The sacred office to which Alexander VI. was thus elevated had no salutary effect upon his unholy passions.[*233] The power he had attained he administered by intrigue. Simony and poisoning were the instruments of his administration; nepotism was its end. His temporal policy was equally selfish, unstable, and dishonest. He was resolute in nothing but his breaches of good faith. In the broils which he fomented he sold his adherence to the best bidder, but ever kept himself open for a higher offer. His contemporary, Machiavelli, thus stamps his character, which he had carefully studied:—"His entire occupation, his only thought, was deception, and he always found victims. Never was there a man with more effrontery in assertion, more ready to add oaths to his promises, or to break them; yet did his deceit ever succeed to his heart's content."[*234] Sismondi terms him "the most odious, the most publicly scandalous, and the most wicked of all miscreants who ever misused sacred authority to outrage and degrade mankind." No ecclesiastical writer has undertaken to defend his reputation; most of them have treated him as a disgrace to the papacy. Tommasi has termed him a "perfidious, sanguinary, and most insatiable wolf, capable of insinuating himself like a fawning and attached spaniel."
Out of the conflicting statements which have reached us of the Borgian pedigree and of Alexander's spurious offspring, we have prepared the accompanying [table] as on the whole probable.[235] Francesco (called by others Giovanni or Pietro), his eldest son by La Vanosia, was, at the Pope's request, created Duke of Gandia by Ferdinand the Catholic, and, as we shall see, came to a fearful end. The title descended to his progeny, and was borne by his great-grandson, the famous general of the Jesuits, who died in 1572, and was canonised as San Francesco Borgia.[236] Cesare was his father's favourite, and we shall have frequent occasion to trace him through the various phases of cardinal, count, condottiere, usurper, sovereign, and prisoner. Giuffredo, with the hand of a natural daughter of Alfonso II. of Naples, acquired high honours in that kingdom. Lucrezia, after being branded with triple incest and frequent poisonings, and after changing her husbands as often as suited her father's schemes, dedicated her maturer years to the patronage of letters and the cultivation of piety. Upon the details and crimes of such a character there is fortunately little occasion here to enter. Those who wish to learn them have only to turn to any historian of her age; such as would see nearly all that has been charged against her confronted with whatever redeeming traits exist, and ingeniously redargued by negative proofs and assumed improbabilities, may consult the dissertation appended to Roscoe's Leo the Tenth.[*237]
Anderson
POPE ALEXANDER VI.
Detail from a fresco by Pinturicchio in the Borgia apartments of the Vatican, Rome
We have now reached a period when our narrative must be extended, and must include those great events which, besides revolutionising almost every state in Italy, ultimately affected the political relations of Western Europe. The fiery natures and turbulent spirits of the Italian republicans and condottieri had for many years expended their energies in petty broils and intestine struggles for mastery. Henceforward the bloody drama was to be varied by the introduction of a new class of actors; the battles of European ambition were to be fought on the sunny plains of the Peninsula; her flourishing cities were to be the spoil of victor and vanquished: the protracted struggle was destined to leave her strength prostrated, her wealth wasted, her nationality extinguished, her treasures of art defaced, the character of her people degraded, their political independence destroyed. Although, from 1466 to 1494, Italy had never remained very long free from intestine commotions, the seat of serious warfare was during that interval removed to Hungary, Turkey, and the Levant, and she enjoyed a comparative repose, under the balmy influence of which, letters and the liberal arts rose to high perfection. The invention of printing, the study of the classics, the revival of ancient literature and philosophy, the cultivation of vernacular poetry, and the adoption of these tastes at many of the minor courts, all tended to this happy result.
Under this prosperous state of things the condition of the Peninsula is thus eloquently described by her Thucydides:—"Reduced to profound peace and tranquillity, cultivated on her sterile and rugged sites as in her more fertile districts, swayed by none but native masters, not only did her population, commerce, and wealth abound, but she was rendered gloriously eminent by the magnificence of her many princes, by the splendour of her numerous noble and fair cities, and by the seat and sovereignty of religion; whilst her celebrity was maintained among all nations by the men whom she produced of high capacity for public affairs, of elevated genius and acquirements in each branch of learning, and every liberal or useful art, as well as of military fame not unworthy of their age."[238] This was indeed her golden era, but the pure metal was henceforward to be tarnished. The middle ages, during which the civilisation of Europe had centred within her shores, were now passed away: modern history was about to open, and with it her subjugation. She had to learn, on a greater and more impressive scale, the lesson which her annals have too often afforded, and as her old republics had fallen one by one from want of union, so, at this juncture, her states, failing in mutual good faith, became an unresisting prey to the spoiler. She was in truth on the eve of that fearful struggle which, after trampling for half a century on her energies, left her to all intents at the mercy of those northern powers whom she deemed barbarians. Their armies had heretofore descended into her plains to fight under her banners and to receive her pay; henceforward they warred on their own account, though not less at her expense: formerly her mercenaries, they were in future her foes.