Siena now “felt the Hydra’s fiery breath.” “This Signore,” wrote Machiavelli of Cesare to the Signoria of Florence from Gualdo on January 6th, “is leaving here to-morrow with his army and is going to Assisi, and thence he will advance upon Siena to make of that city a state to his own liking.” At Assisi the Sienese ambassadors met him. Cesare assured them that he had no quarrel with the Republic, but was at war only with his inimico capitale, Pandolfo. Let them send him away and there would be peace. Otherwise he would come with his army, “impelled by necessity and by a reasonable indignation against the man who, not content with tyrannising over one of the first cities of Italy, wished also by ruining others to be able to impose laws upon all his neighbours.” Machiavelli thought Pandolfo’s position fairly strong, seeing that he was “a man of much prudence in a state held by him with great reputation, and without having external or internal enemies of real importance, since he has either killed them or reconciled them, and with a large force of good troops, if Giampaolo has taken refuge with him, as they say, and not without money.” The Balìa sent to assure the Duke that he was mistaken about Pandolfo, who was no tyrant but had always conducted himself as “a most modest citizen,” and to remind him that Siena was under the protection of France. “The master of the shop, who is the King of France,” quoth Cesare with pleasing frankness to Machiavelli, “would not be content that I should take Siena for myself, nor am I so daring that I should think of such a thing. That community should trust me; I want nothing of theirs, but only to drive away Pandolfo. And I would have thy Government bear witness to and publish this intention of mine, which is only to assure myself of this tyrant. I believe that that community of Siena will believe me; but in case it should not, I shall march on and plant my artillery at the gates.” Pandolfo, he said, had been the cervello, the brain of the whole conspiracy against him. He confidently appealed to the Florentines for help in the business, “for as long as Pandolfo is in Siena, it will always be a refuge and a support for all your enemies.”[54]
The Sienese prepared for defence, while messenger after messenger was sent to stay the Borgia’s advance. At first all orders seemed united to defend Pandolfo, “with such love and charity,” wrote the Balìa, “as has never been shown in any other occurrence in this city.” The mob shouted lustily for “Lupa, Libertà e Pandolfo.” But Cesare came nearer and nearer, sending an ultimatum before him, bidding the Sienese expel Pandolfo, dismiss Giampaolo Baglioni and his men, and surrender their artillery. Then the hearts of the Sienese began to sink; there were countrymen of theirs in the hostile camp, and Leonardo Bellanti was vigorously fanning the flames among the citizens. Pandolfo sent his children to a place of safety. At length, on January 24th, the Balìa, in Pandolfo’s presence, decreed his exile, and appointed six citizens to come to an agreement with Cesare. But already the people had risen in tumult at the sight of the two Borgian envoys and the rumoured approach of his cavalry, and Pandolfo still lingered. Then there came another letter from Cesare from Pienza: “We swear to God that if, in whatever hour you shall receive these presents, you shall not have already expelled, or shall not immediately without further delay expel the said Pandolfo, we shall reckon every one of you in the place of Pandolfo. And without any intermission we shall move to the total extermination of all your towns, subjects, and goods, and of your city and of your own persons. Since you choose to be our enemies, you shall remain beaten down and crushed in such wise that never again shall you be able to offend us.”[55] This settled it. On the evening of January 28th, Pandolfo and Giampaolo took a solemn farewell of the government and left Siena. As the Magnifico rode from the Palazzo his adherents crowded round him, weeping and profuse in their anticipations of his speedy return. But a woman shrieked at him from a window: “Crucify him! crucify the traitor!” It was the mother of a certain Ildebrando Cerretani, who had been secretly murdered at Pandolfo’s bidding. He made his way in disguise to Lucca, closely pursued by a band of Borgia’s light-armed cavalry, who (in spite of Cesare’s safe conduct to Pandolfo) had orders to cut both him and Giampaolo to pieces.
In the meanwhile Leonardo Bellanti, Andrea Piccolomini, Lorenzo Beccafumi, and three other delegates were making terms for Siena with Cesare. But the Pope called the Duke back to suppress the rising of the Roman barons, and the intervention of the King of France protected Siena from further molestation. To the demands of the King addressed to the Balìa for the recall of Pandolfo, an evasive answer was returned, and the Pope was assured that the Sienese did not want him back. Pandolfo, however, had gained over the Florentines by undertaking to restore Montepulciano, and he suddenly appeared with armed men at Poggibonsi. On March 29th, the Balìa decreed his recall and restitution into the Collegio; but they implored him not to bring Giampaolo Baglioni with him, and to be content with a modest return with a small company, so that he could “enjoy his sweet native land in peace with the others, as is the common desire of all the citizens.” Nevertheless, on the same day, Pandolfo entered Siena in triumph accompanied by the French ambassadors, with Giampaolo Baglioni and his cavalry, and the condottiere Pochintesta da Bagnacavallo with a large force of infantry. “And so,” he wrote to the Florentines, “by the gift of God, accompanied by the orators of the Most Christian King, and with a great multitude of the citizens and Sienese nobles, peacefully and without tumult or any disturbance, have I entered my sweet native land.”[56]
Alexander VI. died in the following August, and was succeeded by the Cardinal Francesco Piccolomini, who took the title of Pius III. in the memory of his uncle. Andrea Piccolomini had left Siena on Pandolfo’s return, and the new Pope was probably not well disposed to the re-establishment of this despotism in his native city. But his pontificate only lasted twenty-six days—he was broken down already with age and ill-health; and Pandolfo managed to establish friendly relations with his successor, Julius II. Like his uncle, Pius III. has left his mark upon Siena, and we shall return to him in the Duomo.
Henceforth Pandolfo was practically undisputed lord of Siena and her dominion, though he never succeeded in getting the longed-for imperial investiture. The citizens appear to have acquiesced in his supremacy. The Balìa was in his hands; he disposed of the moneys of the State, and appears to have been allowed to sell certain magistracies and offices to his own profit. Ambassadors were sent to him and not to the Republic, and business was transacted by the “Magnificent Pandolfo Petrucci, Sienese Patrician, in the stead and in the name of the Magnificent Commune of Siena.” He meddled in all the political intrigues of the early Cinquecento, with a considerable amount of success. “In the midst of the new complications which now arose,” writes Professor Villari, “he shaped his course with the greatest wariness, and whilst he made a show of friendship towards Florence, from which he could certainly receive much damage, he strove also to draw near to her enemies, seeing that the bad fortune of France was augmenting their power and ever rendering the friends of Spain more potent.”[57] He secretly assisted Pisa against Florence in 1505, when Bartolommeo Alviano assailed the territory of the latter Republic, and this was the occasion of the second legation of Machiavelli to Siena in the July of that year.[58] Machiavelli found Pandolfo a hard problem: “I can hardly judge,” he wrote to the Signoria, “whether he should be believed or not, because here I have seen no sign whereby I can make a better conjecture than can your Lordships.” And he talked all day with Antonio da Venafro, without getting anything out of him.
There was a last conspiracy against Pandolfo’s life in 1508. He had promised his daughter Sulpizia to Giulio, one of the sons of Leonardo Bellanti, but married her to Sigismondo Chigi instead. Induced by this slight and the desire of avenging Luzio, Leonardo and his sons with a force of armed men lay in wait for Pandolfo, on his way to visit their own kinsman, Petrino Bellanti, who lay sick. A boy that they had set to watch gave the alarm too soon, and the Magnifico escaped. The Bellanti at once fled through the Porta Camollia to Florence. They were summoned to appear before the Balìa within three days, declared rebels, and their goods confiscated.
Pandolfo had now assumed the pomp and state of a petty prince. He walked through the streets and squares followed by a cortège of Noveschi and Gentiluomini, while his splendid new palace near the Duomo seemed destined to play the part in the story of Siena that the Palazzo Riccardi was doing in that of Florence. He made and unmade marriages at his pleasure. He separated Mariana Vignoli from her husband, and shut her up in a convent, while he compelled Vittoria Piccolomini, the daughter of the late Andrea, to become the wife of his own son Borghese. The sumptuary laws of Siena touching the jewels and dresses of ladies were abrogated in favour of the women of his family,[59] who are said to have taken full advantage of this dispensation. He obtained possession for himself of various castles and palaces in the contado, while by humouring the nobles, giving the public funds and offices to his friends, finding work for artisans and food for the poor, he contrived to keep all classes more or less content. “How does the Magnifico rule the Sienese?” asked one of the Popes of Antonio da Venafro. “With lies, Holy Father,” answered the astute secretary. But Luzio Bellanti and Niccolò Borghesi were not alone in declining to give credit to these bugie, and Pandolfo is said to have murdered some sixty persons in the course of his reign. The more insignificant of these were thrown into oubliettes or disused burial vaults, and left there to starve.
In 1511, Pope Julius created Pandolfo’s second son Alfonso a Cardinal. In the same year peace was finally made with Florence, and a confederation established between the two Republics, Montepulciano being restored and the prepotency of the Petrucci assured. The star of France being on the wane in Italy, Pandolfo was now looking to Spain. His last political act was to intervene for harmony between the Pope and Florence. Gradually he was losing hold of things, absorbed in a vulgar, senile passion for a certain Caterina, whom the Sienese called “the two-handed sword,” the young wife of an artisan in the Via di Salicotto. In February 1512, he obtained from the Balìa that his son Borghese should take his place in the Collegio, and in all other magistracies in his absence. On May 21st he died at San Quirico. All the shops were closed when his body was brought to the city; there was a state funeral in the Duomo, after which it was carried in procession to San Francesco, and thence quietly conveyed by the friars to the Osservanza. Machiavelli, who came with the condolences of the Republic of Florence, ranks Pandolfo in the second class of despots. He was undoubtedly not among the worst tyrants of the epoch. Especially after his return from his brief exile, his rule was beneficial to Siena, in that he secured for the State a comparatively long period of respite from internal factions and of external peace.
Pandolfo, writes an anonymous chronicler, at his death left Borghese his son with the same authority, but not with the same prudence. The machinations of Antonio da Venafro secured his peaceful accession to his father’s dignities, and an increased force of mercenaries was hired under the command of Orazio Baglioni—Borghese’s prospective brother-in-law. But the young man was utterly without his father’s abilities, luxurious and dissolute, as well as cowardly and arrogant. So superstitious was he that, at the advice of a Jew astrologer, he always wore a bracelet with certain mysterious signs that should infallibly protect him from all possible enemies. For some time he tried the Medicean policy of dazzling the populace with festivities and spectacular displays, while the Cardinal Alfonso amassed riches at Rome, and plunged into the intrigues at the court of Leo X., which the papal executioners cut short a few years later. While the brutalities of Borghese’s favourite, the condottiere Pochintesta, disgusted and exasperated the Sienese, there was another Petrucci—Raffaello di Giacoppo, Bishop of Grosseto and governor of the Castle of Sant’Angelo—high in favour with the Pope and biding his time, in touch with the Bellanti, Petroni, Tancredi, and other families that hated Borghese. In December 1515, Borghese dismissed Antonio da Venafro. “I go, Magnificence,” said the old secretary, “but only to take rooms for you.” In the following March, with aid from Pope Leo X. and Florence, Raffaello Petrucci appeared in Sienese territory at the head of a force of mercenaries, accompanied by Leonardo Bellanti and other exiles, and Borghese with his young brother Fabio ignominiously fled from the city, leaving his wife and little daughters behind him.
Raffaello Petrucci entered Siena in triumph through the Porta Romana on March 10th, 1516, harangued the Signoria—his words being few and inelegant, says Pecci, because he was ignorant and more disposed to arms than to letters—and was then conveyed in state to his father’s palace, which occupied the site of the present Palazzo Reale. The creation of the new Balìa was put into his hands, the exiles were restored to their honours, Borghese and Fabio declared rebels. A league—but with reservation of the imperial rights over the city of Siena and its state—was concluded with the younger Lorenzo de’ Medici and the Pope, who was desirous, says Guicciardini, “that that city, being placed between the States of the Church and of the Florentines, should be governed by a man in his confidence, and perchance all the more because he hoped, when the opportunity of times should