Caesar Borgia: A Study of the Renaissance

by John Leslie Garner

“The Pope is most harshly disposed towards the Duke, and it is said has ordered Pandolfo Petrucci to treat him as an enemy; his Holiness looks for Caesar’s destruction, but does not want it to appear that he has any part in it.”

Julius II. had conceived the idea of recovering the strongholds in the Romagna for himself, and he soon discovered that Caesar actually expected to retain them. The Borgia, shrewd as he was, was no match for the Della Rovere in cunning; the Pope outwitted him at every turn, and he did not hesitate to tell Giustinian that “the Duke shall never have so much as a single tower of my fortresses. All I owe him is to save his life and protect his property—in interceding for him with the Florentines it was really to save Romagna for the Church.” The Pope told the orator that as soon as he had secured possession of the castles he would send Caesar away. Clearly his Holiness did not want to be compelled to use force to get possession of the strongholds; he was trying to delude Caesar into giving them up, and then he would cast him aside.

The orator confesses that the Pope’s mind is “ambiguous” to him—me ambigua—but he promptly discovered that he wanted to crush the Duke, and this view was confirmed by many of those in the Pope’s confidence; some, however, maintained that he was well disposed toward Valentino.

November 19th occurred the event to which all had been eagerly looking forward—Caesar’s departure from Rome. He went to Ostia, where he was met by Mottino with two galleys to take him to Tuscany. There were various rumours regarding the place where he intended to disembark; the Venetian orator was told that Viareggio, a town belonging to the Duke of Ferrara, was his destination. He had with him about 160 horse.

Valentino was greatly changed when Machiavelli saw him in Rome, and both he and Giustinian regarded Caesar as lost; the latter saw him “fearful and terrified,” while Machiavelli wrote: “The Duke allows himself to be carried away by his confident mind”; he also said Valentino was “changeable, irresolute, and suspicious.”

Worn out by his reverses, he had at first thought of going to Romagna. But when he embarked he had decided to go either to Livorno or Genoa and thence to Ferrara. Machiavelli, who had assured him that Florence would grant him a safe conduct, said that if the Signory failed him “Caesar would make a compact with the Venetians and the devil and would go to Pisa and devote all the money, forces, and allies that remained to him to injuring the Republic.”

The 18th, the very day that Caesar left the Palace, Julius II. dispatched briefs to Romagna in which he said he had disapproved of the bestowal of the vicariate upon Valentino by Alexander VI., and he exhorted the people to raise the standard of the Church, in whose possession he intended Romagna should remain. A few days later he told Cardinal Soderini that it would have been wiser, he thought, to have placed the strongholds of Romagna under Caesar’s command, as it would be better for him than for the Venetians to have them. Soderini went to Ostia and made certain proposals to Caesar, which were rejected. November 24th the Pope ordered Mottino to hold Valentino, and at the same time he arranged with Soderini to impede the progress of Michelotto, who had started forward with the Duke’s cavalry. The same day he appointed the Bishop of Ragusa, Giovanni Sacchi, Governor of Romagna and Bologna, and directed him to take possession of the province in the name of the Church, and he again called upon the cities to raise the papal standard.

The general opinion in Rome was that Julius II. was only waiting for a more favourable opportunity to give Caesar the final blow, and the joy felt at his departure was wellnigh universal. Agapito and Romolino, his two closest friends, men whose names had been connected with some of his most atrocious crimes, had refused to accompany him and remained in Rome.

The Pope had also instructed Soderini to demand the surrender of the citadel of Forli, and Caesar’s refusal to comply was what caused his Holiness to seize him and hold him prisoner.

Machiavelli reported to his Government the rumours which filled Rome when Caesar’s arrest became known; it was even said that his Holiness had ordered him to be flung into the Tiber, and he adds: “If this has not been done it will be done shortly, in my opinion; we see that the Pope has commenced to pay his debts very honourably; his pen and ink are all that are necessary—nevertheless his praise is in all men’s mouths!”