A recent Italian writer, speaking of Ariosto's adulation, says, "However much of it may be looked upon as court flattery, and as due to the poet's obligations to the house of Este, we know that the art of flattery had also its laws and bounds, and that one who ascribed such qualities to a prince who was known to be entirely lacking in them would be regarded as little acquainted with the world and with court manners, for he would cause the person to be publicly ridiculed. In this case the praise would degenerate into satire and the incautious flatterer would fare badly."[203] Flattery has always been the return which court poets make for their slavery. Ariosto and Tasso were no more free from it than were Horace and Virgil. When the poet of the Orlando Furioso discovered that Cardinal Ippolito was beginning to treat him coldly, he thought to strike out everything he had said in his praise. Although it was probably merely the name Lucretia which Ariosto and other poets used—comparing it with the classic ideal of feminine honor—it is, nevertheless, difficult wholly to reject the interpretation of Lucretia's modern advocates, for, even when this comparison was not made, other admirers—Ariosto especially—praised the beautiful duchess for her decorum. This much is certain: her life in Ferrara was regarded as a model of feminine virtue.
There was a young woman in her household who charmed all who came in contact with her until she became the cause of a tragedy at the court. This was the Angela Borgia whom Lucretia had brought with her from Rome, and who had been affianced to Francesco Maria Rovere. It is not known when the betrothal was set aside, although it may have been shortly after Alexander's death. The heir of Urbino married, as has been stated, Eleonora Gonzaga. Among Angela's admirers were two of Alfonso's brothers, who were equally depraved, Cardinal Ippolito and Giulio, a natural son of Ercole. One day when Ippolito was assuring Angela of his devotion, she began to praise the beauty of Giulio's eyes, which so enraged his utterly degenerate rival that he planned a horrible revenge. The cardinal hired assassins and commanded them to seize his brother when he was returning from the hunt, and to tear out the eyes which Donna Angela had found so beautiful. The attempt was made in the presence of the cardinal, but it did not succeed as completely as he had wished. The wounded man was carried to his palace, where the physicians succeeded in saving one of his eyes. This crime, which occurred November 3, 1505,[204] aroused the whole court. The unfortunate Giulio demanded that it be paid in kind, but the duke merely banished the cardinal. The injured man brooded on revenge, and the direst consequences followed.
Ariosto, the wicked cardinal's courtier, fell into difficulties from which he escaped in a way not altogether honorable, which lessens the worth of the praise he bestowed upon Lucretia. He wrote a poem in which he endeavored to clear the murderer by blackening Giulio's character and concealing the motive for the crime. In this same eclogue he poured forth the most ardent praise of Lucretia. He lauded not only her beauty, her good works, and her intellect, but above all her modesty, for which she was famous before coming to Ferrara.[205]
A year later, December 6, 1506, Lucretia married Donna Angela to Count Alessandro Pio of Sassuolo, and by a remarkable coincidence her son Giberto subsequently became the husband of Isabella, a natural daughter of Cardinal Ippolito.
In November, 1505, an event occurred in the Vatican which aroused great interest on the part of Lucretia, and likewise caused her most painful memories. Giulia Farnese, the companion of her unhappy youth, made her appearance there under circumstances which must have overcome her. We know nothing of the life of Alexander's mistress during the years immediately preceding and following his death. She and her husband, Orsini, were living in Castle Bassanello, to which her mother Adriana had also removed. At least Giulia was there in 1504, about which time one of the Orsini committed one of those crimes with which the history of the great families of Italy is filled. Her sister, Girolama Farnese, widow of Puccio Pucci, had entered into a second marriage—this time with Count Giuliano Orsini of Anguillara—and had been murdered by her stepson, Giambattista of Stabbia, because, as it was alleged, she had tried to poison him. Giulia buried her deceased sister in 1504, at Bassanello.
She must have gone to Rome the following year and taken up her abode in the Orsini palace. Her husband was not living, and Adriana may also have been dead, for she was not present at the ceremony in the Vatican in November, 1505, when Giulia, to the great astonishment of all Rome, married her only daughter, Laura, to the nephew of the Pope, Niccolò Rovere, brother of Cardinal Galeotto.
Laura passed among all those who were acquainted with her mother's secrets as the child of Alexander VI and natural sister of the Duchess of Ferrara. When she was only seven years old her mother had betrothed her to Federico, the twelve-year-old son of Raimondo Farnese; this was April 2, 1499. This alliance was subsequently dissolved to enable her to enter into a union as brilliant as her heart could possibly desire.
The consent of Julius II to the betrothal of his nephew with the bastard daughter of Alexander VI is one of the most astonishing facts in the life of this pope. It perhaps marks his reconciliation with the Borgia. He had hated the men of this family while he was hostile to them, but his hatred was not due to any moral feelings. Julius II felt no contempt for Alexander and Cæsar, but, on the other hand, it is more likely that he marveled at their strength as did Macchiavelli. We do not know that he had any personal relations with Lucretia Borgia after he ascended the papal throne, although this certainly would have been probable owing to the position of the house of Este. On one occasion he deeply offended Lucretia when, in reinstating Guglielmo Gaetani in possession of Sermoneta by a bull dated January 24, 1504, he applied the most uncomplimentary epithets to Alexander VI, describing him as a "swindler" who had enriched his own children by plundering others.[206] This especially concerned Lucretia, for she had been mistress of Sermoneta, which had subsequently been given to her son Rodrigo.
Later, after Alfonso ascended the ducal throne, the relations between the Pope and Lucretia must have become more friendly. She kept up a lively correspondence with Giulia Farnese, and doubtless received from her the news of the betrothal of her daughter to a member of the Pope's family.[207]
The betrothal took place in the Vatican, in the presence of Julius II, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, and the mother of the young bride. This was one of the greatest triumphs of Giulia's romantic life—she had overcome the opposition of another pope, and one who had been the enemy of Alexander VI, and the man who had ruined Cæsar. She, the adulteress, who had been branded by the satirists of Rome and of all Italy as mistress of Alexander VI, now appeared in the Vatican as one of the most respectable women of the Roman aristocracy, "the illustrious Donna Giulia de Farnesio," Orsini's widow, for the purpose of betrothing the daughter of Alexander and herself to the Pope's nephew, thereby receiving absolution for the sins of her youth. She was still a beautiful and fascinating woman, and at most not more than thirty years of age.