A Traveler at Forty

by Theodore Dreiser

She had a hoarse little laugh which was nevertheless agreeable. I felt the impact of a strong, vital temperament, self-willed, self-controlled, intensely eager and ambitious. I soon discovered she was genuinely interested in history, which is one of my great failings and delights. She liked vital, unillusioned biography such as that of Jean Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions, Cellini’s Diary, and the personal reminiscences of various court favorites in different lands. She was interested in some plays, but cared little for fiction, which I take to be commendable. Her great passion at the moment, she told me, was the tracing out in all its ramifications of the history and mental attitude of the Borgia family especially Cæsar and Lucrezia—which I look upon as a remarkable passion for a woman. It takes a strong, healthy, clear-thinking temperament to enjoy the mental vagaries of the Borgias—father, son and daughter. She had conceived a sincere admiration for the courage, audacity, passion and directness of action of Cæsar, to say nothing of the lymphatic pliability and lure of Lucrezia, and the strange philosophic anarchism and despotic individualism of their father, Alexander VI.

I wonder how much the average reader knows of the secret history of the Borgias. It is as modern as desire, as strange as the strangest vagaries of which the mind is capable. I am going to give here the outline of the Borgia family history as Mrs. Q. crisply related it to me, on almost the first evening we met, for I, like so many Americans, while knowing something of these curious details in times past had but the haziest recollection then. To be told it in Rome itself by a breezy American who used the vernacular and who simply could not suppress her Yankee sense of humor, was as refreshing an experience as occurred in my whole trip. Let me say first that Mrs. Q. admired beyond words the Italian subtlety, craft, artistic insight, political and social wisdom, governing ability, and as much as anything their money-getting and money-keeping capacities. The raw practicality of this Italian family thrilled her.

You will remember that Rodrigo Lanzol, a Spaniard who afterwards assumed the name of Rodrigo Borgia, because his maternal uncle of that name was fortunate enough to succeed to the papacy as Calixtus III, and could do him many good turns afterwards, himself succeeded to the papacy by bribery and other outrages under the title of Alexander VI. That was August 10, 1442. Before that, however, as nephew to Calixtus III, he had been made bishop, cardinal, and vice-chancellor of the Church solely because he was a relative and favored by his uncle; and all this before he was thirty-five. He had proceeded to Rome, established himself with many mistresses at his call in a magnificent palace, and at the age of thirty-seven, his uncle Calixtus III having died, was reprimanded by Pius II, the new pope, for his riotous and adulterous life. By 1470, when he was forty-nine he took to himself, as his favorite, Vanozza dei Cattani, the former wife of three different husbands. By Vanozza, who was very charming, he had four children, all of whom he prized highly—Giovanni, afterwards Duke of Gandia, born 1474; Cæsar, 1476; Lucrezia, 1480; Geoffreddo or Giuffré, born 1481 or 1482. There were other children—Girolamo, Isabella and Pier Luigi, whose parentage on the mother’s side is uncertain; and still another child, Laura, whom he acquired via Giulia Farnese, the daughter of the famous family of that name, who was his mistress after he tired, some years later, of Vanozza. Meanwhile his children had grown up or were fairly well-grown when he became pope, which opened the most astonishing chapter of the history of this strange family.

Alexander was a curious compound of paternal affection, love of gold, love of women, vanity, and other things. He certainly was fond of his children or he would not have torn Italy with dissension in order to advantage them in their fortunes. His career is the most ruthless and weird of any that I know.

He was no sooner pope (about April, 1493) than he proposed to carve out careers for his family—his favored children by his favorite mistress. In 1492, the same year he was made pope, he created Cæsar, his sixteen-year-old son, studying at Pisa, a cardinal, showing the state of the papacy in those days. He proposed to marry his daughter Lucrezia well, and having the year before, when she was only eleven, betrothed her to one Don Cherubin de Centelles, a Spaniard, he broke this arrangement and had Lucrezia married by proxy to Don Gasparo de Procida, son of the Count of Aversa, a man of much more importance, who, he thought, could better advance her fortune.

Italy, however, was in a very divided and disorganized state. There was a King of Naples, a Duke of Venice, a Duke of Milan, a separate state life at Pisa, Genoa, Florence and elsewhere. In order to build himself up and become very powerful, and to give preferment to each of his sons, some of these states had to be conquered and controlled; and so the old gentleman, without conscience and without mercy except as suited his whim, was for playing politics, making war, exercising treachery, murdering, poisoning, persuading, bribing—anything and everything to obtain his ends. He must have been well thought of as a man of his word, for when he had made a deal with Charles VIII of France to assist him in invading and conquering Naples, the king demanded and obtained Cæsar, Alexander’s son, aged twenty-one, as a hostage for faithful performance of agreement. He had not taken him very far, however, before the young devil escaped and returned to Rome, where subsequently his father, finding it beneficial to turn against the King of France, did so.

But to continue. While his father was politicking and trafficking in this way for the benefit of himself and his dear family, young Cæsar was beginning to develop a few thoughts and tendencies of his own. Alexander VI was planning to create fiefs or dukedoms out of the papal states and out of the Kingdom of Naples and give them to his eldest son, Giovanni, and his youngest, Giuffré. Cæsar would have none of this. He saw himself as a young cardinal being left out in the cold. Besides, there was a cause of friction between him and his brother Giovanni over the affections of their youngest brother Giuffré’s wife, Sancha. They were both sharing the latter’s favors, and so one day, in order to clear matters up and teach his father (whose favorite he was) where to bestow his benefits and so that he might have Sancha all to himself—he murdered his brother Giovanni. The latter’s body, after a sudden and strange absence, was found in the Tiber, knife-marked, and all was local uproar until the young cardinal was suspected, when matters quieted down and nothing more was thought of it. There was also thought to be some rivalry between Cæsar and Giovanni over the affections of their sister Lucrezia.

After this magnificent evidence of ability, the way was clear for Cæsar. He was at once (July, 1497) sent as papal legate to Naples to crown Frederick of Aragon; and it was while there that he met Carlotta, the daughter of the king, and wanted to marry her. She would have none of him. “What, marry that priest, that bastard of a priest!” she is alleged to have said; and that settled the matter. This may have had something to do with Cæsar’s desire to get out of Holy Orders and return to civil life, for the next year (1498) he asked leave of the papal consistory not to be a cardinal any longer and was granted this privilege “for the good of his soul.” He then undertook the pleasant task, as papal legate, of carrying to Louis XII of France the pope’s bull annulling the marriage of Louis with Jeanne of France in order that he might marry Anne of Brittany. On this journey he met Charlotte d’Albret, sister of the King of Navarre, whom he married. He was given the duchy of Valentinois for his gracious service to Louis XII and, loaded with honors, returned to Rome in order to further his personal fortunes with his father’s aid.

In the meanwhile there were a number of small principalities in Romagna, a territory near Milan, which his father Alexander VI was viewing with a covetous eye. One of these was controlled by Giovanni Sforza, Lord of Pesaro, whom Alexander, at a time when he wanted to pit the strength of Milan against the subtle machinations of the King of Naples—caused Lucrezia his daughter, then only thirteen years of age, to marry, her union with the Count of Aversa having by this time been severed. Alexander having won the friendship of the King of Naples, he decided to proceed against the princelings of Romagna and confiscated their property. Cæsar was tolled off as general to accomplish this for himself, being provided men and means. Young Sforza, who had married Lucrezia, found himself in a treacherous position,—his own brother-in-law, with the assistance of his father-in-law, plotting against his life,—and fled with his wife, the fair Lucrezia, aged fifteen, to Pesaro. There he was fought by Cæsar who, however, not having sufficient troops was checked for the time being and returned to Rome. A year or so later, Pope Alexander being in a gentler frame of mind—it was Christmas and he desired all his children about him—invited them all home, including Lucrezia and her husband. Then followed a series of magnificent fêtes and exhibitions in honor of all this at Rome, and the family, including the uncertain son-in-law, husband of Lucrezia, seemed to be fairly well united in bonds of peace.

Unfortunately, however, a little later (1497) the pope’s mood changed again. He was now, after some intermediate quarrels, once more friendly with the King of Naples and decided that Sforza was no longer a fit husband for Lucrezia. Then came the annulment of this marriage and the remarriage of Lucrezia to Alphonso of Aragon, Duke of Bisceglie, a relative and favorite of the King of Naples, aged eighteen and handsome. But, alas! no sooner is this fairly begun than new complications arise. The pope thinks he sees an opportunity to destroy the power of Naples as a rival with the aid of the King of France, Louis XII. He lends assistance to the latter, who comes to invade Naples, and young Bisceglie, now fearing for his life at the hands of his treacherous father-in-law, deserts Rome and Lucrezia and flees. Louis XII proceeds against Naples. Spoleto falls and Lucrezia, Bisceglie’s wife, as representative of the pope (aged eighteen) is sent to receive the homage of Spoleto!