Here it should be noted that Lucretia's accusers and their charges can refer only to the Roman period of her life, while her admirers appear only in the second epoch, when she was Duchess of Ferrara. Among the latter are men who are no less famous than her accusers: Tito and Ercole Strozzi, Bembo, Aldo Manuzio, Tebaldeo, Ariosto, all the chroniclers of Ferrara, and the French biographer Bayard. All these bore witness to the uprightness of her life while in Ferrara, but of her career in Rome they knew nothing. Lucretia's advocate, therefore, can offer only negative proofs of her virtue. Even making allowance for the courtier's flattery, we are warranted in assuming that upright men like Aldo, Bembo, and Ariosto could never have been so shameless as to pronounce a woman the ideal character of her day if they had believed her guilty, or even capable, of the hideous crimes with which she had been charged only a short time before.
Among Lucretia's accusers only those who were actual witnesses of her life in Rome are worthy of attention; and Guicciardini, her bitterest enemy, is not of this number. The verdicts of all later writers, however, have been based upon his opinion of Lucretia, because of his fame as a statesman and historian. He himself made up his estimate from current gossip or from the satires of Pontanus and Sannazzaro—two poets who lived in Naples and not in Rome. Their epigrams merely show that they were inspired by a deep-seated hatred of Alexander and Cæsar, who had wrought the overthrow of the Aragonese dynasty, and further with what crimes men were ready to credit evil-doers.
The words of Burchard, who was a daily witness of everything that occurred in the Vatican, must be considered as of much greater weight. Against him in particular has the spleen of the papists been directed, for by them his writings are regarded as the poisonous source from which the enemies of the papacy, especially the Protestants, have derived material for their slanders regarding Alexander VI. Their anger may readily be explained, for Burchard's diary is the only work written in Rome—with the exception of that of Infessura, which breaks off abruptly at the beginning of 1494—which treats of Alexander's court; moreover, it possesses an official character. Those, however, who attempt to palliate the doings of the papacy would feel less hatred for Burchard if they were acquainted with the reports of the Venetian envoys and the despatches of innumerable other ambassadors which have been used in this work.
Burchard is absolutely free from malice, making no mention whatever of Alexander's private conduct. He records only facts—never rumors—and these he glosses over or cloaks diplomatically. The Venetian ambassador Polo Capello reports how Cæsar Borgia stabbed the chamberlain Perotto through the Pope's robe, but Burchard makes no mention of the fact. The same ambassador explicitly states, as does also a Ferrarese agent, that Cæsar killed his brother Gandia; Burchard, however, utters not a word concerning the subject.[96] Nor does he say anything about the way Cæsar despatched his brother-in-law Alfonso. The relations of the members of the Borgia family to each other and to strangers, such as the Farnese, the Pucci, and the Orsini; the intrigues at the papal court; the long series of crimes; the extortion of money; the selling of the cardinal's hat; and all the other enormities which fill the despatches of the ambassadors—regarding all this Burchard is silent. Even Vannozza he names but once, and then incorrectly. There are two passages in particular in his diary which have given the greatest offense: the report of the bacchanal of fifty harlots in the Vatican, and the attack made on the Borgias in the anonymous letter to Silvio Savelli. These passages are found in all the manuscripts and doubtless also in the original of the diary. That the letter to Silvio is a fabrication of neither Burchard nor of some malicious Protestant is proved by the fact that Marino Sanuto also reproduces it in his diary. Further, that neither Burchard nor any subsequent writer concocted the story of the Vatican bacchanal is proved by the same letter, whose author relates it as a well-known fact. Matarazzo of Perugia also confirms it; his account differs from that of Burchard, whose handwriting he could hardly have seen at that time, but it agrees with reports which he himself had heard. He remarks that he gave it full credence, "for the thing was known far and wide, and because my informants were not Romans merely, but were the Italian people, therefore have I mentioned it."
This remark indicates the source of the scandalous anecdote—it was common talk. It doubtless was based upon an actual banquet which Cæsar gave in his palace in the Vatican. Some such orgy may have taken place there, but who will believe that Lucretia, now the legally recognized bride of Alfonso d'Este and about to set out for Ferrara, was an amused spectator of it?
This is the only passage in Burchard's diary where Lucretia appears in an unfavorable light; nowhere else has he recorded anything discreditable to her. The accusations of the Neopolitans and of Guicciardini are not substantiated by anything in his diary. In fact we find corroboration nowhere unless we regard Matarazzo as an authority, which he certainly was not. He states that Giovanni Sforza had discovered that criminal relations existed between his wife and Cæsar and Don Giovanni, to which a still more terrible suspicion was added. Sforza, therefore, had murdered Gandia and fled from Rome, and in consequence Alexander had dissolved his marriage. Setting aside the monstrous idea that the young woman was guilty at one and the same time of threefold incest, Matarazzo's account contains an anachronism: Sforza left Rome two months before the murder of Gandia.
An authentic despatch of the Ferrarese ambassador in Milan, dated June 23, 1497, makes it clear that Lucretia's worthless consort was the one who started these rumors about her. Certainly no one could have known Lucretia's character and mode of life better than her husband. Nevertheless Sforza, before the tribunals of every age, would be precisely the one whose testimony would receive the least credit. Consuming with hate and a desire for revenge, this was the reason he ascribed to the evil-minded Pope for dissolving the marriage. Thus the suspicion he let drop became a rumor, and the rumor ultimately crystallized into a belief. In this connection, however, it is worthy of note that Guido Posthumus, Sforza's faithful retainer, who in epigrams revenged himself on Alexander for his master's disgrace, neither mentions this suspicion nor anywhere refers to Lucretia.[97]
In none of the numerous despatches of the day is this suspicion mentioned, although in a private letter of Malipiero's, dated Rome, June 17, 1497, and in one of Polo Capello's reports, allusion is made to the "rumor" regarding the criminal relations of Don Giovanni and his sister.[98] Could the fact that Lucretia never engaged in any love intrigue—at least she is not charged with having done so—with anyone else, when there were in Rome so many courtiers, young nobles, and great cardinals who were her daily companions, have given rise to these reports? It is a fact that nothing has been discovered which would indicate that this beautiful young woman ever did engage in any love affair. Even the report of the ambassador, who, writing to Ferrara, not from Rome but from Venice, states that Lucretia had given birth to a child stands alone. She had at that time been separated from her husband Sforza a whole year. But even if we admit that this rumor was well founded, and that Lucretia did engage in some illicit love affair, are not these relations and slips frequent enough in all societies and at all times? Even now nothing is more readily glossed over in the polite world.
It is difficult to believe that Lucretia, in the midst of the depravity of Rome, and in the environment in which she was placed, could have kept herself spotless; but just as little will any unprejudiced person believe that she was really guilty of that unmentionable crime. If it were possible to conceive that a young woman could have the strength—a strength beyond that of the most depraved and hardened man—to hide behind a joyous exterior the moral perturbation which the most loathsome crime in the world would certainly cause the subject, we should be forced to admit that Lucretia Borgia possessed a power of dissimulation which passed all human bounds. Nothing, however, charmed the Ferrarese so much as the never failing, graceful joyousness of Alfonso's young wife. Any woman of feeling can decide correctly whether—if Lucretia were guilty of the crimes with which she was charged—she could have appeared as she did, and whether the countenance which we behold in the portrait of the bride of Alfonso d'Este in 1502 could be the face of the inhuman fury described in Sannazzaro's epigram.