The preparations for the wedding were interrupted for some days by the absence of the Pope and Caesar, who, accompanied by a number of cardinals and their suites, went to Civita Castellana and Nepi to inspect the changes which had been made in the stronghold of the latter place, and the fortress which was being constructed in the former town by Antonio di Sangallo.
During their absence Lucretia had been left as regent in the Vatican, according to Burchard, just as she had been on a former occasion, with authority to open letters and transact ecclesiastical business.
The escort which was expected to come to conduct Lucretia to Ferrara was delayed several times, and they were still looking for it at the end of October; finally Ercole announced that, owing to the inclemency of the season, he had decided to postpone the matter; the true reason, however, was the fact that the Emperor Maximilian had given him to understand that the alliance with the Borgia to which he had committed himself was highly displeasing to himself.
It was at this time that the remarkable “Letter to Silvio Savelli” was received in Rome; it was a small book printed in Germany. Its author is unknown, but it is supposed to have been written by a Colonna. Savelli had been robbed of his property by Alexander, and was an exile living at the Court of Maximilian. Gregorovius remarks: “This is an authentic document revealing the condition of Rome under the Borgia; no other writing so well exhibits the iniquity of these people, their corrupt politics, in great as well as small affairs, and the terror that ruled the city, which was filled with their spies and cut-throats.”
The universal execration in which they were held is also well revealed in the epigrams of the day, one of the most famous of which is the following:—
“Vendit Alex. claves, altaria, christum,
Emerat ille prius, vendere jure potest.
De vitio in vitium, de flamma crescit in ignem,
Roma sub Hispano deperit Imperio.
Sextus Tarquinius, Sextus Nero, Sextus et Iste.
Semper sub Sextis perdita Roma fuit.”
Alexander VI. read and enjoyed the letter to Silvio Savelli, as he was used to these satires, but Burchard remarks that Caesar regarded them more seriously, and cites the case of the rhetorician Jeronimo Mancini of Naples, who, having spoken ill of the Duke, was seized, and suffered the loss of the end of his tongue and a hand, which were exposed at a window in the Curia S. Crucis for two days. Some have ascribed the authorship of the famous letter to Mancini. January 28, 1502, a Venetian, who, it was said, had sent something he had written against the Pope to Venice, was seized, and when his ambassador went to intercede for him that night, he was informed that the unfortunate wretch had already been executed. Costabili, the Ferrarese ambassador, when he spoke to the Pope about the Duke’s vindictiveness, was told by his Holiness, “The Duke is good, but he cannot bear insults; and,” he added, “once when I told him he should profit by my example and let them write all the satires they wished, he became angry, and exclaimed he would teach these scribblers good manners.”
In the meantime Ercole d’Este, having no excuse for further delay, dispatched the escort—December 7th—for Rome, where it arrived the 23rd. In the cortège were Cardinal Ippolito and Fernando d’Este, brothers of the groom, with their suites, numbering more than five hundred persons. Valentino, accompanied by the French ambassador, Monseigneur de Trans, went to meet the princes. He embraced the cardinal affectionately, and when returning to the city rode on Ippolito’s left. At the gates they were met by nineteen other cardinals and their “families.” They were received by the Pope and his Court in the Vatican, after which Caesar conducted the princes to his sister’s apartments. The wedding gifts were magnificent—the least of all was that of Florence, a present of cloth of gold and silver to the value of 3,000 ducats. The betrothal took place December 28th, and the church ceremony the 30th.
Burchard describes the wedding with a wealth of detail that would do credit to a modern society reporter; the gowns, the jewels, the presents, the guests, the bride, the groom—all are there; the games for the entertainment—all are described.
Another move in the great political game had been made; the declining House of Naples had been eliminated as a factor in the Borgia plans by the murder of Alfonso of Aragon, and the support of the great House of Este, secured by the marriage of Ercole’s son, the future Duke of Ferrara, with Lucretia, who was apparently a passive instrument in the hands of Caesar and the Pope in their machinations. The final historical estimate of her is that she was not the virago, the baneful fiend she is represented to have been, but a colourless, characterless personality, wholly lacking in will, and completely under the control of Caesar and the Pope. She had none of the characteristics of Caterina Sforza. She left Rome to go to her future husband, who had been represented by a proxy, and she never returned. She appears to have made an excellent wife and mother.