The Life of Cesare Borgia Part 5

That "universal dismay"--like the tears of Ferrante--rests upon the word of Guicciardini. He says that "men were filled with dread and horror by this election, because it had been effected by such evil ways [con arte si brutte]; and no less because the nature and condition of the person elected were largely known to many."

Guicciardini is to be read with the greatest caution and reserve when he deals with Rome. His bias against, and his enmity of, the Papacy are as obvious as they are notorious, and in his endeavours to bring it as much as possible into discredit he does not even spare his generous patrons, the Medicean Popes--Leo X and Clement VII. If he finds it impossible to restrain his invective against these Pontiffs, who heaped favours and honours upon him, what but virulence can be expected of him when he writes of Alexander VI? He is largely to blame for the flagrant exaggeration of many of the charges brought against the Borgias; that he hated them we know, and that when he wrote of them he dipped his golden Tuscan pen in vitriol and set down what he desired the world to believe rather than what contemporary doc.u.ments would have revealed to him, we can prove here and now from that one statement of his which we have quoted.

Who were the men who were filled with dismay, horror, or dread at Roderigo's election?

The Milanese? No. For we know that Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, the Duke of Milan's brother, was the most active worker in favour of Roderigo's election, and that this same election was received and celebrated in Milan with public rejoicings.

The Florentines? No. For the Medici were friendly to the House of Borgia, and we know that they welcomed the election, and that from Florence Manfredi--the Ferrarese amba.s.sador--wrote home: "It is said he will be a glorious Pontiff" ("Dicesi che sara glorioso Pontefice").

Were Venice, Genoa, Mantua, Siena, or Lucca dismayed by this election?

Surely not, if the superlatively laudatory congratulations of their various amba.s.sadors are of any account.

Venice confessed that "a better pastor could not have been found for the Church," since he had proved himself "a chief full of experience and an excellent cardinal."

Genoa said that "his merit lay not in having been elected, but in having been desired."

Mantua declared that it "had long awaited the pontificate of one who, during forty years, had rendered himself, by his wisdom and justice, capable of any office."

Siena expressed its joy at seeing the summit of eminence attained by a Pope solely upon his merits--"Pervenuto alla dignita pontificale meramente per meriti proprii."

Lucca praised the excellent choice made, and extolled the accomplishments, the wisdom, and experience of the Pontiff.

Not dismay, then, but actual rejoicing must have been almost universal in Italy on the election of Pope Alexander VI. And very properly--always considering the Pontificate as the temporal State it was then being accounted; for Roderigo's influence was vast, his intelligence was renowned, and had again and again been proved, and his administrative talents and capacity for affairs were known to all. He was well-born, cultured, of a fine and n.o.ble presence, and his wealth was colossal, comprising the archbishoprics of Valencia and Porto, the bishoprics of Majorca, Carthage, Agria, the abbeys of Subiaco, the Monastery of Our Lady of Bellefontaine, the deaconry of Sancta Maria in Via Lata, and his offices of Vice-Chancellor and Dean of Holy Church.

We are told that he gained his election by simony. It is very probable that he did. But the accusation has never been categorically established, and until that happens it would be well to moderate the vituperation hurled at him. Charges of that simony are common; conclusive proof there is none. We find Giacomo Trotti, the French amba.s.sador in Milan, writing to the Duke of Ferrara a fortnight after Roderigo's election that "the Papacy has been sold by simony and a thousand rascalities, which is a thing ignominious and detestable."

Ignominious and detestable indeed, if true; but be it remembered that Trotti was the amba.s.sador of France, whose candidate, backed by French influence and French gold, as we have seen, was della Rovere; and, even if his statement was true, the "ignominious and detestable thing" was at least no novelty. Yet Guicciardini, treating of this matter, says: "He gained the Pontificate owing to discord between the Cardinals Ascanio Sforza and Giuliano di San Pietro in Vincoli; and still more because, in a manner without precedent in that age [con esempio nuovo in quella eta]

he openly bought the votes of many cardinals, some with money, some with promises of his offices and benefices, which were very great."

Again Guicciardini betrays his bias by attempting to render Roderigo's course, a.s.suming it for the moment to be truly represented, peculiarly odious by this a.s.sertion that it was without precedent in that age.

Without precedent! What of the accusations of simony against Innocent VIII, which rest upon a much sounder basis than these against Alexander, and what of those against Sixtus IV? Further, if a simoniacal election was unprecedented, what of Lorenzo Valla's fierce indictment of simony--for which he so narrowly escaped the clutches of the Inquisition some sixty years before this date?

Simony was rampant at the time, and it is the rankest hypocrisy to make this outcry against Alexander's uses of it, and to forget the others.

Whether he really was elected by simony or not depends largely--so far as the evidence available goes--upon what we are to consider as simony. If payment in the literal sense was made or promised, then unquestionably simony there was. But this, though often a.s.serted, still awaits proof. If the conferring of the benefices vacated by a cardinal on his elevation to the Pontificate is to be considered simony, then there never was a Pope yet against whom the charge could not be levelled and established.

Consider that by his election to the Pontificate his Archbishoprics, offices, nay, his very house itself--which at the time of which we write it was customary to abandon to pillage--are vacated; and remember that, as Pope, they are now in his gift and that they must of necessity be bestowed upon somebody. In a time in which Pontiffs are imbued with a spiritual sense of their office and duties, they will naturally make such bestowals upon those whom they consider best fitted to use them for the greater honour and glory of G.o.d. But we are dealing with no such spiritual golden age as that when we deal with the Cinquecento, as we have already seen; and, therefore, all that we can expect of a Pope is that he should bestow the preferment he has vacated upon those among the cardinals whom he believes to be devoted to himself. Considering his election in a temporal sense, it is natural that he should behave as any other temporal prince; that he should remember those to whom he owes the Pontificate, and that he should reward them suitably. Alexander VI certainly pursued such a course, and the greatest profit from his election was derived by the Cardinal Sforza who--as Roderigo himself admitted--had certainly exerted all his influence with the Sacred College to gain him the Pontificate. Alexander gave him the vacated Vice-Chancellors.h.i.+p (for which, when all is said, Ascanio Sforza was excellently fitted), his vacated palace on Banchi Vecchi, the town of Nepi, and the bishopric of Agri.

To Orsini he gave the Church of Carthage and the legation of Marche; to Colonna the Abbey of Subiaco; to Savelli the legation of Perugia (from which he afterwards recalled him, not finding him suited to so difficult a charge); to Raffaele Riario went Spanish benefices worth four thousand ducats yearly; to Sanseverino Roderigo's house in Milan, whilst he consented that Sanseverino's nephew--known as Fraca.s.sa--should enter the service of the Church with a condotta of a hundred men-at-arms and a stipend of thirteen thousand ducats yearly.

Guicciardini says of all this that Ascanio Sforza induced many of the cardinals "to that abominable contract, and not only by request and persuasion, but by example; because, corrupt and of an insatiable appet.i.te for riches, he bargained for himself, as the reward of so much turpitude, the Vice-Chancellors.h.i.+ps, churches, fortresses [the very plurals betray the frenzy of exaggeration dictated by his malice] and his [Roderigo's] palace in Rome full of furniture of great value."

What possible proof can Guicciardini have--what possible proof can there be--of such a "bargain"? It rests upon purest a.s.sumption formed after those properties had changed hands--Ascanio being rewarded by them for his valuable services, and, also--so far as the Vice-Chancellors.h.i.+p was concerned--being suitably preferred. To say that Ascanio received them in consequence of a "bargain" and as the price of his vote and electioneering services is not only an easy thing to say, but it is the obvious thing for any one to say who aims at defaming.

It is surprising that we should find in Guicciardini no mention of the four mule-loads of silver removed before the election from Cardinal Roderigo's palace on Banchi Vecchi to Cardinal Ascanio's palace in Trastevere. This is generally alleged to have been part of the price of Ascanio's services. Whether it was so, or whether, as has also been urged, it was merely removed to save it from the pillaging by the mob of the palace of the cardinal elected to the Pontificate, the fact is interesting as indicating in either case Cardinal Roderigo's a.s.surance of his election.

M. Yriarte does not hesitate to say: "We know to-day, by the dispatches of Valori, the narrative of Girolamo Porzio, and the Diarium of Burchard, the Master of Ceremonies, each of the stipulations made with the electors whose votes were bought."

Now whilst we do know from Valori and Porzio what benefices Alexander actually conferred, we do not know, nor could they possibly have told us, what stipulations had been made which these benefices were insinuated to satisfy.

Burchard's Diarium might be of more authority on this subject, for Burchard was the Master of Ceremonies at the Vatican; but, unfortunately for the accuracy of M. Yriarte's statement, Burchard is silent on the subject, for the excellent reason that there is no diary for the period under consideration. Burchard's narrative is interrupted on the death of Innocent VIII, on July 12, and not resumed until December 2, when it is not retrospective.

There is, it is true, the Diarium of Infessura. But that is of no more authority on such a matter than the narrative of Porzio or the letters of Valori.

Lord Acton--in his essay upon this subject--has not been content to rest the imputation of simony upon such grounds as satisfied M. Yriarte. He has realized that the only testimony of any real value in such a case would be the actual evidence of such cardinals as might be willing to bear witness to the attempt to bribe them. And he takes it for granted--as who would not at this time of day, and in view of such positive statements as abound?--that such evidence has been duly collected; thus, he tells us confidently that the charge rests upon the evidence of those cardinals who refused Roderigo's bribes.

That it most certainly does not. If it did there would be an end to the matter, and so much ink would not have been spilled over it; but no single cardinal has left any such evidence as Lord Acton supposes and alleges. It suffices to consider that, according to the only evidences available--the Casanatense Codices(1) and the dispatches of that same Valori(2) whom M. Yriarte so confidently cites, Roderigo Borgia's election was unanimous. Who, then, were these cardinals who refused his bribes? Or are we to suppose that, notwithstanding that refusal--a refusal which we may justifiably suppose to have been a scandalized and righteously indignant one--they still afforded him their votes?

1 "...essendo concordi tutti i cardinali, quasi da contrari voti rivolti tutti in favore di uno solo, crearono lui sommo ponteflce" (Casanatense MSS). See P. Leonetti, Alessandro VI. 2 "Fu pubblicato il Cardinale Vice-Cancelliere in Sommo Pontefice Alessandro VI(to) nuncupato, el quale dopo una lunga contentione fu creato omnium consensum--ne ii manco un solo voto" (Valori's letter to the Otto di Pratica, August 12, 1492). See Supplement to Appendix in E. Thuasne's edition of Burchard's Diarium.

This charge of simony was levelled with the object of making Alexander VI appear singularly heinous. So much has that object engrossed and blinded those inspired by it, that, of itself, it betrays them. Had their horror been honest, had it sprung from true principles, had it been born of any but a desire to befoul and bespatter at all costs Roderigo Borgia, it is not against him that they would have hurled their denunciations, but against the whole College of Cardinals which took part in the sacrilege and which included three future Popes.(1)

1 Cardinals Piccolomini, de'Medici, and Giuliano della Rovere.

a.s.suming not only that there was simony, but that it was on as wholesale a scale as was alleged, and that for gold--coined or in the form of benefices--Roderigo bought the cardinal's votes, what then? He bought them, true. But they--they sold him their sacred trust, their duty to their G.o.d, their priestly honour, their holy vows. For the gold he offered them they bartered these. So much admitted, then surely, in that transaction, those cardinals were the prost.i.tutes! The man who bought so much of them, at least, was on no baser level than were they.

Yet invective singles him out for its one object, and so betrays the aforethought malice of its inspiration.

Our quarrel is with that; with that, and with those writers who have taken Alexander's simony for granted--eagerly almost--for the purpose of heaping odium upon him by making him appear a scandalous exception to the prevailing rule.

If, nevertheless, we hold, as we have said, that simony probably did take place, we do so, not so much upon the inconclusive evidence of the fact, as upon the circ.u.mstance that it had become almost an established custom to purchase the tiara, and that Roderigo Borgia--since his ambition clearly urged him to the Pontificate--would have been an exception had he refrained.

It may seem that to have disputed so long to conclude by admitting so much is no better than a waste of labour. Not so, we hope. Our aim has been to correct the adjustment of the focus and properly to trim the light in which Roderigo Borgia is to be viewed, to the end that you may see him as he was--neither better nor worse--the creature of his times, of his environment, and of the system in which he was reared and trained. Thus shall you also get a clearer view of his son Cesare, when presently he takes the stage more prominently.

During the seventeen days of the interregnum between the death of Innocent and the election of Alexander the wild scenes usual to such seasons had been taking place in Rome; and, notwithstanding the Cardinal-Chamberlain's prompt action in seizing the gates and bridges, and the patrols' endeavours to maintain order, crime was unfettered to such an extent that some 220 murders are computed to have taken place--giving the terrible average of thirteen a day.

It was a very natural epilogue to the lax rule of the lethargic Innocent. One of the first acts of Alexander's reign was to deal summarily with this lawlessness. He put down violence with a hard hand that knew no mercy. He razed to the ground the house of a murderer caught red-handed, and hanged him above the ruins, and so dealt generally that such order came to prevail as had never before been known in Rome.

Infessura tells us how, in the very month of his election, he appointed inspectors of prisons and four commissioners to administer justice, and that he himself gave audience on Tuesdays and settled disputes, concluding, "et just.i.tiam mirabili modo facere coepit."

He paid all salaries promptly--a striking departure, it would seem, from what had been usual under his predecessor--and the effect of his improved and strenuous legislation was shortly seen in the diminished prices of commodities.

He was crowned Pope on August 6, on the steps of the Basilica of St. Peter, by the Cardinal-Archdeacon Piccolomini. The ceremony was celebrated with a splendour worthy of the splendid figure that was its centre. Through the eyes of Michele Ferno--despite his admission that he is unable to convey a worthy notion of the spectacle--you may see the gorgeous procession to the Lateran in which Alexander VI showed himself to the applauding Romans; the mult.i.tude of richly adorned men, gay and festive; the seven hundred priests and prelates, with their familiars the splendid cavalcade of knights and n.o.bles of Rome; the archers and Turkish hors.e.m.e.n, and the Palatine Guard, with its great halberds and flas.h.i.+ng s.h.i.+elds; the twelve white horses, with their golden bridles, led by footmen; and then Alexander himself on a snow-white horse, "serene of brow and of majestic dignity," his hand uplifted--the Fisherman's Ring upon its forefinger--to bless the kneeling populace.

The chronicler flings into superlatives when he comes to praise the personal beauty of the man, his physical vigour and health, "which go to increase the veneration shown him."

Thus in the brilliant suns.h.i.+ne of that Italian August, amid the plaudits of a.s.sembled Rome, amid banners and flowers, music and incense, the flash of steel and the blaze of decorations with the Borgian arms everywhere displayed--or, a grazing steer gules--Alexander VI pa.s.ses to the Vatican, the aim and summit of his vast ambition.

Friends and enemies alike have sung the splendours of that coronation, and the Bull device--as you can imagine--plays a considerable part in those verses, be they paeans or lampoons. The former allude to Borgia as "the Bull," from the majesty and might of the animal that was displayed upon their s.h.i.+eld; the latter render it the subject of much scurrilous invective, to which it lends itself as readily. And thereafter, in almost all verse of their epoch, writers ever say "the Bull" when they mean the Borgia.

CHAPTER IV. BORGIA ALLIANCES