Caesar Borgia: A Study of the Renaissance

by John Leslie Garner

Immediately after the capture of Forli, Caesar dispatched Yves d’Allegre to secure the surrender of the remaining small towns, while he devoted himself to reorganising the government of the conquered territory. His solicitude for the proper administration of justice and the prompt restoration of order at once won him the respect of the Romagnols, and from Imola and Forli envoys were sent to ask the Pope to appoint Caesar—who had declared himself to be merely the representative of the Holy See—their Governor in place of the tyrant he had expelled.

Caesar signed his first decree: “Caesar Borgia De France, Duke of Valentinois, Count of Diois and Issoudun, Pontifical Vicar of Imola and Forli,” and at the head of the province he placed Don Remiro de Lorca, the Spaniard who had been his constant companion, and whom we shall meet again.

After the capture of Imola, Cardinal Giovanni Borgia, papal legate to Romagna, had gone to Urbino, where he suddenly died, January 14, 1500. In spite of the fact that seventeen days had intervened between his departure from Caesar’s camp and his death, it was rumoured that Valentino, actuated by jealousy, had poisoned him. Sanudo was the first to attribute the Cardinal’s death to Caesar, but—as in the case of the murder of the Duke of Gandia—there is not the slightest evidence that he had anything to do with it. The Cardinal had been in Rome, and on his way to Urbino had been seized with a fever from which he died.

Caesar readily consented that all the benefices of the deceased should be given to his brother, Ludovico, who was made Governor of Spoleto.

The general hatred of the Borgia explains the facility with which these rumours spread and the universal credence they obtained.

January 24th it was decided to set out for Pesaro the following day; but in the night the Swiss mutinied, and the Bailli of Dijon went to the castle where Caterina Sforza was held, and, declaring that it was contrary to the rules of war to hold a woman prisoner, and that his sense of honour was outraged, escorted her to the palace where he lodged and refused to surrender her to Valentino, who intended to take her to Rome and deliver her to the Pope.

The revolt lasted a day, and Yves d’Allegre, having been hastily summoned by Caesar, returned in the evening, and Valentino, now sure of being able to repress the rebels with the aid of the French and the Spaniards, addressed the mutineers and threatened them with dire punishment. It was finally agreed that the bailli should surrender the Countess, “who shall be retained in the discretion of the King of France,” and an understanding with the Swiss mercenaries was reached.

The evening of January 25th the army set out for Cesena, Caterina Sforza, in a black satin gown and heavily veiled, riding between the Duke of Valentinois and Monsieur d’Allegre.

At Montefiore, January 26th, news reached Caesar that Ludovico il Moro, who had fled from Milan, had learned of the dissatisfaction of the people under French rule, and, having gathered an army of 1,300 Swiss and Bourguignons, was advancing on Como. Trivulzio, who had been left in charge of Milan, hastily sent for Yves d’Allegre, whose withdrawal from Caesar’s army terminated operations in the Romagna for a time, as it deprived Valentino of his artillery, and left him with only about five hundred cavalry and a thousand foot-soldiers.

In Milan the French were defeated as easily as they had conquered, and the people displayed the same enthusiasm on the return of the Moor as they had shown on his overthrow.