The Life of Cesare Borgia Part 30

Siena judged it well to bow before that threatening command, and Cesare, seeing himself obeyed, was free to depart to Rome, whither the Pope had recalled him and where work awaited him. He was required to make an end of the resistance of the barons, a task which had been entrusted to his brother Giuffredo, but which the latter had been unable to carry out.

In this matter Cesare and his father are said to have violently disagreed, and it is reported that high words flew between them; for Cesare--who looked ahead and had his own future to consider, which should extend beyond the lifetime of Alexander VI--would not move against Silvio Savelli in Palombara, nor Gian Giordano in Bracciano, alleging, as his reason for the latter forbearance, that Gian Giordano, being a knight of St. Michael like himself, he was inhibited by the terms of that knighthood from levying war upon him. To that he adhered, whilst disposing, however, to lay siege to Ceri, where Giulio and Giovanni Orsini had taken refuge.

In the meantime, the Cardinal Gianbattista Orsini had breathed his last in the Castle of Sant' Angelo.

Soderini had written ironically to Florence on February 15: "Cardinal Orsini, in prison, shows signs of frenzy. I leave your Sublimities to conclude, in your wisdom, the judgment that is formed of such an illness."

It was not, however, until a week later--on February 22--that he succ.u.mbed, when the cry of "Poison!" grew so loud and general that the Pope ordered the cardinal's body to be carried on a bier with the face exposed, that all the world might see its calm and the absence of such stains as were believed usually to accompany venenation.

Nevertheless, the opinion spread that he had been poisoned--and the poisoning of Cardinal Orsini has been included in the long list of the Crimes of the Borgias with which we have been entertained. That the rumour should have spread is not in the least wonderful, considering in what bad odour were the Orsini at the Vatican just then, and--be it remembered--what provocation they had given. Although Valentinois dubbed Pandolfo Petrucci the "brain" of the conspiracy against him, the real guiding spirit, there can be little doubt, was this Cardinal Orsini, in whose stronghold at Magione the diet had met to plot Valentinois's ruin--the ruin of the Gonfalonier of the Church, and the fresh alienation from the Holy See of the tyrannies which it claimed for its own, and which at great cost had been recovered to it.

Against the Pope, considered as a temporal ruler, that was treason in the highest degree, and punishable by death; and, a.s.suming that Alexander did cause the death of Cardinal Orsini, the only just censure that could fall upon him for the deed concerns the means employed. Yet even against that it might be urged that thus was the dignity of the purple saved the dishonouring touch of the hangman's hands.

Some six weeks later--on April 10--died Giovanni Michieli, Cardinal of Sant' Angelo, and Giustiniani, the Venetian amba.s.sador, wrote to his Government that the cardinal had been ill for only two days, and that his illness had been attended by violent sickness. This--and the reticence of it--was no doubt intended to arouse the suspicion that the cardinal had been poisoned. Giustiniani adds that Michieli's house was stripped that very night by the Pope, who profited thereby to the extent of some 150,000 ducats, besides plate and other valuables; and this was intended to show an indecent eagerness on the Pope's part to possess himself of that which by the cardinal's death he inherited, whereas, in truth, the measure would be one of wise precaution against the customary danger of pillage by the mob.

But in March of the year 1504, under the pontificate of Julius II (Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere) a subdeacon, named Asquino de Colloredo, was arrested for defaming the dead cardinal ("interfector bone memorie Cardinalis S. Angeli").(1) What other suspicions were entertained against him, what other revelations it was hoped to extract from him, cannot be said; but Asquino was put to the question, to the usual accompaniment of the torture of the cord, and under this he confessed that he had poisoned Cardinal Michieli, constrained to it by Pope Alexander VI and the Duke of Valentinois, against his will and without reward ("verumtamen non voluisse et pecunias non habuisse").

1 Burchard's Diarium, March 6, 1504.

Now if Asquino defamed the memory of Cardinal Michieli it seems to follow naturally that he had hated the cardinal; and, if we know that he hated him, we need not marvel that, out of that hatred, he poisoned him.

But something must have been suspected as a motive for his arrest in addition to the slanders he was uttering, otherwise how came the questions put to him to be directed so as to wring from him the confession that he had poisoned the cardinal? If you choose to believe his further statement that he was constrained to it by Pope Alexander and the Duke of Valentinois, you are, of course, at liberty to do so.

But you will do well first to determine precisely what degree of credit such a man might be worth when seeking to extenuate a fault admitted under pressure of the torture--and offering the extenuation likeliest to gain him the favour of the della Rovere Pope, whose life's task--as we shall see--was the defamation of the hated Borgias. You will also do well closely to examine the last part of his confession--that he was constrained to it "against his will and without reward." Would the deed have been so very much against the will of one who went about publis.h.i.+ng his hatred of the dead cardinal by the slanders he emitted?

Upon such evidence as that the accusation of the Pope's murder of Cardinal Michieli has been definitely established--and it must be admitted that it is, if anything, rather more evidence than is usually forthcoming of the vampirism and atrocities alleged against him.

Giustiniani, writing to his Government in the spring of 1503, informs the Council of Ten that it is the Pope's way to fatten his cardinals before disposing of them--that is to say, enriching them before poisoning them, that he may inherit their possessions. It was a wild and sweeping statement, dictated by political animus, and it has since grown to proportions more monstrous than the original. You may read usque ad nauseam of the Pope and Cesare's constant practice of poisoning cardinals who had grown rich, for the purpose of seizing their possessions, and you are very naturally filled with horror at so much and such abominable turpitude. In this matter, a.s.sertion--coupled with whorling periods of vituperation--have ever been considered by the accusers all that was necessary to establish the accusations. It has never, for instance, been considered necessary to cite the names of the cardinals composing that regiment of victims. That, of course, would be to challenge easy refutation of the wholesale charge; and refutation is not desired by those who prefer the sensational manner.

The omission may, in part at least, be repaired by giving a list of the cardinals who died during the eleven years of the pontificate of Alexander VI. Those deaths, in eleven years, number twenty-one--representing, incidentally, a percentage that compares favourably with any other eleven years of any other pontificate or pontificates. They are:

Ardicino della Porta . . In 1493, at Rome Giovanni de'Conti. . . In 1493, at Rome Domenico della Rovere . . In 1494, at Rome Gonzalo de Mendoza. . . In 1495, in Spain Louis Andre d'Epinay . . In 1495, in France Gian Giacomo Sclafetano. . In 1496, at Rome Bernardino di Lunati . . In 1497, at Rome Paolo Fregosi. . . . In 1498, at Rome Gianbattista Savelli . . In 1498, at Rome Giovanni della Grolaye . . In 1499, at Rome Giovanni Borgia . . . In 1500, at Fos...o...b..one Bartolomeo Martini. . . In 1500, at Rome John Morton. . . . In 1500, in England Battista Zeno. . . . In 1501, at Rome Juan Lopez . . . . In 1501, at Rome Gianbattista Ferrari . . In 1502, at Rome Hurtado de Mendoza. . . In 1502, in Spain Gianbattista Orsini. . . In 1503, at Rome Giovanni Michieli. . . In 1503, at Rome Giovanni Borgia (Seniore). . In 1503, at Rome Federico Casimir . . . In 1503, in Poland

Now, search as you will, not only such contemporary records as diaries, chronicles, and dispatches from amba.s.sadors in Rome during that period of eleven years but also subsequent writings compiled from them, and you shall find no breath of scandal attaching to the death of seventeen of those cardinals, no suggestion that they died other than natural deaths.

Four remain: Cardinals Giovanni Borgia (Giuniore), Gianbattista Ferrari (Cardinal of Modena), Gianbattista Orsini, and Giovanni Michieli, all of whom the Pope and Cesare have, more or less persistently, been accused of poisoning.

Giovanni Borgia's death at Fos...o...b..one has been dealt with at length in its proper place, and it has been shown how utterly malicious and groundless was the accusation.

Giovanni Michieli's is the case that has just been reviewed, and touching which you may form your own conclusions.

Gianbattista Orsini's also has been examined. It rests upon rumour; but even if that rumour be true, it is unfair to consider the deed in any but the light of a political execution.

There remains the case of the Cardinal of Modena, a man who had ama.s.sed enormous wealth in the most questionable manner, and who was universally execrated. The epigrams upon his death, in the form of epitaphs, dealt most terribly with "his ignominious memory"--as Burchard has it. Of these the Master of Ceremonies collected upwards of a score, which he gives in his Diarium. Let one suffice here as a fair example of the rest, the one that has it that the earth has the cardinal's body, the bull (i.e. the Borgia) his wealth, and h.e.l.l his soul.

"Hac Ja.n.u.s Baptista jacet Ferrarius urna, Terra habuit corpus, Bos bona, Styx animam."

The only absolutely contemporary suggestion of his having been poisoned emanated from the pen of that same Giustiniani. He wrote to the Venetian Senate to announce the cardinal's death on July 20. In his letter he relates how his benefices were immediately distributed, and how the lion's share fell to the cardinal's secretary, Sebastiano Pinzone, and that it was said ("e fama") that this man had received them as the price of blood ("in premium sanguinis"), "since it is held, from many evident signs, that the cardinal died from poison" ("ex veneno").

Already on the 11th he had written: "The Cardinal of Modena lies ill, with little hope of recovery. Poison is suspected" ("si dubita di veleno").

That was penned on the eighth day of the cardinal's sickness, for he was taken ill on the 3rd--as Burchard shows. Burchard, further, lays before us the whole course of the illness; tells us how, from the beginning, the cardinal refused to be bled or to take medicine of any kind, tells us explicitly and positively that the cardinal was suffering from a certain fever--so prevalent and deadly in Rome during the months of July and August; he informs us that, on the 11th (the day on which Giustiniani wrote the above-cited dispatch), the fever abated, to return on the 16th. He was attended (Burchard continues) by many able physicians, who strove to induce him to take their medicines; but he refused persistently until the following day, when he accepted a small proportion of the doses proposed. On July 20--after an illness of seventeen days--he finally expired.

Those entries in the diary of the Master of Ceremonies const.i.tute an incontrovertible doc.u.ment, an irrefutable testimony against the charges of poisoning when taken in conjunction with the evidence of fact afforded by the length of the illness.

It is true that, under date of November 20, 1504 (under the pontificate of Julius II), there is the following entry:

"Sentence was p.r.o.nounced in the 'Ruota' against Sebastiano Pinzone, apostolic scribe, contumaciously absent, and he was deprived of all benefices and offices in that he had caused the death of the Cardinal of Modena, his patron, who had raised him from the dust."

But not even that can shake the conviction that must leap to every honest mind from following the entries in the diary contemporary with the cardinal's decease. They are too circ.u.mstantial and conclusive to be overthrown by this recorded sentence of the Ruota two years later against a man who was not even present to defend himself. Besides, it is necessary to discriminate. Burchard is not stating opinions of his own when he writes "in that he caused the death of the Cardinal of Modena,"

etc.; he is simply--and obviously--recording the finding of the Tribunal of the Ruota, without comment of his own. Lastly, it is as well to observe that in that verdict against Pinzone--of doubtful justice as it is--there is no mention made of the Borgias.

The proceedings inst.i.tuted against Sebastiano Pinzone were of a piece with those inst.i.tuted against Asquino de Colloredo and others yet to be considered; they were set on foot by Giuliano della Rovere--that implacable enemy of the House of Borgia--when he became Pope, for the purpose of heaping ignominy upon the family of his predecessor. But that shall be further dealt with presently.

Another instance of the unceasing growth of Borgia history is afforded in connection with this Sebastiano Pinzone by Dr. Jacob Burckhardt (in Der Cultur der Renaissance in Italien) who, in the course of the usual sweeping diatribe against Cesare, mentions "Michele da Corella, his strangler, and Sebastiano Pinzone, his poisoner." It is an amazing statement; for, whilst obviously leaning upon Giustiniani's dispatch for the presumption that Pinzone was a poisoner at all, he ignores the statement contained in it that Pinzone was the secretary and favourite of Cardinal Ferrari, nor troubles to ascertain that the man was never in Cesare Borgia's service at all, nor is ever once mentioned anywhere as connected in any capacity whatever with the duke. Dr. Burckhardt felt, no doubt, the necessity of linking Pinzone to the Borgias, that the alleged guilt of the former may recoil upon the latter, and so he accomplished it in this facile and irresponsible manner.

Now, notwithstanding the full and circ.u.mstantial evidence afforded by Burchard's Diarium of the Cardinal of Modena's death of a tertian fever, the German scholar Gregorovius does not hesitate to write of this cardinal's death: "It is certain that it was due to their [the Borgias']

infallible white powders."

Oh the art of writing history in sweeping statements to support a preconceived point of view! Oh that white powder of the Borgias!

Giovio tells us all about it. Cantarella, he calls it--Cantharides. Why Cantarella? Possibly because it is a pleasing, mellifluous word that will help a sentence hang together smoothly; possibly because the notorious aphrodisiac properties of that drug suggested it to Giovio as just the poison to be kept handy by folk addicted to the pursuits which he and others attribute to the Borgias. Can you surmise any better reason? For observe that Giovio describes the Cantarella for you--a blunder of his which gives the lie to his statement. "A white powder of a faint and not unpleasing savour," says he; and that, as you know, is nothing like cantharides, which is green, intensely acrid, and burning.

Yet who cares for such discrepancies? Who will ever question anything that is uttered against a Borgia? "Cantarella--a white powder of a faint and not unpleasing savour," answers excellently the steady purpose of supporting a defamation and pandering to the tastes of those who like sensations in their reading--and so, from pen to pen, from book to book it leaps, as unchallenged as it is impossible.

Whilst Cesare's troops were engaged in laying siege to Ceri, and, by engines contrived by Leonardo da Vinci, pressing the defenders so sorely that at the end of a month's resistance they surrendered with safe-conduct, the inimical and ever-jealous Venetians in the north were stirring up what trouble they could. Chafing under the restraint of France, they but sought a pretext that should justify them in the eyes of Louis for making war upon Cesare, and when presently envoys came to lay before the Pope the grievance of the Republic at the pillage by Borgian soldiery of the Venetian traders in Sinigaglia, Cesare had no delusions concerning their disposition towards himself.

Growing uneasy lest they should make this a reason for a.s.sailing his frontiers, he sent orders north recommending vigilance and instructing his officers to deal severely with all enemies of his State, whilst he proceeded to complete the provisions for the government of the Romagna.

To replace the Governor-General he appointed four seneschals: Cristoforo della Torre for Forli, Faenza and Imola; Hieronimo Bonadies for Cesena, Rimini, and Pesaro; Andrea Cossa for Fano, Sinigaglia, Fos...o...b..one, and Pergola; and Pedro Ramires for the duchy of Urbino. This last was to find a deal of work for his hands; for Urbino was not yet submissive, Majolo and S. Leo still holding for Guidobaldo.

Ramires began by reducing Majolo, and then proceeded to lay siege to S. Leo. But the Castellan--one Lattanzio--encouraged by the a.s.surances given him that the Venetians would render Guidobaldo a.s.sistance to reconquer his dominions, resisted stubbornly, and was not brought to surrender until the end of June, after having held the castle for six months.

If Venice was jealous and hostile in the north, Florence was scarcely less so in mid-Italy--though perhaps with rather more justification, for Cesare's growing power and boundless ambition kept the latter Republic in perpetual fear of being absorbed into his dominions--into that kingdom which it was his ultimate aim to found. There can be little doubt that Francesco da Narni, who appeared in Tuscany early in the March of that year, coming from the French Court for the purpose of arranging a league of Florence, Bologna, Siena, and Lucca--the four States more or less under French protection--had been besought by Florence, to the obvious end that these four States, united, might inter-defend themselves against Valentinois. And Florence even went so far as to avail herself of this to the extent of restoring Pandolfo Petrucci to the lords.h.i.+p of Siena--preferring even this avowed enemy to the fearful Valentinois. Thus came about Petrucci's restoration towards the end of March, despite the fact that the Siennese were divided on the subject of his return.

With the single exception of Camerino, where disturbances still continued, all was quiet in the States of the Church by that summer of 1503.

This desirable state of things had been achieved by Cesare's wise and liberal government, which also sufficed to ensure its continuance.

He had successfully combated the threatened famine by importing grain from Sicily. To Sinigaglia--his latest conquest--he had accorded, as to the other subjected States, the privilege of appointing her own native officials, with, of course, the exception of the Podesta (who never could be a native of any place where he dispensed justice) and the Castellan. In Cesena a liberal justice was measured out by the Tribunal of the Ruota, which Cesare had inst.i.tuted there, equipping it with the best jurisconsults of the Romagna.

In Rome he proceeded to a military organization on a new basis, and with a thoroughness never before seen in Italy--or elsewhere, for that matter--but which was thereafter the example all sought to copy. We have seen him issuing an edict that every house in the Romagna should furnish him one man-at-arms to serve him when necessary. The men so levied were under obligation to repair to the market-place of their native town when summoned thither by the ringing of the bells, and it was estimated that this method of conscription would yield him six or seven thousand men, who could be mobilized in a couple of days. He increased the number of arquebusiers, appreciating the power and value of a weapon which--although invented nearly a century earlier--was still regarded with suspicion. He was also the inventor of the military uniform, putting his soldiers into a livery of his own, and causing his men-at-arms to wear over their armour a smock, quartered red and yellow with the name CESARE lettered on the breast and back, whilst the gentlemen of his guard wore surcoats of his colours in gold brocade and crimson velvet.

He continued to levy troops and to arm them, and it is scarcely over-stating the case to say that hardly a tyrant of the Romagna would have dared to do so much for fear of the weapons being turned against himself. Cesare knew no such fear. He enjoyed a loyalty from the people he had subjected which was almost unprecedented in Italy. The very officers he placed in command of the troops of his levying were, for the most part, natives of the Romagna. Is there no inference concerning him to be drawn from that!

For every man in his service Cesare ordered a back-and-breast and headpiece of steel, and the armourers' shops of Brescia rang busily that summer with the clang of metal upon metal, as that defensive armour for Cesare's troops was being forged. At the same time the foundries were turning out fresh cannon in that season which saw Cesare at the very height and zenith of his power, although he himself may not have accounted that, as yet, he was further than at the beginning.

But the catastrophe that was to hurl him irretrievably from the eminence to which in three short years he had climbed was approaching with stealthy, relentless foot, and was even now upon him.