A Decade of Italian Women, vol. 1 (of 2)

by Thomas Adolphus Trollope

Passing along the same line of streets which she had traversed twenty-three years before as the bride of the then wealthiest and most powerful man in Rome,—as much an object of curiosity now as then to the sight-loving populace, eager to stare at the celebrated prisoner of the now wealthiest and most powerful man in Rome, as then to welcome the great man's bride,—Catherine was led by her captor to the Vatican. Up the well-known stair, and through the familiar chambers, lined, when last she passed across them, with a crowd of bending courtiers, anxious to catch a word or glance from the powerful favourite, who held all Apostolic graces in her hand, she passed on to the presence of the Pontiff.

Alexander received her courteously; assigned an apartment in the Belvidere of the Vatican as her prison, and assured her, that no care should be wanting to make her residence there as little irksome as was consistent with the precautions necessary to secure her safe custody.

No doubt the haughty lady replied to the Sovereign Pontiff, who, when last they had met, had been too happy in being honoured with her friendship, with equal courtesy. But the feelings in the breast of either interlocutor, which were thus decorously veiled, may be easily estimated.

ACCUSATION AGAINST HER.

And it was not long before the genuine hatred pierced through the flimsy sham of courtly politeness. In the month of June—that is, four months after her arrival in Rome—an accusation was brought against Catherine of having attempted to destroy the Pope by poison. The story put forward was one strangely characteristic of medieval modes of thinking and acting.[143] It was asserted that when Catherine heard in the spring of 1499, that the Pope had judicially declared her deposed from her sovereignty, she had at once determined on compassing his death. With this view, she had caused certain letters, written by her to the Pontiff, to be placed inside the clothing, on the breast of one dying of the plague, then prevalent in Forlì. These letters, having thus been rendered deadly to whoso should touch them, were consigned to a certain confidential servant of the Countess, named Battista, with orders to proceed to Rome, and deliver the papers into no hand save that of Alexander himself. This man, the accusation went on to say, met in Rome one Cristoforo Balatrone, a former servant of the Riarii, then in disgrace with his mistress; and confided to him the real object of the mission intrusted to him, promising him restoration to Catherine's favour, if he would assist in the execution of it.

The accusation, therefore, it will be observed, supposed that Catherine did not merely avail herself of this servant's aid, as a courier to carry the letters and deliver them as ordered, which would have been all that was needful, but unnecessarily, as it would seem, confided to him the fatal secret of her intentions.

Cristoforo, it was said, instead of acquiescing in Battista's proposal, persuaded the latter to reveal the whole to the Pontiff. For that purpose they forthwith proceeded to the Vatican. It was late in the evening, and they were bidden by one Tommaso Carpi, the Pope's chamberlain, and who was also, as it happened, a Forlì man, to return on the morrow if they wished an audience. In the mean time Cristoforo, not being able to keep so great a secret for so many hours, related the whole matter to his brother, a private in the Papal guards. The soldier immediately reported the story to his captain; and he, thinking promptitude necessary in such a case, forthwith arrested both Cristoforo and Battista, and made the Pope acquainted with all the circumstances on the following morning. Alexander knowing, it was said (although at that period he could have known nothing of the sort, but could only have hoped it), that Catherine would shortly be brought to Rome, ordered that these men should be kept in secret confinement till the arrival of the Countess.

According to this story, therefore, Alexander was aware of Catherine's murderous intentions at the time of that courteous reception we read of. But then, and for four months afterwards, no such accusation was heard of. At the end of that time Catherine was submitted to the humiliation of being confronted with the two men who testified to this accusation, before Alexander himself. To our ideas it would seem that there must have been various means of proving or disproving the facts in question. The letters might have been produced, and means of ascertaining their contagiousness devised. But juridical and medical science were in far too barbarous a state, and still more fatally the sentiment of fairness and appreciation of the desirableness of truth, far too much deadened for any such mode of proceeding to have been thought of. The witnesses maintained their story by their assertion; Catherine utterly denied that there was any truth in any part of it; and the whole scope of the examination seems to have been to see which party would most obstinately adhere to their assertion.

MEDIEVAL JURISPRUDENCE.

In an ordinary case the obstinacy would quickly have been more satisfactorily tested by placing the accused on the rack. But even a Pope, and that Pope Alexander VI., would hardly venture to apply the torture to Catherine Sforza. The examination, therefore appears to have resulted in a battledore-and-shuttlecock iteration of "You did," and "I did not," so much to the advantage of the lady, that one[144] of her biographers writes triumphantly of her, that "Although confronted with those who audaciously accused her of having sent them to Rome for that purpose, she, with a virile and intrepid mind, conquered by her obstinate constancy the wicked will of Alexander."