Carlo Orsini arrived at Soriano January 26, 1497, with the troops of Vitellozzo Vitelli, and after a fierce struggle the Duke of Urbino was captured. In the fight the Duke of Gandia was slightly wounded in the face. Fabrizio Colonna and the legate Pietro de Luna were forced to flee to Ronciglione. The war continued for another month, and ended with an agreement by which the Orsini promised to pay 50,000 ducats for the return of the territory which had been occupied and to release all their prisoners except the Duke of Urbino.
When the King of France had learned of Alexander’s activity against the great feudatories of the Romagna, who had sided with him, he had sent Carlo Orsini and Vitellozzo Vitelli to their aid with fresh troops. One after another the Baglioni, the Della Rovere, and all who hated Alexander and saw that the destruction of the Orsini would be followed by the overthrow of their own power joined the Pope’s enemies. Only the Colonna and the Savelli held to the Holy Father.
The Duke of Gandia was the hero of the fêtes which followed the termination of the war. He and Lucretia’s husband, Giovanni Sforza of Pesaro, were selected to meet Gonsalvo de Cordova when he came to Rome, March 15th, after the capture of Ostia, which Minaldo da Guevra had endeavoured to hold for Giuliano della Rovere. The Holy Father, however, continued to look after the interests of Lucretia, and especially of those of Caesar, who was given a share of the spoils wrested from the Roman barons. Next to Estouteville, Caesar was the wealthiest of the cardinals, and it now began to be whispered about that he intended to relinquish the purple.
In entering the Church he had merely yielded to his father’s wishes and he had only the first tonsure. The ambassadors noted his dislike for the Church; his instincts were those of a soldier; he was always armed; he was attracted by war and greedy for power. Had he been the eldest son he undoubtedly would have been made Captain-General of the papal forces, for he had more energy, a stronger will, a livelier imagination, and what is perhaps of even greater importance in the egotistical scramble for wealth and honours, he had absolutely no moral sense. In the great drama that was preparing he undoubtedly would have promptly found his fitting part. He was as violent and overbearing as his father, who had not dared to punish him when he fled from the French camp.
Giuffre, Prince of Squillace, and his wife, Doña Sancia of Naples, entered Rome in great state, May 20, 1496, by the Lateran Gate. The Prince was then fourteen and his wife two years older. They were escorted to the principal entrance of the Lateran Church by Caesar and Lucretia, with a company of two hundred persons, including the orators of all the powers, the cardinals and their suites, and numerous citizens; here Giuffre, Sancia, and Lucretia dismounted and entered the edifice; thence, after a short stay, they proceeded to the Apostolic Palace, where from a window the Pope eagerly watched their approach. His Holiness, attended by eleven cardinals—Caesar having now joined him—received them in a great hall. Before the Pope’s footstool was a low bench, on which was a brocaded cushion, and before this on the floor, in the form of a cross, were four large cushions of crimson velvet. Giuffre knelt before the Pope, who took the Prince’s head between his hands, but did not kiss him. Sancia and Lucretia followed, and were received in the same manner. Thereupon the Prince and his consort kissed the hands of all the cardinals. This done, Giuffre took his place between his brother, the Cardinal of Valencia, and Cardinal Sanseverino, while Lucretia and Sancia seated themselves on the Pope’s left-hand, and “all conversed for some time pleasantly and wittily,” after which they took their departure. The next day Sancia and Lucretia and a number of other women, to the great scandal of Rome, crowded into and about the marble pulpit in St. Peter’s, from which the priests were accustomed to read the gospel.
Sancia, brought up in the corrupt Court of Naples, was a bold and perverse woman, who later became Caesar’s most determined and fearless enemy; she was the only person who dared brave him. Older than her husband, she despised and dominated him. It is said that she was the mistress of both her brothers-in-law, the Cardinal of Valencia and the Duke of Gandia, and also later of Cardinal Ippolito d’Este.
In a consistory held June 8, 1497, Caesar Borgia was appointed legate to anoint and crown Frederic of Aragon King of Naples. Alexander had consented to invest him with the Regno and remit the annual tribute to the Church if he would make Benevento an independent principality for his son, the Duke of Gandia, without feudal obligations. In secret consistory the Pope secured the cardinals’ consent to the investiture of the Duke of Gandia with Terracina and Pontecorvo.
Caesar was making extravagant preparations for his departure and Gandia was completing arrangements to go with him to receive the investiture of his new domains when an event occurred which changed the whole order of things, and one which has continued to baffle historians—the murder of the Duke of Gandia the night of June 14, 1497.