AN EPISODE.
The caption “episode” is advisedly adopted, inasmuch as we are going to transcribe only one short chapter from a large manuscript of several hundred pages containing “The Life of Sixtus V.”
However, it is to be regretted that such a life is not published. For it would reveal unto us the man, whereas Ranke and Hübner describe only the prince.
Sixtus V. fell into that mistake, which has proved disastrous to many popes, and has afforded a weapon, however silly and easily broken, yet a real weapon to the enemies of the Papacy—nepotism. The charge is exaggerated of course: in fact, what our enemies assert to have been the universal failing of all the popes, the true historian avers to have been the mistake of a few, whereas the examples of heroic detachment from kindred given by the vast majority of the Pontiffs are wonderful. S. Gregory the Great says, “better there should be a scandal than the truth were suppressed”; and surely the church needs no better defence than the truth. For the present purpose, suffice it to quote the Protestant Ranke, who, after a thorough investigation of the subject, gave it as his honest opinion that only three or four popes are really liable to the charge of nepotism. It is pleasant to be able to quote such an opinion of an eminent non-Catholic writer against scores of wilful men, who sharpen their weapons and discharge their shafts, not after honest study and investigation, but merely on the promptings of blind hatred.
Pope Sixtus V. was the second son of Piergentile Peretti of Montalto.
His eldest brother was Prospero, who married Girolama of Tullio Mignucci, and died A.D. 1560, without issue.
Camilla was his only sister. She was led to the altar by Gianbattista Mignucci, brother to Girolama. To an exquisite correctness of judgment, and great generosity of heart, she joined a quick apprehension of the importance of circumstances by which she might find herself suddenly encompassed. The Anonimo of the Capitoline Memoirs says that when Camilla was unexpectedly raised from the obscure life of a contadino’s wife to the rank of a Roman lady, she was not stunned, but felt perfectly at ease, whilst her society was coveted by the choicest circles of the nobility. Cardinal d’Ossat, in his Letters, informs us that she was greatly esteemed and dearly beloved by Louise de Lorraine, queen-dowager of the gifted but perverse Henry III. of France. The works of her munificence and public charity in her native Grottamare are many, and enduring to our day.
Father Felix Peretti had already mounted all the rounds but one of ecclesiastical preferment—the cardinal’s hat was almost within his reach. He was a bishop, and occupied some of the highest offices in the Curia Romana. He thought the time had come to satisfy a long-felt desire—the ennoblement of his family. Hence, in 1562, he called his sister to Rome, having obtained a sovereign’s rescript by which his brother was allowed to change his name, Mignucci, into that of Peretti. On the 17th day of May, 1570, Pius V. raised Mgr. Felix Peretti to the dignity of cardinal. Thenceforward he is more generally known in history as Cardinal Montalto, from the place of his nativity.
Thus, even previous to his brother-in-law’s elevation, Gianbattista Mignucci enters Rome transformed into Peretti, to join his wife and their two children Francis and Mary.
O fallaces cogitationes nostras! The friar hopes his name, made illustrious by himself, will not become extinct; but he is mistaken; if recorded on the tablets of time it will not surely be by a worldly alliance, which is doomed to a dishonored extinction. The church will inscribe the Peretti name and fame on the adamantine records of her immortality.
Verily, if we understand aright the professions of recluses, the Franciscan friar should have done away with his relations for ever; at least, so far as not to allow himself to be blinded by human affection. He should have remembered that he was under no obligation to them, that from his earliest boyhood he had been taken in hand by churchmen, and that only through scientific and moral resources acquired in a friary he had received strength to climb up so high in the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The world is keen in its observations, and Peretti did not escape its strictures, seldom erring when established on principles and facts universally admitted, and moreover sanctioned by divine teaching. And has not the example been set for those who profess the perfection of evangelical counsels of how they should behave towards their kindred?
Be that as it may, Fra Felice paid dearly for his ambition.
His niece, Donna Maria Peretti, was soon married, and a dowry granted her from the revenues of her uncle of three thousand crowns a year. Mary’s children, two boys and two girls, became allied to some of the most distinguished families of Italy, and the plebeian blood of Peretti mingled with that of the simon-pure aristocracy. Out of this issue arose eminent men who did honor to cross and sword. But enough of this branch of the friar’s adoption.
About the time of Mgr. Felix Peretti’s elevation to the cardinalate, his nephew Francesco was wedded to Donna Vittoria Accoramboni of Gubbio, in Umbria, praised by the Gentiluomo, Aquitano (vol. ii., b. vi.), as “a woman of high mind, of great beauty of soul and body.” Her family still exists in Italy, and a lineal descendant occupies important posts in the household of Pius IX.. Her suitors had been many and of princely caste; among the rest Paolo Giordano Orsini, Duke of Bracciano, formerly married to the sister of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Francesco Medici. Paolo, homo ruptus disruptusque, stands charged in history with the murder of this his former wife, the accomplished Isabella, daughter of Cosmo, whom he strangled on the 16th of July, 1576. But Vittoria’s father cut short all suits, and gave her in holy wedlock to Francesco Peretti, nephew of the mysterious cardinal, whose future elevation to the papal throne was held in petto by every discerning Roman.
However, Vittoria’s mother gave her consent reluctantly; for wearing the ducal coronet seemed preferable to being the prospective niece of the sovereign—uccello in tasca è meglio che due in frasca[183] the shrewd Italian lady thought. But whereas Lady Accoramboni forgot that the Orsini family owed their power to Nicholas III. (A.D. 1277-80), an Orsini by birth, who, by the lever of nepotism, had raised an already celebrated family to the highest standing of European nobility, her husband, on the other hand, said to her: “Can’t you see? Vittoria will be the head of a new, powerful family!” Still Lady Accoramboni did not see it, and the loss of the coronet rankled for ever in her breast.
Indeed, in these days when tales of fiction are the almost exclusive reading of the youth of both sexes, an accomplished writer might weave out of the following events a story of stirring interest; not sensational, indeed, but freighted with most salutary lessons.
Vittoria Accoramboni Peretti had three brothers:
Ottavio was, through the recommendation of Cardinal Peretti, nominated by the Duke of Urbino for, and by Gregory XIII. appointed to, the bishopric of Fossombrone. He adorned his see with all the virtues becoming a scholar, a gentleman, a patriot, and a true apostolic prelate.
Giulio became one of the private household of Cardinal Alessandro Sforza, by whom he was held in great favor, and employed as confidential secretary.
Marcello was outlawed for his misdeeds, and a price set on his head. But Cardinal Peretti obtained his pardon; yet leave to return to Rome was not granted to him.
“A wise woman buildeth her house: but the foolish will pull down with her hands that also which is built,” saith the Wise Man. The house of Francesco and Maria Peretti was built, and it was the home of comfort and honor, enclosing within its walls the choicest gifts of the world; and of its brightest ornament, the Lady Vittoria Peretti, it might be said she was the cynosure of Roman society. The evening conversazioni drew the élite of Rome, graced as they were by the presence of the cardinal, who, with his proverbial regularity, would attend them for a definite length of time. His wise sayings, dignity of deportment, and agreeableness of manners, mingled with an independence of character that made him almost redoubtable at the Roman court, enhanced the charm of the family circle. Young prelates prized highly the privilege of being admitted amongst the visitors. The spacious halls of the Villa Negroni were adorned with paintings and statuary, and the noblest specimens of the art of painting; the gardens were reckoned the most tasteful of those of any princely family in Rome. While he was scrupulous in his attention to consistorial meetings, and the affairs of the Curia Romana over which he was appointed, Cardinal Peretti never gave his time to what he would consider frivolous etiquette. His library, his gardens, afforded him all the relaxation he needed; his life was most exemplary and devout. Happy, indeed, was the home built by such hands; but a foolish woman pulled it down!
At the depth of night, not many months after Vittoria had been wedded, a note is hurriedly carried by a chambermaid to Francesco; it had been left at the entry by a well-known friend, and the messenger had left immediately. It was written by Marcello, who at times entered the city under protection of night, or of some leaders of political factions, with which the city swarmed—barons and princes who, under the mild government of Gregory XIII., had everything their own way.
The letter summoned Francesco to repair at once to the Esquiline hill, there to meet some gentlemen on a business the nature whereof could not be entrusted to paper, and admitted of no delay. Hurriedly does the devoted man dress himself, and, his sword under his arm, forces his way through the servants who beseech him to halt, disentangles himself from his wife and mother, who, prostrated before him, cling to his knees, begging of him not to trust himself to the outlawed Marcello. In vain! Preceded by a servant with torch in hand, no sooner had he reached the brow of the Quirinal than the contents of three arquebuses were lodged in his breast; whereupon four men fell upon him, and finished him with their stilettos. “Thus,” says an old historian, “fell a youth whose only crime was to be the husband of a most beautiful woman.” Another chronicler calls Francesco Cale e di gran correttezza di costumi.
The commotion in the family when the ensanguined and ghastly corpse was carried home can easily be imagined. The lamentations of the women and the uproar of the servants awoke the cardinal, who slept in a distant apartment—his palace, the Villa Negrone, as mentioned above, and by that name known to modern tourists, extending from the Esquiline (Santa Maria Maggiore) to the Piazza de’ Termini. It is said that on hearing the dreadful news Montalto fell upon his knees, and prayed God to grant rest to the soul of his nephew, and to himself fortitude, such as became his character and dignity. His presence not only brought, but forced calm on the distracted household. On the next day the Holy Father was to hold a Consistory, and, contrary to the expectation of all, Cardinal Montalto was at his post, as usual, among the first. His colleagues offer their condolence, which he accepts with a resignation almost akin to stoicism. But when he approaches the throne to give his opinion on the matters debated, and the pope, with moist eyes and greatly moved, expresses a heartfelt sympathy in the cardinal’s affliction, pledging his word that the perpetrators shall be visited with summary and condign punishment, Montalto thanks the Pontiff for his kind sympathy, protests that he has already forgiven the murderers, and begs that all proceedings may be stayed, lest the innocent should be punished for the guilty. Having thus disposed of the matter, he proceeds with his wonted calmness to discuss that which was before the Consistory.
Referring to this impassiveness of Peretti, the pope remarked, with an ominous shake of the head, to his nephew, Cardinal San Sisto, “Indeed, Montalto is a great friar!” And those of Peretti’s own times, and subsequent historians, seem to have had an insight of his mind and motives. In the sober language of Ranke, “His character does not appear to have been so guileless as it is occasionally represented. As early as 1574 he is described as learned and prudent, but also crafty and malignant. He was doubtless gifted with remarkable self-control. When his nephew was assassinated, he was himself the person who requested the pope to discontinue the investigation. This quality, which was admired by all, very probably contributed to his election” to the papal throne.
Those among our readers who have resided among Italians, and especially in Rome, need not be told of the tremendous excitement which seized the holy city as it awoke on that dreadful morning. Cardinal Peretti of Montalto became the observed of all observers; nobles and prelates thronged the avenues to his villa to assure him of their loyalty and condolence; very few, indeed, as the world goes, honestly and sincerely; many simply from custom; almost all, however, moved by a motive of curiosity to see how the “Picenian packhorse” bore the great calamity, and, above all, what feelings he would betray towards Paolo Giordano Orsini, to whom the finger of public opinion already pointed as the murderer of Vittoria’s husband. By some manœuvre of the “gossiping committee” the day and the hour on which even Giordano would present himself at the palace became known, and the throng at the drawing-rooms was exceedingly great. When the murderer stood face to face before his victim’s best friend and only avenger, not the least twitch in the cardinal’s nerves, not a falter in the voice, nor the slightest change of color betrayed the conflict in his soul. He received Orsini’s treacherous sympathy as he had received the truest expressions of condolence. Peretti stood there, the prince, not the avenger. Even the accursed soul of Giordano was lost in wonderment; he became embarrassed and disconcerted, and he was reported to have exclaimed as he re-entered his carriage—“Montalto is a great friar; no mistake about it!” (Montalto è un gran frate; chi ne dubita!)
Vittoria had no children. Hence, after the funeral, the cardinal sent her home to her mother, bestowing upon her costly gifts, and giving her the jewels, plate, and precious articles of furniture and apparel, which had been the bridal presents of husband and friends. Ora ti credo, said Pasquino to Marforio, in allusion to Montalto’s forbearance and disinterested magnanimity.
The sequel to this tragedy is so thrilling in interest, so characteristic of the times about which we write, and must have taxed the feelings of the future pope so much, that a succinct account thereof cannot but prove interesting to our readers.
Gregory XIII. urged with energy and perseverance the necessary inquests to ferret out the murderers of Francesco Peretti. But wily old Giordano Orsini (he was on the other side of fifty) knew how to baffle the requisitions of justice, by no means a difficult task in those lawless times. He sent the waiting-maid to Bracciano, to be protected by the feudal immunities of the Orsini castle. Vittoria and her mother were sheltered in Rome in the Orsini palace. The feudal power was still great in those days, and often a franchise was secured to the premises of Roman nobles by foreign princes, to the infinite annoyance of the local sovereign, and often clogging the workings of justice. One Cesare Pallentieri, an outlawed ruffian, was then bribed to write to the governor of Rome avowing himself the plotter of Peretti’s death to revenge himself for personal injuries received at that gentleman’s hands. Nobody believed the story; and the verdict of public opinion was sanctioned when, in February, 1582, Mancino, the bearer of the fatal note, declared, under oath and without compulsion, that the whole plot had been woven by Vittoria’s mother; that the servant-maid had been made privy to it; and moreover revealed the names of two of the emissaries, it being well known in whose pay they bore arms, although he stated no employer’s name.
At this stage of the proceedings Cardinal Montalto, with persevering endeavors with the pope and the interposition of friends, stayed all prosecutions, and on December 13, 1583, obtained from the sovereign pardon for Mancino, who was, however, banished from Rome, and relegated—interned, in modern parlance—to Fermo, his native city, being forbidden to quit it under penalty of death. But it was too evident that there was a trifling with justice, and in the uncertainties between which public opinion seemed to fluctuate, wiser counsels attempted to vindicate the necessity of a just retribution. Hence, at the instance of several cardinals and of the Spanish ambassador, Gregory was prevailed upon to confine Vittoria to the castle Sant’ Angelo, and by a special decree forbade her marrying Paolo Giordano Orsini, unless by a reserved dispensation from himself or his successor, under attaintment of felony. However, after two years of imprisonment she was declared innocent of any share in or knowledge of the plot, and discharged. This happened on the very day of Gregory’s death, April 10, 1585. Still Orsini could not wed her, because of the forbidding clause in the pope’s order. But some accommodating casuist came to the rescue, and averred that the defunct pope’s brief was binding no more. Whereupon the duke hastened, by special couriers on post-horses, to notify the good Bishop of Fossombrone of his intended alliance with Vittoria, and to solicit his gracious consent. Mgr. Ottavio refused his assent decidedly, nor would he allow himself to change his refusal, although Orsini despatched messenger after messenger, anxious, as he was, to accomplish his purpose ere a new pope was elected. But the new pope was elected far sooner than the duke or any one else expected, and in defiance of the express command of the defunct pontiff, and in shameless disregard of the feelings of the new sovereign, the very morning on which Cardinal Peretti, Vittoria’s uncle, was proclaimed, she was wedded to Paolo Orsini, Duke of Bracciano. Rome was bewildered at the announcement; and although no one could guess what the consequences of the rash act might be, or how the pope would show his displeasure, because Fra Felice never made any one the confidant of his thoughts, yet the general impression was that sooner or later the duke would be made to pay dearly for his daring and reckless disregard of the commonest principles of decency.
Rome was on the alert. Duke Orsini is admitted to offer his obeisance to the Pontiff Sixtus V. amid the solemn assembly of cardinals, foreign envoys, and Roman princes and senators; the expression of his liege words, his prostration at the sovereign’s throne, and his courtly homage meet with the simple response of a look from Sixtus. That look gave rise to the most clashing interpretations in the observing minds of the beholders; it was a look of benignity, weighty with authority, crushing with power, such as to subdue at once the haughty and defiant princely ruffian. From that moment Paolo Orsini never raised his head; his day was gone. Within a few days a sovereign decree, worded as only Sixtus V. knew how to pen them, in terms at which no one would dare to cavil, Orsini was forbidden to shelter outlaws. The duke solicited an audience; of what occurred at that meeting no one could ever surmise; but Orsini found no more charm in what he could heretofore call his Rome. Accordingly, within two months after the inauguration of Sixtus’ pontificate, he left the papal city. In sooth, he was an exile, voluntary, as if by courtesy. Great was the bitterness galling Vittoria’s heart, and she was pitied by all—the victim of a mother’s rash ambition, she had to flee that Rome where she could still have reigned the queen of society for her beauty, her great gifts, and close relationship to the sovereign. Donna Camilla reigned in her stead. Nor was this all. The handsome, youthful, accomplished niece of Sixtus was then the slavish, unhappy wife of a cumbrous quinquagenarian prince, covered with loathsome blotches from the sole of his feet to the crown of his head, the penalty of his dissipations; one of his legs so ulcered with cancer that it had swollen to the size of a man’s waist, and had to be kept bandaged (the chronicler says), with slices of some other animal’s meat, that the acrid humor would not eat into his own live flesh—a fretful old debauchee, overbearing, universally loathed for his lecherous habits, hated for his cruelties, and made intractable by a conscience gnawed by despair.
Poor Vittoria! On their way to Salò, near the lake of Garda in Lombardy, her husband, consumed by ulcers and tortures of soul, died suddenly whilst being bled in his arm!
Forlorn Vittoria! the first paroxysm of grief being over, raised a pistol to her head, but it was happily snatched from her in time by her brother Giulio, and she was spared a violent, unprepared, and cowardly death! Thus left alone, unprotected in her beauty and youth, she was at the mercy of Ludovico Orsini, her husband’s cousin, who despised her on account of the great disparity of their birth. Her late husband had indeed bequeathed to her one hundred thousand crowns, besides silver plate, horses, carriages, and jewelry without stint. All this Ludovico coveted, and stepped forward under pretence of protecting the rights of Flaminio Orsini, Giordano’s son by his former wife; but unable to break the will, he summoned one Liverotto Paolucci of Camerino to come to Padua—whither Vittoria had repaired immediately, and, aided by such as he might chose, to murder Vittoria and her brother! The bloody ruffian answered the summons, and entering the princess’ apartment through a window, in the depth of the night, his men fell at first upon Giulio, and into his breast discharged the contents of three muskets. The victim crawled to his sister’s room and crouched under her bed. There he was finished with seventy-three thrusts of white arms, encouraged all the time by Vittoria, anxiously repeating—“Forgive, Giulio; beg God’s mercy, and willingly accept death for his sake.”
It is recorded in the life of her sainted brother, the Bishop of Fossombrone, that, upon the death of the duke, he without delay wrote to his sister, exhorting her to amend her life, and devote herself to works of atonement and piety; for, said he, “your days will not be many.” And we have it from authenticated records of those times that she did truly repent of her worldliness, and, having placed herself under the protection of the Republic of Venice, retired to Padua, where she lived in great retirement, dividing her time between practices of devotion in the church, deeds of charity, and protracted orisons at home. She also begged of the Pope leave to repair to Rome, the asylum of the wretched, and spend the remainder of her life in a convent, for which purpose her generous uncle had signed a remittance of five hundred gold crowns on the very day he received the sad account of her death. Her brother, the bishop, had so strong a presentiment, some say a revelation from above, of the impending catastrophe, that on the 22d of December he ordered special prayers to be offered by the clergy of his diocese in her behalf.
And she did fall a victim to Ludovico’s dagger on the 22d of that month!
After Giulio had breathed his last, bathed in his own blood, Count Paganello, one of Liverotto’s band, took hold of the devoted woman by both arms, and holding her in the kneeling posture in which she had been found at her prayers, bade one of his bravoes to tear open her dress on the right side, whereupon she indignantly protested that she should be allowed to die in her dress, as it became an honest woman and the wife of Giordano Orsini! The brute plunged a stiletto into her bosom, and kept trepanning towards the left side in search of the heart. She offered no resistance, but during the horrid butchery of her form she ceased not repeating, “I pardon you, even as I beg of God to forgive me.… Jesus!… Jesus!… Mercy and forgiveness!” And with these words of forgiveness dying on her lips she fell lifeless on the floor.
Thus ended, by a cruel death, yet heroically met, one of the most remarkable women of her time—a woman renowned for her admirable beauty, talents, and misguided ambition. Having been the pet of European society, she died almost an outlaw; the niece of Pope Sixtus V., she died without a home of her own; a lamentable instance of the ignominious end awaiting those who have been endowed by a kind Providence with the noblest of gifts, but have made a wrong use of them.