CESARE BORGIA AS THE EMPEROR
Detail from the fresco of the Disputa of S. Catherine in the Appartamento Borgia in the Vatican
Although the Duke of Gandia's morals will bear no examination, he was a general favourite in Rome. To a people fond of pageantry the taste of his family for splendour was naturally grateful, and he, alone, of the race, mingled neither tyranny nor cruelty with his magnificence. The bargeman of the Ripetta had manifested neither surprise nor curiosity regarding an incident which he stated to be of frequent occurrence at that spot; but when the victim was ascertained, the whole city was moved; the tradespeople closed their shops,[*262] and all retired panic-stricken to their homes. The few stragglers who crossed the bridge near to which the mutilated body had been found, started at the cry of many sorrowing voices which issued from St. Angelo, and one deep-toned note of woe, which rose above the wailing, was imputed to the Pontiff, "lamenting him who was his right eye, the hope and glory of his house." His grief and horror were indeed overwhelming: we are assured that he swallowed nothing from Wednesday till Saturday, and passed three successive nights without an hour of sleep. On the 19th he held a consistory, to receive the condolence of the cardinals and foreign ministers, whom he addressed to the following purpose[263]:—
"The Duke of Gandia is dead, and his death has been to us the greatest affliction: a more grievous trial we could not have met with, for we loved him mightily, and we no longer value our popedom nor anything; nay, had we seven popedoms, we should give them all to recover the Duke's life. It is rather a visitation from God, sent, perhaps, for some sin of ours, than that he should have merited a death so dreadful. It being unknown by whom he was murdered and thrown into the Tiber, rumour has ascribed the assassination to the Lord of Pesaro, which we are certain is untrue; no more can it have been done by the Prince of Squillace, brother of the Duke; and we are even satisfied as to the Duke of Urbino: may God forgive who ever it was! We have, however, determined no longer to apply to anything, nor take any charge of the papacy, nor of life itself, nor any thought for the Church; but in order to regulate it and our mode of life, and for the due correction of our own person, we mean to commit these to six of you, most reverend cardinals our brethren, along with two judges of the Rota; and in order that all benefices may be bestowed by merit, apart from any other consideration, they shall be decided by a majority of you cardinals." After naming this executive council, and hearing a justification of Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, volunteered in his absence by the Spanish ambassador, the Pope continued:—"God forbid that we should entertain such a fancy, for never could we credit that his Lordship would do us the smallest injury, least of all an outrage such as this; for we have regarded him as a brother, and have on every occasion placed ourselves at the disposal of himself and of the Duke his brother: assuredly we harbour not the trace of such an idea, and when he comes to us he will be welcome."
It was, indeed, high time that the scandals brought upon the Church by the enormities of her head should terminate. Alexander had for some time been openly living with a sister of Cardinal Farnese, wife of Monoculo Orsini, who was known as Giulia Bella; and who, after appearing prominently by his side on all public and solemn occasions, had lately borne him a son.[264] But even now he realised the scriptural proverb of "the dog turned to his own vomit again, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire." The remorse and repentance he had avowed, in full consistory, with sobs and tears, were quickly forgotten; the public reforms he had promised were repudiated; the administrative council he had formally nominated was never assembled nor installed. Nepotism and intrigue again became his policy, debauchery his pastime. Those who charge the Cardinal Valentino with his brother's murder, may point to the exclamation, "I know who did it," which was said to have escaped from their father in the first outbreak of his grief; and it has been by some connected with the alleged institution of Giovanni, their next brother, to the titles and inheritance of the Duke of Gandia, passing over the suspected fratricide. This, however, is an entirely erroneous assumption, as there not only appears no brother of the Duke of Gandia bearing his honours, but the invaluable diary of Sanuto expressly mentions an investiture of the Neapolitan fiefs obtained for his son within a few weeks of his death.[265] The Pontiff's displeasure with Cesare, from whatever cause originating, was transient as his personal reformation. His schemes of aggrandisement could not be pursued without the co-operation of him who, alone of his children, was as ambitious and as unscrupulous as himself, and the close of the year brought Valentino an addition to his already enormous plurality of benefices, upon the death of the Cardinal of Parma.
Valentino had endeavoured, by the imposing splendour of his legation to Naples, and by scattering immoderate largesses, to dazzle, and if possible blind, men to the Cain-brand that was upon him. But when he developed a new scheme of aggrandisement, by proffering to a daughter of Federigo a hand which his unscrupulous father was ready to liberate from priestly vows, the King and the Princess alike recoiled from an offer tainted by sacrilege and fratricide. We have seen that a similar refusal by Ferdinand I. was a principal cause for Charles VIII. being invited into Italy. Unwarned by that result of a wretched policy, the Pontiff prepared to repeat it in circumstances still more fatal to the Peninsula. Cesare Borgia returned from his legation on the 5th of September, and was received with every mark of honour and favour by his father, who appeared to have dismissed the Duke of Gandia's very existence from his mind. The pontifical court was once more a scene of alternate dissipation and crime, and the Cardinal of Valencia was the moving spirit of both. In December, Lucrezia's divorce was pronounced, and her dowry of 31,000 ducats returned; next August she became wife of Alfonso Duke of Bisceglia, with an augmented provision of 40,000 ducats, he being then seventeen years of age.
In the following summer, the Duke of Urbino was induced to unite with the Prefect della Rovere in an expedition against Perugia, for the purpose of restoring the Oddi, who, as heads of the Ghibellines, had been expelled from thence by their rivals, the Guelphic Baglioni.[*266] But from this enterprise the Pope speedily recalled him by a remonstrance, which with wonted devotion he hastened to obey, stipulating, however, for indemnity of the expenses he had incurred, amounting to 5000 scudi. About the same time he lost his relation and counsellor Ottaviano Ubaldini, Count of Mercatello, who died at an advanced age.
The services of Guidobaldo were speedily required in another quarter; and by one of those sudden changes, not unusual to soldiers of fortune, he found himself comrade of his late opponents, the Orsini and Baglioni.[*267] The occasion was the recommencement of the Pisan war, when the fickle usurper of Milan joined the Florentines in their attempts to reduce that city to its former obedience; a combination which, arousing the jealousy of Venice, induced her to adopt the cause of Pisa. Pietro de' Medici and his brother Giuliano availed themselves of this opportunity to make another effort for their re-establishment in that capital. They offered to support an invasion of Tuscany, with all the aid which their own credit and the Orsini influence could bring into the field; and the maritime republic, accepting the proposal, took into their pay, besides the Baglioni of Perugia, the Duke of Urbino with two hundred men-at-arms, and a hundred light horse, for which they allowed him 20,000 scudi a year.[268] Having gained over one of the Malatesta, owner of a small fief in the passes above Sarsina, the confederates sent forward Bartolomeo d'Alviano, who, penetrating the mountain paths about Camaldoli, entered Tuscany and seized Bibbiena, in the upper Val d'Arno, ere the Florentines were aware of the incursion. Guidobaldo followed with a strong body of men, and, finding the season vigorous, went into winter quarters in that and the adjoining towns. The enemy was led by Paulo Vitelli, whose judicious arrangements and great activity, having closed all the defiles around them, kept them in a state of siege during the winter, cutting off their supplies, surprising their posts, and tempting their men to desertion, until they were reduced to great straits. The Duke's health, already broken by frequent gouty attacks, suffered sadly from the severe climate of these mountain sites, and the privations of an ill-supplied commissariat. The critical position of his army aggravated his malady by preying upon his spirits, and his applications for a physician were coldly refused by his assailants. At length, in the middle of February, their general, Vitelli, on his own responsibility, granted him free passage home to Urbino, an act of charity afterwards severely visited upon his head by the authorities of Florence. Disgusted by the losses of a campaign fruitlessly protracted by disinclination of the respective commanders to risk their reputation in an engagement, the Venetians recalled the reinforcements which they had sent under Nicolò di Petigliano, and abandoned the cause of Pisan independence for that wider field of ambition which the schemes of Louis XII. were developing.
The Cardinal della Rovere, who, during nearly all the pontificate of Alexander, provided for his safety by absence from Rome, had shared the hardships of the Bibbiena campaign, and escaped from them with Guidobaldo. Whilst thus thrown together they seem to have planned an arrangement which opened a new era for Urbino. Feeling that in himself must terminate the male investiture of his states, and dreading that by his early decease they might lapse to a Pope who would joyfully endow with them one of his odious progeny, the Duke willingly listened to a suggestion of the Cardinal, that he should adopt their mutual nephew Francesco Maria della Rovere, son of the Prefect of Sinigaglia, then a promising boy of eight years old. At first they thought of concealing this design from Alexander, but Guidobaldo, aware that without his sanction it could not be matured, and trusting to the hold which his services and dutiful obedience ought to have given him in that quarter, soon proposed it for his approval. The successor of St. Peter, anticipating the modern discovery that words are given to conceal thoughts, professed great satisfaction with the plan, and hinted at bestowing the hand of his niece Angela Borgia upon the presumptive heir of Urbino. A brief interval removed the flimsy veil, and proved that the Pontiff was ready to anticipate the lapse of that dukedom, without awaiting his vassal's death.