there was

danger, thither he rushed, with his cry of "France," little troubling himself
as to whether he was followed or not. And it was no longer with his sword
that he fought; that he had long ago broken, like his lance, but with a heavy
battle-axe, whose every blow was mortal whether cut or pierced. Thus the
Stradiotes, already hard pressed by the king's household and his pensioners,
soon changed attack for defence and defence for flight. It was at this
moment that the king was really in the greatest danger; for he had let
himself be carried away in pursuit of the fugitives, and presently found
himself all alone, surrounded by these men, who, had they not been struck
with a mighty terror, would have had nothing to do but unite and crush him
and his horse together; but, as Commines remarks, "He whom God guards
is well guarded, and God was guarding the King of France."
All the same, at this moment the French were sorely pressed in the
rear; and although de Guise and de la Trimouille held out as firmly as it was
possible to hold, they would probably have been compelled to yield to
superior numbers had not a double aid arrived in time: first the
indefatigable Charles, who, having nothing more to do among the fugitives,
once again dashed into the midst of the fight, next the servants of the army,
who, now that they were set free from the Stradiotes and saw their enemies
put to flight, ran up armed with the axes they habitually used to cut down
wood for building their huts: they burst into the middle of the fray, slashing
at the horses' legs and dealing heavy blows that smashed in the visors of the
dismounted horsemen.
The Italians could not hold out against this double attack; the 'furia
francese' rendered all their strategy and all their calculations useless,
especially as for more than a century they had abandoned their fights of
blood and fury for a kind of tournament they chose to regard as warfare; so,
in spite of all Gonzaga's efforts, they turned their backs upon the French

rear and took to flight; in the greatest haste and with much difficulty they
recrossed the torrent, which was swollen even more now by the rain that
had been falling during the whole time of the battle.
Some thought fit to pursue the vanquished, for there was now such
disorder in their ranks that they were fleeing in all directions from the
battlefield where the French had gained so glorious a victory, blocking up
the roads to Parma and Bercetto. But Marechal de Gie and de Guise and de
la Trimouille, who had done quite enough to save them from the suspicion
of quailing before imaginary dangers, put a stop to this enthusiasm, by
pointing out that it would only be risking the loss of their present advantage
if they tried to push it farther with men and horses so worn out. This view
was adopted in spite of the opinion of Trivulce, Camillo Vitelli, and
Francesco Secco, who were all eager to follow up the victory.
The king retired to a little village on the left bank of the Taro, and took
shelter in a poor house. There he disarmed, being perhaps among all the
captains and all the soldiers the man who had fought best.
During the night the torrent swelled so high that the Italian army could
not have pursued, even if they had laid aside their fears. The king did not
propose to give the appearance of flight after a victory, and therefore kept
his army drawn up all day, and at night went on to sleep at Medesano, a
little village only a mile lower down than the hamlet where he rested after
the fight. But in the course of the night he reflected that he had done enough
for the honour of his arms in fighting an army four times as great as his own
and killing three thousand men, and then waiting a day and a half to give
them time to take their revenge; so two hours before daybreak he had the
fires lighted, that the enemy might suppose he was remaining in camp; and
every man mounting noiselessly, the whole French army, almost out of
danger by this time, proceeded on their march to Borgo San Donnino.

While this was going on, the pope returned to Rome, where news
highly favourable to his schemes was not slow to reach his ears. He learned
that Ferdinand had crossed from Sicily into Calabria with six thousand
volunteers and a considerable number of Spanish horse and foot, led, at the
command of Ferdinand and Isabella, by the famous Gonzalva de Cordova,
who arrived in Italy with a great reputation, destined to suffer somewhat
from the defeat at Seminara. At almost the same time the French fleet had
been beaten by the Aragonese; moreover, the battle of the Taro, though a
complete defeat for the confederates, was another victory for the pope,
because its result was to open a return to France for that man whom he
regarded as his deadliest foe. So, feeling that he had nothing more to fear
from Charles, he sent him a brief at Turin, where he had stopped for a short
time to give aid to Novara, therein commanding him, by virtue of his
pontifical authority, to depart out of Italy with his army, and to recall within
ten days those of his troops that still remained in the kingdom of Naples, on
pain of excommunication, and a summons to appear before him in person.
Charles VIII replied:

1. That he did not understand how the pope, the chief of the league,
ordered him to leave Italy, whereas the confederates had not only
refused him a passage, but had even attempted, though unsuccessfully,
as perhaps His Holiness knew, to cut off his return into France;
2. That, as to recalling his troops from Naples, he was not so irreligious
as to do that, since they had not entered the kingdom without the
consent and blessing of His Holiness;
3. That he was exceedingly surprised that the pope should require his
presence in person at the capital of the Christian world just at the
present time, when six weeks previously, at the time of his return from

Naples, although he ardently desired an interview with His Holiness,
that he might offer proofs of his respect and obedience, His Holiness,
instead of according this favour, had quitted Rome so hastily on his
approach that he had not been able to come up with him by any efforts
whatsoever. On this point, however, he promised to give His Holiness
the satisfaction he desired, if he would engage this time to wait for
him: he would therefore return to Rome so soon as the affairs that
brought him back to his own kingdom had been satisfactorily, settled.

Although in this reply there was a touch of mockery and defiance, Charles
was none the less compelled by the circumstances of the case to obey the
pope's strange brief. His presence was so much needed in France that, in
spite of the arrival of a Swiss reinforcement, he was compelled to conclude
a peace with Ludovico Sforza, whereby he yielded Novara to him; while
Gilbert de Montpensier and d'Aubigny, after defending, inch by inch,
Calabria, the Basilicate, and Naples, were obliged to sign the capitulation of
Atella, after a siege of thirty-two days, on the 20th of July, 1496. This
involved giving back to Ferdinand II, King of Naples, all the palaces and
fortresses of his kingdom; which indeed he did but enjoy for three months,
dying of exhaustion on the 7th of September following, at the Castello della
Somma, at the foot of Vesuvius; all the attentions lavished upon him by his
young wife could not repair the evil that her beauty had wrought.
His uncle Frederic succeeded; and so, in the three years of his papacy,
Alexander VI had seen five kings upon the throne of Naples, while he was
establishing himself more firmly upon his own pontifical seat—Ferdinand I,
Alfonso I, Charles VIII, Ferdinand II, and Frederic. All this agitation about
his throne, this rapid succession of sovereigns, was the best thing possible
for Alexander; for each new monarch became actually king only on

condition of his receiving the pontifical investiture. The consequence was
that Alexander was the only gainer in power and credit by these changes;
for the Duke of Milan and the republics of Florence and Venice had
successively recognised him as supreme head of the Church, in spite of his
simony; moreover, the five kings of Naples had in turn paid him homage.
So he thought the time had now come for founding a mighty family; and for
this he relied upon the Duke of Gandia, who was to hold all the highest
temporal dignities; and upon Caesar Borgia, who was to be appointed to all
the great ecclesiastical offices. The pope made sure of the success of these
new projects by electing four Spanish cardinals, who brought up the
number of his compatriots in the Sacred College to twenty-two, thus
assuring him a constant and certain majority.
The first requirement of the pope's policy was to clear away from the
neighbourhood of Rome all those petty lords whom most people call vicars
of the Church, but whom Alexander called the shackles of the papacy. We
saw that he had already begun this work by rousing the Orsini against the
Colonna family, when Charles VIII's enterprise compelled him to
concentrate all his mental resources, and also the forces of his States, so as
to secure his own personal safety.
It had come about through their own imprudent action that the Orsini,
the pope's old friends, were now in the pay of the French, and had entered
the kingdom of Naples with them, where one of them, Virginio, a very
important member of their powerful house, had been taken prisoner during
the war, and was Ferdinand II's captive. Alexander could not let this
opportunity escape him; so, first ordering the King of Naples not to release
a man who, ever since the 1st of June, 1496, had been a declared rebel, he
pronounced a sentence of confiscation against Virginio Orsini and his whole
family in a secret consistory, which sat on the 26th of October following—

that is to say, in the early days of the reign of Frederic, whom he knew to be
entirely at his command, owing to the King's great desire of getting the
investiture from him; then, as it was not enough to declare the goods
confiscated, without also dispossessing the owners, he made overtures to
the Colonna family, saying he would commission them, in proof of their
new bond of friendship, to execute the order given against their old enemies
under the direction of his son Francesco, Duke of Gandia. In this fashion he
contrived to weaken his neighbours each by means of the other, till such
time as he could safely attack and put an end to conquered and conqueror
alike.
The Colonna family accepted this proposition, and the Duke of Gandia
was named General of the Church: his father in his pontifical robes
bestowed on him the insignia of this office in the church of St. Peter's at
Rome.

CHAPTER VII

Matters went forward as Alexander had wished, and before the end of the
year the pontifical army had seized a great number of castles and fortresses
that belonged to the Orsini, who thought themselves already lost when
Charles VIII came to the rescue. They had addressed themselves to him
without much hope that he could be of real use to there, with his want of
armed troops and his preoccupation with his own affairs. He, however, sent
Carlo Orsini, son of Virginio, the prisoner, and Vitellozzo Vitelli, brother of
Camillo Vitelli, one of the three valiant Italian condottieri who had joined
him and fought for him at the crossing of the Taro: These two captains,
whose courage and skill were well known, brought with them a
considerable sum of money from the liberal coffers of Charles VIII. Now,
scarcely had they arrived at Citta di Castello, the centre of their little
sovereignty, and expressed their intention of raising a band of soldiers,
when men presented themselves from all sides to fight under their banner;
so they very soon assembled a small army, and as they had been able during
their stay among the French to study those matters of military organisation
in which France excelled, they now applied the result of their learning to
their own troops: the improvements were mainly certain changes in the
artillery which made their manoeuvres easier, and the substitution for their
ordinary weapons of pikes similar in form to the Swiss pikes, but two feet
longer. These changes effected, Vitellozzo Vitelli spent three or four months
in exercising his men in the management of their new weapons; then, when

he thought them fit to make good use of these, and when he had collected
more or less help from the towns of Perugia, Todi, and Narni, where the
inhabitants trembled lest their turn should come after the Orsini's, as the
Orsini's had followed on the Colonnas', he marched towards Braccianno,
which was being besieged by the Duke of Urbino, who had been lent to the
pope by the Venetians, in virtue of the treaty quoted above.
The Venetian general, when he heard of Vitelli's approach, thought he
might as well spare him half his journey, and marched out to confront him:
the two armies met in the Soriano road, and the battle straightway began.
The pontifical army had a body of eight hundred Germans, on which the
Dukes of Urbino and Gandia chiefly relied, as well they might, for they
were the best troops in the world; but Vitelli attacked these picked men with
his infantry, who, armed with their formidable pikes, ran them through,
while they with arms four feet shorter had no chance even of returning the
blows they received; at the same time Vitelli's light troops wheeled upon the
flank, following their most rapid movements, and silencing the enemy's
artillery by the swiftness and accuracy of their attack. The pontifical troops
were put to flight, though after a longer resistance than might have been
expected when they had to sustain the attack of an army so much better
equipped than their own; with them they bore to Ronciglione the Duke of
Gandia, wounded in the face by a pike-thrust, Fabrizia Colonna, and the
envoy; the Duke of Urbino, who was fighting in the rear to aid the retreat,
was taken prisoner with all his artillery and the baggage of the conquered
army. But this success, great as it was, did not so swell the pride of
Vitellozza Vitelli as to make him oblivious of his position. He knew that he
and the Orsini together were too weak to sustain a war of such magnitude;
that the little store of money to which he owed the existence of his army
would very soon be expended and his army would disappear with it. So he

hastened to get pardoned for the victory by making propositions which he
would very likely have refused had he been the vanquished party; and the
pope accepted his conditions without demur; during the interval having
heard that Trivulce had just recrossed the Alps and re-entered Italy with
three thousand Swiss, and fearing lest the Italian general might only be the
advance guard of the King of France. So it was settled that the Orsini
should pay 70,000 florins for the expenses of the war, and that all the
prisoners on both sides should be exchanged without ransom with the single
exception of the Duke of Urbino. As a pledge for the future payment of the
70,000 florins, the Orsini handed over to the Cardinals Sforza and San
Severino the fortresses of Anguillara and Cervetri; then, when the day came
and they had not the necessary money, they gave up their prisoner, the Duke
of Urbino, estimating his worth at 40,000 ducats—nearly all the sum
required—and handed him over to Alexander on account; he, a rigid
observer of engagements, made his own general, taken prisoner in his
service, pay, to himself the ransom he owed to the enemy.
Then the pope had the corpse of Virginio sent to Carlo Orsini and
Vitellozzo Vitelli, as he could not send him alive. By a strange fatality the
prisoner had died, eight days before the treaty was signed, of the same
malady—at least, if we may judge by analogy—that had carried off
Bajazet's brother.
As soon as the peace was signed, Prospero Colonna and Gonzalvo de
Cordova, whom the Pope had demanded from Frederic, arrived at Rome
with an army of Spanish and Neapolitan troops. Alexander, as he could not
utilise these against the Orsini, set them the work of recapturing Ostia, not
desiring to incur the reproach of bringing them to Rome for nothing.
Gonzalvo was rewarded for this feat by receiving the Rose of Gold from the
pope's hand—that being the highest honour His Holiness can grant. He

shared this distinction with the Emperor Maximilian, the King of France,
the Doge of Venice, and the Marquis of Mantua.
In the midst of all this occurred the solemn festival of the Assumption;
in which Gonzalvo was invited to take part. He accordingly left his palace,
proceeded in great pomp in the front of the pontifical cavalry, and took his
place on the Duke of Gandia's left hand. The duke attracted all eyes by his
personal beauty, set off as it was by all the luxury he thought fit to display
at this festival. He had a retinue of pages and servants, clad in sumptuous
liveries, incomparable for richness with anything heretofore seen in Rome,
that city of religious pomp. All these pages and servants rode magnificent
horses, caparisoned in velvet trimmed with silver fringe, and bells of silver
hanging down every here and there. He himself was in a robe of gold
brocade, and wore at his neck a string of Eastern pearls, perhaps the finest
and largest that ever belonged to a Christian prince, while on his cap was a
gold chain studded with diamonds of which the smallest was worth more
than 20,000 ducats. This magnificence was all the more conspicuous by the
contrast it presented to Caesar's dress, whose scarlet robe admitted of no
ornaments. The result was that Caesar, doubly jealous of his brother, felt a
new hatred rise up within him when he heard all along the way the praises
of his fine appearance and noble equipment. From this moment Cardinal
Valentino decided in his own mind the fate of this man, this constant
obstacle in the path of his pride, his love, and his ambition. Very good
reason, says Tommaso, the historian, had the Duke of Gandia to leave
behind him an impression on the public mind of his beauty and his grandeur
at this fete, for this last display was soon to be followed by the obsequies of
the unhappy young man.
Lucrezia also had come to Rome, on the pretext of taking part in the
solemnity, but really, as we shall see later, with the view of serving as a new

instrument for her father's ambition. As the pope was not satisfied with an
empty triumph of vanity and display for his son, and as his war with the
Orsini had failed to produce the anticipated results, he decided to increase
the fortune of his firstborn by doing the very thing which he had accused
Calixtus in his speech of doing for him, viz., alienating from the States of
the Church the cities of Benevento, Terracino, and Pontecorvo to form, a
duchy as an appanage to his son's house. Accordingly this proposition was
put forward in a full consistory, and as the college of cardinals was entirely
Alexander's, there was no difficulty about carrying his point. This new
favour to his elder brother exasperated Caesar, although he was himself
getting a share of the paternal gifts; for he had just been named envoy 'a
latere' at Frederic's court, and was appointed to crown him with his own
hands as the papal representative. But Lucrezia, when she had spent a few
days of pleasure with her father and brothers, had gone into retreat at the
convent of San Sisto. No one knew the real motive of her seclusion, and no
entreaties of Caesar, whose love for her was strange and unnatural, had
induced her to defer this departure from the world even until the day after
he left for Naples. His sister's obstinacy wounded him deeply, for ever since
the day when the Duke of Gandia had appeared in the procession so
magnificently attired, he fancied he had observed a coldness in the mistress
of his illicit affection, and so far did this increase his hatred of his rival that
he resolved to be rid of him at all costs. So he ordered the chief of his sbirri
to come and see him the same night.
Michelotto was accustomed to these mysterious messages, which
almost always meant his help was wanted in some love affair or some act of
revenge. As in either case his reward was generally a large one, he was
careful to keep his engagement, and at the appointed hour was brought into
the presence of his patron.

Caesar received him leaning against a tall chimney-piece, no longer
wearing his cardinal's robe and hat, but a doublet of black velvet slashed
with satin of the same colour. One hand toyed mechanically with his gloves,
while the other rested on the handle of a poisoned dagger which never left
his side. This was the dress he kept for his nocturnal expeditions, so
Michelotto felt no surprise at that; but his eyes burned with a flame more
gloomy than their wont, and his cheeks, generally pale, were now livid.
Michelotto had but to cast one look upon his master to see that Caesar and
he were about to share some terrible enterprise.
He signed to him to shut the door. Michelotto obeyed. Then, after a
moment's silence, during which the eyes of Borgia seemed to burn into the
soul of the bravo, who with a careless air stood bareheaded before him, he
said, in a voice whose slightly mocking tone gave the only sign of his
emotion.
"Michelotto, how do you think this dress suits me?"
Accustomed as he was to his master's tricks of circumlocution, the
bravo was so far from expecting this question, that at first he stood mute,
and only after a few moments' pause was able to say:
"Admirably, monsignore; thanks to the dress, your Excellency has the
appearance as well as the true spirit of a captain."
"I am glad you think so," replied Caesar. "And now let me ask you, do
you know who is the cause that, instead of wearing this dress, which I can
only put on at night, I am forced to disguise myself in the daytime in a
cardinal's robe and hat, and pass my time trotting about from church to
church, from consistory to consistory, when I ought properly to be leading a
magnificent army in the battlefield, where you would enjoy a captain's rank,
instead of being the chief of a few miserable sbirri?"

"Yes, monsignore," replied Michelotto, who had divined Caesar's
meaning at his first word; "the man who is the cause of this is Francesco,
Duke of Gandia, and Benevento, your elder brother."
"Do you know," Caesar resumed, giving no sign of assent but a nod
and a bitter smile,—"do you know who has all the money and none of the
genius, who has the helmet and none of the brains, who has the sword and
no hand to wield it?"
"That too is the Duke of Gandia," said Michelotto.
"Do you know;" continued Caesar, "who is the man whom I find
continually blocking the path of my ambition, my fortune, and my love?"
"It is the same, the Duke of Gandia," said Michelotto.
"And what do you think of it?" asked Caesar.
"I think he must die," replied the man coldly.
"That is my opinion also, Michelotto," said Caesar, stepping towards
him and grasping his hand; "and my only regret is that I did not think of it
sooner; for if I had carried a sword at my side instead of a crosier in my
hand when the King of France was marching through Italy, I should now
have been master of a fine domain. The pope is obviously anxious to
aggrandise his family, but he is mistaken in the means he adopts: it is I who
ought to have been made duke, and my brother a cardinal. There is no doubt
at all that, had he made me duke, I should have contributed a daring and
courage to his service that would have made his power far weightier than it
is. The man who would make his way to vast dominions and a kingdom
ought to trample under foot all the obstacles in his path, and boldly grasp
the very sharpest thorns, whatever reluctance his weak flesh may feel; such
a man, if he would open out his path to fortune, should seize his dagger or
his sword and strike out with his eyes shut; he should not shrink from
bathing his hands in the blood of his kindred; he should follow the example

offered him by every founder of empire from Romulus to Bajazet, both of
whom climbed to the throne by the ladder of fratracide. Yes, Michelotto, as
you say, such is my condition, and I am resolved I will not shrink. Now you
know why I sent for you: am I wrong in counting upon you?"
As might have been expected, Michelotto, seeing his own fortune in
this crime, replied that he was entirely at Caesar's service, and that he had
nothing to do but to give his orders as to time, place, and manner of
execution. Caesar replied that the time must needs be very soon, since he
was on the point of leaving Rome for Naples; as to the place and the mode
of execution, they would depend on circumstances, and each of them must
look out for an opportunity, and seize the first that seemed favourable.
Two days after this resolution had been taken, Caesar learned that the
day of his departure was fixed for Thursday the 15th of June: at the same
time he received an invitation from his mother to come to supper with her
on the 14th. This was a farewell repast given in his honour. Michelotto
received orders to be in readiness at eleven o'clock at night.
The table was set in the open air in a magnificent vineyard, a property
of Rosa Vanozza's in the neighbourhood of San Piero-in-Vinculis: the
guests were Caesar Borgia, the hero of the occasion; the Duke of Gandia;
Prince of Squillace; Dona Sancha, his wife; the Cardinal of Monte Reale,
Francesco Borgia, son of Calixtus III; Don Roderigo Borgia, captain of the
apostolic palace; Don Goffredo, brother of the cardinal; Gian Borgia, at that
time ambassador at Perugia; and lastly, Don Alfonso Borgia, the pope's
nephew: the whole family therefore was present, except Lucrezia, who was
still in retreat, and would not come.
The repast was magnificent: Caesar was quite as cheerful as usual, and
the Duke of Gandia seemed more joyous than he had ever been before.

In the middle of supper a man in a mask brought him a letter. The duke
unfastened it, colouring up with pleasure; and when he had read it answered
in these words, "I will come": then he quickly hid the letter in the pocket of
his doublet; but quick as he was to conceal it from every eye, Caesar had
had time to cast a glance that way, and he fancied he recognised the
handwriting of his sister Lucrezia. Meanwhile the messenger had gone off
with his answer, no one but Caesar paying the slightest attention to him, for
at that period it was the custom for messages to be conveyed by men in
domino or by women whose faces were concealed by a veil.
At ten o'clock they rose from the table, and as the air was sweet and
mild they walked about a while under the magnificent pine trees that shaded
the house of Rosa Vanozza, while Caesar never for an instant let his brother
out of his sight. At eleven o'clock the Duke of Gandia bade good-night to
his mother. Caesar at once followed suit, alleging his desire to go to the
Vatican to bid farewell to the pope, as he would not be able to fulfil this
duty on the morrow, his departure being fixed at daybreak. This pretext was
all the more plausible since the pope was in the habit of sitting up every
night till two or three o'clock in the morning.
The two brothers went out together, mounted their horses, which were
waiting for them at the door, and rode side by side as far as the Palazzo
Borgia, the present home of Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, who had taken it as a
gift from Alexander the night before his election to the papacy. There the
Duke of Gandia separated from his brother, saying with a smile that he was
not intending to go home, as he had several hours to spend first with a fair
lady who was expecting him. Caesar replied that he was no doubt free to
make any use he liked best of his opportunities, and wished him a very
good night. The duke turned to the right, and Caesar to the left; but Caesar
observed that the street the duke had taken led in the direction of the

convent of San Sisto, where, as we said, Lucrezia was in retreat; his
suspicions were confirmed by this observation, and he directed his horse's
steps to the Vatican, found the pope, took his leave of him, and received his
benediction.
From this moment all is wrapped in mystery and darkness, like that in
which the terrible deed was done that we are now to relate.
This, however, is what is believed.
The Duke of Gandia, when he quitted Caesar, sent away his servants,
and in the company of one confidential valet alone pursued his course
towards the Piazza della Giudecca. There he found the same man in a mask
who had come to speak to him at supper, and forbidding his valet to follow
any farther, he bade him wait on the piazza where they then stood,
promising to be on his way back in two hours' time at latest, and to take him
up as he passed. And at the appointed hour the duke reappeared, took leave
this time of the man in the mask, and retraced his steps towards his palace.
But scarcely had he turned the corner of the Jewish Ghetto, when four men
on foot, led by a fifth who was on horseback, flung themselves upon him.
Thinking they were thieves, or else that he was the victim of some mistake,
the Duke of Gandia mentioned his name; but instead of the name checking
the murderers' daggers, their strokes were redoubled, and the duke very
soon fell dead, his valet dying beside him.
Then the man on horseback, who had watched the assassination with
no sign of emotion, backed his horse towards the dead body: the four
murderers lifted the corpse across the crupper, and walking by the side to
support it, then made their way down the lane that leads to the Church of
Santa Maria-in-Monticelli. The wretched valet they left for dead upon the
pavement. But he, after the lapse of a few seconds, regained some small
strength, and his groans were heard by the inhabitants of a poor little house

hard by; they came and picked him up, and laid him upon a bed, where he
died almost at once, unable to give any evidence as to the assassins or any
details of the murder.
All night the duke was expected home, and all the next morning; then
expectation was turned into fear, and fear at last into deadly terror. The pope
was approached, and told that the Duke of Gandia had never come back to
his palace since he left his mother's house. But Alexander tried to deceive
himself all through the rest of the day, hoping that his son might have been
surprised by the coming of daylight in the midst of an amorous adventure,
and was waiting till the next night to get away in that darkness which had
aided his coming thither. But the night, like the day, passed and brought no
news. On the morrow, the pope, tormented by the gloomiest presentiments
and by the raven's croak of the 'vox populi', let himself fall into the depths
of despair: amid sighs and sobs of grief, all he could say to any one who
came to him was but these words, repeated a thousand times: "Search,
search; let us know how my unhappy son has died."
Then everybody joined in the search; for, as we have said, the Duke of
Gandia was beloved by all; but nothing could be discovered from scouring
the town, except the body of the murdered man, who was recognised as the
duke's valet; of his master there was no trace whatever: it was then thought,
not without reason, that he had probably been thrown into the Tiber, and
they began to follow along its banks, beginning from the Via della Ripetta,
questioning every boatman and fisherman who might possibly have seen,
either from their houses or from their boats, what had happened on the river
banks during the two preceding nights. At first all inquiries were in vain;
but when they had gone up as high as the Via del Fantanone, they found a
man at last who said he had seen something happen on the night of the 14th
which might very possibly have some bearing on the subject of inquiry. He

was a Slav named George, who was taking up the river a boat laden with
wood to Ripetta. The following are his own words:
"Gentlemen," he said, "last Wednesday evening, when I had set down
my load of wood on the bank, I remained in my boat, resting in the cool
night air, and watching lest other men should come and take away what I
had just unloaded, when, about two o'clock in the morning, I saw coming
out of the lane on the left of San Girolamo's Church two men on foot, who
came forward into the middle of the street, and looked so carefully all
around that they seemed to have come to find out if anybody was going
along the street. When they felt sure that it was deserted, they went back
along the same lane, whence issued presently two other men, who used
similar precautions to make sure that there was nothing fresh; they, when
they found all as they wished, gave a sign to their companions to come and
join them; next appeared one man on a dapple-grey horse, which was
carrying on the crupper the body of a dead man, his head and arms hanging
over on one side and his feet on the other. The two fellows I had first seen
exploring were holding him up by the arms and legs. The other three at
once went up to the river, while the first two kept a watch on the street, and
advancing to the part of the bank where the sewers of the town are
discharged into the Tiber, the horseman turned his horse, backing on the
river; then the two who were at either side taking the corpse, one by the
hands, the other by the feet, swung it three times, and the third time threw it
out into the river with all their strength; then at the noise made when the
body splashed into the water, the horseman asked, 'Is it done?' and the
others answered, 'Yes, sir,' and he at once turned right about face; but seeing
the dead man's cloak floating, he asked what was that black thing
swimming about. 'Sir,' said one of the men, 'it is his cloak'; and then another
man picked up some stones, and running to the place where it was still

floating, threw them so as to make it sink under; as soon, as it had quite
disappeared, they went off, and after walking a little way along the main
road, they went into the lane that leads to San Giacomo. That was all I saw,
gentlemen, and so it is all I can answer to the questions you have asked
me."
At these words, which robbed of all hope any who might yet entertain
it, one of the pope's servants asked the Slav why, when he was witness of
such a deed, he had not gone to denounce it to the governor. But the Slav
replied that, since he had exercised his present trade on the riverside, he had
seen dead men thrown into the Tiber in the same way a hundred times, and
had never heard that anybody had been troubled about them; so he
supposed it would be the same with this corpse as the others, and had never
imagined it was his duty to speak of it, not thinking it would be any more
important than it had been before.
Acting on this intelligence, the servants of His Holiness summoned at
once all the boatmen and fishermen who were accustomed to go up and
down the river, and as a large reward was promised to anyone who should
find the duke's body, there were soon more than a hundred ready for the job;
so that before the evening of the same day, which was Friday, two men were
drawn out of the water, of whom one was instantly recognised as the
hapless duke. At the very first glance at the body there could be no doubt as
to the cause of death. It was pierced with nine wounds, the chief one in the
throat, whose artery was cut. The clothing had not been touched: his doublet
and cloak were there, his gloves in his waistband, gold in his purse; the
duke then must have been assassinated not for gain but for revenge.
The ship which carried the corpse went up the Tiber to the Castello
Sant' Angelo, where it was set down. At once the magnificent dress was
fetched from the duke's palace which he had worn on the day of the

procession, and he was clothed in it once more: beside him were placed the
insignia of the generalship of the Church. Thus he lay in state all day, but
his father in his despair had not the courage to come and look at him. At
last, when night had fallen, his most trusty and honoured servants carried
the body to the church of the Madonna del Papala, with all the pomp and
ceremony that Church and State combined could devise for the funeral of
the son of the pope.
Meantime the bloodstained hands of Caesar Borgia were placing a
royal crown upon the head of Frederic of Aragon.
This blow had pierced Alexander's heart very deeply. As at first he did
not know on whom his suspicions should fall, he gave the strictest orders
for the pursuit of the murderers; but little by little the infamous truth was
forced upon him. He saw that the blow which struck at his house came from
that very house itself and then his despair was changed to madness: he ran
through the rooms of the Vatican like a maniac, and entering the consistory
with torn garments and ashes on his head, he sobbingly avowed all the
errors of his past life, owning that the disaster that struck his offspring
through his offspring was a just chastisement from God; then he retired to a
secret dark chamber of the palace, and there shut himself up, declaring his
resolve to die of starvation. And indeed for more than sixty hours he took
no nourishment by day nor rest by night, making no answer to those who
knocked at his door to bring him food except with the wailings of a woman
or a roar as of a wounded lion; even the beautiful Giulia Farnese, his new
mistress, could not move him at all, and was obliged to go and seek
Lucrezia, that daughter doubly loved to conquer his deadly resolve.
Lucrezia came out from the retreat where she was weeping for the Duke of
Gandia, that she might console her father. At her voice the door did really
open, and it was only then that the Duke of Segovia, who had been kneeling

almost a whole day at the threshold, begging His Holiness to take heart,
could enter with servants bearing wine and food.
The pope remained alone with Lucrezia for three days and nights; then
he reappeared in public, outwardly calm, if not resigned; for Guicciardini
assures us that his daughter had made him understand how dangerous it
would be to himself to show too openly before the assassin, who was
coming home, the immoderate love he felt for his victim.

CHAPTER VIII

Caesar remained at Naples, partly to give time to the paternal grief to cool
down, and partly to get on with another business he had lately been charged
with, nothing else than a proposition of marriage between Lucrezia and Don
Alfonso of Aragon, Duke of Bicelli and Prince of Salerno, natural son of
Alfonso II and brother of Dona Sancha. It was true that Lucrezia was
already married to the lord of Pesaro, but she was the daughter of a father
who had received from heaven the right of uniting and disuniting. There
was no need to trouble about so trifling a matter: when the two were ready
to marry, the divorce would be effected. Alexander was too good a tactician
to leave his daughter married to a son-in-law who was becoming useless to
him.
Towards the end of August it was announced that the ambassador was
coming back to Rome, having accomplished his mission to the new king to
his great satisfaction. And thither he returned on the 5th of September,—
that is, nearly three months after the Duke of Gandia's death,—and on the
next day, the 6th, from the church of Santa Maria Novella, where, according
to custom, the cardinals and the Spanish and Venetian ambassadors were
awaiting him on horseback at the door, he proceeded to the Vatican, where
His Holiness was sitting; there he entered the consistory, was admitted by
the pope, and in accordance with the usual ceremonial received his
benediction and kiss; then, accompanied once more in the same fashion by
the ambassadors and cardinals, he was escorted to his own apartments.

Thence he proceeded to, the pope's, as soon as he was left alone; for at the
consistory they had had no speech with one another, and the father and son
had a hundred things to talk about, but of these the Duke of Gandia was not
one, as might have been expected. His name was not once spoken, and
neither on that day nor afterwards was there ever again any mention of the
unhappy young man: it was as though he had never existed.
It was the fact that Caesar brought good news, King Frederic gave his
consent to the proposed union; so the marriage of Sforza and Lucrezia was
dissolved on a pretext of nullity. Then Frederic authorised the exhumation
of D'jem's body, which, it will be remembered, was worth 300,000 ducats.
After this, all came about as Caesar had desired; he became the man
who was all-powerful after the pope; but when he was second in command
it was soon evident to the Roman people that their city was making a new
stride in the direction of ruin. There was nothing but balls, fetes,
masquerades; there were magnificent hunting parties, when Caesar—who
had begun to cast off his cardinal's robe,—weary perhaps of the colour,
appeared in a French dress, followed, like a king by cardinals, envoys and
bodyguard. The whole pontifical town, given up like a courtesan to orgies
and debauchery, had never been more the home of sedition, luxury, and
carnage, according to the Cardinal of Viterba, not even in the days of Nero
and Heliogabalus. Never had she fallen upon days more evil; never had
more traitors done her dishonour or sbirri stained her streets with blood.
The number of thieves was so great, and their audacity such, that no one
could with safety pass the gates of the town; soon it was not even safe
within them. No house, no castle, availed for defence. Right and justice no
longer existed. Money, farce, pleasure, ruled supreme.
Still, the gold was melting as in a furnace at these Fetes; and, by
Heaven's just punishment, Alexander and Caesar were beginning to covet

the fortunes of those very men who had risen through their simony to their
present elevation. The first attempt at a new method of coining money was
tried upon the Cardinal Cosenza. The occasion was as follows. A certain
dispensation had been granted some time before to a nun who had taken the
vows: she was the only surviving heir to the throne of Portugal, and by
means of the dispensation she had been wedded to the natural son of the last
king. This marriage was more prejudicial than can easily be imagined to the
interests of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain; so they sent ambassadors to
Alexander to lodge a complaint against a proceeding of this nature,
especially as it happened at the very moment when an alliance was to be
formed between the house of Aragon and the Holy See. Alexander
understood the complaint, and resolved that all should be set right. So he
denied all knowledge of the papal brief though he had as a fact received
60,000 ducats for signing it—and accused the Archbishop of Cosenza,
secretary for apostolic briefs, of having granted a false dispensation. By
reason of this accusation, the archbishop was taken to the castle of Sant'
Angelo, and a suit was begun.
But as it was no easy task to prove an accusation of this nature,
especially if the archbishop should persist in maintaining that the
dispensation was really granted by the pope, it was resolved to employ a
trick with him which could not fail to succeed. One evening the Archbishop
of Cosenza saw Cardinal Valentino come into his prison; with that frank air
of affability which he knew well how to assume when it could serve his
purpose, he explained to the prisoner the embarrassing situation in which
the pope was placed, from which the archbishop alone, whom His Holiness
looked upon as his best friend, could save him.
The archbishop replied that he was entirely at the service of His
Holiness.

Caesar, on his entrance, found the captive seated, leaning his elbows
on a table, and he took a seat opposite him and explained the pope's
position: it was an embarrassing one. At the very time of contracting so
important an alliance with the house of Aragon as that of Lucrezia and
Alfonso, His Holiness could not avow to Ferdinand and Isabella that, for
the sake of a few miserable ducats, he had signed a dispensation which
would unite in the husband and wife together all the legitimate claims to a
throne to which Ferdinand and Isabella had no right at all but that of
conquest. This avowal would necessarily put an end to all negotiations, and
the pontifical house would fall by the overthrow of that very pedestal which
was to have heightened its grandeur. Accordingly the archbishop would
understand what the pope expected of his devotion and friendship: it was a
simple and straight avowal that he had supposed he might take it upon
himself to accord the dispensation. Then, as the sentence to be passed on
such an error would be the business of Alexander, the accused could easily
imagine beforehand how truly paternal such a sentence would be. Besides,
the reward was in the same hands, and if the sentence was that of a father,
the recompense would be that of a king. In fact, this recompense would be
no less than the honour of assisting as envoy, with the title of cardinal, at
the marriage of Lucrezia and Alfonso—a favour which would be very
appropriate, since it would be thanks to his devotion that the marriage could
take place.
The Archbishop of Cosenza knew the men he was dealing with; he
knew that to save their own ends they would hesitate at nothing; he knew
they had a poison like sugar to the taste and to the smell, impossible to
discover in food—a poison that would kill slowly or quickly as the poisoner
willed and would leave no trace behind; he knew the secret of the poisoned
key that lay always on the pope's mantelpiece, so that when His Holiness

wished to destroy some one of his intimates, he bade him open a certain
cupboard: on the handle of the key there was a little spike, and as the lock
of the cupboard turned stiffly the hand would naturally press, the lock
would yield, and nothing would have come of it but a trifling scratch: the
scratch was mortal. He knew, too, that Caesar wore a ring made like two
lions' heads, and that he would turn the stone on the inside when he was
shaking hands with a friend. Then the lions' teeth became the teeth of a
viper, and the friend died cursing Borgia. So he yielded, partly through fear,
partly blinded by the thought of the reward; and Caesar returned to the
Vatican armed with a precious paper, in which the Archbishop of Cosenza
admitted that he was the only person responsible for the dispensation
granted to the royal nun.
Two days later, by means of the proofs kindly furnished by the
archbishop, the pope; in the presence of the governor of Rome, the auditor
of the apostolic chamber, the advocate, and the fiscal attorney, pronounced
sentence, condemning the archbishop to the loss of all his benefices and
ecclesiastical offices, degradation from his orders, and confiscation of his
goods; his person was to be handed over to the civil arm. Two days later the
civil magistrate entered the prison to fulfil his office as received from the
pope, and appeared before the archbishop, accompanied by a clerk, two
servants, and four guards. The clerk unrolled the paper he carried and read
out the sentence; the two servants untied a packet, and, stripping the
prisoner of his ecclesiastical garments, they reclothed him in a dress of
coarse white cloth which only reached down to his knees, breeches of the
same, and a pair of clumsy shoes. Lastly, the guards took him, and led him
into one of the deepest dungeons of the castle of Sant' Angelo, where for
furniture he found nothing but a wooden crucifix, a table, a chair, and a bed;
for occupation, a Bible and a breviary, with a lamp to read by; for

nourishment, two pounds of bread and a little cask of water, which were to
be renewed every three days, together with a bottle of oil for burning in his
lamp.
At the end of a year the poor archbishop died of despair, not before he
had gnawed his own arms in his agony.
The very same day that he was taken into the dungeon, Caesar Borgia,
who had managed the affair so ably, was presented by the pope with all the
belongings of the condemned prisoner.
But the hunting parties, balls, and masquerades were not the only
pleasures enjoyed by the pope and his family: from time to time strange
spectacles were exhibited. We will only describe two—one of them a case
of punishment, the other no more nor less than a matter of the stud farm.
But as both of these give details with which we would not have our readers
credit our imagination, we will first say that they are literally translated
from Burchard's Latin journal.
"About the same time—that is, about the beginning of 1499—a certain
courtesan named La Corsetta was in prison, and had a lover who came to
visit her in woman's clothes, a Spanish Moor, called from his disguise 'the
Spanish lady from Barbary!' As a punishment, both of them were led
through the town, the woman without petticoat or skirt, but wearing only
the Moor's dress unbuttoned in front; the man wore his woman's garb; his
hands were tied behind his back, and the skirt fastened up to his middle,
with a view to complete exposure before the eyes of all. When in this attire
they had made the circuit of the town, the Corsetta was sent back to the
prison with the Moor. But on the 7th of April following, the Moor was
again taken out and escorted in the company of two thieves towards the
Campo dei Fiori. The three condemned men were preceded by a constable,
who rode backwards on an ass, and held in his hand a long pole, on the end

of which were hung, still bleeding, the amputated limbs of a poor Jew who
had suffered torture and death for some trifling crime. When the procession
reached the place of execution, the thieves were hanged, and the
unfortunate Moor was tied to a stake piled round with wood, where he was
to have been burnt to death, had not rain fallen in such torrents that the fire
would not burn, in spite of all the efforts of the executioner."
This unlooked for accident, taken as a miracle by the people, robbed
Lucrezia of the most exciting part of the execution; but her father was
holding in reserve another kind of spectacle to console her with later. We
inform the reader once more that a few lines we are about to set before him
are a translation from the journal of the worthy German Burchard, who saw
nothing in the bloodiest or most wanton performances but facts for his
journal, which he duly registered with the impassibility of a scribe,
appending no remark or moral reflection.
"On the 11th of November a certain peasant was entering Rome with
two stallions laden with wood, when the servants of His Holiness, just as he
passed the Piazza of St. Peter's, cut their girths, so that their loads fell on the
ground with the pack-saddles, and led off the horses to a court between the
palace and the gate; then the stable doors were opened, and four stallions,
quite free and unbridled, rushed out and in an instant all six animals began
kicking, biting and fighting each other until several were killed. Roderigo
and Madame Lucrezia, who sat at the window just over the palace gate,
took the greatest delight in the struggle and called their courtiers to witness
the gallant battle that was being fought below them."
Now Caesar's trick in the matter of the Archbishop of Cosenza had had
the desired result, and Isabella and Ferdinand could no longer impute to
Alexander the signature of the brief they had complained of: so nothing was
now in the way of the marriage of Lucrezia and Alfonso; this certainty gave

the pope great joy, for he attached all the more importance to this marriage
because he was already cogitating a second, between Caesar and Dona
Carlota, Frederic's daughter.
Caesar had shown in all his actions since his brother's death his want
of vocation for the ecclesiastical life; so no one was astonished when, a
consistory having been summoned one morning by Alexander, Caesar
entered, and addressing the pope, began by saying that from his earliest
years he had been drawn towards secular pursuits both by natural
inclination and ability, and it had only been in obedience to the absolute
commands of His Holiness that he entered the Church, accepted the
cardinal's scarlet, other dignities, and finally the sacred order of the
diaconate; but feeling that in his situation it was improper to follow his
passions, and at his age impossible to resist them, he humbly entreated His
Holiness graciously to yield to the desire he had failed to overcome, and to
permit him to lay aside the dress and dignities of the Church, and enter once
more into the world, thereto contract a lawful marriage; also he entreated
the lord cardinals to intercede for him with His Holiness, to whom he would
freely resign all his churches, abbeys, and benefices, as well as every other
ecclesiastical dignity and preferment that had been accorded him. The
cardinals, deferring to Caesar's wishes, gave a unanimous vote, and the
pope, as we may suppose, like a good father, not wishing to force his son's
inclinations, accepted his resignation, and yielded to the petition; thus
Caesar put off the scarlet robe, which was suited to him, says his historian
Tommaso Tommasi, in one particular only—that it was the colour of blood.
In truth, the resignation was a pressing necessity, and there was no
time to lose. Charles VIII one day after he had came home late and tired
from the hunting-field, had bathed his head in cold water; and going straight
to table, had been struck down by an apoplectic seizure directly after his

supper; and was dead, leaving the throne to the good Louis XII, a man of
two conspicuous weaknesses, one as deplorable as the other: the first was
the wish to make conquests; the second was the desire to have children.
Alexander, who was on the watch for all political changes, had seen in a
moment what he could get from Louis XII's accession to the throne, and
was prepared to profit by the fact that the new king of France needed his
help for the accomplishment of his twofold desire. Louis needed, first, his
temporal aid in an expedition against the duchy of Milan, on which, as we
explained before, he had inherited claims from Valentina Visconti, his
grandmother; and, secondly, his spiritual aid to dissolve his marriage with
Jeanne, the daughter of Louis XI; a childless and hideously deformed
woman, whom he had only married by reason of the great fear he
entertained for her father. Now Alexander was willing to do all this for
Louis XII and to give in addition a cardinal's hat to his friend George
d'Amboise, provided only that the King of France would use his influence
in persuading the young Dona Carlota, who was at his court, to marry his
son Caesar.
So, as this business was already far advanced on the day when Caesar
doffed his scarlet and donned a secular garb, thus fulfilling the ambition so
long cherished, when the lord of Villeneuve, sent by Louis and
commissioned to bring Caesar to France, presented himself before the ex-
cardinal on his arrival at Rome, the latter, with his usual extravagance of
luxury and the kindness he knew well how to bestow on those he needed,
entertained his guest for a month, and did all the honours of Rome. After
that, they departed, preceded by one of the pope's couriers, who gave orders
that every town they passed through was to receive them with marks of
honour and respect. The same order had been sent throughout the whole of
France, where the illustrious visitors received so numerous a guard, and

were welcomed by a populace so eager to behold them, that after they
passed through Paris, Caesar's gentlemen-in-waiting wrote to Rome that
they had not seen any trees in France, or houses, or walls, but only men,
women and sunshine.
The king, on the pretext of going out hunting, went to meet his guest
two leagues outside the town. As he knew Caesar was very fond of the
name of Valentine, which he had used as cardinal, and still continued to
employ with the title of Count, although he had resigned the archbishopric
which gave him the name, he there and then bestowed an him the
investiture of Valence, in Dauphine, with the title of Duke and a pension of
20,000 francs; then, when he had made this magnificent gift and talked with
him for nearly a couple of hours, he took his leave, to enable him to prepare
the splendid entry he was proposing to make.
It was Wednesday, the 18th of December 1498, when Caesar Borgia
entered the town of Chinon, with pomp worthy of the son of a pope who is
about to marry the daughter of a king. The procession began with four-and-
twenty mules, caparisoned in red, adorned with escutcheons bearing the
duke's arms, laden with carved trunks and chests inlaid with ivory and
silver; after them came four-and-twenty more, also caparisoned, this time in
the livery of the King of France, yellow and red; next after these came ten
other mules, covered in yellow satin with red crossbars; and lastly another
ten, covered with striped cloth of gold, the stripes alternately raised and flat
gold.
Behind the seventy mules which led the procession there pranced
sixteen handsome battle-horses, led by equerries who marched alongside;
these were followed by eighteen hunters ridden by eighteen pages, who
were about fourteen or fifteen years of age; sixteen of them were dressed in
crimson velvet, and two in raised gold cloth; so elegantly dressed were

these two children, who were also the best looking of the little band, that
the sight of them gave rise to strange suspicions as to the reason for this
preference, if one may believe what Brantome says. Finally, behind these
eighteen horses came six beautiful mules, all harnessed with red velvet, and
led by six valets, also in velvet to match.
The third group consisted of, first, two mules quite covered with cloth
of gold, each carrying two chests in which it was said that the duke's
treasure was stored, the precious stones he was bringing to his fiancee, and
the relics and papal bulls that his father had charged him to convey for him
to Louis XII. These were followed by twenty gentlemen dressed in cloth of
gold and silver, among whom rode Paul Giordano Orsino and several
barons and knights among the chiefs of the state ecclesiastic.
Next came two drums, one rebeck, and four soldiers blowing trumpets
and silver clarions; then, in the midst of a party of four-and-twenty
lacqueys, dressed half in crimson velvet and half in yellow silk, rode
Messire George d'Amboise, anMonseigneur the Duke of Valentinois. Caesar
was mounted on a handsome tall courser, very richly harnessed, in a robe
half red satin and half cloth of gold, embroidered all over with pearls and
precious stones; in his cap were two rows of rubies, the size of beans, which
reflected so brilliant a light that one might have fancied they were the
famous carbuncles of the Arabian Nights; he also wore on his neck a collar
worth at least 200,000 livres; indeed, there was no part of him, even down
to his boots, that was not laced with gold and edged with pearls. His horse
was covered with a cuirass in a pattern of golden foliage of wonderful
workmanship, among which there appeared to grow, like flowers, nosegays
of pearls and clusters of rubies.
Lastly, bringing up the rear of the magnificent cortege, behind the duke
came twenty-four mules with red caparisons bearing his arms, carrying his

silver plate, tents, and baggage.
What gave to all the cavalcade an air of most wonderful luxury and
extravagance was that the horses and mules were shod with golden shoes,
and these were so badly nailed on that more than three-quarters of their
number, were lost on the road For this extravagance Caesar was greatly
blamed, for it was thought an audacious thing to put on his horses' feet a
metal of which king's crowns are made.
But all this pomp had no effect on the lady for whose sake it had been
displayed; for when Dona Carlota was told that Caesar Borgia had come to
France in the hope of becoming her husband, she replied simply that she
would never take a priest for her husband, and, moreover, the son of a
priest; a man who was not only an assassin, but a fratricide; not only a man
of infamous birth, but still more infamous in his morals and his actions.
But, in default of the haughty lady of Aragon, Caesar soon found
another princess of noble blood who consented to be his wife: this was
Mademoiselle d'Albret, daughter of the King of Navarre. The marriage,
arranged on condition that the pope should pay 200,000 ducats dowry to the
bride, and should make her brother cardinal, was celebrated on the 10th of
May; and on the Whitsunday following the Duke of Valentois received the
order of St. Michael, an order founded by Louis XI, and esteemed at this
period as the highest in the gift of the kings of France. The news of this
marriage, which made an alliance with Louis XII certain, was received with
great joy by the pope, who at once gave orders for bonfires and
illuminations all over the town.
Louis XII was not only grateful to the pope for dissolving his marriage
with Jeanne of France and authorizing his union with Anne of Brittany, but
he considered it indispensable to his designs in Italy to have the pope as his
ally. So he promised the Duke of Valentinois to put three hundred lances at

his disposal, as soon as he had made an entry into Milan, to be used to
further his own private interests, and against whomsoever he pleased except
only the allies of France. The conquest of Milan should be undertaken so
soon as Louis felt assured of the support of the Venetians, or at least of their
neutrality, and he had sent them ambassadors authorised to promise in his
name the restoration of Cremona and Ghiera d'Adda when he had
completed the conquest of Lombardy.

CHAPTER IX

Everything from without was favouring Alexander's encroaching policy,
when he was compelled to turn his eyes from France towards the centre of
Italy: in Florence dwelt a man, neither duke, nor king, nor soldier, a man
whose power was in his genius, whose armour was his purity, who owned
no offensive weapon but his tongue, and who yet began to grow more
dangerous for him than all the kings, dukes, princes, in the whole world
could ever be; this man was the poor Dominican monk Girolamo
Savonarola, the same who had refused absolution to Lorenzo dei Medici
because he would not restore the liberty of Florence.
Girolamo Savonarola had prophesied the invasion of a force from
beyond the Alps, and Charles VIII had conquered Naples; Girolamo
Savonarola had prophesied to Charles VIII that because he had failed to
fulfil the mission of liberator entrusted to him by God, he was threatened
with a great misfortune as a punishment, and Charles was dead; lastly,
Savonarola had prophesied his own fall like the man who paced around the
holy city for eight days, crying, "Woe to Jerusalem!" and on the ninth day,
"Woe be on my own head!" None the less, the Florentine reformer, who
could not recoil from any danger, was determined to attack the colossal
abomination that was seated on St. Peter's holy throne; each debauch, each
fresh crime that lifted up its brazen face to the light of day or tried to hide
its shameful head beneath the veil of night, he had never failed to point out
to the people, denouncing it as the off spring of the pope's luxurious living

and lust of power. Thus had he stigmatised Alexander's new amour with the
beautiful Giulia Farnese, who in the preceding April had added another son
to the pope's family; thus had he cursed the Duke of Gandia's murderer, the
lustful, jealous fratricide; lastly, he had pointed out to the Florentines, who
were excluded from the league then forming, what sort of future was in
store for them when the Borgias should have made themselves masters of
the small principalities and should come to attack the duchies and republics.
It was clear that in Savonarola, the pope had an enemy at once temporal and
spiritual, whose importunate and threatening voice must be silenced at any
cost.
But mighty as the pope's power was, to accomplish a design like this
was no easy matter. Savonarola, preaching the stern principles of liberty,
had united to his cause, even in the midst of rich, pleasure-loving Florence,
a party of some size, known as the 'Piagnoni', or the Penitents: this band
was composed of citizens who were anxious for reform in Church and
State, who accused the Medici of enslaving the fatherland and the Borgias
of upsetting the faith, who demanded two things, that the republic should
return to her democratic principles, and religion to a primitive simplicity.
Towards the first of these projects considerable progress had been made,
since they had successively obtained, first, an amnesty for all crimes and
delinquencies committed under other governments; secondly, the abolition
of the 'balia', which was an aristocratic magistracy; thirdly, the
establishment of a sovereign council, composed of 1800 citizens; and lastly,
the substitution of popular elections for drawing by lot and for oligarchical
nominations: these changes had been effected in spite of two other factions,
the 'Arrabiati', or Madmen, who, consisting of the richest and noblest
youths of the Florentine patrician families, desired to have an oligarchical

government; and the 'Bigi', or Greys, so called because they always held
their meetings in the shade, who desired the return of the Medici.
The first measure Alexander used against the growing power of
Savonarola was to declare him heretic, and as such banished from the
pulpit; but Savonarola had eluded this prohibition by making his pupil and
friend, Domenico Bonvicini di Pescia, preach in his stead. The result was
that the master's teachings were issued from other lips, and that was all; the
seed, though scattered by another hand, fell none the less on fertile soil,
where it would soon burst into flower. Moreover, Savonarola now set an
example that was followed to good purpose by Luther, when, twenty-two
years later, he burned Leo X's bull of excommunication at Wittenberg; he
was weary of silence, so he declared, on the authority of Pope Pelagius, that
an unjust excommunication had no efficacy, and that the person
excommunicated unjustly did not even need to get absolution. So on
Christmas Day, 1497, he declared that by the inspiration of God he
renounced his obedience to a corrupt master; and he began to preach once
more in the cathedral, with a success that was all the greater for the
interruption, and an influence far more formidable than before, because it
was strengthened by that sympathy of the masses which an unjust
persecution always inspires.
Then Alexander made overtures to Leonardo dei Medici, vicar of the
archbishopric of Florence, to obtain the punishment of the rebel: Leonardo,
in obedience to the orders he received, from Rome, issued a mandate
forbidding the faithful to attend at Savonarola's sermons. After this
mandate, any who should hear the discourses of the excommunicated monk
would be refused communion and confession; and as when they died they
would be contaminated with heresy, in consequence of their spiritual
intercourse with a heretic, their dead bodies would be dragged on a hurdle

and deprived of the rights of sepulture. Savonarola appealed from the
mandate of his superior both to the people and to the Signoria, and the two
together gave orders to the episcopal vicar to leave Florence within two
hours: this happened at the beginning of the year 1498.
The expulsion of Leonardo's dei Medici was a new triumph for
Savonarola, so, wishing to turn to good moral account his growing
influence, he resolved to convert the last day of the carnival, hitherto given
up to worldly pleasures, into a day of religious sacrifice. So actually on
Shrove Tuesday a considerable number of boys were collected in front of
the cathedral, and there divided into bands, which traversed the whole town,
making a house-to-house visitation, claiming all profane books, licentious
paintings, lutes, harps, cards and dice, cosmetics and perfumes—in a word,
all the hundreds of products of a corrupt society and civilisation, by the aid
of which Satan at times makes victorious war on God. The inhabitants of
Florence obeyed, and came forth to the Piazza of the Duoma, bringing these
works of perdition, which were soon piled up in a huge stack, which the
youthful reformers set on fire, singing religious psalms and hymns the
while. On this pile were burned many copies of Boccaccio and of Margante
Maggiore, and pictures by Fra Bartalommeo, who from that day forward
renounced the art of this world to consecrate his brush utterly and entirely
to the reproduction of religious scenes.
A reform such as this was terrifying to Alexander; so he resolved on
fighting Savonarola with his own weapons—that is, by the force of
eloquence. He chose as the Dominican's opponent a preacher of recognised
talent, called Fra Francesco di Paglia; and he sent him to Florence, where he
began to preach in Santa Croce, accusing Savonarola of heresy and impiety.
At the same time the pope, in a new brief, announced to the Signaria that
unless they forbade the arch-heretic to preach, all the goods of Florentine

merchants who lived on the papal territory would be confiscated, and the
republic laid under an interdict and declared the spiritual and temporal
enemy of the Church. The Signoria, abandoned by France, and aware that
the material power of Rome was increasing in a frightful manner, was
forced this time to yield, and to issue to Savonarola an order to leave off
preaching. He obeyed, and bade farewell to his congregation in a sermon
full of strength and eloquence.
But the withdrawal of Savonarola, so far from calming the ferment,
had increased it: there was talk about his prophecies being fulfilled; and
some zealots, more ardent than their master added miracle to inspiration,
and loudly proclaimed that Savonarola had offered to go down into the
vaults of the cathedral with his antagonist, and there bring a dead man to
life again, to prove that his doctrine was true, promising to declare himself
vanquished if the miracle were performed by his adversary. These rumours
reached the ears of Fra Francesco, and as he was a man of warm blood, who
counted his own life as nothing if it might be spent to help his cause, he
declared in all humility that he felt he was too great a sinner for God to
work a miracle in his behalf; but he proposed another challenge: he would
try with Savonarola the ordeal of fire. He knew, he said, that he must perish,
but at least he should perish avenging the cause of religion, since he was
certain to involve in his destruction the tempter who plunged so many souls
beside his own into eternal damnation.
The proposition made by Fra Francesco was taken to Savanarola; but
as he had never proposed the earlier challenge, he hesitated to accept the
second; hereupon his disciple, Fra Domenico Bonvicini, more confident
than his master in his own power, declared himself ready to accept the trial
by fire in his stead; so certain was he that God would perform a miracle by
the intercession of Savonarola, His prophet.

Instantly the report spread through Florence that the mortal challenge
was accepted; Savonarola's partisans, all men of the strongest convictions,
felt no doubt as to the success of their cause. His enemies were enchanted at
the thought of the heretic giving himself to the flames; and the indifferent
saw in the ordeal a spectacle of real and terrible interest.
But the devotion of Fra Bonvicini of Pescia was not what Fra
Francesco was reckoning with. He was willing, no doubt, to die a terrible
death, but on condition that Savanarola died with him. What mattered to
him the death of an obscure disciple like Fra Bonvicini? It was the master
he would strike, the great teacher who must be involved in his own ruin. So
he refused to enter the fire except with Savonarola himself, and, playing
this terrible game in his own person, would not allow his adversary to play
it by proxy.
Then a thing happened which certainly no one could have anticipated.
In the place of Fra Francesco, who would not tilt with any but the master,
two Franciscan monks appeared to tilt with the disciple. These were Fra
Nicholas de Pilly and Fra Andrea Rondinelli. Immediately the partisans of
Savonarola, seeing this arrival of reinforcements for their antagonist, came
forward in a crowd to try the ordeal. The Franciscans were unwilling to be
behindhand, and everybody took sides with equal ardour for one or other
party. All Florence was like a den of madmen; everyone wanted the ordeal,
everyone wanted to go into the fire; not only did men challenge one
another, but women and even children were clamouring to be allowed to try.
At last the Signoria, reserving this privilege for the first applicants, ordered
that the strange duel should take place only between Fra Domenico
Bonvicini and Fra Andrea Rondinelli; ten of the citizens were to arrange all
details; the day was fixed for the 7th of April, 1498, and the place the
Piazza del Palazzo.

The judges of the field made their arrangements conscientiously. By
their orders scaffolding was erected at the appointed place, five feet in
height, ten in width, and eighty feet long. This scaffolding was covered with
faggots and heath, supported by cross-bars of the very driest wood that
could be found. Two narrow paths were made, two feet wide at most, their
entrance giving on the Loggia dei Lanzi, their exit exactly opposite. The
loggia was itself divided into two by a partition, so that each champion had
a kind of room to make his preparations in, just as in the theatre every actor
has his dressing-room; but in this instance the tragedy that was about to be
played was not a fictitious one.
The Franciscans arrived on the piazza and entered the compartment
reserved for them without making any religious demonstration; while
Savonarola, on the contrary, advanced to his own place in the procession,
wearing the sacerdotal robes in which he had just celebrated the Holy
Eucharist, and holding in his hand the sacred host for all the world to see, as
it was enclosed in a crystal tabernacle. Fra Domenico di Pescia, the hero of
the occasion, followed, bearing a crucifix, and all the Dominican monks,
their red crosses in their hands, marched behind singing a psalm; while
behind them again followed the most considerable of the citizens of their
party, bearing torches, for, sure as they were of the triumph of their cause,
they wished to fire the faggots themselves. The piazza was so crowded that
the people overflowed into all the streets around. In every door and window
there was nothing to be seen but heads ranged one above the other; the
terraces were covered with people, and curious spectators were observed on
the roof of the Duomo and on the top of the Campanile.
But, brought face to face with the ordeal, the Franciscans raised such
difficulties that it was very plain the heart of their champion was failing
him. The first fear they expressed was that Fra Bonvicini was an enchanter,

and so carried about him some talisman or charm which would save him
from the fire. So they insisted that he should be stripped of all his clothes
and put on others to be inspected by witnesses. Fra Bonvicini made no
objection, though the suspicion was humiliating; he changed shirt, dress,
and cowl. Then, when the Franciscans observed that Savanarola was
placing the tabernacle in his hands, they protested that it was profanation to
expose the sacred host to the risk of burning, that this was not in the bond,
and if Bonvicini would not give up this supernatural aid, they for their part
would give up the trial altogether. Savonarola replied that it was not
astonishing that the champion of religion who put his faith in God should
bear in his hands that very God to whom he entrusted his salvation. But this
reply did not satisfy the Franciscans, who were unwilling to let go their
contention. Savonarola remained inflexible, supporting his own right, and
thus nearly four hours passed in the discussion of points which neither party
would give up, and affairs remained in 'statu quo'. Meanwhile the people,
jammed together in the streets, on the terraces, on the roofs, since break of
day, were suffering from hunger and thirst and beginning to get impatient:
their impatience soon developed into loud murmurs, which reached even
the champions' ears, so that the partisans of Savonarola, who felt such faith
in him that they were confident of a miracle, entreated him to yield to all
the conditions suggested. To this Savonarola replied that if it were himself
making the trial he would be less inexorable; but since another man was
incurring the danger; he could not take too many precautions. Two more
hours passed, while his partisans tried in vain to combat his refusals. At last,
as night was coming on and the people grew ever more and more impatient
and their murmurs began to assume a threatening tone, Bonvicini declared
that he was ready to walk through the fire, holding nothing in his hand but a
crucifix. No one could refuse him this; so Fra Rondinelli was compelled to

accept his proposition. The announcement was made to the populace that
the champions had come to terms and the trial was about to take place. At
this news the people calmed down, in the hope of being compensated at last
for their long wait; but at that very moment a storm which had long been
threatening brake over Florence with such fury that the faggots which had
just been lighted were extinguished by the rain, leaving no possibility of
their rekindling. From the moment when the people suspected that they had
been fooled, their enthusiasm was changed into derision. They were
ignorant from which side the difficulties had arisen that had hindered the
trial, so they laid the responsibility on both champions without distinction.
The Signoria, foreseeing the disorder that was now imminent, ordered the
assembly to retire; but the assembly thought otherwise, and stayed on the
piazza, waiting for the departure of the two champions, in spite of the
fearful rain that still fell in torrents. Rondinelli was taken back amid shouts
and hootings, and pursued with showers of stones. Savonarola, thanks to his
sacred garments and the host which he still carried, passed calmly enough
through the midst of the mob—a miracle quite as remarkable as if he had
passed through the fire unscathed.
But it was only the sacred majesty of the host that had protected this
man, who was indeed from this moment regarded as a false prophet: the
crowd allowed Savonarola to return to his convent, but they regretted the
necessity, so excited were they by the Arrabbiati party, who had always
denounced him as a liar and a hypocrite. So when the next morning, Palm
Sunday, he stood up in the pulpit to explain his conduct, he could not obtain
a moment's silence for insults, hooting, and loud laughter. Then the outcry,
at first derisive, became menacing: Savonarola, whose voice was too weak
to subdue the tumult, descended from his pulpit, retired into the sacristy,

and thence to his convent, where he shut himself up in his cell. At that
moment a cry was heard, and was repeated by everybody present:
"To San Marco, to San Marco!" The rioters, few at first, were recruited
by all the populace as they swept along the streets, and at last reached the
convent, dashing like an angry sea against the wall.
The doors, closed on Savonarola's entrance, soon crashed before the
vehement onset of the powerful multitude, which struck down on the instant
every obstacle it met: the whole convent was quickly flooded with people,
and Savonarola, with his two confederates, Domenico Bonvicini and
Silvestro Maruffi, was arrested in his cell, and conducted to prison amid the
insults of the crowd, who, always in extremes, whether of enthusiasm or
hatred, would have liked to tear them to pieces, and would not be quieted
till they had exacted a promise that the prisoners should be forcibly
compelled to make the trial of fire which they had refused to make of their
own free will.
Alexander VI, as we may suppose, had not been without influence in
bringing about this sudden and astonishing reaction, although he was not
present in person; and had scarcely learned the news of Savonarola's fall
and arrest when he claimed him as subject to ecclesiastical jurisdiction. But
in spite of the grant of indulgences wherewith this demand was
accompanied, the Signoria insisted that Savonarola's trial should take place
at Florence, adding a request so as not to appear to withdraw the accused
completely from the pontifical authority—that the pope would send two
ecclesiastical judges to sit in the Florentine tribunal. Alexander, seeing that
he would get nothing better from the magnificent republic, sent as deputies
Gioacchino Turriano of Venice, General of the Dominicans, and Francesco
Ramolini, doctor in law: they practically brought the sentence with them,

declaring Savonarola and his accomplices heretics, schismatics, persecutors
of the Church and seducers of the people.
The firmness shown by the Florentines in claiming their rights of
jurisdiction were nothing but an empty show to save appearances; the
tribunal, as a fact, was composed of eight members, all known to be fervent
haters of Savonarola, whose trial began with the torture. The result was that,
feeble in body constitutionally nervous and irritable, he had not been able to
endure the rack, and, overcome by agony just at the moment when the
executioner had lifted him up by the wrists and then dropped him a distance
of two feet to the ground, he had confessed, in order to get some respite,
that his prophecies were nothing more than conjectures. If is true that, so
soon as he went back to prison, he protested against the confession, saying
that it was the weakness of his bodily organs and his want of firmness that
had wrested the lie from him, but that the truth really was that the Lord had
several times appeared to him in his ecstasies and revealed the things that
he had spoken. This protestation led to a new application of the torture,
during which Savonarola succumbed once more to the dreadful pain, and
once more retracted. But scarcely was he unbound, and was still lying on
the bed of torture, when he declared that his confessions were the fault of
his torturers, and the vengeance would recoil upon their heads; and he
protested yet once more against all he had confessed and might confess
again. A third time the torture produced the same avowals, and the relief
that followed it the same retractions. The judges therefore, when they
condemned him and his two disciples to the flames, decided that his
confession should not be read aloud at the stake, according to custom,
feeling certain that on this occasion also he would give it the lie, and that
publicly, which, as anyone must see who knew the versatile spirit of the
public, would be a most dangerous proceeding.

On the 23rd of May, the fire which had been promised to the people
before was a second time prepared on the Piazza del Palazzo, and this time
the crowd assembled quite certain that they would not be disappointed of a
spectacle so long anticipated. And towards eleven o'clock in the morning,
Girolamo Savonarola, Domenico Bonvicini, and Silvestro Maruffi were led
to the place of execution, degraded of their orders by the ecclesiastical
judges, and bound all three to the same stake in the centre of an immense
pile of wood. Then the bishop Pagnanoli told the condemned men that he
cut them off from the Church. "Ay, from the Church militant," said
Savonarola, who from that very hour, thanks to his martyrdom, was
entering into the Church triumphant. No other words were spoken by the
condemned men, for at this moment one of the Arrabbiati, a personal enemy
of Savonarola, breaking through the hedge of guards around the scaffold,
snatched the torch from the executioner's hand and himself set fire to the
four corners of the pile. Savonarola and his disciples, from the moment
when they saw the smoke arise, began to sing a psalm, and the flames
enwrapped them on all sides with a glowing veil, while their religious song
was yet heard mounting upward to the gates of heaven.
Pope Alexander VI was thus set free from perhaps the most formidable
enemy who had ever risen against him, and the pontifical vengeance
pursued the victims even after their death: the Signoria, yielding to his
wishes, gave orders that the ashes of the prophet and his disciples should be
thrown into the Arno. But certain half-burned fragments were picked up by
the very soldiers whose business it was to keep the people back from
approaching the fire, and the holy relics are even now shown, blackened by
the flames, to the faithful, who if they no longer regard Savonarola as a
prophet, revere him none the less as a martyr.

CHAPTER X

The French army was now preparing to cross the Alps a second time,
under the command of Trivulce. Louis XII had come as far as Lyons in the
company of Caesar Borgia and Giuliano della Rovere, on whom he had
forced a reconciliation, and towards the beginning of the month of May had
sent his vanguard before him, soon to be followed by the main body of the
army. The forces he was employing in this second campaign of conquest
were 1600 lances, 5000 Swiss, 9000 Gascons, and 3500 infantry, raised
from all parts of France. On the 13th of August this whole body, amounting
to nearly 15,000 men, who were to combine their forces with the Venetians,
arrived beneath the walls of Arezzo, and immediately laid siege to the town.
Ludovico Sforza's position was a terrible one: he was now suffering
from his imprudence in calling the French into Italy; all the allies he had
thought he might count upon were abandoning him at the same moment,
either because they were busy about their own affairs, or because they were
afraid of the powerful enemy that the Duke of Milan had made for himself.
Maximilian, who had promised him a contribution of 400 lances, to make
up for not renewing the hostilities with Louis XII that had been interrupted,
had just made a league with the circle of Swabia to war against the Swiss,
whom he had declared rebels against the Empire. The Florentines, who had
engaged to furnish him with 300 men-at-arms and 2000 infantry, if he
would help them to retake Pisa, had just retracted their promise because of
Louis XII's threats, and had undertaken to remain neutral. Frederic, who

was holding back his troops for the defence of his own States, because he
supposed, not without reason, that, Milan once conquered, he would again
have to defend Naples, sent him no help, no men, no money, in spite of his
promises. Ludovico Sforza was therefore reduced to his own proper forces.
But as he was a man powerful in arms and clever in artifice, he did not
allow himself to succumb at the first blow, and in all haste fortified Annona,
Novarro, and Alessandria, sent off Cajazzo with troops to that part of the
Milanese territory which borders on the states of Venice, and collected on
the Po as many troops as he could. But these precautions availed him
nothing against the impetuous onslaught of the French, who in a few days
had taken Annona, Arezzo, Novarro, Voghiera, Castelnuovo, Ponte Corona,
Tartone, and Alessandria, while Trivulce was on the march to Milan.
Seeing the rapidity of this conquest and their numerous victories,
Ludovico Sforza, despairing of holding out in his capital, resolved to retire
to Germany, with his children, his brother, Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, and his
treasure, which had been reduced in the course of eight years from
1,500,000 to 200,000 ducats. But before he went he left Bernardino da
Carte in charge of the castle of Milan. In vain did his friends warn him to
distrust this man, in vain did his brother Ascanio offer to hold the fortress
himself, and offer to hold it to the very last; Ludovico refused to make any
change in his arrangements, and started on the 2nd of September, leaving in
the citadel three thousand foot and enough provisions, ammunition, and
money to sustain a siege of several months.
Two days after Ludovico's departure, the French entered Milan. Ten
days later Bernardino da Come gave up the castle before a single gun had
been fired. Twenty-one days had sufficed for the French to get possession of
the various towns, the capital, and all the territories of their enemy.

Louis XII received the news of this success while he was at Lyons, and
he at once started for Milan, where he was received with demonstrations of
joy that were really sincere. Citizens of every rank had come out three
miles' distance from the gates to receive him, and forty boys, dressed in
cloth of gold and silk, marched before him singing hymns of victory
composed by poets of the period, in which the king was styled their
liberator and the envoy of freedom. The great joy of the Milanese people
was due to the fact that friends of Louis had been spreading reports
beforehand that the King of France was rich enough to abolish all taxes.
And so soon as the second day from his arrival at Milan the conqueror
made some slight reduction, granted important favours to certain Milanese
gentlemen, and bestowed the town of Vigavano on Trivulce as a reward for
his swift and glorious campaign. But Caesar Borgia, who had followed
Louis XII with a view to playing his part in the great hunting-ground of
Italy, scarcely waited for him to attain his end when he claimed the
fulfilment of his promise, which the king with his accustomed loyalty
hastened to perform. He instantly put at the disposal of Caesar three
hundred lances under the command of Yves d'Alegre, and four thousand
Swiss under the command of the bailiff of Dijon, as a help in his work of
reducing the Vicars of the Church.
We must now explain to our readers who these new personages were
whom we introduce upon the scene by the above name.
During the eternal wars of Guelphs and Ghibelines and the long exile
of the popes at Avignon, most of the towns and fortresses of the Romagna
had been usurped by petty tyrants, who for the most part had received from
the Empire the investiture of their new possessions; but ever since German
influence had retired beyond the Alps, and the popes had again made Rome
the centre of the Christian world, all the small princes, robbed of their

original protector, had rallied round the papal see, and received at the hands
of the pope a new investiture, and now they paid annual dues, for which
they received the particular title of duke, count, or lord, and the general
name of Vicar of the Church.
It had been no difficult matter for Alexander, scrupulously examining
the actions and behaviour of these gentlemen during the seven years that
had elapsed since he was exalted to St. Peter's throne, to find in the conduct
of each one of them something that could be called an infraction of the
treaty made between vassals and suzerain; accordingly he brought forward
his complaints at a tribunal established for the purpose, and obtained
sentence from the judges to the effect that the vicars of the Church, having
failed to fulfil the conditions of their investiture, were despoiled of their
domains, which would again become the property of the Holy See. As the
pope was now dealing with men against whom it was easier to pass a
sentence than to get it carried out, he had nominated as captain-general the
new Duke of Valentinois, who was commissioned to recover the territories
for his own benefit. The lords in question were the Malatesti of Rimini, the
Sforza of Pesaro, the Manfredi of Faenza, the Riarii of Imola and Forli, the
Variani of Camerina, the Montefeltri of Urbino, and the Caetani of
Sermoneta.
But the Duke of Valentinois, eager to keep as warm as possible his
great friendship with his ally and relative Louis XII, was, as we know,
staying with him at Milan so long as he remained there, where, after a
month's occupation, the king retraced his steps to his own capital, the Duke
of Valentinois ordered his men-at-arms and his Swiss to await him between
Parma and Modena, and departed posthaste for Rome, to explain his plans
to his father viva voce and to receive his final instructions. When he
arrived, he found that the fortune of his sister Lucrezia had been greatly

augmented in his absence, not from the side of her husband Alfonso, whose
future was very uncertain now in consequence of Louis's successes, which
had caused some coolness between Alfonso and the pope, but from her
father's side, upon whom at this time she exercised an influence more
astonishing than ever. The pope had declared Lucrezia Borgia of Aragon
life-governor of Spoleto and its duchy, with all emoluments, rights, and
revenues accruing thereunto. This had so greatly increased her power and
improved her position, that in these days she never showed herself in public
without a company of two hundred horses ridden by the most illustrious
ladies and noblest knights of Rome. Moreover, as the twofold affection of
her father was a secret to nobody, the first prelates in the Church, the
frequenters of the Vatican, the friends of His Holiness, were all her most
humble servants; cardinals gave her their hands when she stepped from her
litter or her horse, archbishops disputed the honour of celebrating mass in
her private apartments.
But Lucrezia had been obliged to quit Rome in order to take
possession of her new estates; and as her father could not spend much time
away from his beloved daughter, he resolved to take into his hands the town
of Nepi, which on a former occasion, as the reader will doubtless remember,
he had bestowed on Ascanio Sforza in exchange for his suffrage. Ascanio
had naturally lost this town when he attached himself to the fortunes of the
Duke of Milan, his brother; and when the pope was about to take it again,
he invited his daughter Lucrezia to join him there and be present at the
rejoicings held in honour of his resuming its possession.
Lucrezia's readiness in giving way to her father's wishes brought her a
new gift from him: this was the town and territory of Sermoneta, which
belonged to the Caetani. Of course the gift was as yet a secret, because the
two owners of the seigneury, had first to be disposed of, one being

Monsignore Giacomo Caetano, apostolic protonotary, the other Prospero
Caetano, a young cavalier of great promise; but as both lived at Rome, and
entertained no suspicion, but indeed supposed themselves to be in high
favour with His Holiness, the one by virtue of his position, the other of his
courage, the matter seemed to present no great difficulty. So directly after
the return of Alexander to Rome, Giacomo Caetano was arrested, on what
pretext we know not, was taken to the castle of Sant' Angelo, and there died
shortly after, of poison: Prospero Caetano was strangled in his own house.
After these two deaths, which both occurred so suddenly as to give no time
for either to make a will, the pope declared that Sermoneta and all of her
property appertaining to the Caetani devolved upon the apostolic chamber;
and they were sold to Lucrezia for the sum of 80,000 crowns, which her
father refunded to her the day after. Though Caesar hurried to Rome, he
found when he arrived that his father had been beforehand with him, and
had made a beginning of his conquests.
Another fortune also had been making prodigious strides during
Caesar's stay in France, viz. the fortune of Gian Borgia, the pope's nephew,
who had been one of the most devoted friends of the Duke of Gandia up to
the time of his death. It was said in Rome, and not in a whisper, that the
young cardinal owed the favours heaped upon him by His Holiness less to
the memory of the brother than to the protection of the sister. Both these
reasons made Gian Borgia a special object of suspicion to Caesar, and it
was with an inward vow that he should not enjoy his new dignities very
long that the Duke of Valentinois heard that his cousin Gian had just been
nominated cardinal 'a latere' of all the Christian world, and had quitted
Rome to make a circuit through all the pontifical states with a suite of
archbishops, bishops, prelates, and gentlemen, such as would have done
honour to the pope himself.

Caesar had only come to Rome to get news; so he only stayed three
days, and then, with all the troops His Holiness could supply, rejoined his
forces on the borders of the Euza, and marched at once to Imola. This town,
abandoned by its chiefs, who had retired to Forli, was forced to capitulate.
Imola taken, Caesar marched straight upon Forli. There he met with a
serious check; a check, moreover, which came from a woman. Caterina
Sforza, widow of Girolamo and mother of Ottaviano Riario, had retired to
this town, and stirred up the courage of the garrison by putting herself, her
goods and her person, under their protection. Caesar saw that it was no
longer a question of a sudden capture, but of a regular siege; so he began to
make all his arrangements with a view to it, and placing a battery of cannon
in front of the place where the walls seemed to him weakest, he ordered an
uninterrupted fire, to be continued until the breach was practicable.
When he returned to the camp after giving this order, he found there
Gian Borgia, who had gone to Rome from Ferrara and was unwilling to be
so near Caesar without paying him a visit: he was received with effusion
and apparently the greatest joy, and stayed three days; on the fourth day all
the officers and members of the court were invited to a grand farewell
supper, and Caesar bade farewell to his cousin, charging him with
despatches for the pope, and lavishing upon him all the tokens of affection
he had shown on his arrival.
Cardinal Gian Borgia posted off as soon as he left the supper-table, but
on arriving at Urbino he was seized with such a sudden and strange
indisposition that he was forced to stop; but after a few minutes, feeling
rather better, he went an; scarcely, however, had he entered Rocca Cantrada
when he again felt so extremely ill that he resolved to go no farther, and
stayed a couple of days in the town. Then, as he thought he was a little
better again, and as he had heard the news of the taking of Forli and also

that Caterina Sforza had been taken prisoner while she was making an
attempt to retire into the castle, he resolved to go back to Caesar and
congratulate him on his victory; but at Fassambrane he was forced to stop a
third time, although he had given up his carriage for a litter. This was his
last halt: the same day he sought his bed, never to rise from it again; three
days later he was dead.
His body was taken to Rome and buried without any ceremony in the
church of Santa Maria del Populo, where lay awaiting him the corpse of his
friend the Duke of Gandia; and there was now no more talk of the young
cardinal, high as his rank had been, than if he had never existed. Thus in
gloom and silence passed away all those who were swept to destruction by
the ambition of that terrible trio, Alexander, Lucrezia, and Caesar.
Almost at the same time Rome was terrified by another murder. Don
Giovanni Cerviglione, a gentleman by birth and a brave soldier, captain of
the pope's men-at-arms, was attacked one evening by the sbirri, as he was
on his way home from supping with Don Elisio Pignatelli. One of the men
asked his name, and as he pronounced it, seeing that there was no mistake,
plunged a dagger into his breast, while a second man with a back stroke of
his sword cut off his head, which lay actually at his feet before his body had
time to fall.
The governor of Rome lodged a complaint against this assassination
with the pope; but quickly perceiving, by the way his intimation was
received, that he would have done better to say nothing, he stopped the
inquiries he had started, so that neither of the murderers was ever arrested.
But the rumour was circulated that Caesar, in the short stay he had made at
Rome, had had a rendezvous with Cerviglione's wife, who was a Borgia by
birth, and that her husband when he heard of this infringement of conjugal
duty had been angry enough to threaten her and her lover, too: the threat

had reached Caesar's ears, who, making a long arm of Michelotto, had,
himself at Forli, struck down Cerviglione in the streets of Rome.
Another unexpected death followed so quickly on that of Don
Giovanni Cerviglione that it could not but be attributed to the same
originator, if not to the same cause. Monsignore Agnelli of Mantua,
archbishop of Cosenza, clerk of the chamber and vice-legate of Viterbo,
having fallen into disgrace with His Holiness, how it is not known, was
poisoned at his own table, at which he had passed a good part of the night in
cheerful conversation with three or four guests, the poison gliding
meanwhile through his veins; then going to bed in perfect health, he was
found dead in the morning. His possessions were at once divided into three
portions: the land and houses were given to the Duke of Valentinois; the
bishopric went to Francesco Borgia, son of Calixtus III; and the office of
clerk of the chamber was sold for 5000 ducats to Ventura Bonnassai, a
merchant of Siena, who produced this sum for Alexander, and settled down
the very same day in the Vatican.
This last death served the purpose of determining a point of law
hitherto uncertain: as Monsignore Agnelli's natural heirs had made some
difficulty about being disinherited, Alexander issued a brief; whereby he
took from every cardinal and every priest the right of making a will, and
declared that all their property should henceforth devolve upon him.
But Caesar was stopped short in the midst of his victories. Thanks to
the 200,000 ducats that yet remained in his treasury, Ludovico Sforza had
levied 500 men-at-arms from Burgundy and 8000 Swiss infantry, with
whom he had entered Lombardy. So Trivulce, to face this enemy, had been
compelled to call back Yves d'Alegre and the troops that Louis XII had lent
to Caesar; consequently Caesar, leaving behind a body of pontifical soldiery

as garrison at Forli and Imola, betook himself with the rest of his force to
Rome.
It was Alexander's wish that his entry should be a triumph; so when he
learned that the quartermasters of the army were only a few leagues from
the town, he sent out runners to invite the royal ambassadors, the cardinals,
the prelates, the Roman barons, and municipal dignitaries to make
procession with all their suite to meet the Duke of Valentinois; and as it
always happens that the pride of those who command is surpassed by the
baseness of those who obey, the orders were not only fulfilled to the letter,
but beyond it.
The entry of Caesar took place on the 26th of February, 1500.
Although this was the great Jubilee year, the festivals of the carnival began
none the less for that, and were conducted in a manner even more
extravagant and licentious than usual; and the conqueror after the first day
prepared a new display of ostentation, which he concealed under the veil of
a masquerade. As he was pleased to identify himself with the glory, genius,
and fortune of the great man whose name he bore, he resolved on a
representation of the triumph of Julius Caesar, to be given on the Piazzi di
Navona, the ordinary place for holding the carnival fetes. The next day,
therefore, he and his retinue started from that square, and traversed all the
streets of Rome, wearing classical costumes and riding in antique cars, on
one of which Caesar stood, clad in the robe of an emperor of old, his brow
crowned with a golden laurel wreath, surrounded by lictors, soldiers, and
ensign-bearers, who carried banners whereon was inscribed the motto, 'Aut
Caesar aut nihil'.
Finally, on the fourth Sunday, in Lent, the pope conferred upon Caesar
the dignity he had so long coveted, and appointed him general and
gonfaloniere of the Holy Church.

In the meanwhile Sforza had crossed the Alps and passed the Lake of
Como, amid acclamations of joy from his former subjects, who had quickly
lost the enthusiasm that the French army and Louis's promises had inspired.
These demonstrations were so noisy at Milan, that Trivulce, judging that
there was no safety for a French garrison in remaining there, made his way
to Navarra. Experience proved that he was not deceived; for scarcely had
the Milanese observed his preparations for departure when a suppressed
excitement began to spread through the town, and soon the streets were
filled with armed men. This murmuring crowd had to be passed through,
sword in hand and lance in rest; and scarcely had the French got outside the
gates when the mob rushed out after the army into the country, pursuing
them with shouts and hooting as far as the banks of the Tesino. Trivulce left
400 lances at Navarra as well as the 3000 Swiss that Yves d'Alegre had
brought from the Romagna, and directed his course with the rest of the
army towards Mortara, where he stopped at last to await the help he had
demanded from the King of France. Behind him Cardinal Ascanio and
Ludovico entered Milan amid the acclamations of the whole town.
Neither of them lost any time, and wishing to profit by this
enthusiasm, Ascanio undertook to besiege the castle of Milan while
Ludovico should cross the Tesino and attack Navarra.
There besiegers and besieged were sons of the same nation; for Yves
d'Alegre had scarcely as many as 300 French with him, and Ludovico 500
Italians. In fact, for the last sixteen years the Swiss had been practically the
only infantry in Europe, and all the Powers came, purse in hand, to draw
from the mighty reservoir of their mountains. The consequence was that
these rude children of William Tell, put up to auction by the nations, and
carried away from the humble, hardy life of a mountain people into cities of
wealth and pleasure, had lost, not their ancient courage, but that rigidity of

principle for which they had been distinguished before their intercourse
with other nations. From being models of honour and good faith they had
become a kind of marketable ware, always ready for sale to the highest
bidder. The French were the first to experience this venality, which later-on
proved so fatal to Ludovico Sforza.
Now the Swiss in the garrison at Navarra had been in communication
with their compatriots in the vanguard of the ducal army, and when they
found that they, who as a fact were unaware that Ludavico's treasure was
nearly exhausted, were better fed as well as better paid than themselves,
they offered to give up the town and go over to the Milanese, if they could
be certain of the same pay. Ludovico, as we may well suppose, closed with
this bargain. The whole of Navarra was given up to him except the citadel,
which was defended by Frenchmen: thus the enemy's army was recruited by
3000 men. Then Ludovico made the mistake of stopping to besiege the
castle instead of marching on to Mortara with the new reinforcement. The
result of this was that Louis XII, to whom runners had been sent by
Trivulce, understanding his perilous position, hastened the departure of the
French gendarmerie who were already collected to cross into Italy, sent off
the bailiff of Dijon to levy new Swiss forces, and ordered Cardinal
Amboise, his prime minister, to cross the Alps and take up a position at
Asti, to hurry on the work of collecting the troops. There the cardinal found
a nest-egg of 3000 men. La Trimouille added 1500 lances and 6000 French
infantry; finally, the bailiff of Dijon arrived with 10,000 Swiss; so that,
counting the troops which Trivulce had at Mortara, Louis XII found himself
master on the other side of the Alps of the first army any French king had
ever led out to battle. Soon, by good marching, and before Ludovico knew
the strength or even the existence of this army, it took up a position between
Navarra and Milan, cutting off all communication between the duke and his

capital. He was therefore compelled, in spite of his inferior numbers, to
prepare for a pitched battle.
But it so happened that just when the preparations for a decisive
engagement were being made on both sides, the Swiss Diet, learning that
the sons of Helvetia were on the point of cutting one another's throats, sent
orders to all the Swiss serving in either army to break their engagements
and return to the fatherland. But during the two months that had passed
between the surrender of Navarra and the arrival of the French army before
the town, there had been a very great change in the face of things, because
Ludovico Sforza's treasure was now exhausted. New confabulations had
gone on between the outposts, and this time, thanks to the money sent by
Louis XII, it was the Swiss in the service of France who were found to be
the better fed and better paid. The worthy Helvetians, since they no longer
fought for their own liberty, knew the value of their blood too well to allow
a single drop of it to be spilled for less than its weight in gold: the result
was that, as they had, betrayed Yves d'Alegre, they resolved to betray
Ludovico Sforza too; and while the recruits brought in by the bailiff of
Dijon were standing firmly by the French flag, careless of the order of the
Diet, Ludovico's auxiliaries declared that in fighting against their Swiss
brethren they would be acting in disobedience to the Diet, and would risk
capital punishment in the end—a danger that nothing would induce them to
incur unless they immediately received the arrears of their pay. The duke,
who had spent the last ducat he had with him, and was entirely cut off from
his capital, knew that he could not get money till he had fought his way
through to it, and therefore invited the Swiss to make one last effort,
promising them not only the pay that was in arrears but a double hire. But
unluckily the fulfilment of this promise was dependent on the doubtful issue
of a battle, and the Swiss replied that they had far too much respect for their

country to disobey its decree, and that they loved their brothers far too well
to consent to shed their blood without reward; and therefore Sforza would
do well not to count upon them, since indeed the very next day they
proposed to return to their homes. The duke then saw that all was lost, but
he made a last appeal to their honour, adjuring them at least to ensure his
personal safety by making it a condition of capitulation. But they replied
that even if a condition of such a kind, would not make capitulation
impossible, it would certainly deprive them of advantages which they had a
right to expect, and on which they counted as indemnification for the
arrears of their pay. They pretended, however, at last that they were touched
by the prayers of the man whose orders they had obeyed so long, and
offered to conceal him dressed in their clothes among their ranks. This
proposition was barely plausible; for Sforza was short and, by this time an
old man, and he could not possibly escape recognition in the midst of an
army where the oldest was not past thirty and the shortest not less than five
foot six. Still, this was his last chance, and he did not reject it at once, but
tried to modify it so that it might help him in his straits. His plan was to
disguise himself as a Franciscan monk, so that mounted on a shabby horse
he might pass for their chaplain; the others, Galeazzo di San Severing, who
commanded under him, and his two brothers, were all tall men, so, adopting
the dress of common soldiers, they hoped they might escape detection in the
Swiss ranks.
Scarcely were these plans settled when the duke heard that the
capitulation was signed between Trivulce and the Swiss, who had made no
stipulation in favour of him and his generals. They were to go over the next
day with arms and baggage right into the French army; so the last hope of
the wretched Ludovico and his generals must needs be in their disguise.
And so it was. San Severino and his brothers took their place in the ranks of

the infantry, and Sforza took his among the baggage, clad in a monk's frock,
with the hood pulled over his eyes.
The army marched off; but the Swiss, who had first trafficked in their
blood, now trafficked in their honour. The French were warned of the
disguise of Sforza and his generals, and thus they were all four recognised,
and Sforza was arrested by Trimouille himself. It is said that the price paid
for this treason was the town of Bellinzona; for it then belonged to the
French, and when the Swiss returned to their mountains and took
possession of it, Louis XII took no steps to get it back again.
When Ascanio Sforza, who, as we know, had stayed at Milan, learned
the news of this cowardly desertion, he supposed that his cause was lost and
that it would be the best plan for him to fly, before he found himself a
prisoner in the hands of his brother's old subjects: such a change of face on
the people's part would be very natural, and they might propose perhaps to
purchase their own pardon at the price of his liberty; so he fled by night
with the chief nobles of the Ghibelline party, taking the road to Piacenza, an
his way to the kingdom of Naples. But when he arrived at Rivolta, he
remembered that there was living in that town an old friend of his
childhood, by name Conrad Lando, whom he had helped to much wealth in
his days of power; and as Ascanio and his companions were extremely
tired, he resolved to beg his hospitality for a single night. Conrad received
them with every sign of joy, putting all his house and servants at their
disposal. But scarcely had they retired to bed when he sent a runner to
Piacenza, to inform Carlo Orsini, at that time commanding the Venetian
garrison, that he was prepared to deliver up Cardinal Ascanio and the chief
men of the Milanese army. Carlo Orsini did not care to resign to another so
important an expedition, and mounting hurriedly with twenty-five men, he
first surrounded Conrad's house, and then entered sword in hand the

chamber wherein Ascanio and his companions lay, and being surprised in
the middle of their sleep, they yielded without resistance. The prisoners
were taken to Venice, but Louis XII claimed them, and they were given up.
Thus the King of France found himself master of Ludovico Sforza and of
Ascania, of a legitimate nephew of the great Francesco Sforza named
Hermes, of two bastards named Alessandro and Cortino, and of Francesco,
son of the unhappy Gian Galeazza who had been poisoned by his uncle.
Louis XII, wishing to make an end of the whole family at a blow,
forced Francesco to enter a cloister, shut up Cardinal Ascanio in the tower
of Baurges, threw into prison Alessandro, Cartino, and Hermes, and finally,
after transferring the wretched Ludovico from the fortress of Pierre-Eucise
to Lys-Saint-George he relegated him for good and all to the castle of
Loches, where he lived for ten years in solitude and utter destitution, and
there died, cursing the day when the idea first came into his head of enticing
the French into Italy.
The news of the catastrophe of Ludovica and his family caused the
greatest joy at Rome, for, while the French were consolidating their power
in Milanese territory, the Holy See was gaining ground in the Romagna,
where no further opposition was offered to Caesar's conquest. So the
runners who brought the news were rewarded with valuable presents, and it
was published throughout the whole town of Rome to the sound of the
trumpet and drum. The war-cry of Louis, France, France, and that of the
Orsini, Orso, Orso, rang through all the streets, which in the evening were
illuminated, as though Constantinople or Jerusalem had been taken. And the
pope gave the people fetes and fireworks, without troubling his head the
least in the world either about its being Holy Week, or because the Jubilee
had attracted more than 200,000 people to Rome; the temporal interests of

his family seeming to him far more important than the spiritual interests of
his subjects.

CHAPTER XI

One thing alone was wanting to assure the success of the vast projects that
the pope and his son were founding upon the friendship of Louis and an
alliance with him—that is,—money. But Alexander was not the man to be
troubled about a paltry worry of that kind; true, the sale of benefices was by
now exhausted, the ordinary and extraordinary taxes had already been
collected for the whole year, and the prospect of inheritance from cardinals
and priests was a poor thing now that the richest of them had been
poisoned; but Alexander had other means at his disposal, which were none
the less efficacious because they were less often used.
The first he employed was to spread a report that the Turks were
threatening an invasion of Christendom, and that he knew for a positive fact
that before the end of the summer Bajazet would land two considerable
armies, one in Romagna, the other in Calabria; he therefore published two
bulls, one to levy tithes of all ecclesiastical revenues in Europe of whatever
nature they might be, the other to force the Jews into paying an equivalent
sum: both bulls contained the severest sentences of excommunication
against those who refused to submit, or attempted opposition.
The second plan was the selling of indulgences, a thing which had
never been done before: these indulgences affected the people who had
been prevented by reasons of health or business from coming to Rome for
the Jubilee; the journey by this expedient was rendered unnecessary, and
sins were pardoned for a third of what it would have cost, and just as

completely as if the faithful had fulfilled every condition of the pilgrimage.
For gathering in this tax a veritable army of collectors was instituted, a
certain Ludovico dellaTorre at their head. The sum that Alexander brought
into the pontifical treasury is incalculable, and some idea of it may be
gathered from the fact that 799,000 livres in gold was paid in from the
territory of Venice alone.
But as the Turks did as a fact make some sort of demonstration from
the Hungarian side, and the Venetians began to fear that they might be
coming in their direction, they asked for help from the pope, who gave
orders that at twelve o'clock in the day in all his States an Ave Maria should
be said, to pray God to avert the danger which was threatening the most
serene republic. This was the only help the Venetians got from His Holiness
in exchange for the 799,000 livres in gold that he had got from them.
But it seemed as though God wished to show His strange vicar on
earth that He was angered by the mockery of sacred things, and on the Eve
of St. Peter's Day, just as the pope was passing the Capanile on his way to
the tribune of benedictions, an enormous piece of iron broke off and fell at
his feet; and then, as though one warning had not been enough, on the next
day, St. Peter's, when the pope happened to be in one of the rooms of his
ordinary dwelling with Cardinal Capuano and Monsignare Poto, his private
chamberlain, he saw through the open windows that a very black cloud was
coming up. Foreseeing a thunderstorm, he ordered the cardinal and the
chamberlain to shut the windows. He had not been mistaken; for even as
they were obeying his command, there came up such a furious gust of wind
that the highest chimney of the Vatican was overturned, just as a tree is
rooted up, and was dashed upon the roof, breaking it in; smashing the upper
flooring, it fell into the very room where they were. Terrified by the noise of
this catastrophe, which made the whole palace tremble, the cardinal and

Monsignore Poto turned round, and seeing the room full of dust and debris,
sprang out upon the parapet and shouted to the guards at the gate, "The
pope is dead, the pope is dead!" At this cry, the guards ran up and
discovered three persons lying in the rubbish on the floor, one dead and the
other two dying. The dead man was a gentleman of Siena called Lorenzo
Chigi, and the dying were two resident officials of the Vatican. They had
been walking across the floor above, and had been flung down with the
debris. But Alexander was not to be found; and as he gave no answer,
though they kept on calling to him, the belief that he had perished was
confirmed, and very soon spread about the town. But he had only fainted,
and at the end of a certain time he began to come to himself, and moaned,
whereupon he was discovered, dazed with the blow, and injured, though not
seriously, in several parts of his body. He had been saved by little short of a
miracle: a beam had broken in half and had left each of its two ends in the
side walls; and one of these had formed a sort of roof over the pontifical
throne; the pope, who was sitting there at the time, was protected by this
overarching beam, and had received only a few contusions.
The two contradictory reports of the sudden death and the miraculous
preservation of the pope spread rapidly through Rome; and the Duke of
Valentinois, terrified at the thought of what a change might be wrought in
his own fortunes by any slight accident to the Holy Father, hurried to the
Vatican, unable to assure himself by anything less than the evidence of his
own eyes. Alexander desired to render public thanks to Heaven for the
protection that had been granted him; and on the very same day was carried
to the church of Santa Maria del Popalo, escorted by a numerous procession
of prelates and men-at arms, his pontifical seat borne by two valets, two
equerries, and two grooms. In this church were buried the Duke of Gandia
and Gian Borgia, and perhaps Alexander was drawn thither by some relics

of devotion, or may be by the recollection of his love for his former
mistress, Rosa Vanazza, whose image, in the guise of the Madonna, was
exposed for the veneration of the faithful in a chapel on the left of the high
altar. Stopping before this altar, the pope offered to the church the gift of a
magnificent chalice in which were three hundred gold crowns, which the
Cardinal of Siena poured out into a silver paten before the eyes of all, much
to the gratification of the pontifical vanity.
But before he left Rome to complete the conquest of the Romagna, the
Duke of Valentinois had been reflecting that the marriage, once so ardently
desired, between Lucrezia and Alfonso had been quite useless to himself
and his father. There was more than this to be considered: Louis XII's rest in
Lombardy was only a halt, and Milan was evidently but the stage before
Naples. It was very possible that Louis was annoyed about the marriage
which converted his enemy's nephew into the son-in-law of his ally.
Whereas, if Alfonso were dead, Lucrezia would be in the position to marry
some powerful lord of Ferrara or Brescia, who would be able to help his
brother-in-law in the conquest of Romagna. Alfonso was now not only
useless but dangerous, which to anyone with the character of the Borgias
perhaps seemed worse, the death of Alfonso was resolved upon. But
Lucrezia's husband, who had understood for a long time past what danger
he incurred by living near his terrible father-in-law, had retired to Naples.
Since, however, neither Alexander nor Caesar had changed in their
perpetual dissimulation towards him, he was beginning to lose his fear,
when he received an invitation from the pope and his son to take part in a
bull-fight which was to be held in the Spanish fashion in honour of the duke
before his departure: In the present precarious position of Naples it would
not have been good policy for Alfonso to afford Alexander any sort of
pretext for a rupture, so he could not refuse without a motive, and betook

himself to Rome. It was thought of no use to consult Lucrezia in this affair,
for she had two or three times displayed an absurd attachment for her
husband, and they left her undisturbed in her government of Spoleto.
Alfonso was received by the pope and the duke with every
demonstration of sincere friendship, and rooms in the Vatican were assigned
to him that he had inhabited before with Lucrezia, in that part of the
building which is known as the Torre Nuova.
Great lists were prepared on the Piazza of St. Peter's; the streets about
it were barricaded, and the windows of the surrounding houses served as
boxes for the spectators. The pope and his court took their places on the
balconies of the Vatican.
The fete was started by professional toreadors: after they had exhibited
their strength and skill, Alfonso and Caesar in their turn descended to the
arena, and to offer a proof of their mutual kindness, settled that the bull
which pursued Caesar should be killed by Alfonso, and the bull that pursued
Alfonso by Caesar.
Then Caesar remained alone an horseback within the lists, Alfonso
going out by an improvised door which was kept ajar, in order that he might
go back on the instant if he judged that his presence was necessary. At the
same time, from the opposite side of the lists the bull was introduced, and
was at the same moment pierced all over with darts and arrows, some of
them containing explosives, which took fire, and irritated the bull to such a
point that he rolled about with pain, and then got up in a fury, and
perceiving a man on horseback, rushed instantly upon him. It was now, in
this narrow arena, pursued by his swift enemy, that Caesar displayed all that
skill which made him one of the finest horsemen of the period. Still, clever
as he was, he could not have remained safe long in that restricted area from
an adversary against whom he had no other resource than flight, had not

Alfonso appeared suddenly, just when the bull was beginning to gain upon
him, waving a red cloak in his left hand, and holding in his right a long
delicate Aragon sword. It was high time: the bull was only a few paces
distant from Caesar, and the risk he was running appeared so imminent that
a woman's scream was heard from one of the windows. But at the sight of a
man on foot the bull stopped short, and judging that he would do better
business with the new enemy than the old one, he turned upon him instead.
For a moment he stood motionless, roaring, kicking up the dust with his
hind feet, and lashing his sides with his tail. Then he rushed upon Alfonso,
his eyes all bloodshot, his horns tearing up the ground. Alfonso awaited him
with a tranquil air; then, when he was only three paces away, he made a
bound to one side and presented instead of his body his sword, which
disappeared at once to the hilt; the bull, checked in the middle of his
onslaught, stopped one instant motionless and trembling, then fell upon his
knees, uttered one dull roar, and lying down on the very spot where his
course had been checked, breathed his last without moving a single step
forward.
Applause resounded an all sides, so rapid and clever had been the
blow. Caesar had remained on horseback, seeking to discover the fair
spectator who had given so lively a proof of her interest in him, without
troubling himself about what was going on: his search had not been
unrewarded, for he had recognized one of the maids of honour to Elizabeth,
Duchess of Urbino, who was betrothed to Gian Battista Carraciualo,
captain-general of the republic of Venice.
It was now Alfonso's turn to run from the bull, Caesar's to fight him:
the young men changed parts, and when four mules had reluctantly dragged
the dead bull from the arena, and the valets and other servants of His
Holiness had scattered sand over the places that were stained with blood,

Alfonso mounted a magnificent Andalusian steed of Arab origin, light as
the wind of Sahara that had wedded with his mother, while Caesar,
dismounting, retired in his turn, to reappear at the moment when Alfonso
should be meeting the same danger from which he had just now rescued
him.
Then a second bull was introduced upon the scene, excited in the same
manner with steeled darts and flaming arrows. Like his predecessor, when
he perceived a man on horseback he rushed upon him, and then began a
marvellous race, in which it was impossible to see, so quickly did they fly
over the ground, whether the horse was pursuing the bull or the bull the
horse. But after five or six rounds, the bull began to gain upon the son of
Araby, for all his speed, and it was plain to see who fled and who pursued;
in another moment there was only the length of two lances between them,
and then suddenly Caesar appeared, armed with one of those long two
handed swords which the French are accustomed to use, and just when the
bull, almost close upon Don Alfonso, came in front of Caesar he brandished
the sword, which flashed like lightning, and cut off his head, while his
body, impelled by the speed of the run, fell to the ground ten paces farther
on. This blow was so unexpected, and had been performed with such
dexterity, that it was received not with mere clapping but with wild
enthusiasm and frantic outcry. Caesar, apparently remembering nothing else
in his hour of triumph but the scream that had been caused by his former
danger, picked up the bull's head, and, giving it to one of his equerries,
ordered him to lay it as an act of homage at the feet of the fair Venetian who
had bestowed upon him so lively a sign of interest. This fete, besides
affording a triumph to each of the young men, had another end as well; it
was meant to prove to the populace that perfect goodwill existed between
the two, since each had saved the life of the other. The result was that, if

any accident should happen to Caesar, nobody would dream of accusing
Alfanso; and also if any accident should happen to Alfonso, nobody would
dream of accusing Caesar.
There was a supper at the Vatican. Alfonso made an elegant toilet, and
about ten o'clock at night prepared to go from the quarters he inhabited into
those where the pope lived; but the door which separated the two courts of
the building was shut, and knock as he would, no one came to open it.
Alfonso then thought that it was a simple matter for him to go round by the
Piazza of St. Peter's; so he went out unaccompanied through one of the
garden gates of the Vatican and made his way across the gloomy streets
which led to the stairway which gave on the piazza. But scarcely had he set
his foot on the first step when he was attacked by a band of armed men.
Alfonso would have drawn his sword; but before it was out of the scabbard
he had received two blows from a halberd, one on his head, the other on his
shoulder; he was stabbed in the side, and wounded both in the leg and in the
temple. Struck down by these five blows, he lost his footing and fell to the
ground unconscious; his assassins, supposing he was dead, at once
remounted the stairway, and found on the piazza forty horsemen waiting for
them: by them they were calmly escorted from the city by the Porta Portesa.
Alfonso was found at the point of death, but not actually dead, by some
passers-by, some of whom recognised him, and instantly conveyed the news
of his assassination to the Vatican, while the others, lifting the wounded
man in their arms, carried him to his quarters in the Torre Nuova. The pope
and Caesar, who learned this news just as they were sitting down to table,
showed great distress, and leaving their companions, at once went to see
Alfonso, to be quite certain whether his wounds were fatal or not; and on
the next morning, to divert any suspicion that might be turned towards
themselves, they arrested Alfonso's maternal uncle, Francesco Gazella, who

had come to Rome in his nephew's company. Gazella was found guilty on
the evidence of false witnesses, and was consequently beheaded.
But they had only accomplished half of what they wanted. By some
means, fair or foul, suspicion had been sufficiently diverted from the true
assassins; but Alfonso was not dead, and, thanks to the strength of his
constitution and the skill of his doctors, who had taken the lamentations of
the pope and Caesar quite seriously, and thought to please them by curing
Alexander's son-in-law, the wounded man was making progress towards
convalescence: news arrived at the same time that Lucrezia had heard of her
husband's accident, and was starting to come and nurse him herself. There
was no time to lose, and Caesar summoned Michelotto.
"The same night," says Burcardus, "Don Alfonso, who would not die
of his wounds, was found strangled in his bed."
The funeral took place the next day with a ceremony not unbecoming
in itself, though, unsuited to his high rank. Dan Francesca Borgia ,
Archbishop of Cosenza, acted as chief mourner at St. Peter's, where the
body was buried in the chapel of Santa Maria delle Febbre.
Lucrezia arrived the same evening: she knew her father and brother too
well to be put on the wrong scent; and although, immediately after
Alfonso's death, the Duke of Valentinois had arrested the doctors, the
surgeons, and a poor deformed wretch who had been acting as valet, she
knew perfectly well from what quarter the blow had proceeded. In fear,
therefore, that the manifestation of a grief she felt this time too well might
alienate the confidence of her father and brother, she retired to Nepi with
her whole household, her whole court, and more than six hundred cavaliers,
there to spend the period of her mourning.
This important family business was now settled, and Lucrezia was
again a widow, and in consequence ready to be utilized in the pope's new

political machinations. Caesar only stayed at Rome to receive the
ambassadors from France and Venice; but as their arrival was somewhat
delayed, and considerable inroads had been made upon the pope's treasury
by the recent festivities, the creation of twelve new cardinals was arranged:
this scheme was to have two effects, viz., to bring 600,000 ducats into the
pontifical chest, each hat having been priced at 50,000 ducats, and to assure
the pope of a constant majority in the sacred council.
The ambassadors at last arrived: the first was M. de Villeneuve, the
same who had come before to see the Duke of Valentinois in the name of
France. Just as he entered Rome, he met on the road a masked man, who,
without removing his domino, expressed the joy he felt at his arrival. This
man was Caesar himself, who did not wish to be recognised, and who took
his departure after a short conference without uncovering his face. M. de
Villeneuve then entered the city after him, and at the Porta del Populo found
the ambassadors of the various Powers, and among them those of Spain and
Naples, whose sovereigns were not yet, it is true, in declared hostility to
France, though there was already some coolness. The last-named, fearing to
compromise themselves, merely said to their colleague of France, by way of
complimentary address, "Sir, you are welcome"; whereupon the master of
the ceremonies, surprised at the brevity of the greeting, asked if they had
nothing else to say. When they replied that they had not, M. de Villeneuve
turned his back upon them, remarking that those who had nothing to say
required no answer; he then took his place between the Archbishop of
Reggia, governor of Rome, and the Archbishop of Ragusa, and made his
way to the palace of the Holy Apostles, which had been, got ready for his
reception.
Some days later, Maria Giorgi, ambassador extraordinary of Venice,
made his arrival. He was commissioned not only to arrange the business on

hand with the pope, but also to convey to Alexander and Caesar the title of
Venetian nobles, and to inform them that their names were inscribed in the
Golden Book—a favour that both of them had long coveted, less for the
empty honour's sake than for the new influence that this title might confer.
Then the pope went on to bestow the twelve cardinals' hats that had been
sold. The new princes of the Church were Don Diego de Mendoza,
archbishop of Seville; Jacques, archbishop of Oristagny, the Pope's vicar-
general; Thomas, archbishop of Strigania; Piero, archbishop of Reggio,
governor of Rome; Francesco Borgia , archbishop of Cosenza, treasurer-
general; Gian, archbishop of Salerno, vice-chamberlain; Luigi Borgia ,
archbishop of Valencia, secretary to His Holiness, and brother of the Gian
Borgia whom Caesar had poisoned; Antonio, bishop of Coma; Gian Battista
Ferraro, bishop of Modem; Amedee d'Albret, son of the King of Navarre,
brother-in-law of the Duke of Valentinois; and Marco Cornaro, a Venetian
noble, in whose person His Holiness rendered back to the most serene
republic the favour he had just received.
Then, as there was nothing further to detain the Duke of Valentinois at
Rome, he only waited to effect a loan from a rich banker named Agostino
Chigi, brother of the Lorenzo Chigi who had perished on the day when the
pope had been nearly killed by the fall of a chimney, and departed for the
Romagna, accompanied by Vitellozzo Vitelli, Gian Paolo Baglione, and
Jacopo di Santa Croce, at that time his friends, but later on his victims.
His first enterprise was against Pesaro: this was the polite attention of
a brother-in-law, and Gian Sforza very well knew what would be its
consequences; for instead of attempting to defend his possessions by taking
up arms, or to venture on negotiations, unwilling moreover to expose the
fair lands he had ruled so long to the vengeance of an irritated foe, he
begged his subjects, to preserve their former affection towards himself, in

the hope of better days to come; and he fled into Dalmatia. Malatesta, lord
of Rimini, followed his example; thus the Duke of Valentinois entered both
these towns without striking a single blow. Caesar left a sufficient garrison
behind him, and marched on to Faenza.
But there the face of things was changed: Faenza at that time was
under the rule of Astor Manfredi, a brave and handsome young man of
eighteen, who, relying on the love of his subjects towards his family, had
resolved on defending himself to the uttermost, although he had been
forsaken by the Bentivagli, his near relatives, and by his allies, the Venetian
and Florentines, who had not dared to send him any aid because of the
affection felt towards Caesar by the King of France. Accordingly, when he
perceived that the Duke of Valentinois was marching against him, he
assembled in hot haste all those of his vassals who were capable of bearing
arms, together with the few foreign soldiers who were willing to come into
his pay, and collecting victual and ammunition, he took up his position with
them inside the town.
By these defensive preparations Caesar was not greatly disconcerted;
he commanded a magnificent army, composed of the finest troops of France
and Italy; led by such men as Paolo and Giulio Orsini, Vitellozzo Vitelli and
Paolo Baglione, not to speak of himself—that is to say, by the first captains
of the period. So, after he had reconnoitred, he at once began the siege,
pitching his camp between the two rivers, Amana and Marziano, placing his
artillery on the side which faces on Forli, at which point the besieged party
had erected a powerful bastion.
At the end of a few days busy with entrenchments, the breach became
practicable, and the Duke of Valentinois ordered an assault, and gave the
example to his soldiers by being the first to march against the enemy. But in
spite of his courage and that of his captains beside him, Astor Manfredi

made so good a defence that the besiegers were repulsed with great loss of
men, while one of their bravest leaders, Honario Savella was left behind in
the trenches.
But Faenza, in spite of the courage and devotion of her defenders,
could not have held out long against so formidable an army, had not winter
come to her aid. Surprised by the rigour of the season, with no houses for
protection and no trees for fuel, as the peasants had destroyed both
beforehand, the Duke of Valentinois was forced to raise the siege and take
up his winter quarters in the neighbouring towns, in order to be quite ready
for a return next spring; for Caesar could not forgive the insult of being held
in check by a little town which had enjoyed a long time of peace, was
governed by a mere boy, and deprived of all outside aid, and had sworn to
take his revenge. He therefore broke up his army into three sections, sent
one-third to Imola, the second to Forli, and himself took the third to Cesena,
a third-rate town, which was thus suddenly transformed into a city of
pleasure and luxury.
Indeed, for Caesar's active spirit there must needs be no cessation of
warfare or festivities. So, when war was interrupted, fetes began, as
magnificent and as exciting as he knew how to make them: the days were
passed in games and displays of horsemanship, the nights in dancing and
gallantry; for the loveliest women of the Romagna—and that is to say of the
whole world had come hither to make a seraglio for the victor which might
have been envied by the Sultan of Egypt or the Emperor of Constantinople.
While the Duke of Valentinois was making one of his excursions in the
neighbourhood of the town with his retinue of flattering nobles and titled
courtesans, who were always about him, he noticed a cortege on the Rimini
road so numerous that it must surely indicate the approach of someone of
importance. Caesar, soon perceiving that the principal person was a woman,

approached, and recognised the very same lady-in-waiting to the Duchess
of Urbino who, on the day of the bull-fight, had screamed when Caesar was
all but touched by the infuriated beast. At this time she was betrothed, as we
mentioned, to Gian Carracciuola, general of the Venetians. Elizabeth of
Gonzaga, her protectress and godmother, was now sending her with a
suitable retinue to Venice, where the marriage was to take place.
Caesar had already been struck by the beauty of this young girl, when
at Rome; but when he saw her again she appeared more lovely than on the
first occasion, so he resolved on the instant that he would keep this fair
flower of love for himself: having often before reproached himself for his
indifference in passing her by. Therefore he saluted her as an old
acquaintance, inquired whether she were staying any time at Cesena, and
ascertained that she was only passing through, travelling by long stages, as
she was awaited with much impatience, and that she would spend the
coming night at Forli. This was all that Caesar cared to know; he summoned
Michelotto, and in a low voice said a few words to him, which were heard
by no one else.
The cortege only made a halt at the neighbouring town, as the fair
bride had said, and started at once for Forli, although the day was already
far advanced; but scarcely had a league been covered when a troop of
horsemen from Cesena overtook and surrounded them. Although the
soldiers in the escort were far from being in sufficient force, they were
eager to defend their general's bride; but soon some fell dead, and others,
terrified, took to flight; and when the lady came down from her litter to try
to escape, the chief seized her in his arms and set her in front of him on his
horse; then, ordering his men to return to Cesena without him, he put his
horse to the gallop in a cross direction, and as the shades of evening were
now beginning to fall, he soon disappeared into the darkness.

Carracciuolo learned the news through one of the fugitives, who
declared that he had recognised among the ravishers the Duke of
Valentinois' soldiers. At first he thought his ears had deceived him, so hard
was it to believe this terrible intelligence; but it was repeated, and he stood
for one instant motionless, and, as it were, thunderstruck; then suddenly,
with a cry of vengeance, he threw off his stupor and dashed away to the
ducal palace, where sat the Doge Barberigo and the Council of Ten;
unannounced, he rushed into their midst, the very moment after they had
heard of Caesar's outrage.
"Most serene lords," he cried, "I am come to bid you farewell, for I am
resolved to sacrifice my life to my private vengeance, though indeed I had
hoped to devote it to the service of the republic. I have been wounded in the
soul's noblest part—in my honour. The dearest thing I possessed, my wife,
has been stolen from me, and the thief is the most treacherous, the most
impious, the most infamous of men, it is Valentinois! My lords, I beg you
will not be offended if I speak thus of a man whose boast it is to be a
member of your noble ranks and to enjoy your protection: it is not so; he
lies, and his loose and criminal life has made him unworthy of such
honours, even as he is unworthy of the life whereof my sword shall deprive
him. In truth, his very birth was a sacrilege; he is a fratricide, an usurper of
the goods of other men, an oppressor of the innocent, and a highway
assassin; he is a man who will violate every law, even, the law of hospitality
respected by the veriest barbarian, a man who will do violence to a virgin
who is passing through his own country, where she had every right to
expect from him not only the consideration due to her sex and condition,
but also that which is due to the most serene republic, whose condottiere I
am, and which is insulted in my person and in the dishonouring of my
bride; this man, I say, merits indeed to die by another hand than mine. Yet,

since he who ought to punish him is not for him a prince and judge, but
only a father quite as guilty as the son, I myself will seek him out, and I will
sacrifice my own life, not only in avenging my own injury and the blood of
so many innocent beings, but also in promoting the welfare of the most
serene republic, on which it is his ambition to trample when he has
accomplished the ruin of the other princes of Italy."
The doge and the senators, who, as we said, were already apprised of
the event that had brought Carracciuolo before them, listened with great
interest and profound indignation; for they, as he told them, were
themselves insulted in the person of their general: they all swore, on their
honour, that if he would put the matter in their hands, and not yield to his
rage, which could only work his own undoing, either his bride should be
rendered up to him without a smirch upon her bridal veil, or else a
punishment should be dealt out proportioned to the affront. And without
delay, as a proof of the energy wherewith the noble tribunal would take
action in the affair, Luigi Manenti, secretary to the Ten, was sent to Imola,
where the duke was reported to be, that he might explain to him the great
displeasure with which the most serene republic viewed the outrage
perpetrated upon their candottiere. At the same time the Council of Ten and
the doge sought out the French ambassador, entreating him to join with
them and repair in person with Manenti to the Duke of Valentinois, and
summon him, in the name of King Louis XII, immediately to send back to
Venice the lady he had carried off.
The two messengers arrived at Imola, where they found Caesar, who
listened to their complaint with every mark of utter astonishment, denying
that he had been in any way connected with the crime, nay, authorising
Manenti and the French ambassador to pursue the culprits and promising
that he would himself have the most active search carried on. The duke

appeared to act in such complete good faith that the envoys were for the
moment hoodwinked, and themselves undertook a search of the most
careful nature. They accordingly repaired to the exact spot and began to
procure information. On the highroad there had been found dead and
wounded. A man had been seen going by at a gallop, carrying a woman in
distress on his saddle; he had soon left the beaten track and plunged across
country. A peasant coming home from working in the fields had seen him
appear and vanish again like a shadow, taking the direction of a lonely
house. An old woman declared that she had seen him go into this house. But
the next night the house was gone, as though by enchantment, and the
ploughshare had passed over where it stood; so that none could say, what
had become of her whom they sought, for those who had dwelt in the
house, and even the house itself, were there no longer.
Manenti and the French ambassador returned to Venice, and related
what the duke had said, what they had done, and how all search had been in
vain. No one doubted that Caesar was the culprit, but no one could prove it.
So the most serene republic, which could not, considering their war with the
Turks, be embroiled with the pope, forbade Caracciualo to take any sort of
private vengeance, and so the talk grew gradually less, and at last the
occurrence was no more mentioned.
But the pleasures of the winter had not diverted Caesar's mind from his
plans about Faenza. Scarcely did the spring season allow him to go into the
country than he marched anew upon the town, camped opposite the castle,
and making a new breach, ordered a general assault, himself going up first
of all; but in spite of the courage he personally displayed, and the able
seconding of his soldiers, they were repulsed by Astor, who, at the head of
his men, defended the breach, while even the women, at the top of the
rampart, rolled down stones and trunks of trees upon the besiegers. After an

hour's struggle man to man, Caesar was forced to retire, leaving two
thousand men in the trenches about the town, and among the two thousand
one of his bravest condottieri, Valentino Farnese.
Then, seeing that neither excommunications nor assaults could help
him, Caesar converted the siege into a blockade: all the roads leading to
Faenza were cut off, all communications stopped; and further, as various
signs of revolt had been remarked at Cesena, a governor was installed there
whose powerful will was well known to Caesar, Ramiro d'Orco, with
powers of life and death over the inhabitants; he then waited quietly before
Faenza, till hunger should drive out the citizens from those walls they
defended with such vehement enthusiasm. At the end of a month, during
which the people of Faenza had suffered all the horrors of famine, delegates
came out to parley with Caesar with a view to capitulation. Caesar, who still
had plenty to do in the Romagna, was less hard to satisfy than might have
been expected, and the town yielded on condition that he should not touch
either the persons or the belongings of the inhabitants, that Astor Manfredi,
the youthful ruler, should have the privilege of retiring whenever he
pleased, and should enjoy the revenue of his patrimony wherever he might
be.
The conditions were faithfully kept so far as the inhabitants were
concerned; but Caesar, when he had seen Astor, whom he did not know
before, was seized by a strange passion for this beautiful youth, who was
like a woman: he kept him by his side in his own army, showing him
honours befitting a young prince, and evincing before the eyes of all the
strongest affection for him: one day Astor disappeared, just as Caracciuolo's
bride had disappeared, and no one knew what had become of him; Caesar
himself appeared very uneasy, saying that he had no doubt made his escape

somewhere, and in order to give credence to this story, he sent out couriers
to seek him in all directions.
A year after this double disappearance, there was picked up in the
Tiber, a little below the Castle Sant' Angelo, the body of a beautiful young
woman, her hands bound together behind her back, and also the corpse of a
handsome youth with the bowstring he had been strangled with tied round
his neck. The girl was Caracciuolo's bride, the young man was Astor.
During the last year both had been the slaves of Caesar's pleasures;
now, tired of them, he had had them thrown into the Tiber.
The capture of Faenza had brought Caesar the title of Duke of
Romagna, which was first bestowed on him by the pope in full consistory,
and afterwards ratified by the King of Hungary, the republic of Venice, and
the Kings of Castile and Portugal. The news of the ratification arrived at
Rome on the eve of the day on which the people are accustomed to keep the
anniversary of the foundation of the Eternal City; this fete, which went back
to the days of Pomponius Laetus, acquired a new splendour in their eyes
from the joyful events that had just happened to their sovereign: as a sign of
joy cannon were fired all day long; in the evening there were illuminations
and bonfires, and during part of the night the Prince of Squillace, with the
chief lords of the Roman nobility, marched about the streets, bearing
torches, and exclaiming, "Long live Alexander! Long live Caesar! Long live
the Borgias! Long live the Orsini! Long live the Duke of Romagna!"

CHAPTER XII

Caesar's ambition was only fed by victories: scarcely was he master of
Faenza before, excited by the Mariscotti, old enemies of the Bentivoglio
family, he cast his eyes upon Bologna; but Gian di Bentivoglio, whose
ancestors had possessed this town from time immemorial, had not only
made all preparations necessary for a long resistance, but he had also put
himself under the protection of France; so, scarcely had he learned that
Caesar was crossing the frontier of the Bolognese territory with his army,
than he sent a courier to Louis XII to claim the fulfilment of his promise.
Louis kept it with his accustomed good faith; and when Caesar arrived
before Bologna, he received an intimation from the King of France that he
was not to enter on any undertaking against his ally Bentivoglio; Caesar,
not being the man to have his plans upset for nothing, made conditions for
his retreat, to which Bentivoglio consented, only too happy to be quit of
him at this price: the conditions were the cession of Castello Bolognese, a
fortress between Imola and Faenza, the payment of a tribute of 9000 ducats,
and the keeping for his service of a hundred men-at-arms and two thousand
infantry. In exchange for these favours, Caesar confided to Bentivoglio that
his visit had been due to the counsels of the Mariscotti; then, reinforced by
his new ally's contingent, he took the road for Tuscany. But he was scarcely
out of sight when Bentivoglio shut the gates of Bologna, and commanded
his son Hermes to assassinate with his own hand Agamemnon Mariscotti,
the head of the family, and ordered the massacre of four-and-thirty of his

near relatives, brothers, sons, daughters, and nephews, and two hundred
other of his kindred and friends. The butchery was carried out by the
noblest youths of Bologna; whom Bentivoglio forced to bathe their hands in
this blood, so that he might attach them to himself through their fear of
reprisals.
Caesar's plans with regard to Florence were now no longer a mystery:
since the month of January he had sent to Pisa ten or twelve hundred men
under the Command of Regniero della Sassetta and Piero di Gamba Corti,
and as soon as the conquest of the Romagna was complete, he had further
despatched Oliverotto di Fermo with new detachments. His own army he
had reinforced, as we have seen, by a hundred men-at-arms and two
thousand infantry; he had just been joined by Vitellozzo Vitelli, lord of
Citta, di Castello, and by the Orsini, who had brought him another two or
three thousand men; so, without counting the troops sent to Pisa, he had
under his control seven hundred men-at-arms and five thousand infantry.
Still, in spite of this formidable company, he entered Tuscany
declaring that his intentions were only pacific, protesting that he only
desired to pass through the territories of the republic on his way to Rome,
and offering to pay in ready money for any victual his army might require.
But when he had passed the defiles of the mountains and arrived at
Barberino, feeling that the town was in his power and nothing could now
hinder his approach, he began to put a price on the friendship he had at first
offered freely, and to impose his own conditions instead of accepting those
of others. These were that Piero dei Medici, kinsman and ally of the Orsini,
should be reinstated in his ancient power; that six Florentine citizens, to be
chosen by Vitellozzo, should be put into his hands that they might by their
death expiate that of Paolo Vitelli, unjustly executed by the Florentines; that
the Signoria should engage to give no aid to the lord of Piombino, whom

Caesar intended to dispossess of his estates without delay; and further, that
he himself should be taken into the service of the republic, for a pay
proportionate to his deserts. But just as Caesar had reached this point in his
negotiations with Florence, he received orders from Louis XII to get ready,
so soon as he conveniently could, to follow him with his army and help in
the conquest of Naples, which he was at last in a position to undertake.
Caesar dared not break his word to so powerful an ally; he therefore replied
that he was at the king's orders, and as the Florentines were not aware that
he was quitting them on compulsion, he sold his retreat for the sum of
36,000 ducats per annum, in exchange for which sum he was to hold three
hundred men-at-arms always in readiness to go to the aid of the republic at
her earliest call and in any circumstances of need.
But, hurried as he was, Caesar still hoped that he might find time to
conquer the territory of Piombino as he went by, and take the capital by a
single vigorous stroke; so he made his entry into the lands of Jacopo IV of
Appiano. The latter, he found, however, had been beforehand with him, and,
to rob him of all resource, had laid waste his own country, burned his
fodder, felled his trees, torn down his vines, and destroyed a few fountains
that produced salubrious waters. This did not hinder Caesar from seizing in
the space of a few days Severeto, Scarlino, the isle of Elba, and La Pianosa;
but he was obliged to stop short at the castle, which opposed a serious
resistance. As Louis XII's army was continuing its way towards Rome, and
he received a fresh order to join it, he took his departure the next day,
leaving behind him, Vitellozzo and Gian Paolo Bagliani to prosecute the
siege in his absence.
Louis XII was this time advancing upon Naples, not with the
incautious ardour of Charles VIII, but, on the contrary, with that prudence
and circumspection which characterised him. Besides his alliance with

Florence and Rome, he had also signed a secret treaty with Ferdinand the
Catholic, who had similar pretensions, through the house of Duras, to the
throne of Naples to those Louis himself had through the house of Anjou. By
this treaty the two kings were sharing their conquests beforehand: Louis
would be master of Naples, of the town of Lavore and the Abruzzi, and
would bear the title of King of Naples and Jerusalem; Ferdinand reserved
for his own share Apulia and Calabria, with the title of Duke of these
provinces; both were to receive the investiture from the pope and to hold
them of him. This partition was all the more likely to be made, in fact,
because Frederic, supposing all the time that Ferdinand was his good and
faithful friend, would open the gates of his towns, only to receive into his
fortresses conquerors and masters instead of allies. All this perhaps was not
very loyal conduct on the part of a king who had so long desired and had
just now received the surname of Catholic, but it mattered little to Louis,
who profited by treasonable acts he did not have to share.
The French army, which the Duke of Valentinois had just joined,
consisted of 1000 lances, 4000 Swiss, and 6000 Gascons and adventurers;
further, Philip of Rabenstein was bringing by sea six Breton and Provencal
vessels, and three Genoese caracks, carrying 6500 invaders.
Against this mighty host the King of Naples had only 700 men-at-
arms, 600 light horse, and 6000 infantry under the command of the
Colonna, whom he had taken into his pay after they were exiled by the pope
from the States of the Church; but he was counting on Gonsalvo of
Cordova, who was to join him at Gaeta, and to whom he had confidingly
opened all his fortresses in Calabria.
But the feeling of safety inspired by Frederic's faithless ally was not
destined to endure long: on their arrival at Rome, the French and Spanish
ambassadors presented to the pope the treaty signed at Grenada on the 11th

of November, 1500, between Louis XII and Ferdinand the Catholic, a treaty
which up to that time had been secret. Alexander, foreseeing the probable
future, had, by the death of Alfonso, loosened all the bonds that attached
him to the house of Aragon, and then began by making some difficulty
about it. It was demonstrated that the arrangement had only been
undertaken to provide the Christian princes with another weapon for
attacking the Ottoman Empire, and before this consideration, one may
readily suppose, all the pope's scruples vanished; on the 25th of June,
therefore, it was decided to call a consistory which was to declare Frederic
deposed from the throne of Naples. When Frederic heard all at once that the
French army had arrived at Rome, that his ally Ferdinand had deceived him,
and that Alexander had pronounced the sentence of his downfall, he
understood that all was lost; but he did not wish it to be said that he had
abandoned his kingdom without even attempting to save it. So he charged
his two new condottieri, Fabrizio Colonna and Ranuzia di Marciano, to
check the French before Capua with 300 men-at-arms, some light horse,
and 3000 infantry; in person he occupied Aversa with another division of
his army, while Prospero Colonna was sent to defend Naples with the rest,
and make a stand against the Spaniards on the side of Calabria.
These dispositions were scarcely made when d'Aubigny, having passed
the Volturno, approached to lay siege to Capua, and invested the town on
both sides of the river. Scarcely were the French encamped before the
ramparts than they began to set up their batteries, which were soon in play,
much to the terror of the besieged, who, poor creatures, were almost all
strangers to the town, and had fled thither from every side, expecting to find
protection beneath the walls. So, although bravely repulsed by Fabrizio
Colonna, the French, from the moment of their first assault, inspired so
great and blind a terror that everyone began to talk of opening the gates, and

it was only with great difficulty that Colonna made this multitude
understood that at least they ought to reap some benefit from the check the
besiegers had received and obtain good terms of capitulation. When he had
brought them round to his view, he sent out to demand a parley with
d'Aubigny, and a conference was fixed for the next day but one, in which
they were to treat of the surrender of the town.
But this was not Caesar Borgia's idea at all: he had stayed behind to
confer with the pope, and had joined the French army with some of his
troops on the very day on which the conference had been arranged for two
days later: and a capitulation of any nature would rob him of his share of
the booty and the promise of such pleasure as would come from the capture
of a city so rich and populous as Capua. So he opened up negotiations on
his own account with a captain who was on guard at one of the gates. Such
negotiations, made with cunning supported by bribery, proved as usual
more prompt and efficacious than any others. At the very moment when
Fabrizio Colonna in a fortified outpost was discussing the conditions of
capitulation with the French captains, suddenly great cries of distress were
heard. These were caused by Borgia, who without a word to anyone had
entered the town with his faithful army from Romagna, and was beginning
to cut the throats of the garrison, which had naturally somewhat relaxed
their vigilance in the belief that the capitulation was all but signed. The
French, when they saw that the town was half taken, rushed on the gates
with such impetuosity that the besieged did not even attempt to defend
themselves any longer, and forced their way into Capua by three separate
sides: nothing more could be done then to stop the issue. Butchery and
pillage had begun, and the work of destruction must needs be completed: in
vain did Fabrizio Colonna, Ranuzio di Marciano, and Don Ugo di Cardona
attempt to make head against the French and Spaniards with such men as

they could get together. Fabrizia Colonna and Don Ugo were made
prisoners; Ranuzia, wounded by an arrow, fell into the hands of the Duke of
Valentinois; seven thousand inhabitants were massacred in the streets,
among them the traitor who had given up the gate; the churches were
pillaged, the convents of nuns forced open; and then might be seen the
spectacle of some of these holy virgins casting themselves into pits or into
the river to escape the soldiers. Three hundred of the noblest ladies of the
town took refuge in a tower. The Duke of Valentinois broke in the doors,
chased out for himself forty of the most beautiful, and handed over the rest
to his army.
The pillage continued for three days.
Capua once taken, Frederic saw that it was useless any longer to
attempt defence. So he shut himself up in Castel Nuovo and gave
permission to Gaeta and to Naples to treat with the conqueror. Gaeta bought
immunity from pillage with 60,000 ducats; and Naples with the surrender of
the castle. This surrender was made to d'Aubigny by Frederic himself, on
condition that he should be allowed to take to the island of Ischia his
money, jewels, and furniture, and there remain with his family for six
months secure from all hostile attack. The terms of this capitulation were
faithfully adhered to on both sides: d'Aubigny entered Naples, and Frederic
retired to Ischia.
Thus, by a last terrible blow, never to rise again, fell this branch of the
house of Aragon, which had now reigned for sixty-five years. Frederic, its
head, demanded and obtained a safe-conduct to pass into France, where
Louis XII gave him the duchy of Anjou and 30,000 ducats a year, on
condition that he should never quit the kingdom; and there, in fact, he died,
an the 9th of September 1504. His eldest son, Dan Ferdinand, Duke of
Calabria, retired to Spain, where he was permitted to marry twice, but each

time with a woman who was known to be barren; and there he died in 1550.
Alfonso, the second son, who had followed his father to France, died, it is
said, of poison, at Grenoble, at the age of twenty-two; lastly Caesar, the
third son, died at Ferrara, before he had attained his eighteenth birthday.
Frederic's daughter Charlotte married in France Nicholas, Count of
Laval, governor and admiral of Brittany; a daughter was born of this
marriage, Anne de Laval, who married Francois de la Trimauille. Through
her those rights were transmitted to the house of La Trimouille which were
used later on as a claim upon the kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
The capture of Naples gave the Duke of Valentinois his liberty again;
so he left the French army, after he had received fresh assurances on his
own account of the king's friendliness, and returned to the siege of
Piombino, which he had been forced to interrupt. During this interval
Alexander had been visiting the scenes of his son's conquests, and
traversing all the Romagna with Lucrezia, who was now consoled for her
husband's death, and had never before enjoyed quite so much favour with
His Holiness; so, when she returned to Rome she no longer had separate
rooms from him. The result of this recrudescence of affection was the
appearance of two pontifical bulls, converting the towns of Nepi and
Sermoneta into duchies: one was bestowed on Gian Borgia , an illegitimate
child of the pope, who was not the son of either of his mistresses, Rosa
Vanozza or Giulia Farnese, the other on Don Roderigo of Aragon, son of
Lucrezia and Alfonso: the lands of the Colonna were in appanage to the two
duchies.
But Alexander was dreaming of yet another addition to his fortune; this
was to came from a marriage between Lucrezia and Don Alfonso d'Este,
son of Duke Hercules of Ferrara, in favour of which alliance Louis XII had
negotiated.

His Holiness was now having a run of good fortune, and he learned on
the same day that Piombino was taken and that Duke Hercules had given
the King of France his assent to the marriage. Both of these pieces of news
were good for Alexander, but the one could not compare in importance with
the other; and the intimation that Lucrezia was to marry the heir
presumptive to the duchy of Ferrara was received with a joy so great that it
smacked of the humble beginnings of the Borgian house. The Duke of
Valentinois was invited to return to Rome, to take his share in the family
rejoicing, and on the day when the news was made public the governor of
St. Angelo received orders that cannon should be fired every quarter of an
hour from noon to midnight. At two o'clock, Lucrezia, attired as a fiancee,
and accompanied by her two brothers, the Dukes of Valentinois and
Squillace, issued from the Vatican, followed by all the nobility of Rome,
and proceeded to the church of the Madonna del Papalo, where the Duke of
Gandia and Cardinal Gian Borgia were buried, to render thanks for this new
favour accorded to her house by God; and in the evening, accompanied by
the same cavalcade, which shone the more brightly under the torchlight and
brilliant illuminations, she made procession through the whole town,
greeted by cries of "Long live Pope Alexander VI! Long live the Duchess of
Ferrara!" which were shouted aloud by heralds clad in cloth of gold.
The next day an announcement was made in the town that a racecourse
for women was opened between the castle of Sant' Angelo and the Piazza of
St. Peter's; that on every third day there would be a bull-fight in the Spanish
fashion; and that from the end of the present month, which was October,
until the first day of Lent, masquerades would be permitted in the streets of
Rome.
Such was the nature of the fetes outside; the programme of those going
on within the Vatican was not presented to the people; for by the account of

Bucciardo, an eye-witness, this is what happened—
"On the last Sunday of the month of October, fifty courtesans supped
in the apostolic palace in the Duke of Valentinois' rooms, and after supper
danced with the equerries and servants, first wearing their usual garments,
afterwards in dazzling draperies; when supper was over, the table was
removed, candlesticks were set on the floor in a symmetrical pattern, and a
great quantity of chestnuts was scattered on the ground: these the fifty
women skilfully picked up, running about gracefully, in and out between
the burning lights; the pope, the Duke of Valentinois, and his sister
Lucrezia, who were looking on at this spectacle from a gallery, encouraged
the most agile and industrious with their applause, and they received prizes
of embroidered garters, velvet boots, golden caps, and laces; then new
diversions took the place of these."
We humbly ask forgiveness of our readers, and especially of our lady
readers; but though we have found words to describe the first part of the
spectacle, we have sought them in vain for the second; suffice it to say that
just as there had been prizes for feats of adroitness, others were given now
to the dancers who were most daring and brazen.
Some days after this strange night, which calls to mind the Roman
evenings in the days of Tiberius, Nero, and Heliogabalus, Lucrezia, clad in
a robe of golden brocade, her train carried by young girls dressed in white
and crowned with roses, issued from her palace to the sound of trumpets
and clarions, and made her way over carpets that were laid down in the
streets through which she had to pass. Accompanied by the noblest
cavaliers and the loveliest women in Rome, she betook herself to the
Vatican, where in the Pauline hall the pope awaited her, with the Duke of
Valentinois, Don Ferdinand, acting as proxy for Duke Alfonso, and his
cousin, Cardinal d'Este. The pope sat on one side of the table, while the

envoys from Ferrara stood on the other: into their midst came Lucrezia, and
Don Ferdinand placed on her finger the nuptial ring; this ceremony over,
Cardinal d'Este approached and presented to the bride four magnificent
rings set with precious stones; then a casket was placed on the table, richly
inlaid with ivory, whence the cardinal drew forth a great many trinkets,
chains, necklaces of pearls and diamonds, of workmanship as costly as their
material; these he also begged Lucrezia to accept, before she received those
the bridegroom was hoping to offer himself, which would be more worthy
of her. Lucrezia showed the utmost delight in accepting these gifts; then she
retired into the next room, leaning on the pope's arm, and followed by the
ladies of her suite, leaving the Duke of Valentinois to do the honours of the
Vatican to the men. That evening the guests met again, and spent half the
night in dancing, while a magnificent display of fireworks lighted up the
Piazza of San Paolo.
The ceremony of betrothal over, the pope and the Duke busied
themselves with making preparations for the departure. The pope, who
wished the journey to be made with a great degree of splendour, sent in his
daughter's company, in addition to the two brothers-in-law and the
gentlemen in their suite, the Senate of Rome and all the lords who, by virtue
of their wealth, could display most magnificence in their costumes and
liveries. Among this brilliant throng might be seen Olivero and Ramiro
Mattel, sons of Piero Mattel, chancellor of the town, and a daughter of the
pope whose mother was not Rosa Vanozza; besides these, the pope
nominated in consistory Francesco Borgia, Cardinal of Sosenza, legate a
latere, to accompany his daughter to the frontiers of the Ecclesiastical
States.
Also the Duke of Valentinois sent out messengers into all the cities of
Romagna to order that Lucrezia should be received as sovereign lady and

mistress: grand preparations were at once set on foot for the fulfilment of
his orders. But the messengers reported that they greatly feared that there
would be some grumbling at Cesena, where it will be remembered that
Caesar had left Ramiro d'Orco as governor with plenary powers, to calm the
agitation of the town. Now Ramiro d'Orco had accomplished his task so
well that there was nothing more to fear in the way of rebellion; for one-
sixth of the inhabitants had perished on the scaffold, and the result of this
situation was that it was improbable that the same demonstrations of joy
could be expected from a town plunged in mourning that were looked for
from Imola, Faenza, and Pesaro. The Duke of Valentinais averted this
inconvenience in the prompt and efficacious fashion characteristic of him
alone. One morning the inhabitants of Cesena awoke to find a scaffold set
up in the square, and upon it the four quarters of a man, his head, severed
from the trunk, stuck up on the end of a pike.
This man was Ramiro d'Orco.
No one ever knew by whose hands the scaffold had been raised by
night, nor by what executioners the terrible deed had been carried out; but
when the Florentine Republic sent to ask Macchiavelli, their ambassador at
Cesena, what he thought of it, he replied:
"MAGNIFICENT LORDS,-I can tell you nothing concerning the
execution of Ramiro d'Orco, except that Caesar Borgia is the prince who
best knows how to make and unmake men according to their deserts.
NICCOLO MACCHIAVELLI"
The Duke of Valentinois was not disappointed, and the future Duchess
of Ferrara was admirably received in every town along her route, and
particularly at Cesena.
While Lucrezia was on her way to Ferrara to meet her fourth husband,
Alexander and the Duke of Valentinois resolved to make a progress in the

region of their last conquest, the duchy of Piombino. The apparent object of
this journey was that the new subjects might take their oath to Caesar, and
the real object was to form an arsenal in Jacopo d'Appiano's capital within
reach of Tuscany, a plan which neither the pope nor his son had ever
seriously abandoned. The two accordingly started from the port of Corneto
with six ships, accompanied by a great number of cardinals and prelates,
and arrived the same evening at Piombina. The pontifical court made a stay
there of several days, partly with a view of making the duke known to the
inhabitants, and also in order to be present at certain ecclesiastical
functions, of which the most important was a service held on the third
Sunday in Lent, in which the Cardinal of Cosenza sang a mass and the pope
officiated in state with the duke and the cardinals. After these solemn
functions the customary pleasures followed, and the pope summoned the
prettiest girls of the country and ordered them to dance their national dances
before him.
Following on these dances came feasts of unheard of magnificence,
during which the pope in the sight of all men completely ignored Lent and
did not fast. The object of all these fetes was to scatter abroad a great deal
of money, and so to make the Duke of Valentinois popular, while poor
Jacopo d'Appiano was forgotten.
When they left Piombino, the pope and his son visited the island of
Elba, where they only stayed long enough to visit the old fortifications and
issue orders for the building of new ones.
Then the illustrious travellers embarked on their return journey to
Rome; but scarcely had they put out to sea when the weather became
adverse, and the pope not wishing to put in at Porto Ferrajo, they remained
five days on board, though they had only two days' provisions. During the
last three days the pope lived on fried fish that were caught under great

difficulties because of the heavy weather. At last they arrived in sight of
Corneto, and there the duke, who was not on the same vessel as the pope,
seeing that his ship could not get in, had a boat put out, and so was taken
ashore. The pope was obliged to continue on his way towards Pontercole,
where at last he arrived, after encountering so violent a tempest that all who
were with him were utterly subdued either by sickness or by the terror of
death. The pope alone did not show one instant's fear, but remained on the
bridge during the storm, sitting on his arm-chair, invoking the name of
Jesus and making the sign of the cross. At last his ship entered the roads of
Pontercole, where he landed, and after sending to Corneto to fetch horses,
he rejoined the duke, who was there awaiting him. They then returned by
slow stages, by way of Civita Vecchia and Palo, and reached Rome after an
absence of a month. Almost at the same time d'Albret arrived in quest of his
cardinal's hat. He was accompanied by two princes of the house of Navarre,
who were received with not only those honours which beseemed their rank,
but also as brothers-in-law to whom the, duke was eager to show in what
spirit he was contracting this alliance.

CHAPTER XIII

The time had now come for the Duke of Valentinois to continue the
pursuit of his conquests. So, since on the 1st of May in the preceding year
the pope had pronounced sentence of forfeiture in full consistory against
Julius Caesar of Varano, as punishment for the murder of his brother
Rudolph and for the harbouring of the pope's enemies, and he had
accordingly been mulcted of his fief of Camerino, which was to be handed
over to the apostolic chamber, Caesar left Rome to put the sentence in
execution. Consequently, when he arrived on the frontiers of Perugia, which
belonged to his lieutenant, Gian Paolo Baglioni, he sent Oliverotta da
Fermo and Orsini of Gravina to lay waste the March of Camerino, at the
same time petitioning Guido d'Ubaldo di Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, to
lend his soldiers and artillery to help him in this enterprise. This the unlucky
Duke of Urbino, who enjoyed the best possible relations with the pope, and
who had no reason for distrusting Caesar, did not dare refuse. But on the
very same day that the Duke of Urbina's troops started for Camerino,
Caesar's troops entered the duchy of Urbino, and took possession of Cagli,
one of the four towns of the little State. The Duke of Urbino knew what
awaited him if he tried to resist, and fled incontinently, disguised as a
peasant; thus in less than eight days Caesar was master of his whole duchy,
except the fortresses of Maiolo and San Leone.
The Duke of Valentinois forthwith returned to Camerino, where the
inhabitants still held out, encouraged by the presence of Julius Caesar di

Varano, their lord, and his two sons, Venantio and Hannibal; the eldest son,
Gian Maria, had been sent by his father to Venice.
The presence of Caesar was the occasion of parleying between the
besiegers and besieged. A capitulation was arranged whereby Varano
engaged to give up the town, on condition that he and his sons were allowed
to retire safe and sound, taking with them their furniture, treasure, and
carriages. But this was by no means Caesar's intention; so, profiting by the
relaxation in vigilance that had naturally come about in the garrison when
the news of the capitulation had been announced, he surprised the town in
the night preceding the surrender, and seized Caesar di Varano and his two
sons, who were strangled a short time after, the father at La Pergola and the
sons at Pesaro, by Don Michele Correglio, who, though he had left the
position of sbirro for that of a captain, every now and then returned to his
first business.
Meanwhile Vitellozzo Vitelli, who had assumed the title of General of
the Church, and had under him 800 men-at-arms and 3,000 infantry, was
following the secret instructions that he had received from Caesar by word
of mouth, and was carrying forward that system of invasion which was to
encircle Florence in a network of iron, and in the end make her defence an
impossibility. A worthy pupil of his master, in whose school he had learned
to use in turn the cunning of a fox and the strength of a lion, he had
established an understanding between himself and certain young gentlemen
of Arezzo to get that town delivered into his hands. But the plot had been
discovered by Guglielma dei Pazzi, commissary of the Florentine Republic,
and he had arrested two of the conspirators, whereupon the others, who
were much more numerous than was supposed, had instantly dispersed
about the town summoning the citizens to arms. All the republican faction,
who saw in any sort of revolution the means of subjugating Florence, joined

their party, set the captives at liberty, and seized Guglielmo; then
proclaiming the establishment of the ancient constitution, they besieged the
citadel, whither Cosimo dei Pazzi, Bishop of Arezzo, the son of Guglielmo,
had fled for refuge; he, finding himself invested on every side, sent a
messenger in hot haste to Florence to ask for help.
Unfortunately for the cardinal, Vitellozzo's troops were nearer to the
besiegers than were the soldiers of the most serene republic to the besieged,
and instead of help—the whole army of the enemy came down upon him.
This army was under the command of Vitellozzo, of Gian Paolo Baglioni,
and of Fabio Orsino, and with them were the two Medici, ever ready to go
wherever there was a league against Florence, and ever ready at the
command of Borgia, on any conditions whatever, to re-enter the town
whence they had been banished. The next day more help in the form of
money and artillery arrived, sent by Pandolfo Petrucci, and on the 18th of
June the citadel of Arezzo, which had received no news from Florence, was
obliged to surrender.
Vitellozzo left the men of Arezzo to look after their town themselves,
leaving also Fabio Orsina to garrison the citadel with a thousand men. Then,
profiting by the terror that had been spread throughout all this part of Italy
by the successive captures of the duchy of Urbino, of Camerino, and of
Arezzo, he marched upon Monte San Severino, Castiglione, Aretino,
Cortone, and the other towns of the valley of Chiana, which submitted one
after the other almost without a struggle. When he was only ten or twelve
leagues from Florence, and dared not on his own account attempt anything
against her, he made known the state of affairs to the Duke of Valentinois.
He, fancying the hour had came at last for striking the blow so long
delayed, started off at once to deliver his answer in person to his faithful
lieutenants.

But the Florentines, though they had sent no help to Guglielmo dei
Pazzi, had demanded aid from Chaumont d'Amboise, governor of the
Milanese, on behalf of Louis XII, not only explaining the danger they
themselves were in but also Caesar's ambitious projects, namely that after
first overcoming the small principalities and then the states of the second
order, he had now, it seemed, reached such a height of pride that he would
attack the King of France himself. The news from Naples was disquieting;
serious differences had already occurred between the Count of Armagnac
and Gonzalva di Cordova, and Louis might any day need Florence, whom
he had always found loyal and faithful. He therefore resolved to check
Caesar's progress, and not only sent him orders to advance no further step
forwards, but also sent off, to give effect to his injunction, the captain
Imbaut with 400 lances. The Duke of Valentinois on the frontier of Tuscany
received a copy of the treaty signed between the republic and the King of
France, a treaty in which the king engaged to help his ally against any
enemy whatsoever, and at the same moment the formal prohibition from
Louis to advance any further. Caesar also learned that beside the 400 lances
with the captain Imbaut, which were on the road to Florence, Louis XII had
as soon as he reached Asti sent off to Parma Louis de la Trimouille and 200
men-at-arms, 3000 Swiss, and a considerable train of artillery. In these two
movements combined he saw hostile intentions towards himself, and
turning right about face with his usual agility, he profited by the fact that he
had given nothing but verbal instructions to all his lieutenants, and wrote a
furious letter to Vitellozzo, reproaching him for compromising his master
with a view to his own private interest, and ordering the instant surrender to
the Florentines of the towns and fortresses he had taken, threatening to
march down with his own troops and take them if he hesitated for a
moment.

As soon as this letter was written, Caesar departed for Milan, where
Louis XII had just arrived, bringing with him proof positive that he had
been calumniated in the evacuation of the conquered towns. He also was
entrusted with the pope's mission to renew for another eighteen months the
title of legate 'a latere' in France to Cardinal d'Amboise, the friend rather
than the minister of Louis XII. Thus, thanks to the public proof of his
innocence and the private use of his influence, Caesar soon made his peace
with the King of France.
But this was not all. It was in the nature of Caesar's genius to divert an
impending calamity that threatened his destruction so as to come out of it
better than before, and he suddenly saw the advantage he might take from
the pretended disobedience of his lieutenants. Already he had been
disturbed now and again by their growing power, and coveted their towns,
now he thought the hour had perhaps come for suppressing them also, and
in the usurpation of their private possessions striking a blow at Florence,
who always escaped him at the very moment when he thought to take her. It
was indeed an annoying thing to have these fortresses and towns displaying
another banner than his own in the midst of the beautiful Romagna which
he desired for his own kingdom. For Vitellozzo possessed Citta di Castello,
Bentivoglio Bologna, Gian Paolo Baglioni was in command of Perugia,
Oliverotto had just taken Fermo, and Pandolfo Petrucci was lord of Siena; it
was high time that all these returned: into his own hands. The lieutenants of
the Duke of Valentinois, like Alexander's, were becoming too powerful, and
Borgia must inherit from them, unless he were willing to let them become
his own heirs. He obtained from Louis XII three hundred lances wherewith
to march against them. As soon as Vitellozzo Vitelli received Caesar's letter
he perceived that he was being sacrificed to the fear that the King of France
inspired; but he was not one of those victims who suffer their throats to be

cut in the expiation of a mistake: he was a buffalo of Romagna who
opposed his horns to the knife of the butcher; besides, he had the example
of Varano and the Manfredi before him, and, death for death, he preferred to
perish in arms.
So Vitellozzo convoked at Maggione all whose lives or lands were
threatened by this new reversal of Caesar's policy. These were Paolo
Orsino, Gian Paolo Baglioni, Hermes Bentivoglio, representing his father
Gian, Antonio di Venafro, the envoy of Pandolfo Petrucci, Olivertoxo da
Fermo, and the Duke of Urbino: the first six had everything to lose, and the
last had already lost everything.
A treaty of alliance was signed between the confederates: they engaged
to resist whether he attacked them severally or all together.
Caesar learned the existence of this league by its first effects: the Duke
of Urbino, who was adored by his subjects, had come with a handful of
soldiers to the fortress of San Leone, and it had yielded at once. In less than
a week towns and fortresses followed this example, and all the duchy was
once more in the hands of the Duke of Urbino.
At the same time, each member of the confederacy openly proclaimed
his revolt against the common enemy, and took up a hostile attitude.
Caesar was at Imola, awaiting the French troops, but with scarcely any
men; so that Bentivoglio, who held part of the country, and the Duke of
Urbino, who had just reconquered the rest of it, could probably have either
taken him or forced him to fly and quit the Romagna, had they marched
against him; all the more since the two men on whom he counted, viz., Don
Ugo di Cardona, who had entered his service after Capua was taken, and
Michelotto had mistaken his intention, and were all at once separated from
him. He had really ordered them to fall back upon Rimini, and bring 200
light horse and 500 infantry of which they had the command; but, unaware

of the urgency of his situation, at the very moment when they were
attempting to surprise La Pergola and Fossombrone, they were surrounded
by Orsino of Gravina and Vitellozzo. Ugo di Cardona and Michelotto
defended themselves like lions; but in spite of their utmost efforts their little
band was cut to pieces, and Ugo di Cardona taken prisoner, while
Michelotto only escaped the same fate by lying down among the dead;
when night came on, he escaped to Fano.
But even alone as he was, almost without troops at Imola, the
confederates dared attempt nothing against Caesar, whether because of the
personal fear he inspired, or because in him they respected the ally of the
King of France; they contented themselves with taking the towns and
fortresses in the neighbourhood. Vitellozzo had retaken the fortresses of
Fossombrone, Urbino, Cagli, and Aggobbio; Orsino of Gravina had
reconquered Fano and the whole province; while Gian Maria de Varano, the
same who by his absence had escaped being massacred with the rest of his
family, had re-entered Camerino, borne in triumph by his people. Not even
all this could destroy Caesar's confidence in his own good fortune, and
while he was on the one hand urging on the arrival of the French troops and
calling into his pay all those gentlemen known as "broken lances," because
they went about the country in parties of five or six only, and attached
themselves to anyone who wanted them, he had opened up negotiations
with his enemies, certain that from that very day when he should persuade
them to a conference they were undone. Indeed, Caesar had the power of
persuasion as a gift from heaven; and though they perfectly well knew his
duplicity, they had no power of resisting, not so much his actual eloquence
as that air of frank good-nature which Macchiavelli so greatly admired, and
which indeed more than once deceived even him, wily politician as he was.
In order to get Paolo Orsino to treat with him at Imola, Caesar sent Cardinal

Borgia to the confederates as a hostage; and on this Paolo Orsino hesitated
no longer, and on the 25th of October, 1502, arrived at Imola.
Caesar received him as an old friend from whom one might have been
estranged a few days because of some slight passing differences; he frankly
avowed that all the fault was no doubt on his side, since he had contrived to
alienate men who were such loyal lords and also such brave captains; but
with men of their nature, he added, an honest, honourable explanation such
as he would give must put everything once more in statu quo. To prove that
it was goodwill, not fear, that brought him back to them, he showed Orsino
the letters from Cardinal Amboise which announced the speedy arrival of
French troops; he showed him those he had collected about him, in the
wish, he declared, that they might be thoroughly convinced that what he
chiefly regretted in the whole matter was not so much the loss of the
distinguished captains who were the very soul of his vast enterprise, as that
he had led the world to believe, in a way so fatal to his own interest, that he
could for a single instant fail to recognise their merit; adding that he
consequently relied upon him, Paolo Orsino, whom he had always cared for
most, to bring back the confederates by a peace which would be as much
for the profit of all as a war was hurtful to all, and that he was ready to sign
a treaty in consonance with their wishes so long as it should not prejudice
his own honour.
Orsino was the man Caesar wanted: full of pride and confidence in
himself, he was convinced of the truth of the old proverb that says, "A pope
cannot reign eight days, if he has both the Colonnas and the Orsini against
him." He believed, therefore, if not in Caesar's good faith, at any rate in the
necessity he must feel for making peace; accordingly he signed with him
the following conventions—which only needed ratification—on the 18th of

October, 1502, which we reproduce here as Macchiavelli sent them to the
magnificent republic of Florence.
"Agreement between the Duke of Valentinois and the Confederates.
"Let it be known to the parties mentioned below, and to all who shall
see these presents, that His Excellency the Duke of Romagna of the one
part and the Orsini of the other part, together with their confederates,
desiring to put an end to differences, enmities, misunderstandings, and
suspicions which have arisen between them, have resolved as follows:
"There shall be between them peace and alliance true and perpetual,
with a complete obliteration of wrongs and injuries which may have taken
place up to this day, both parties engaging to preserve no resentment of the
same; and in conformity with the aforesaid peace and union, His Excellency
the Duke of Romagna shall receive into perpetual confederation, league,
and alliance all the lords aforesaid; and each of them shall promise to
defend the estates of all in general and of each in particular against any
power that may annoy or attack them for any cause whatsoever, excepting
always nevertheless the Pope Alexander VI and his Very Christian Majesty
Louis XII, King of France: the lords above named promising on the other
part to unite in the defence of the person and estates of His Excellency, as
also those of the most illustrious lords, Don Gaffredo Borgia , Prince of
Squillace, Don Roderigo Borgia , Duke of Sermaneta and Biselli, and Don
Gian Borgia, Duke of Camerino and Negi, all brothers or nephews of the
Duke of Romagna.
"Moreover, since the rebellion and usurpation of Urbino have occurred
during the above-mentioned misunderstandings, all the confederates
aforesaid and each of them shall bind themselves to unite all their forces for
the recovery of the estates aforesaid and of such other places as have
revolted and been usurped.

"His Excellency the Duke of Romagna shall undertake to continue to
the Orsini and Vitelli their ancient engagements in the way of military
service and on the same conditions.
"His Excellency promises further not to insist on the service in person
of more than one of them, as they may choose: the service that the others
may render shall be voluntary.
"He also promises that the second treaty shall be ratified by the
sovereign pontiff, who shall not compel Cardinal Orsino to reside in Rome
longer than shall seem convenient to this prelate.
"Furthermore, since there are certain differences between the Pope and
the lord Gian Bentivoglio, the confederates aforesaid agree that they shall
be put to the arbitration of Cardinal Orsino, of His Excellency the Duke of
Romagna, and of the lord Pandolfo Petrucci, without appeal.
"Thus the confederates engage, each and all, so soon as they may be
required by the Duke of Romagna, to put into his hands as a hostage one of
the legitimate sons of each of them, in that place and at that time which he
may be pleased to indicate.
"The same confederates promising moreover, all and each, that if any
project directed against any one of them come to their knowledge, to give
warning thereof, and all to prevent such project reciprocally.
"It is agreed, over and above, between the Duke of Romagna and the
confederates aforesaid, to regard as a common enemy any who shall fail to
keep the present stipulations, and to unite in the destruction of any States
not conforming thereto.
"(Signed) CAESAR, PAOLO ORSINO.
"AGAPIT, Secretary."
At the same time, while Orsino was carrying to the confederates the
treaty drawn up between him and the duke, Bentivoglio, not willing to

submit to the arbitration indicated, made an offer to Caesar of settling their
differences by a private treaty, and sent his son to arrange the conditions:
after some parleying, they were settled as follows:—
Bentivaglio should separate his fortunes from the Vitelli and Orsini;
He should furnish the Duke of Valentinois with a hundred men-at-arms
and a hundred mounted archers for eight years;
He should pay 12,000 ducats per annum to Caesar, for the support of a
hundred lances;
In return for this, his son Hannibal was to marry the sister of the
Archbishop of Enna, who was Caesar's niece, and the pope was to recognise
his sovereignty in Bologna;
The King of France, the Duke of Ferrara, and the republic of Florence
were to be the guarantors of this treaty.
But the convention brought to the confederates by Orsino was the
cause of great difficulties on their part. Vitellozza Vitelli in particular, who
knew Caesar the best, never ceased to tell the other condottieri that so
prompt and easy a peace must needs be the cover to some trap; but since
Caesar had meanwhile collected a considerable army at Imola, and the four
hundred lances lent him by Louis XII had arrived at last, Vitellozzo and
Oliverotto decided to sign the treaty that Orsino brought, and to let the
Duke of Urbino and the lord of Camerino know of it; they, seeing plainly
that it was henceforth impossible to make a defence unaided, had retired,
the one to Citta di Castello and the other into the kingdom of Naples.
But Caesar, saying nothing of his intentions, started on the 10th of
December, and made his way to Cesena with a powerful army once more
under his command. Fear began to spread on all sides, not only in Romagna
but in the whole of Northern Italy; Florence, seeing him move away from
her, only thought it a blind to conceal his intentions; while Venice, seeing

him approach her frontiers, despatched all her troops to the banks of the Po.
Caesar perceived their fear, and lest harm should be done to himself by the
mistrust it might inspire, he sent away all French troops in his service as
soon as he reached Cesena, except a hundred men with M. de Candale, his
brother-in-law; it was then seen that he only had 2000 cavalry and 2000
infantry with him. Several days were spent in parleying, for at Cesena
Caesar found the envoys of the Vitelli and Orsini, who themselves were
with their army in the duchy of Urbino; but after the preliminary
discussions as to the right course to follow in carrying on the plan of
conquest, there arose such difficulties between the general-in-chief and
these agents, that they could not but see the impossibility of getting
anything settled by intermediaries, and the urgent necessity of a conference
between Caesar and one of the chiefs. So Oliverotto ran the risk of joining
the duke in order to make proposals to him, either to march on Tuscany or
to take Sinigaglia, which was the only place in the duchy of Urbino that had
not again fallen into Caesar's power. Caesar's reply was that he did not
desire to war upon Tuscany, because the Tuscans were his friends; but that
he approved of the lieutenants' plan with regard to Sinigaglia, and therefore
was marching towards Fano.
But the daughter of Frederic, the former Duke of Urbino, who held the
town of Sinigaglia, and who was called the lady-prefect, because she had
married Gian della Rovere, whom his uncle, Sixtus IV, had made prefect of
Rome, judging that it would be impossible to defend herself against the
forces the Duke of Valentinois was bringing, left the citadel in the hands of
a captain, recommending him to get the best terms he could for the town,
and took boat for Venice.
Caesar learned this news at Rimini, through a messenger from Vitelli
and the Orsini, who said that the governor of the citadel, though refusing to

yield to them, was quite ready to make terms with him, and consequently
they would engage to go to the town and finish the business there. Caesar's
reply was that in consequence of this information he was sending some of
his troops to Cesena and Imola, for they would be useless to him, as he
should now have theirs, which together with the escort he retained would be
sufficient, since his only object was the complete pacification of the duchy
of Urbino. He added that this pacification would not be possible if his old
friends continued to distrust him, and to discuss through intermediaries
alone plans in which their own fortunes were interested as well as his. The
messenger returned with this answer, and the confederates, though feeling,
it is true, the justice of Caesar's remarks, none the less hesitated to comply
with his demand. Vitellozzo Vitelli in particular showed a want of
confidence in him which nothing seemed able to subdue; but, pressed by
Oliverotto, Gravina, and Orsino, he consented at last to await the duke's
coming; making concession rather because he could not bear to appear
more timid than his companions, than because of any confidence he felt in
the return of friendship that Borgia was displaying.
The duke learned the news of this decision, so much desired, when he
arrived at Fano on the 20th of December 1502. At once he summoned eight
of his most faithful friends, among whom were d'Enna, his nephew,
Michelotto, and Ugo di Cardona, and ordered them, as soon as they arrived
at Sinigaglia, and had seen Vitellozzo, Gravina, Oliveratta, and Orsino
come out to meet them, on a pretext of doing them honour, to place
themselves on the right and left hand of the four generals, two beside each,
so that at a given signal they might either stab or arrest them; next he
assigned to each of them his particular man, bidding them not quit his side
until he had reentered Sinigaglia and arrived at the quarters prepared for
him; then he sent orders to such of the soldiers as were in cantonments in

the neighbourhood to assemble to the number of 8000 on the banks of the
Metaurus, a little river of Umbria which runs into the Adriatic and has been
made famous by the defeat of Hannibal.
The duke arrived at the rendezvous given to his army on the 31st of
December, and instantly sent out in front two hundred horse, and
immediately behind them his infantry; following close in the midst of his
men-at-arms, following the coast of the Adriatic, with the mountains on his
right and the sea on his left, which in part of the way left only space for the
army to march ten abreast.
After four hours' march, the duke at a turn of the path perceived
Sinigaglia, nearly a mile distant from the sea, and a bowshot from the
mountains; between the army and the town ran a little river, whose banks he
had to follow for some distance. At last he found a bridge opposite a suburb
of the town, and here Caesar ordered his cavalry to stop: it was drawn up in
two lines, one between the road and the river, the other on the side of the
country, leaving the whole width of the road to the infantry: which latter
defiled, crossed the bridge, and entering the town, drew themselves up in
battle array in the great square.
On their side, Vitellazzo, Gravina, Orsino, and Oliverotto, to make
room for the duke's army, had quartered their soldiers in little towns or
villages in the neighbourhood of Sinigaglia; Oliverotto alone had kept
nearly 1000 infantry and 150 horse, who were in barracks in the suburb
through which the duke entered.
Caesar had made only a few steps towards the town when he perceived
Vitellozzo at the gate, with the Duke of Gravina and Orsina, who all came
out to meet him; the last two quite gay and confident, but the first so
gloomy and dejected that you would have thought he foresaw the fate that
was in store for him; and doubtless he had not been without same

presentiments; for when he left his army to came to Sinigaglia, he had
bidden them farewell as though never to meet again, had commended the
care of his family to the captains, and embraced his children with tears—a
weakness which appeared strange to all who knew him as a brave
condottiere.
The duke marched up to them holding out his hand, as a sign that all
was over and forgotten, and did it with an air at once so loyal and so
smiling that Gravina and Orsina could no longer doubt the genuine return of
his friendship, and it was only Vitellozzo still appeared sad. At the same
moment, exactly as they had been commanded, the duke's accomplices took
their posts on the right and left of those they were to watch, who were all
there except Oliverotto, whom the duke could not see, and began to seek
with uneasy looks; but as he crossed the suburb he perceived him exercising
his troops on the square. Caesar at once despatched Michelotto and d'Enna,
with a message that it was a rash thing to have his troops out, when they
might easily start some quarrel with the duke's men and bring about an
affray: it would be much better to settle them in barracks and then come to
join his companions, who were with Caesar. Oliverotto, drawn by the same
fate as his friends, made no objection, ordered his soldiers indoors, and put
his horse to the gallop to join the duke, escorted on either side by d'Enna
and Michelotto. Caesar, on seeing him, called him, took him by the hand,
and continued his march to the palace that had been prepared for him, his
four victims following after.
Arrived on the threshold, Caesar dismounted, and signing to the leader
of the men-at-arms to await his orders, he went in first, followed by
Oliverotto, Gravina, Vitellozzo Vitelli, and Orsino, each accompanied by
his two satellites; but scarcely had they gone upstairs and into the first room
when the door was shut behind them, and Caesar turned round, saying,

"The hour has come!" This was the signal agreed upon. Instantly the former
confederates were seized, thrown down, and forced to surrender with a
dagger at their throat. Then, while they were being carried to a dungeon,
Caesar opened the window, went out on the balcony and cried out to the
leader of his men-at-arms, "Go forward!" The man was in the secret, he
rushed on with his band towards the barracks where Oliverotto's soldiers
had just been consigned, and they, suddenly surprised and off their guard,
were at once made prisoners; then the duke's troops began to pillage the
town, and he summoned Macchiavelli.
Caesar and the Florentine envoy were nearly two hours shut up
together, and since Macchiavelli himself recounts the history of this
interview, we will give his own words.
"He summoned me," says the Florentine ambassador, "and in the
calmest manner showed me his joy at the success of this enterprise, which
he assured me he had spoken of to me the evening before; I remember that
he did, but I did not at that time understand what he meant; next he
explained, in terms of much feeling and lively affection for our city, the
different motives which had made him desire your alliance, a desire to
which he hopes you will respond. He ended with charging me to lay three
proposals before your lordships: first, that you rejoice with him in the
destruction at a single blow of the mortal enemies of the king, himself, and
you, and the consequent disappearance of all seeds of trouble and
dissension likely to waste Italy: this service of his, together with his refusal
to allow the prisoners to march against you, ought, he thinks, to excite your
gratitude towards him; secondly, he begs that you will at this juncture give
him a striking proof of your friendliness, by urging your cavalry's advance
towards Borgo, and there assembling some infantry also, in order that they
may march with him, should need arise, on Castello or on Perugia. Lastly,

he desires—and this is his third condition—that you arrest the Duke of
Urbino, if he should flee from Castello into your territories, when he learns
that Vitellozzo is a prisoner.
"When I objected that to give him up would not beseem the dignity of
the republic, and that you would never consent, he approved of my words,
and said that it would be enough for you to keep the duke, and not give him
his liberty without His Excellency's permission. I have promised to give
you all this information, to which he awaits your reply."
The same night eight masked men descended to the dungeon where the
prisoners lay: they believed at that moment that the fatal hour had arrived
for all. But this time the executioners had to do with Vitellozzo and
Oliverotto alone. When these two captains heard that they were condemned,
Oliverotto burst forth into reproaches against Vitellozzo, saying that it was
all his fault that they had taken up arms against the duke: not a word
Vitellozzo answered except a prayer that the pope might grant him plenary
indulgence for all his sins. Then the masked men took them away, leaving
Orsino and Gravina to await a similar fate, and led away the two chosen out
to die to a secluded spot outside the ramparts of the town, where they were
strangled and buried at once in two trenches that had been dug beforehand.
The two others were kept alive until it should be known if the pope
had arrested Cardinal Orsino, archbishop of Florence and lord of Santa
Croce; and when the answer was received in the affirmative from His
Holiness, Gravina and Orsina, who had been transferred to a castle, were
likewise strangled.
The duke, leaving instructions with Michelotto, set off for Sinigaglia
as soon as the first execution was over, assuring Macchiavelli that he had
never had any other thought than that of giving tranquillity to the Romagna
and to Tuscany, and also that he thought he had succeeded by taking and

putting to death the men who had been the cause of all the trouble; also that
any other revolt that might take place in the future would be nothing but
sparks that a drop of water could extinguish.
The pope had barely learned that Caesar had his enemies in his power,
when, eager to play the same winning game himself, he announced to
Cardinal Orsino, though it was then midnight, that his son had taken
Sinigaglia, and gave him an invitation to come the next morning and talk
over the good news. The cardinal, delighted at this increase of favour, did
not miss his appointment. So, in the morning, he started on horseback for
the Vatican; but at a turn of the first street he met the governor of Rome
with a detachment of cavalry, who congratulated himself on the happy
chance that they were taking the same road, and accompanied him to the
threshold of the Vatican. There the cardinal dismounted, and began to
ascend the stairs; scarcely, however, had he reached the first landing before
his mules and carriages were seized and shut in the palace stables. When he
entered the hall of the Perropont, he found that he and all his suite were
surrounded by armed men, who led him into another apartment, called the
Vicar's Hall, where he found the Abbate Alviano, the protonotary Orsino,
Jacopo Santa Croce, and Rinaldo Orsino, who were all prisoners like
himself; at the same time the governor received orders to seize the castle of
Monte Giardino, which belonged to the Orsini, and take away all the jewels,
all the hangings, all the furniture, and all the silver that he might find.
The governor carried out his orders conscientiously, and brought to the
Vatican everything he seized, down to the cardinal's account-book. On
consulting this book, the pope found out two things: first, that a sum of
2000 ducats was due to the cardinal, no debtor's name being mentioned;
secondly, that the cardinal had bought three months before, for 1500 Roman
crowns, a magnificent pearl which could not be found among the objects

belonging to him: on which Alexander ordered that from that very moment
until the negligence in the cardinal's accounts was repaired, the men who
were in the habit of bringing him food twice a day on behalf of his mother
should not be admitted into the Castle Sant' Angelo. The same day, the
cardinal's mother sent the pope the 2000 ducats, and the next day his
mistress, in man's attire, came in person to bring the missing pearl. His
Holiness, however, was so struck with her beauty in this costume, that, we
are told, he let her keep the pearl for the same price she had paid for it.
Then the pope allowed the cardinal to have his food brought as before,
and he died of poison on the 22nd of February—that is, two days after his
accounts had been set right.
That same night the Prince of Squillace set off to take possession, in
the pope's name, of the lands of the deceased.

CHAPTER XIV

The Duke of Valentinois had continued his road towards Citta di Castello
and Perugia, and had seized these two towns without striking a blow; for
the Vitelli had fled from the former, and the latter had been abandoned by
Gian Paolo Baglione with no attempt whatever at resistance. There still
remained Siena, where Pandolfo Petrucci was shut up, the only man
remaining of all who had joined the league against Caesar.
But Siena was under the protection of the French. Besides, Siena was
not one of the States of the Church, and Caesar had no rights there.
Therefore he was content with insisting upon Pandolfo Petrucci's leaving
the town and retiring to Lucca, which he accordingly did.
Then all on this side being peaceful and the whole of Romagna in
subjection, Caesar resolved to return to Rome and help the pope to destroy
all that was left of the Orsini.
This was all the easier because Louis XII, having suffered reverses in
the kingdom of Naples, had since then been much concerned with his own
affairs to disturb himself about his allies. So Caesar, doing for the
neighbourhood of the Holy See the same thing that he had done for the
Romagna, seized in succession Vicovaro, Cera, Palombera, Lanzano, and
Cervetti; when these conquests were achieved, having nothing else to do
now that he had brought the pontifical States into subjection from the
frontiers of Naples to those of Venice, he returned to Rome to concert with
his father as to the means of converting his duchy into a kingdom.

Caesar arrived at the right moment to share with Alexander the
property of Cardinal Gian Michele, who had just died, having received a
poisoned cup from the hands of the pope.
The future King of Italy found his father preoccupied with a grand
project: he had resolved, for the Feast of St. Peter's, to create nine cardinals.
What he had to gain from these nominations is as follows:
First, the cardinals elected would leave all their offices vacant; these
offices would fall into the hands of the pope, and he would sell them;
Secondly, each of them would buy his election, more or less dear
according to his fortune; the price, left to be settled at the pope's fancy,
would vary from 10,000 to 40,000 ducats;
Lastly, since as cardinals they would by law lose the right of making a
will, the pope, in order to inherit from them, had only to poison them: this
put him in the position of a butcher who, if he needs money, has only to cut
the throat of the fattest sheep in the flock.
The nomination came to pass: the new cardinals were Giovanni
Castellaro Valentine, archbishop of Trani; Francesco Remolini, ambassador
from the King of Aragon; Francesco Soderini, bishop of Volterra; Melchiore
Copis, bishop of Brissina; Nicolas Fiesque, bishop of Frejus; Francesco di
Sprate, bishop of Leome; Adriano Castellense, clerk of the chamber,
treasurer-general, and secretary of the briefs; Francesco Boris, bishop of
Elva, patriarch of Constantinople, and secretary to the pope; and Giacomo
Casanova, protonotary and private chamberlain to His Holiness.
The price of their simony paid and their vacated offices sold, the pope
made his choice of those he was to poison: the number was fixed at three,
one old and two new; the old one was Cardinal Casanova, and the new ones
Melchiore Copis and Adriano Castellense, who had taken the name of
Adrian of Carneta from that town where he had been born, and where, in

the capacity of clerk of the chamber, treasurer-general, and secretary of
briefs, he had amassed an immense fortune.
So, when all was settled between Caesar and the pope, they invited
their chosen guests to supper in a vineyard situated near the Vatican,
belonging to the Cardinal of Corneto. In the morning of this day, the 2nd of
August, they sent their servants and the steward to make all preparations,
and Caesar himself gave the pope's butler two bottles of wine prepared with
the white powder resembling sugar whose mortal properties he had so often
proved, and gave orders that he was to serve this wine only when he was
told, and only to persons specially indicated; the butler accordingly put the
wine an a sideboard apart, bidding the waiters on no account to touch it, as
it was reserved for the pope's drinking.
[The poison of the Borgias, say contemporary writers, was of two
kinds, powder and liquid. The poison in the form of powder was a sort of
white flour, almost impalpable, with the taste of sugar, and called
Contarella. Its composition is unknown.
The liquid poison was prepared, we are told in so strange a fashion that
we cannot pass it by in silence. We repeat here what we read, and vouch for
nothing ourselves, lest science should give us the lie.
A strong dose of arsenic was administered to a boar; as soon as the
poison began to take effect, he was hung up by his heels; convulsions
supervened, and a froth deadly and abundant ran out from his jaws; it was
this froth, collected into a silver vessel and transferred into a bottle
hermetically sealed, that made the liquid poison.]
Towards evening Alexander VI walked from the Vatican leaning on
Caesar's arm, and turned his steps towards the vineyard, accompanied by
Cardinal Caraffa; but as the heat was great and the climb rather steep, the
pope, when he reached the top, stopped to take breath; then putting his hand

on his breast, he found that he had left in his bedroom a chain that he
always wore round his neck, which suspended a gold medallion that
enclosed the sacred host. He owed this habit to a prophecy that an
astrologer had made, that so long as he carried about a consecrated wafer,
neither steel nor poison could take hold upon him. Now, finding himself
without his talisman, he ordered Monsignor Caraffa to hurry back at once to
the Vatican, and told him in which part of his room he had left it, so that he
might get it and bring it him without delay. Then, as the walk had made him
thirsty, he turned to a valet, giving signs with his hand as he did so that his
messenger should make haste, and asked for something to drink. Caesar,
who was also thirsty, ordered the man to bring two glasses. By a curious
coincidence, the butler had just gone back to the Vatican to fetch some
magnificent peaches that had been sent that very day to the pope, but which
had been forgotten when he came here; so the valet went to the under butler,
saying that His Holiness and Monsignors the Duke of Romagna were thirsty
and asking for a drink. The under butler, seeing two bottles of wine set
apart, and having heard that this wine was reserved for the pope, took one,
and telling the valet to bring two glasses on a tray, poured out this wine,
which both drank, little thinking that it was what they had themselves
prepared to poison their guests.
Meanwhile Caraffa hurried to the Vatican, and, as he knew the palace
well, went up to the pope's bedroom, a light in his hand and attended by no
servant. As he turned round a corridor a puff of wind blew out his lamp;
still, as he knew the way, he went on, thinking there was no need of seeing
to find the object he was in search of; but as he entered the room he recoiled
a step, with a cry of terror: he beheld a ghastly apparition; it seemed that
there before his eyes, in the middle of the room, between the door and the
cabinet which held the medallion, Alexander VI, motionless and livid, was

lying on a bier at whose four corners there burned four torches. The cardinal
stood still for a moment, his eyes fixed, and his hair standing on end,
without strength to move either backward or forward; then thinking it was
all a trick of fancy or an apparition of the devil's making, he made the sign
of the cross, invoking God's holy name; all instantly vanished, torches, bier,
and corpse, and the seeming mortuary chamber was once more in darkness.
Then Cardinal Caraffa, who has himself recorded this strange event,
and who was afterwards Pope Paul IV, entered boldly, and though an icy
sweat ran down his brow, he went straight to the cabinet, and in the drawer
indicated found the gold chain and the medallion, took them, and hastily
went out to give them to the pope. He found supper served, the guests
arrived, and His Holiness ready to take his place at table; as soon as the
cardinal was in sight, His Holiness, who was very pale, made one step
towards him; Caraffa doubled his pace, and handed the medallion to him;
but as the pope stretched forth his arm to take it, he fell back with a cry,
instantly followed by violent convulsions: an instant later, as he advanced to
render his father assistance, Caesar was similarly seized; the effect of the
poison had been more rapid than usual, for Caesar had doubled the dose,
and there is little doubt that their heated condition increased its activity.
The two stricken men were carried side by side to the Vatican, where
each was taken to his own rooms: from that moment they never met again.
As soon as he reached his bed, the pope was seized with a violent
fever, which did not give way to emetics or to bleeding; almost immediately
it became necessary to administer the last sacraments of the Church; but his
admirable bodily constitution, which seemed to have defied old age, was
strong enough to fight eight days with death; at last, after a week of mortal
agony, he died, without once uttering the name of Caesar or Lucrezia, who

were the two poles around which had turned all his affections and all his
crimes. His age was seventy-two, and he had reigned eleven years.
Caesar, perhaps because he had taken less of the fatal beverage,
perhaps because the strength of his youth overcame the strength of the
poison, or maybe, as some say, because when he reached his own rooms he
had swallowed an antidote known only to himself, was not so prostrated as
to lose sight for a moment of the terrible position he was in: he summoned
his faithful Michelotto, with those he could best count on among his men,
and disposed this band in the various rooms that led to his own, ordering the
chief never to leave the foot of his bed, but to sleep lying on a rug, his hand
upon the handle of his sword.
The treatment had been the same for Caesar as for the pope, but in
addition to bleeding and emetics strange baths were added, which Caesar
had himself asked for, having heard that in a similar case they had once
cured Ladislaus, King of Naples. Four posts, strongly welded to the floor
and ceiling, were set up in his room, like the machines at which farriers
shoe horses; every day a bull was brought in, turned over on his back and
tied by his four legs to the four posts; then, when he was thus fixed, a cut
was made in his belly a foot and a half long, through which the intestines
were drawn out; then Caesar slipped into this living bath of blood: when the
bull was dead, Caesar was taken out and rolled up in burning hot blankets,
where, after copious perspirations, he almost always felt some sort of relief.
Every two hours Caesar sent to ask news of his father: he hardly
waited to hear that he was dead before, though still at death's door himself,
he summoned up all the force of character and presence of mind that
naturally belonged to him. He ordered Michelotto to shut the doors of the
Vatican before the report of Alexander's decease could spread about the
town, and forbade anyone whatsoever to enter the pope's apartments until

the money and papers had been removed. Michelotto obeyed at once, went
to find Cardinal Casanova, held a dagger at his throat, and made him deliver
up the keys of the pope's rooms and cabinets; then, under his guidance, took
away two chests full of gold, which perhaps contained 100,000 Roman
crowns in specie, several boxes full of jewels, much silver and many
precious vases; all these were carried to Caesar's chamber; the guards of the
room were doubled; then the doors of the Vatican were once more thrown
open, and the death of the pope was proclaimed.
Although the news was expected, it produced none the less a terrible
effect in Rome; for although Caesar was still alive, his condition left
everyone in suspense: had the mighty Duke of Romagna, the powerful
condottiere who had taken thirty towns and fifteen fortresses in five years,
been seated, sword in hand, upon his charger, nothing would have been
uncertain of fluctuating even for a moment; for, as Caesar afterwards told
Macchiavelli, his ambitious soul had provided for all things that could
occur on the day of the pope's death, except the one that he should be dying
himself; but being nailed down to his bed, sweating off the effects the
poison had wrought; so, though he had kept his power of thinking he could
no longer act, but must needs wait and suffer the course of events, instead
of marching on in front and controlling them.
Thus he was forced to regulate his actions no longer by his own plans
but according to circumstances. His most bitter enemies, who could press
him hardest, were the Orsini and the Colonnas: from the one family he had
taken their blood, from the other their goods.
So he addressed himself to those to whom he could return what he had
taken, and opened negotiations with the Colonnas.
Meanwhile the obsequies of the pope were going forward: the vice-
chancellor had sent out orders to the highest among the clergy, the superiors

of convents, and the secular orders, not to fail to appear, according to
regular custom, on pain of being despoiled of their office and dignities, each
bringing his own company to the Vatican, to be present at the pope's
funeral; each therefore appeared on the day and at the hour appointed at the
pontifical palace, whence the body was to be conveyed to the church of St.
Peter's, and there buried. The corpse was found to be abandoned and alone
in the mortuary chamber; for everyone of the name of Borgia, except
Caesar, lay hidden, not knowing what might come to pass. This was indeed
well justified; for Fabio Orsino, meeting one member of the family, stabbed
him, and as a sign of the hatred they had sworn to one another, bathed his
mouth and hands in the blood.
The agitation in Rome was so great, that when the corpse of Alexander
VI was about to enter the church there occurred a kind of panic, such as will
suddenly arise in times of popular agitation, instantly causing so great a
disturbance in the funeral cortege that the guards drew up in battle array, the
clergy fled into the sacristy, and the bearers dropped the bier.
The people, tearing off the pall which covered it, disclosed the corpse,
and everyone could see with impunity and close at hand the man who,
fifteen days before, had made princes, kings and emperors tremble, from
one end of the world to the other.
But in accordance with that religious feeling towards death which all
men instinctively feel, and which alone survives every other, even in the
heart of the atheist, the bier was taken up again and carried to the foot of the
great altar in St. Peter's, where, set on trestles, it was exposed to public
view; but the body had become so black, so deformed and swollen, that it
was horrible to behold; from its nose a bloody matter escaped, the mouth
gaped hideously, and the tongue was so monstrously enlarged that it filled
the whole cavity; to this frightful appearance was added a decomposition so

great that, although at the pope's funeral it is customary to kiss the hand
which bore the Fisherman's ring, not one approached to offer this mark of
respect and religious reverence to the representative of God on earth.
Towards seven o'clock in the evening, when the declining day adds so
deep a melancholy to the silence of a church, four porters and two working
carpenters carried the corpse into the chapel where it was to be interred,
and, lifting it off the catafalque, where it lay in state, put it in the coffin
which was to be its last abode; but it was found that the coffin was too
short, and the body could not be got in till the legs were bent and thrust in
with violent blows; then the carpenters put on the lid, and while one of them
sat on the top to force the knees to bend, the others hammered in the nails:
amid those Shakespearian pleasantries that sound as the last orison in the
ear of the mighty; then, says Tommaso Tommasi, he was placed on the right
of the great altar of St. Peter's, beneath a very ugly tomb.
The next morning this epitaph was found inscribed upon the tomb:

"VENDIT ALEXANDER CLAVES, ALTARIA,
CHRISTUM:
EMERAT ILLE PRIUS, VENDERE JUKE
POTEST";

that is,

"Pope Alexander sold the Christ, the altars, and the keys:
But anyone who buys a thing may sell it if he
please."

CHAPTER XV

From the effect produced at Rome by Alexander's death, one may imagine
what happened not only in the whole of Italy but also in the rest of the
world: for a moment Europe swayed, for the column which supported the
vault of the political edifice had given way, and the star with eyes of flame
and rays of blood, round which all things had revolved for the last eleven
years, was now extinguished, and for a moment the world, on a sudden
struck motionless, remained in silence and darkness.
After the first moment of stupefaction, all who had an injury to avenge
arose and hurried to the chase. Sforza retook Pesaro, Bagloine Perugia,
Guido and Ubaldo Urbino, and La Rovere Sinigaglia; the Vitelli entered
Citta di Castello, the Appiani Piombino, the Orsini Monte Giordano and
their other territories; Romagna alone remained impassive and loyal, for the
people, who have no concern with the quarrels of the great, provided they
do not affect themselves, had never been so happy as under the government
of Caesar.
The Colonnas were pledged to maintain a neutrality, and had been
consequently restored to the possession of their castles and the cities of
Chiuzano, Capo d'Anno, Frascati, Rocca di Papa, and Nettuno, which they
found in a better condition than when they had left them, as the pope had
had them embellished and fortified.
Caesar was still in the Vatican with his troops, who, loyal to him in his
misfortune, kept watch about the palace, where he was writhing on his bed

of pain and roaring like a wounded lion. The cardinals, who had in their
first terror fled, each his own way, instead of attending the pope's obsequies,
began to assemble once more, some at the Minerva, others around Cardinal
Caraffa. Frightened by the troops that Caesar still had, especially since the
command was entrusted to Michelotto, they collected all the money they
could to levy an army of 2000 soldiers with Charles Taneo at their head,
with the title of Captain of the Sacred College. It was then hoped that peace
was re-established, when it was heard that Prospero Colonna was coming
with 3000 men from the side of Naples, and Fabio Orsino from the side of
Viterbo with 200 horse and more than 1000 infantry. Indeed, they entered
Rome at only one day's interval one from another, by so similar an ardour
were they inspired.
Thus there were five armies in Rome: Caesar's army, holding the
Vatican and the Borgo; the army of the Bishop of Nicastro, who had
received from Alexander the guardianship of the Castle Sant' Angelo and
had shut himself up there, refusing to yield; the army of the Sacred College,
which was stationed round about the Minerva; the army of Prospero
Colonna, which was encamped at the Capitol; and the army of Fabio
Orsino, in barracks at the Ripetta.
On their side, the Spaniards had advanced to Terracino, and the French
to Nepi. The cardinals saw that Rome now stood upon a mine which the
least spark might cause to explode: they summoned the ambassadors of the
Emperor of Germany, the Kings of France and Spain, and the republic of
Venice to raise their voice in the name of their masters. The ambassadors,
impressed with the urgency of the situation, began by declaring the Sacred
College inviolable: they then ordered the Orsini, the Colonnas, and the
Duke of Valentinois to leave Rome and go each his own way.

The Orsini were the first to submit: the next morning their example
was followed by the Colonnas. No one was left but Caesar, who said he was
willing to go, but desired to make his conditions beforehand: the Vatican
was undermined, he declared, and if his demands were refused he and those
who came to take him should be blown up together.
It was known that his were never empty threats so they came to terms
with him.
[Caesar promised to remain ten miles away from Rome the whole time
the Conclave lasted, and not to take any action against the town or any other
of the Ecclesiastical States: Fabio Orsino and. Prospero Colonna had made
the same promises.]
[It was agreed that Caesar should quit Rome with his army, artillery,
and baggage; and to ensure his not being attacked or molested in the streets,
the Sacred College should add to his numbers 400 infantry, who, in case of
attack or insult, would fight for him. The Venetian ambassador answered for
the Orsini, the Spanish ambassador for the Colonnas, the ambassador of
France for Caesar.]
At the day and hour appointed Caesar sent out his artillery, which
consisted of eighteen pieces of cannon, and 400 infantry of the Sacred
College, on each of whom he bestowed a ducat: behind the artillery came a
hundred chariots escorted by his advance guard.
The duke was carried out of the gate of the Vatican: he lay on a bed
covered with a scarlet canopy, supported by twelve halberdiers, leaning
forward on his cushions so that no one might see his face with its purple
lips and bloodshot eyes: beside him was his naked sword, to show that,
feeble as he was, he could use it at need: his finest charger, caparisoned in
black velvet embroidered with his arms, walked beside the bed, led by a
page, so that Caesar could mount in case of surprise or attack: before him

and behind, both right and left, marched his army, their arms in rest, but
without beating of drums or blowing of trumpets: this gave a sombre,
funereal air to the whole procession, which at the gate of the city met
Prospero Colonna awaiting it with a considerable band of men.
Caesar thought at first that, breaking his word as he had so often done
himself, Prospero Colonna was going to attack him. He ordered a halt, and
prepared to mount his horse; but Prospera Colonna, seeing the state he was
in, advanced to his bedside alone: he came, against expectation, to offer him
an escort, fearing an ambuscade on the part of Fabio Orsino, who had
loudly sworn that he would lose his honour or avenge the death of Paolo
Orsina, his father. Caesar thanked Colanna, and replied that from the
moment that Orsini stood alone he ceased to fear him. Then Colonna
saluted the duke, and rejoined his men, directing them towards Albano,
while Caesar took the road to Citta Castellana, which had remained loyal.
When there, Caesar found himself not only master of his own fate but
of others as well: of the twenty-two votes he owned in the Sacred College
twelve had remained faithful, and as the Conclave was composed in all of
thirty-seven cardinals, he with his twelve votes could make the majority
incline to whichever side he chose. Accordingly he was courted both by the
Spanish and the French party, each desiring the election of a pope of their
own nation. Caesar listened, promising nothing and refusing nothing: he
gave his twelve votes to Francesco Piccolomini, Cardinal of Siena, one of
his father's creatures who had remained his friend, and the latter was elected
on the 8th of October and took the name of Pius III.
Caesar's hopes did not deceive him: Pius III was hardly elected before
he sent him a safe-conduct to Rome: the duke came back with 250 men-at-
arms, 250 light horse, and 800 infantry, and lodged in his palace, the
soldiers camping round about.

Meanwhile the Orsini, pursuing their projects of vengeance against
Caesar, had been levying many troops at Perugia and the neighbourhood to
bring against him to Rome, and as they fancied that France, in whose
service they were engaged, was humouring the duke for the sake of the
twelve votes which were wanted to secure the election of Cardinal Amboise
at the next Conclave, they went over to the service of Spain.
Meanwhile Caesar was signing a new treaty with Louis XII, by which
he engaged to support him with all his forces, and even with his person, so
soon as he could ride, in maintaining his conquest of Naples: Louis, on his
side, guaranteed that he should retain possession of the States he still held,
and promised his help in recovering those he had lost.
The day when this treaty was made known, Gonzalvo di Cordovo
proclaimed to the sound of a trumpet in all the streets of Rome that every
Spanish subject serving in a foreign army was at once to break his
engagement on pain of being found guilty of high treason.
This measure robbed Caesar of ten or twelve of his best officers and of
nearly 300 men.
Then the Orsini, seeing his army thus reduced, entered Rome,
supported by the Spanish ambassador, and summoned Caesar to appear
before the pope and the Sacred College and give an account of his crimes.
Faithful to his engagements, Pius III replied that in his quality of
sovereign prince the duke in his temporal administration was quite
independent and was answerable for his actions to God alone.
But as the pope felt he could not much longer support Caesar against
his enemies for all his goodwill, he advised him to try to join the French
army, which was still advancing on Naples, in the midst of which he would
alone find safety. Caesar resolved to retire to Bracciano, where Gian
Giordano Orsino, who had once gone with him to France, and who was the

only member of the family who had not declared against him, offered him
an asylum in the name of Cardinal d'Amboise: so one morning he ordered
his troops to march for this town, and, taking his place in their midst, he left
Rome.
But though Caesar had kept his intentions quiet, the Orsini had been
forewarned, and, taking out all the troops they had by the gate of San
Pancracio, they had made a long detour and blocked Caesar's way; so, when
the latter arrived at Storta, he found the Orsini's army drawn up awaiting
him in numbers exceeding his own by at least one-half.
Caesar saw that to come to blows in his then feeble state was to rush
on certain destruction; so he ordered his troops to retire, and, being a first-
rate strategist, echelonned his retreat so skilfully that his enemies, though
they followed, dared not attack him, and he re-entered the pontifical town
without the loss of a single man.
This time Caesar went straight to the Vatican, to put himself more
directly under the pope's protection; he distributed his soldiers about the
palace, so as to guard all its exits. Now the Orsini, resolved to make an end
of Caesar, had determined to attack him wheresoever he might be, with no
regard to the sanctity of the place: this they attempted, but without success,
as Caesar's men kept a good guard on every side, and offered a strong
defence.
Then the Orsini, not being able to force the guard of the Castle Sant'
Angelo, hoped to succeed better with the duke by leaving Rome and then
returning by the Torione gate; but Caesar anticipated this move, and they
found the gate guarded and barricaded. None the less, they pursued their
design, seeking by open violence the vengeance that they had hoped to
obtain by craft; and, having surprised the approaches to the gate, set fire to

it: a passage gained, they made their way into the gardens of the castle,
where they found Caesar awaiting them at the head of his cavalry.
Face to face with danger, the duke had found his old strength: and he
was the first to rush upon his enemies, loudly challenging Orsino in the
hope of killing him should they meet; but either Orsino did not hear him or
dared not fight; and after an exciting contest, Caesar, who was numerically
two-thirds weaker than his enemy, saw his cavalry cut to pieces; and after
performing miracles of personal strength and courage, was obliged to return
to the Vatican. There he found the pope in mortal agony: the Orsini, tired of
contending against the old man's word of honour pledged to the duke, had
by the interposition of Pandolfo Petrucci, gained the ear of the pope's
surgeon, who placed a poisoned plaster upon a wound in his leg.
The pope then was actually dying when Caesar, covered with dust and
blood, entered his room, pursued by his enemies, who knew no check till
they reached the palace walls, behind which the remnant of his army still
held their ground.
Pius III, who knew he was about to die, sat up in his bed, gave Caesar
the key of the corridor which led to the Castle of Sant' Angelo, and an order
addressed to the governor to admit him and his family, to defend him to the
last extremity, and to let him go wherever he thought fit; and then fell
fainting on his bed.
Caesar took his two daughters by the hand, and, followed by the little
dukes of Sermaneta and Nepi, took refuge in the last asylum open to him.
The same night the pope died: he had reigned only twenty-six days.
After his death, Caesar, who had cast himself fully dressed upon his
bed, heard his door open at two o'clock in the morning: not knowing what
anyone might want of him at such an hour, he raised himself on one elbow

and felt for the handle of his sword with his other hand; but at the first
glance he recognised in his nocturnal visitor Giuliano della Rovere.
Utterly exhausted by the poison, abandoned by his troops, fallen as he
was from the height of his power, Caesar, who could now do nothing for
himself, could yet make a pope: Giuliano della Rovere had come to buy the
votes of his twelve cardinals.
Caesar imposed his conditions, which were accepted.
If elected, Giuliano della Rovere was to help Caesar to recover his
territories in Romagna; Caesar was to remain general of the Church; and
Francesco Maria della Rovere, prefect of Rome, was to marry one of
Caesar's daughters.
On these conditions Caesar sold his twelve cardinals to Giuliano.
The next day, at Giuliano's request, the Sacred College ordered the
Orsini to leave Rome for the whole time occupied by the Conclave.
On the 31st of October 1503, at the first scrutiny, Giuliano della
Rovere was elected pope, and took the name of Julius II.
He was scarcely installed in the Vatican when he made it his first care
to summon Caesar and give him his former rooms there; then, since the
duke was fully restored to health, he began to busy himself with the re-
establishment of his affairs, which had suffered sadly of late.
The defeat of his army and his own escape to Sant' Angelo, where he
was supposed to be a prisoner, had brought about great changes in
Romagna. Sesena was once more in the power of the Church, as formerly it
had been; Gian Sforza had again entered Pesaro; Ordelafi had seized Forli;
Malatesta was laying claim to Rimini; the inhabitants of Imola had
assassinated their governor, and the town was divided between two
opinions, one that it should be put into the hands of the Riani, the other, into
the hands of the Church; Faenza had remained loyal longer than any other

place; but at last, losing hope of seeing Caesar recover his power, it had
summoned Francesco, a natural son of Galeotto Manfredi, the last surviving
heir of this unhappy family, all whose legitimate descendants had been
massacred by Borgia.
It is true that the fortresses of these different places had taken no part
in these revolutions, and had remained immutably faithful to the Duke of
Valentinois.
So it was not precisely the defection of these towns, which, thanks to
their fortresses, might be reconquered, that was the cause of uneasiness to
Caesar and Julius II, it was the difficult situation that Venice had thrust
upon them. Venice, in the spring of the same year, had signed a treaty of
peace with the Turks: thus set free from her eternal enemy, she had just led
her forces to the Romagna, which she had always coveted: these troops had
been led towards Ravenna, the farthermost limit of the Papal estates, and
put under the command of Giacopo Venieri, who had failed to capture
Cesena, and had only failed through the courage of its inhabitants; but this
check had been amply compensated by the surrender of the fortresses of Val
di Lamane and Faenza, by the capture of Farlimpopoli, and the surrender of
Rimini, which Pandolfo Malatesta, its lord, exchanged for the seigniory of
Cittadella, in the State of Padua, and for the rank of gentleman of Venice.
Then Caesar made a proposition to Julius II: this was to make a
momentary cession to the Church of his own estates in Romagna, so that
the respect felt by the Venetians for the Church might save these towns
from their aggressors; but, says Guicciardini, Julius II, whose ambition, so
natural in sovereign rulers, had not yet extinguished the remains of
rectitude, refused to accept the places, afraid of exposing himself to the
temptation of keeping them later on, against his promises.

But as the case was urgent, he proposed to Caesar that he should leave
Rome, embark at Ostia, and cross over to Spezia, where Michelotto was to
meet him at the head of 100 men-at-arms and 100 light horse, the only
remnant of his magnificent army, thence by land to Ferrara, and from
Ferrara to Imola, where, once arrived, he could utter his war-cry so loud
that it would be heard through the length and breadth of Romagna.
This advice being after Caesar's own heart, he accepted it at once.
The resolution submitted to the Sacred College was approved, and
Caesar left for Ostia, accompanied by Bartolommeo della Rovere, nephew
of His Holiness.
Caesar at last felt he was free, and fancied himself already on his good
charger, a second time carrying war into all the places where he had
formerly fought. When he reached Ostia, he was met by the cardinals of
Sorrento and Volterra, who came in the name of Julius II to ask him to give
up the very same citadels which he had refused three days before: the fact
was that the pope had learned in the interim that the Venetians had made
fresh aggressions, and recognised that the method proposed by Caesar was
the only one that would check them. But this time it was Caesar's turn, to
refuse, for he was weary of these tergiversations, and feared a trap; so he
said that the surrender asked for would be useless, since by God's help he
should be in Romagna before eight days were past. So the cardinals of
Sorrento and Volterra returned to Rome with a refusal.
The next morning, just as Caesar was setting foot on his vessel, he was
arrested in the name of Julius II.
He thought at first that this was the end; he was used to this mode of
action, and knew how short was the space between a prison and a tomb; the
matter was all the easier in his case, because the pope, if he chose, would
have plenty of pretext for making a case against him. But the heart of Julius

was of another kind from his; swift to anger, but open to clemency; so,
when the duke came back to Rome guarded, the momentary irritation his
refusal had caused was already calmed, and the pope received him in his
usual fashion at his palace, and with his ordinary courtesy, although from
the beginning it was easy for the duke to see that he was being watched. In
return for this kind reception, Caesar consented to yield the fortress of
Cesena to the pope, as being a town which had once belonged to the
Church, and now should return; giving the deed, signed by Caesar, to one of
his captains, called Pietro d'Oviedo, he ordered him to take possession of
the fortress in the name of the Holy See. Pietro obeyed, and starting at once
for Cesena, presented himself armed with his warrant before Don Diego
Chinon; a noble condottiere of Spain, who was holding the fortress in
Caesar's name. But when he had read over the paper that Pietro d'Oviedo
brought, Don Diego replied that as he knew his lord and master was a
prisoner, it would be disgraceful in him to obey an order that had probably
been wrested from him by violence, and that the bearer deserved to die for
undertaking such a cowardly office. He therefore bade his soldiers seize
d'Oviedo and fling him down from the top of the walls: this sentence was
promptly executed.
This mark of fidelity might have proved fatal to Caesar: when the pope
heard how his messenger had been treated, he flew into such a rage that the
prisoner thought a second time that his hour was come; and in order to
receive his liberty, he made the first of those new propositions to Julius II,
which were drawn up in the form of a treaty and sanctioned by a bull. By
these arrangements, the Duke of Valentinois was bound to hand over to His
Holiness, within the space of forty days, the fortresses of Cesena and
Bertinoro, and authorise the surrender of Forli. This arrangement was
guaranteed by two bankers in Rome who were to be responsible for 15,000

ducats, the sum total of the expenses which the governor pretended he had
incurred in the place on the duke's account. The pope on his part engaged to
send Caesar to Ostia under the sole guard of the Cardinal of Santa Croce
and two officers, who were to give him his full liberty on the very day when
his engagements were fulfilled: should this not happen, Caesar was to be
taken to Rome and imprisoned in the Castle of Sant' Angelo. In fulfilment
of this treaty, Caesar went down the Tiber as far as Ostia, accompanied by
the pope's treasurer and many of his servants. The Cardinal of Santa Croce
followed, and the next day joined him there.
But as Caesar feared that Julius II might keep him a prisoner, in spite
of his pledged word, after he had yielded up the fortresses, he asked,
through the mediation of Cardinals Borgia and Remolina, who, not feeling
safe at Rome, had retired to Naples, for a safe-conduct to Gonzalva of
Cordova, and for two ships to take him there; with the return of the courier
the safe-conduct arrived, announcing that the ships would shortly follow.
In the midst of all this, the Cardinal of Santa Croce, learning that by
the duke's orders the governors of Cesena and Bertinoro had surrendered
their fortresses to the captains of His Holiness, relaxed his rigour, and
knowing that his prisoner would some day or other be free, began to let him
go out without a guard. Then Caesar, feeling some fear lest when he started
with Gonzalvo's ships the same thing might happen as on the occasion of
his embarking on the pope's vessel—that is, that he might be arrested a
second time—concealed himself in a house outside the town; and when
night came on, mounting a wretched horse that belonged to a peasant, rode
as far as Nettuno, and there hired a little boat, in which he embarked for
Monte Dragone, and thence gained Naples. Gonzalvo received him with
such joy that Caesar was deceived as to his intention, and this time believed
that he was really saved. His confidence was redoubled when, opening his

designs to Gonzalvo, and telling him that he counted upon gaining Pisa and
thence going on into Romagna, Ganzalvo allowed him to recruit as many
soldiers at Naples as he pleased, promising him two ships to embark with.
Caesar, deceived by these appearances, stopped nearly six weeks at Naples,
every day seeing the Spanish governor and discussing his plans. But
Gonzalvo was only waiting to gain time to tell the King of Spain that his
enemy was in his hands; and Caesar actually went to the castle to bid
Gonzalvo good-bye, thinking he was just about to start after he had
embarked his men on the two ships. The Spanish governor received him
with his accustomed courtesy, wished him every kind of prosperity, and
embraced him as he left; but at the door of the castle Caesar found one of
Gonzalvo's captains, Nuno Campeja by name, who arrested him as a
prisoner of Ferdinand the Catholic. Caesar at these words heaved a deep
sigh, cursing the ill luck that had made him trust the word of an enemy
when he had so often broken his own.
He was at once taken to the castle, where the prison gate closed behind
him, and he felt no hope that anyone would come to his aid; for the only
being who was devoted to him in this world was Michelotto, and he had
heard that Michelotto had been arrested near Pisa by order of Julius II.
While Caesar was being taken to prison an officer came to him to deprive
him of the safe-conduct given him by Gonzalvo.
The day after his arrest, which occurred on the 27th of May, 1504,
Caesar was taken on board a ship, which at once weighed anchor and set
sail for Spain: during the whole voyage he had but one page to serve him,
and as soon as he disembarked he was taken to the castle of Medina del
Campo.
Ten years later, Gonzalvo, who at that time was himself proscribed,
owned to Loxa on his dying bed that now, when he was to appear in the

presence of God, two things weighed cruelly on his conscience: one was his
treason to Ferdinand, the other his breach of faith towards Caesar.

CHAPTER XVI

Caesar was in prison for two years, always hoping that Louis XII would
reclaim him as peer of the kingdom of France; but Louis, much disturbed
by the loss of the battle of Garigliano, which robbed him of the kingdom of
Naples, had enough to do with his own affairs without busying himself with
his cousin's. So the prisoner was beginning to despair, when one day as he
broke his bread at breakfast he found a file and a little bottle containing a
narcotic, with a letter from Michelotto, saying that he was out of prison and
had left Italy for Spain, and now lay in hiding with the Count of Benevento
in the neighbouring village: he added that from the next day forward he and
the count would wait every night on the road between the fortress and the
village with three excellent horses; it was now Caesar's part to do the best
he could with his bottle and file. When the whole world had abandoned the
Duke of Romagna he had been remembered by a sbirro.
The prison where he had been shut up for two years was so hateful to
Caesar that he lost not a single moment: the same day he attacked one of the
bars of a window that looked out upon an inner court, and soon contrived so
to manipulate it that it would need only a final push to come out. But not
only was the window nearly seventy feet from the ground, but one could
only get out of the court by using an exit reserved for the governor, of
which he alone had the key; also this key never left him; by day it hung at
his waist, by night it was under his pillow: this then was the chief difficulty.

But prisoner though he was, Caesar had always been treated with the
respect due to his name and rank: every day at the dinner-hour he was
conducted from the room that served as his prison to the governor, who did
the honours of the table in a grand and courteous fashion. The fact was that
Dan Manuel had served with honour under King Ferdinand, and therefore,
while he guarded Caesar rigorously, according to orders, he had a great
respect for so brave a general, and took pleasure in listening to the accounts
of his battles. So he had often insisted that Caesar should not only dine but
also breakfast with him; happily the prisoner, yielding perhaps to some
presentiment, had till now refused this favour. This was of great advantage
to him, since, thanks to his solitude, he had been able to receive the
instruments of escape sent by Michelotto. The same day he received them,
Caesar, on going back to his room, made a false step and sprained his foot;
at the dinner-hour he tried to go down, but he pretended to be suffering so
cruelly that he gave it up. The governor came to see him in his room, and
found him stretched upon the bed.
The day after, he was no better; the governor had his dinner sent in,
and came to see him, as on the night before; he found his prisoner so
dejected and gloomy in his solitude that he offered to come and sup with
him: Caesar gratefully accepted.
This time it was the prisoner who did the honours: Caesar was
charmingly courteous; the governor thought he would profit by this lack of
restraint to put to him certain questions as to the manner of his arrest, and
asked him as an Old Castilian, for whom honour is still of some account,
what the truth really was as to Gonzalvo's and Ferdinand's breach of faith,
with him. Caesar appeared extremely inclined to give him his entire
confidence, but showed by a sign that the attendants were in the way. This
precaution appeared quite natural, and the governor took no offense, but

hastened to send them all away, so as to be sooner alone with his
companion. When the door was shut, Caesar filled his glass and the
governor's, proposing the king's health: the governor honoured the toast:
Caesar at once began his tale; but he had scarcely uttered a third part of it
when, interesting as it was, the eyes of his host shut as though by magic,
and he slid under the table in a profound sleep.
After half a hour had passed, the servants, hearing no noise, entered
and found the two, one on the table, the other under it: this event was not so
extraordinary that they paid any great attention to it: all they did was to
carry Don Manuel to his room and lift Caesar on the bed; then they put
away the remnant of the meal for the next day's supper, shut the door very
carefully, and left their prisoner alone.
Caesar stayed for a minute motionless and apparently plunged in the
deepest sleep; but when he had heard the steps retreating, he quietly raised
his head, opened his eyes, slipped off the bed, walked to the door, slowly
indeed, but not to all appearance feeling the accident of the night before,
and applied his ear for some minutes to the keyhole; then lifting his head
with an expression of indescribable pride, he wiped his brow with his hand,
and for the first time since his guards went out, breathed freely with full-
drawn breaths.
There was no time to lose: his first care was to shut the door as
securely on the inside as it was already shut on the outside, to blow out the
lamp, to open the window, and to finish sawing through the bar. When this
was done, he undid the bandages on his leg, took down the window and bed
curtains, tore them into strips, joined the sheets, table napkins and cloth,
and with all these things tied together end to end, formed a rope fifty or
sixty feet long, with knots every here and there. This rope he fixed securely
to the bar next to the one he had just cut through; then he climbed up to the

window and began what was really the hardest part of his perilous
enterprise, clinging with hands and feet to this fragile support. Luckily he
was both strong and skilful, and he went down the whole length of the rope
without accident; but when he reached the end and was hanging on the last
knot, he sought in vain to touch the ground with his feet; his rope was too
short.
The situation was a terrible one: the darkness of the night prevented
the fugitive from seeing how far off he was from the ground, and his fatigue
prevented him from even attempting to climb up again. Caesar put up a
brief prayer, whether to God or Satan he alone could say; then letting go the
rope, he dropped from a height of twelve or fifteen feet.
The danger was too great for the fugitive to trouble about a few trifling
contusions: he at once rose, and guiding himself by the direction of his
window, he went straight to the little door of exit; he then put his hand into
the pocket of his doublet, and a cold sweat damped his brow; either he had
forgotten and left it in his room or had lost it in his fall; anyhow, he had not
the key.
But summoning his recollections, he quite gave up the first idea for the
second, which was the only likely one: again he crossed the court, looking
for the place where the key might have fallen, by the aid of the wall round a
tank on which he had laid his hand when he got up; but the object of search
was so small and the night so dark that there was little chance of getting any
result; still Caesar sought for it, for in this key was his last hope: suddenly a
door was opened, and a night watch appeared, preceded by two torches.
Caesar for the moment thought he was lost, but remembering the tank
behind him, he dropped into it, and with nothing but his head above water
anxiously watched the movements of the soldiers, as they advanced beside
him, passed only a few feet away, crossed the court, and then disappeared

by an opposite door. But short as their luminous apparition had been, it had
lighted up the ground, and Caesar by the glare of the torches had caught the
glitter of the long-sought key, and as soon as the door was shut behind the
men, was again master of his liberty.
Half-way between the castle and the village two cavaliers and a led
horse were waiting for him: the two men were Michelotto and the Count of
Benevento. Caesar sprang upon the riderless horse, pressed with fervour the
hand of the count and the sbirro; then all three galloped to the frontier of
Navarre, where they arrived three days later, and were honourably received
by the king, Jean d'Albret, the brother of Caesar's wife.
From Navarre he thought to pass into France, and from France to make
an attempt upon Italy, with the aid of Louis XII; but during Caesar's
detention in the castle of Medina del Campo, Louis had made peace with
the King of Spain; and when he heard of Caesar's flight; instead of helping
him, as there was some reason to expect he would, since he was a relative
by marriage, he took away the duchy of Valentinois and also his pension.
Still, Caesar had nearly 200,000 ducats in the charge of bankers at Genoa;
he wrote asking for this sum, with which he hoped to levy troops in Spain
and in Navarre, and make an attempt upon Pisa: 500 men, 200,000 ducats,
his name and his word were more than enough to save him from despair.
The bankers denied the deposit.
Caesar was at the mercy of his brother-in-law.
One of the vassals of the King of Navarre, named Prince Alarino, had
just then revolted: Caesar then took command of the army which Jean
d'Albret was sending out against him, followed by Michelotto, who was as
faithful in adversity as ever before. Thanks to Caesar's courage and skilful
tactics, Prince Alarino was beaten in a first encounter; but the day after his

defeat he rallied his army, and offered battle about three o'clock in the
afternoon. Caesar accepted it.
For nearly four hours they fought obstinately on both sides; but at
length, as the day was going down, Caesar proposed to decide the issue by
making a charge himself, at the head of a hundred men-at-arms, upon a
body of cavalry which made his adversary's chief force. To his great
astonishment, this cavalry at the first shock gave way and took flight in the
direction of a little wood, where they seemed to be seeking refuge. Caesar
followed close on their heels up to the edge of the forest; then suddenly the
pursued turned right about face, three or four hundred archers came out of
the wood to help them, and Caesar's men, seeing that they had fallen into an
ambush, took to their heels like cowards, and abandoned their leader.
Left alone, Caesar would not budge one step; possibly he had had
enough of life, and his heroism was rather the result of satiety than courage:
however that may be, he defended himself like a lion; but, riddled with
arrows and bolts, his horse at last fell, with Caesar's leg under him. His
adversaries rushed upon him, and one of them thrusting a sharp and slender
iron pike through a weak place in his armour, pierced his breast; Caesar
cursed God and died.
But the rest of the enemy's army was defeated, thanks to the courage of
Michelotto, who fought like a valiant condottiere, but learned, on returning
to the camp in the evening, from those who had fled that they had
abandoned Caesar and that he had never reappeared. Then only too certain,
from his master's well-known courage, that disaster had occurred, he
desired to give one last proof of his devotion by not leaving his body to the
wolves and birds of prey. Torches were lighted, for it was dark, and with ten
or twelve of those who had gone with Caesar as far as the little wood, he
went to seek his master. On reaching the spot they pointed out, he beheld

five men stretched side by side; four of them were dressed, but the fifth had
been stripped of his clothing and lay completely naked. Michelotto
dismounted, lifted the head upon his knees, and by the light of the torches
recognised Caesar.
Thus fell, on the 10th of March, 1507, on an unknown field, near an
obscure village called Viane, in a wretched skirmish with the vassal of a
petty king, the man whom Macchiavelli presents to all princes as the model
of ability, diplomacy, and courage.
As to Lucrezia, the fair Duchess of Ferrara, she died full of years, and
honours, adored as a queen by her subjects, and sung as a goddess by
Ariosto and by Bembo.

EPILOGUE

There was once in Paris, says Boccaccio, a brave and good merchant
named Jean de Civigny, who did a great trade in drapery, and was
connected in business with a neighbour and fellow-merchant, a very rich
man called Abraham, who, though a Jew, enjoyed a good reputation. Jean
de Civigny, appreciating the qualities of the worthy Israelite; feared lest,
good man as he was, his false religion would bring his soul straight to
eternal perdition; so he began to urge him gently as a friend to renounce his
errors and open his eyes to the Christian faith, which he could see for
himself was prospering and spreading day by day, being the only true and
good religion; whereas his own creed, it was very plain, was so quickly
diminishing that it would soon disappear from the face of the earth. The Jew
replied that except in his own religion there was no salvation, that he was
born in it, proposed to live and die in it, and that he knew nothing in the
world that could change his opinion. Still, in his proselytising fervour Jean
would not think himself beaten, and never a day passed but he demonstrated
with those fair words the merchant uses to seduce a customer, the
superiority of the Christian religion above the Jewish; and although
Abraham was a great master of Mosaic law, he began to enjoy his friend's
preaching, either because of the friendship he felt for him or because the
Holy Ghost descended upon the tongue of the new apostle; still obstinate in
his own belief, he would not change. The more he persisted in his error, the

more excited was Jean about converting him, so that at last, by God's help,
being somewhat shaken by his friend's urgency, Abraham one day said—
"Listen, Jean: since you have it so much at heart that I should be
converted, behold me disposed to satisfy you; but before I go to Rome to
see him whom you call God's vicar on earth, I must study his manner of life
and his morals, as also those of his brethren the cardinals; and if, as I doubt
not, they are in harmony with what you preach, I will admit that, as you
have taken such pains to show me, your faith is better than mine, and I will
do as you desire; but if it should prove otherwise, I shall remain a Jew, as I
was before; for it is not worth while, at my age, to change my belief for a
worse one."
Jean was very sad when he heard these words; and he said mournfully
to himself, "Now I have lost my time and pains, which I thought I had spent
so well when I was hoping to convert this unhappy Abraham; for if he
unfortunately goes, as he says he will, to the court of Rome, and there sees
the shameful life led by the servants of the Church, instead of becoming a
Christian the Jew will be more of a Jew than ever." Then turning to
Abraham, he said, "Ah, friend, why do you wish to incur such fatigue and
expense by going to Rome, besides the fact that travelling by sea or by land
must be very dangerous for so rich a man as you are? Do you suppose there
is no one here to baptize you? If you have any doubts concerning the faith I
have expounded, where better than here will you find theologians capable
of contending with them and allaying them? So, you see, this voyage seems
to me quite unnecessary: just imagine that the priests there are such as you
see here, and all the better in that they are nearer to the supreme pastor. If
you are guided by my advice, you will postpone this toil till you have
committed some grave sin and need absolution; then you and I will go
together."

But the Jew replied—
"I believe, dear Jean, that everything is as you tell me; but you know
how obstinate I am. I will go to Rome, or I will never be a Christian."
Then Jean, seeing his great wish, resolved that it was no use trying to
thwart him, and wished him good luck; but in his heart he gave up all hope;
for it was certain that his friend would come back from his pilgrimage more
of a Jew than ever, if the court of Rome was still as he had seen it.
But Abraham mounted his horse, and at his best speed took the road to
Rome, where on his arrival he was wonderfully well received by his
coreligionists; and after staying there a good long time, he began to study
the behaviour of the pope, the cardinals and other prelates, and of the whole
court. But much to his surprise he found out, partly by what passed under
his eyes and partly by what he was told, that all from the pope downward to
the lowest sacristan of St. Peter's were committing the sins of luxurious
living in a most disgraceful and unbridled manner, with no remorse and no
shame, so that pretty women and handsome youths could obtain any
favours they pleased. In addition to this sensuality which they exhibited in
public, he saw that they were gluttons and drunkards, so much so that they
were more the slaves of the belly than are the greediest of animals. When he
looked a little further, he found them so avaricious and fond of money that
they sold for hard cash both human bodies and divine offices, and with less
conscience than a man in Paris would sell cloth or any other merchandise.
Seeing this and much more that it would not be proper to set down here, it
seemed to Abraham, himself a chaste, sober, and upright man, that he had
seen enough. So he resolved to return to Paris, and carried out the resolution
with his usual promptitude. Jean de Civigny held a great fete in honour of
his return, although he had lost hope of his coming back converted. But he
left time for him to settle down before he spoke of anything, thinking there

would be plenty of time to hear the bad news he expected. But, after a few
days of rest, Abraham himself came to see his friend, and Jean ventured to
ask what he thought of the Holy Father, the cardinals, and the other persons
at the pontifical court. At these words the Jew exclaimed, "God damn them
all! I never once succeeded in finding among them any holiness, any
devotion, any good works; but, on the contrary, luxurious living, avarice,
greed, fraud, envy, pride, and even worse, if there is worse; all the machine
seemed to be set in motion by an impulse less divine than diabolical. After
what I saw, it is my firm conviction that your pope, and of course the others
as well, are using all their talents, art, endeavours, to banish the Christian
religion from the face of the earth, though they ought to be its foundation
and support; and since, in spite of all the care and trouble they expend to
arrive at this end, I see that your religion is spreading every day and
becoming more brilliant and more pure, it is borne in upon me that the Holy
Spirit Himself protects it as the only true and the most holy religion; this is
why, deaf as you found me to your counsel and rebellious to your wish, I
am now, ever since I returned from this Sodom, firmly resolved on
becoming a Christian. So let us go at once to the church, for I am quite
ready to be baptized."
There is no need to say if Jean de Civigny, who expected a refusal, was
pleased at this consent. Without delay he went with his godson to Notre
Dame de Paris, where he prayed the first priest he met to administer
baptism to his friend, and this was speedily done; and the new convert
changed his Jewish name of Abraham into the Christian name of Jean; and
as the neophyte, thanks to his journey to Rome, had gained a profound
belief, his natural good qualities increased so greatly in the practice of our
holy religion, that after leading an exemplary life he died in the full odour
of sanctity.

This tale of Boccaccio's gives so admirable an answer to the charge of
irreligion which some might make against us if they mistook our intentions,
that as we shall not offer any other reply, we have not hesitated to present it
entire as it stands to the eyes of our readers.
And let us never forget that if the papacy has had an Innocent VIII and
an Alexander VI who are its shame, it has also had a Pius VII and a Gregory
XVI who are its honour and glory.

――――

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