At the time of Caesar’s birth his father was about forty-five and his mother, Vannozza, thirty-four. Of her four children Caesar is the most interesting as a psychological and historical study, not on account of his crimes, for every petty Italian state had its criminal despot at that time, but because he displayed a calculating cunning, a shrewdness in statecraft, and a fidelity to purpose which is rarely met with in men of his years, and which made him pre-eminent among personalities of his own stamp.
Whether or not Caesar was striving to consolidate the numerous Italian states and eventually construct a great central kingdom in the peninsula, as Machiavelli believed, is difficult to determine. Caesar’s activity, however, reveals something more than the unreasoned efforts of a ferocious egoist to gratify an unbounded but vague ambition. At the beginning of the fifteenth century Italy offered great prizes to the resolute adventurer, and Caesar’s horizons may have been wider than the domain of St. Peter.
What is known of his boyhood and youth is, in comparison with a knowledge of the environment in which he grew up, of slight value. A bull of Sixtus IV., issued in April, 1480, in which he is described as the “son of a Cardinal-Bishop and a certain married woman,” relieved him of the necessity of proving himself of legitimate birth; and an Act signed by Ferdinand the Catholic in 1481 provides for his legitimation and naturalisation. These steps were necessary before he could be invested with the various offices his father, the all-powerful Cardinal of San Niccolò in Carcere Tulliano, was determined he should enjoy. While still a child privileges of all sorts were bestowed upon him. July 10, 1482—Caesar was then about six—Sixtus IV. granted him the revenues of the prebends and canonicates of the cathedral of Valencia; and by a second bull, dated April 5, 1483, presented him with another canonicate and a benefice belonging to the archdiaconate of Xativa; the following year the Pope appointed him provost of Albar, and finally—September 12, 1484—when according to the bull he was nine years of age, he was made treasurer of Carthagena.
During his childhood Caesar probably lived with Adriana Mila, his father’s cousin. A granddaughter of Catalina, sister of Calixtus III., she had married Ludovico Orsini, Lord of Bassanello, who died some time before 1488. She dwelt in the Orsini palace in Rome. Lucretia Borgia also was placed under her care. Adriana Mila was more than Rodrigo Borgia’s kinswoman, she was his confidante up to the day of his death. Her son it was who married the beautiful Giulia Farnese, and Adriana was the complaisant witness of the adulterous relations of his wife, “Christ’s Bride,” as the satirists called her, with her cousin, St. Peter’s successor.
The dedication—already mentioned—of Paolo Pompilio’s treatise on rhetoric to Caesar in 1488 is the first public notice we have of him. The following year he was a student of canon law at the Sapienza of Perugia, where he also had a special preceptor, Juan Vera of Valencia. At the university he had a number of intimate friends and companions—all young Spaniards—who were closely associated with his subsequent fortunes. The most famous of these young men was Francesco Romolino of Lerida, one of the commissioners sent to Florence in 1498 by Alexander VI. to secure the conviction of Savonarola, and who remarked to his host, Pandolfo della Luna: “We shall make a fine bonfire; I bear the sentence with me already prepared.”[13]
From Perugia, where Caesar spent about two years, he went to Pisa—in 1491—to attend the lectures of Filippo Decio, one of the most famous professors of canon law of that day, and he was still there September 12, 1491, on which date Innocent VIII. conferred the bishopric of Pamplona on him. Five days later Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, in his capacity of Vice-Chancellor of the Church, informed the Chapter of Pamplona, and the alcaldes and counsellors of the city, of the appointment; and on the same day Caesar, the dignified bishop of fifteen years, also brought the fact to the notice of these various personages and sent them as his representative the venerable Martin Zapata, Canon-Treasurer of Toledo, provided with a power of attorney, and the bulls and letters naming him administrator of the province. The original documents are in the archives of Pamplona.
In the first letter, which is written by Caesar’s father, in Spanish, he is described as a persona muy a nos conjunta—“a person very closely connected with us.” The cardinal adds: “The Holy Father has decided to appoint to this bishopric the prothonotary Don Caesar de Borgia, distinguished for his virtues and his learning.”
Caesar’s letter, written at Soriano, is as follows:—
“To the Magnificos, our Honourable and Especial Friends,—You doubtless have already learned from letters of the Reverend Cardinal, Vice-Chancellor of the Church, that, the Episcopal See of your city having become vacant in consequence of the death of the Reverend Señor Don Alfonso Carillo of blessed memory, his Holiness, the Pope, and the Reverend Seniors constituting the Sacred College, unanimous in their choice, have promoted us to this dignity, and have placed in our hands the bulls and briefs which we hereby tender for your examination. Solicitous for the future good government of the bishopric, spiritual as well as temporal, we send to you the venerable Mossen Martin Zapata, the beloved and esteemed canon and treasurer of Toledo, as our representative, duly empowered to decide all matters in our stead. We have specially instructed him to confer with you regarding a number of matters, and we urge you to trust him in all things and to show him all confidence. I expect you also of your own goodwill to aid and serve him. Should anything special arise affecting your noble city and the general welfare of yourselves and the community you may rest assured that we will give it the same attention that we would bestow on any affair of our own. I have only to add that I pray the Lord to take your honourable and noble persons under his protection.
“From Soriano the xvii day of September, MDLXXXXI. Ever yours to command,
“Cesar de Borgia,
“Elector of Pamplona.”
In the latter half of the fifteenth century, when boys were married at sixteen, made cardinals at seventeen, and commanded armies at twenty, children were precocious, and Caesar, a student in Pisa, could not have been blind to the vast opportunities presented to him by his father’s elevation to the Papacy in August, 1492.