Tired of such inglorious marauding, and aware how much delays might tell against eventual success, Guidobaldo, although suffering from a gunshot wound, pushed on operations to the utmost, but was met by a most obstinate resistance, until affairs suddenly assumed an entirely new aspect. Virginio, head of the Bracciano Orsini, his eldest son Gian-Giordano, and cousin Paolo, were still captives at Naples; but his natural son Carlo had repaired to the court of Charles VIII. to crave assistance. There he found Vitellozzo Vitelli, on a similar mission in behalf of his brother Paolo, who, having been suspected by the Florentines of perfidy while in their service against Pisa, had been arrested by them, and who was subsequently tortured and put to death upon this charge. They easily obtained from that King a subsidy to be employed for advantage of the French party in Italy, and, hastening back, devoted it to the relief of Bracciano. The two Vitelli were chiefs of a family whose [pedigree] is annexed, and who long held Città di Castello in seigneury, greatly distinguished among the military adventurers of the south. These brothers had paid especial attention to training their hardy mountaineers in the art of war, with all those improvements which the ultra-montane troops had recently introduced. Vitellozzo, hurrying to the upper valley of the Tiber, quickly recruited his old followers, whilst Carlo levied men about Perugia and Todi. Guidobaldo with difficulty persuaded his coadjutors to anticipate the attack thus preparing for them, by marching towards Viterbo in quest of the enemy. In the action which followed, on the 23rd of January, the ecclesiastical troops, though inferior in numbers, had at first some advantage, but the unskilful management of their artillery turned the day, and they were in the end totally routed, with loss of it and their baggage. Guidobaldo, having been surrounded, fought with the utmost bravery, until his horse fell under him, when he was taken prisoner by Battista Tosi, a Roman knight. In this reverse the Colonna and Savelli shared deeply, their ancient hatred of the Orsini having blinded them to the danger which they, in turn, equally incurred from the selfish designs of the Pope. The latter was filled with consternation, and would have brought the whole force of Naples into the field. But his impetuous energy, being neither based on principle nor maintained with perseverance, was quickly discouraged by the coldness of Federigo, who had no inclination to consume his already dilapidated resources in ministering to the Pontiff's schemes of nepotism. The higher range to which these projects were perhaps already aspiring may have conduced to the arrangement by which his quarrel with the Orsini was patched up, gilded as it was by the to him irresistible bait of 70,000 ducats towards the expenses of the war.
The Duke of Urbino was committed to ward in Soriano, a castle of the Orsini, near which his defeat had occurred, and the whole influence of his family and numerous friends was exerted for his liberation under the truce which ensued. With this view Dr. Marino Giorgi, envoy from Venice to Naples, was instructed by the Signory to make a detour to Urbino, in order in their name to console the Duchess, and then to Soriano and Bracciano, for the purpose of negotiating her husband's release.[258] But their interposition was fruitless, as he was specially excluded from the free interchange of prisoners, and held to ransom for 40,000 ducats, without which timely aid the Orsini would have been unable to discharge the contribution imposed on them for the costs of the war. Alexander having, without scruple, left a faithful vassal and ally in his enemy's hands, had no delicacy in thus pocketing from his captors the sum which this cruel abandonment cost Guidobaldo. So large an amount was not, however, raised without difficulty from the sale of jewels, and other heavy sacrifices by the Duchess, and several of his subjects, which they did not hesitate to incur. It may perhaps have been modified to 30,000 ducats, that being the sum mentioned by Sanuto as paid for his liberation.[259] At Gubbio he was warmly welcomed by his consort and people, and during more than a year he enjoyed at home the blessings and leisure of peace, "after having suffered much and most unfairly."
[CHAPTER XVI]
The crimes and ambition of the Borgia—Murder of the Duke of Gandia—Duke Guidobaldo’s expeditions against Perugia and Tuscany—He adopts Francesco Maria della Rovere as his heir—Louis XII. succeeds to Charles VIII., and to his views upon Italy—Cesare Borgia created Duke Valentino—Duke Guidobaldo at Venice.
TIME was meanwhile maturing the crimes of the Borgia, whose sinister influence upon the destiny of Guidobaldo was about to be signally manifested. So far from regarding his spurious progeny with shame, Alexander was indefatigable in his endeavours to elevate them to the most conspicuous places. He had obtained for the eldest the dukedom of Gandia in Spain, and one of the highest offices at Naples. For the youngest he had secured, by political intrigue, a similar dignity there, with the principality of Squillace, and the hand of an illegitimate daughter of Alfonso II. He had loaded Cesare with ecclesiastical benefices, and had remarried Lucrezia to the sovereign of Pesaro. But his ambition became insatiable in proportion as it was pampered. Upon a vague pretext he annulled his daughter's marriage, that he might give her hand to the Duke of Bisceglia, natural son of Alfonso. His schemes for endowing his sons with the Orsini holdings having entirely miscarried, he resolved to provide for the Duke of Gandia a sovereign principality from the states of the Church, consisting of Benevento and Terracino. Having gained a complete co-operation in the consistory, by frightening into exile or removing by poison the more impracticable cardinals, and by overawing or corrupting the others, he, on the 7th of June, invested the Duke with these towns with due solemnity. Three days previously, Lucrezia had retired to the convent of S. Sisto, to prepare for the formal rupture of her marriage with Giovanni Sforza, whose murder would have anticipated the divorce, had not a hint from her enabled him to save his life by flight, insalutato hospite, as Machiavelli remarks.[260] On the 9th, Cardinal Valentino received his credentials as legate for the coronation of Frederick of Naples. On Thursday, the 15th, he set out on his mission, after spending the preceding afternoon at a casino of his mother, near S. Pietro in Vinculis, where all the family except the sister were assembled in apparent harmony. He quitted it in company with his eldest brother, who was never again seen in life, and having visited his father at a late hour to receive a benediction, he left Rome before dawn. When an alarm was raised on the Duke of Gandia's disappearance, a boatman deposed to having seen, about one o'clock on Thursday morning, a body thrown neck and heels into the Tiber, at the present port of the Ripetta, by four attendants of a mounted gentleman, who had brought it to the bank swung across his horse. The river was dragged, and the Duke's body was found pierced with wounds. He was said to have spent the preceding hours with a lady in whose favours the Cardinal was his avowed rival. Public opinion, though distracted by conflicting rumours, branded the latter with fratricide, and scandal gave to that charge a still more loathsome dye, by naming the lady Lucrezia Borgia. History has received the former accusation as established, the latter as uncontradicted, adducing against its truth no better argument than its revolting improbability. It is, however, but just to pause ere we lend our faith to charges so hideous. Burchard, though greedy of gossip, and seldom scrupulous in exposing the Vatican immoralities, mentions no fact, breathes no hint, tending to inculpate Cesare. Neither do contemporary accounts from residents in the Holy City, preserved by Sanuto, attach any such foul slur to his name, but chiefly mention Cardinal Ascanio Sforza as then suspected of the murder.[261] They even prove that, four days after it took place, the latter thought it necessary to rebut the allegation by the mouth of the Spanish ambassador, in a full consistory, from which he alone was absent. But this negation does not appear to have quashed a surmise which gathered strength by scenting out motives for the outrage. By some, Ascanio was regarded as an unscrupulous instrument of the Orsini in their vengeance against the Pontiff's family; others traced his evil purpose to a recent feud between the Duke of Gandia and some guests at an entertainment given by him, where mutual insults had led to bloody reprisals, imputed to the implacable Borgia. Again, we are told by Burchard that the victim was last seen in company with a masked figure, who had been observed to follow him during several days, and whom he that night took up on the crupper of his horse, probably to keep an assignation; a statement easily reconcileable with the bargeman's evidence, and pointing probably to some dark intrigue, whereto it does not appear that his brother was necessarily privy.
Anderson