On the 8th of September in the same year Count Girolamo was solemnly made generalissimo of the Papal forces. The diarist Jacopo of Volterra[80] tells us how on that day, being the celebration of the nativity of the blessed Virgin, the Pope and all the College of Cardinals attended a solemn mass, in the course of which the Count in full armour knelt at the feet of the Pope, seated in front of the altar, and then and there received the staff of command, and the standard; and took the prescribed oaths, reading, says the historian, the whole formula at length himself;—truly the most arduous part of the matter in all probability to this "non literatus" preux chevalier. All Rome, both clerical and lay, was there, says gossiping Jacobus Volaterranus, as much to see the Count go through his part in the play, as to perform their devotions.
The picture of life in Rome at this period, obtainable from the inartistic matter-of-fact narrations of these diarists, the Jacopo just cited, Stefano Infessura, and one or two others of the same class, is a strange and striking one. Their ever-recurring accounts of solemnities, celebrations, and festivals, are chequered with notices almost equally frequent, and as calmly chronicled of such deeds and occurrences, as we are accustomed to hear reported from Sacramento, or San Francisco, and to consider as the product of a new and half-organised state of society. A noble patrician is stabbed to death, while sitting at the door of his own palace enjoying the evening air after supper. The name of the murderer and his motive are briefly told, and no further remark is made about the matter. A raid is made by one family against another and many men are killed; but none worth mentioning save one or two nobles. Of such matters nobody dreams of complaining. But when once on Ascension-day a great mass of people had assembled as usual in expectation of receiving the papal benediction, and Sixtus for some unassigned reason did not come forth to give it, there was great murmuring, and the multitude heaped bitter curses, we are told, on the Pontiff, who had defrauded them of his blessing.
A DEATH-BED SCENE.
The figures of the recently-married couple, however, with whose fortunes our story is more immediately concerned, appear most frequently, as might be expected, during those years of their prosperity on the bright squares of the chequered board. The Count, indeed, is found figuring in one strange and unpleasant scene a few days previous to his installation as commander-in-chief.
One of the Pope's nephews, Antonio Bassi, is lying grievously ill on his death-bed. His cousin Girolamo visits him the day before his death, and tries to comfort him "with fraternal words," and assurances that he will soon get well. But the dying man, either from the peevishness of suffering, says the chronicler,[81] or because he knew that he could now speak out with impunity what he had long felt, abused his powerful cousin in the most violent manner, "mentioning certain deeds of the Count universally condemned, and certain conduct of his reprobated by all men; on account of which, he said, the judgment of God, from which no human power could avail to protect him, would shortly fall on him. And in speaking of these things, he used a degree of vehemence which none of those who knew him best had ever heard him speak with when in health." The Count, it seems, took it very quietly; but "we all standing round the bed blushed for shame at the scene, and several of us slunk away out of hearing." It would have been satisfactory to have been told what these so universally reprobated deeds and conduct were. Perhaps nephew Bassi would have liked some of the good things that were heaped on nephew Riario. There was, indeed, one dark topic, of which we shall have to speak presently, the indiscreet handling of which might well make discreet courtiers slink out of hearing, lest their ears should become the unwilling depositories of truths so carefully concealed that history, after nearly four hundred years of investigation, has failed in obtaining satisfactory evidence of them. Could it have been that the dying man felt himself so safe from earthly vengeance, and so beyond all considerations of worldly prudence, as to have dared to speak aloud in such a tone of the black Pazzi tragedy? If so, we know how dangerous it might have been to hear him. If so, could Girolamo Riario have been so unmoved by his upbraiding? Be it as it may, the above few hints, so fortuitously, as it seems, floating on the surface of the vast, black, all-devouring pool of oblivion, are all that we have to speculate on in the matter. Antonio Bassi died, and no "judgment" followed—yet awhile.
On the contrary, all sorts of festivities, mingling themselves with the more serious business of prosperous ambition, seem to have made up the life of the young Count and Countess. One constantly recurring cause of pomp and festival at Rome in those days, was the arrival in the eternal city of strangers of note from almost every part of Europe. English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Greek ambassadors, cardinals, or prelates, arrived in the great capital of Christianity to ask favours of Heaven's vicegerent; to plead their international or ecclesiastical causes and quarrels before him; to bring him gifts and compliments from distant potentates; to beg for assistance in money or money's worth; to obtain absolution for national sins committed against the Papal interest; or to secure aid and connivance for such as could be shown to square with it.
GALA DOINGS AT ROME.
On the occasion of such arrivals, cardinals, with their numerous retinues of attendants, lay and clerical, used to go out to meet the strangers at the gate, and bring them in pomp to the lodgings prepared for them. Then followed grand ceremonial services in the basilicas, in which modern Circenses the Roman populace shared with delight, and vast banquets, shared only by the privileged of the earth. Now and then occur descriptions of gay doings of a less exclusive character, in which all classes of that strangely-variegated society are seen mingled in a more pleasing and more picturesque fashion.
On Wednesday,[82] the 22nd of March, 1480, for instance, Ernest, Duke of Saxony, arrives at Rome for the performance of a vow. He is accompanied by the Duke of Brunswick and other German nobles. All are clothed in black, with a staff embroidered in white across the breast, as a symbol of pilgrimage. The Pope and all the Sacred College go out to the Porta del Popolo to meet him; and fortunately we have among us two cardinals who can talk German. These ride one on each side of his Serene Highness, and thus the cortège of some two hundred horses of the Duke's retinue, together with all the trains of Pope and cardinals, sweep on through the streets of Rome towards St. Peter's. Sovereign princes coming to Rome in discharge of vows of pilgrimage are worthy of every encouragement. So Sixtus treats the noble stranger with all possible honour—even to the extent of allowing him to sit at mass and vespers on the bench of the cardinals, and in the stall next below the junior of those dignitaries, an honour rarely granted. Then, as is the case with those whom Rome delighteth to honour, he was presented in St. Peter's with the consecrated golden rose. But on this occasion, strangely enough, the golden rose was not a rose, but a golden oak-bough,[83] which Sixtus, contrary to all custom and precedent, had chosen to consecrate instead of the immemorially accustomed emblem. The substitution of this golden bough, the well-known heraldic bearing of the Della Rovere family, is a curious manifestation of the family feeling, which was so intense in Sixtus, and was the ever-present motive of all his crimes.
A HUNTING PARTY.