Caesar Borgia: A Study of the Renaissance

by John Leslie Garner

The orator of Naples adds: “And the prince ran to the Pope and told him that he had been attacked and wounded, and Madonna Lucretia, who was with the Pope, fainted.” Alfonso was placed in a room in the Vatican, and his wife and his sister, Sancia, consort of the Pope’s son Giuffre, Prince of Squillace, took entire care of him, even cooking his meals themselves for fear of poison, owing to Valentino’s hatred of him. The Pope had him guarded by sixteen men, fearing the Duke might murder him. Only on one occasion, when the Pope went to see Alfonso, did Caesar accompany him, and then he was heard to remark to his father, “What is not finished at dinner may be finished at supper.” When the orator asked the Pope about the affair his Holiness told him that Valentino said, “I did not attack Alfonso, but if I had done so, it would have only been what he deserved”; but one day—August 17th—-Caesar entered the wounded man’s room, drove Lucretia and Sancia out, and ordered Don Michele to strangle the youth, and that night the body was buried—a murder so cold-blooded that all Rome was horrified, though no one dared mention it openly. Finally Valentino admitted that he had caused Alfonso’s death because he feared the Duke would murder him. Such is Capello’s account. Burchard adds that Alfonso’s physicians and attendants were arrested and examined but immediately set at liberty, as there was no doubt of their innocence.

Alfonso, sacrificed by his father for political reasons, had married Lucretia, and when the plans of Alexander and Caesar required his elimination she was unable to save him. He had been frequently warned by his friends that Rome was a dangerous place for him. Caesar hated the House of Aragon, and he had derived no greater profit from his sister’s marriage with Alfonso than he had from her former union with Giovanni Sforza of Pesaro. Valentino apparently had another alliance in mind for his sister which he hoped would prove more advantageous to himself.

As a son had been born to Lucretia and Alfonso, the marriage could not be set aside as easily as the former had been; therefore heroic treatment was necessary. When the war broke out in Milan Alfonso left Rome, and he returned only on the urgent solicitations of his wife and the Pope, his fears having been somewhat allayed by the warm congratulations which Caesar had sent him on the birth of his son.

In a dispatch of July 19th the Venetian ambassador says: “It is not certain who wounded Alfonso, but it is said to have been the same person who killed the Duke of Gandia!”

Burchard merely records: “Alfonso was strangled in his bed about the nineteenth hour, and in the evening, about the first hour of the night, the body was carried to the basilica of St. Peter, accompanied by Francesco Borgia, Archbishop of Cosenza, and his household.”

Various reasons have been adduced to explain Caesar’s hatred of his sister’s husband. It has even been said that Caesar wished to have him out of the way in order that he himself might enjoy her favours; however, although this charge and others equally hideous, which were made at the time, are no longer believed, they show to what extremes calumny would go in those days and how ready chroniclers and historians, inspired by hate, were to repeat slanders; but they also show the execration and abhorrence in which the Borgias were held.

There was a Neapolitan party in Rome, and Alfonso may have been a member of it; his sister Sancia was the wife of Giuffre, Caesar’s brother, and probably the latter’s mistress. Subsequently she and Valentino became bitter enemies, and she was the only person about the Vatican who dared oppose him in anything.

All Rome, prelates, citizens, Lucretia, Giuffre, the Pope himself seemed afraid of Caesar. Of the Pope it was said that he both loved and feared him—ama ed ha paura. Valentino, hating the House of Naples, and especially Sancia, whose strong nature and unprincipled character clashed with his own, could easily bring himself to compass the death of her brother because it would also leave his sister free for him to marry her into some powerful family which would prove of great assistance to him in his far-reaching projects.

Lucretia and Alfonso, whom his contemporaries described as one of the handsomest men in Italy, apparently loved each other. She had been greatly distressed when he fled from Rome, and had begged him to return. On his death Lucretia, who was wholly without will and character, who had none of the traits of the virago, such as Caterina Sforza possessed, retired to Nepi for a time.

In speaking of the prompt release of Alfonso’s physicians and servants, “because they were innocent,” Burchard adds the significant remark, “as those sent to arrest them knew perfectly.”