To measure the relative depths of human infamy is an impossible as well as an ungrateful task. It is not given to mortals to know the secrets of the heart. But bad as Alexander undoubtedly was, he was possibly no worse than many of his contemporaries in the Consistory, less wicked than some of his predecessors at the Vatican. The guilt of greater and more vigorous natures passes for superlative infamy with the crowd; but when dispassionately compared with that of his immediate predecessors, Sixtus IV. and Innocent VIII., the character of Alexander VI. is in almost every respect less flagitious and more admirable.
So unblushing was the venality of the Holy See in the fourteenth century that sacred dialecticians and jurists of high authority were found seriously to argue that the Pope was not subjectively capable of committing the offense of Simony. It might have been contended with equal justice that in every other respect he was at once above, or without, the scope of the entire moral law. Nor can it be said that the fifteenth century brought any serious amendment.
From the death of Benedict XI., in 1303, to the death of Alexander VI., in 1503, the night was dark before the inevitable dawn; and in every phase of human depravity, in every development of human turpitude, in arrogance, in venality, in cruelty, in licentiousness, medieval Popes may be found pre-eminent among contemporary potentates. Thus, if the wickedness of Alexander was extravagant, it was by no means unparalleled, even among the Popes of a single century. His cruelty was no greater than that of Urban VI., or of Clement VII., or of John XXII. His immorality was, at least, more human than that of Paul II. and of Sixtus IV., nor were his amours more scandalous than those of Innocent VIII. His sacrilege was less dreadful than that of Sixtus IV. His covetousness could hardly have exceeded that of Boniface IX.; his arrogance was less offensive than that of Boniface VIII. If he was unduly subservient to Ferdinand and Isabella in his toleration of the enormities of Torquemada, his necessities as an Italian sovereign rendered the Spanish alliance a matter of capital importance. As a civil potentate and as a politician, he was not only wiser, but far less corrupt than Sforza, less rapacious than Ferdinand, more constant than Maximilian of Germany, less reckless than Charles of France. His administrative ability, his financial enlightenment, his energy as regards public works, were no less remarkable than his personal liberality, his affability, and his courage. His division of the New World by a stroke of the pen was an assumption of imperial power which was at least justified by the magnitude of its success. As he sat in his palace on the Mons Vaticanus, he was the successor, not of Caligula, but of Tiberius—not of Commodus, but of Diocletian.
Of the misfortunes of his eldest son, created by Ferdinand Duke of Gandia; of the wickedness of his second son, the fifteenth century Cæsar, who succeeded his father as Cardinal Archbishop of Valencia; of the profligacy of his daughter, so unhappily named Lucretia; of the marriage of his youngest son Geoffrey to a daughter of Alfonso of Naples, as a part of the treaty of alliance between the kingdom of the Two Sicilies and the States of the Church, in 1494; of the alliance between Alexander and Bajazet, and the poisoning of the Sultan’s brother, Zem, after thirteen years’ captivity, on receipt of an appropriate fee; of the elevation of a facile envoy to the full rank of Cardinal, to please the Grand Turk; of all these things nothing need be said in this place.
We are more immediately concerned to know that on New Year’s Day, 1495, Pope Alexander VI., a refugee, if not actually a prisoner, in the Castle of St. Angelo, was fain to accept the terms that were imposed upon him by the victorious Frenchmen—masters for the nonce of Italy and of Rome.
As Charles VIII. was marching through Italy, and was approaching, all unopposed, the sacred city of Rome, Alexander VI., anxious at all hazards to obtain the assistance of his countrymen in the hour of danger, had sent an envoy to the Spanish court representing the critical state of affairs in Italy, assuring the king and queen of his constant goodwill, in spite of certain disputes as to the Papal authority in Spain, and conveying to them, with other less substantial favors, the grant of the Tercias, or two-ninths of the tithes throughout all the dominions of Castile, an impost which, until the middle of the present century, formed a part of the revenues of the Spanish monarchy. He also conceded to the Spanish crown the right of dominion over the whole of northern Africa, except Fez, which had been given to the King of Portugal.
A projected marriage between the Duke of Calabria, eldest son of the King of Naples, and the Infanta Maria, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, served to give the King of Spain an opportunity for negotiating with the Neapolitan court; and Ferdinand at the same time dispatched the celebrated Garcilaso de la Vega as his embassador, with instructions to return the most comforting assurances to the Pope at Rome. Yet he refrained from making any definite promises, or from committing himself to any definite policy. He was not a man to do anything rashly; and he preferred to await the course of events. Meanwhile, having sent a second mission from Guadalajara to the French court or camp, with good advice for his young friend and ally Charles VIII., Ferdinand betook himself with Isabella to Madrid, where the Spanish sovereigns devoted themselves to the preparation and equipment of an army to be dispatched at an opportune moment to any part of Italy where subsequent events might render its presence necessary. As, for various reasons, it was impossible that either Ferdinand or Isabella should accompany their army abroad, it became necessary to select a general. Among all the skillful leaders and gallant knights who had signalized themselves in the wars of Granada, it was somewhat difficult to decide upon a commander. But Isabella had never lost sight of Gonsalvo de Cordova, in whom she discerned traces of rare military talent; and from the moment the Sicilian expedition was planned she determined that he should be captain-general of the royal forces. The greater experience and apparently superior claims of many who had distinguished themselves in battle against the Moors were urged by Ferdinand without avail. The command was given to Gonsalvo de Cordova.
But while the Spanish fleet, under the gallant Count of Trivento, was riding at anchor at Alicante, and Gonsalvo was preparing to embark his army on board the ships in that harbor, the Spanish sovereigns dispatched a final embassy to Charles in Italy. On the 28th of January, 1495, as the king was leaving Rome on his way toward Naples, the embassadors, Juan de Albion and Antonio de Fonseca, arrived at the Vatican. They found Pope Alexander smarting under the humiliation of his recent treaty with the invader, and willing to assist them in any scheme for his discomfiture. They accordingly followed the French army with all speed, overtook it within a few miles of Rome, and immediately demanded an audience of Charles, even before his troops had come to a halt. They delivered up to him their credentials as he was riding along, and peremptorily required him to proceed no further toward Naples. The haughty tone of the Spaniards, as may be supposed, excited the greatest indignation in the breast of Charles and those who surrounded him; high words arose on both sides, and finally Fonseca, giving way to a simulated transport of rage, produced a copy of the once prized treaty of Barcelona, tore it to pieces, and threw down the fragments at Charles’s feet. Paul Jove seems to think that this violent and unjustifiable conduct on the part of the Spanish embassador was entirely unpremeditated; but it is certain that the whole scene had been preconcerted with either Ferdinand or the Pope. Zurita and the other chroniclers are silent on the point, but Peter Martyr in one of his letters affirms that the mutilation of the treaty in Charles’s presence was included in the secret instructions given to Fonseca by Ferdinand.
The envoys, as was expected, were promptly ordered to quit the French camp; and retiring with all speed to Rome, they hastened to transmit to Spain the earliest intelligence of the success of their mission. They were also permitted to inform their sovereigns of the new honor that had been conferred upon them by his Holiness Alexander VI., in the shape of the grant to them and to their heirs forever on the throne of Spain of the title of “Catholic Kings.”
Meanwhile Charles VIII. had reached Naples, which had at once opened its gates to the invaders, and the Castel Nuovo and the Castel d’Uovo were reduced to submission by their well-served artillery. King Alfonso abdicated the crown, and Fabricio Colonna ravaged the whole kingdom of Naples to the very gates of Brindisi, dispersing the little band of troops that had been collected by Don Cæsar of Aragon, illegitimate brother of the king; while Perron dei Baschi and Stuart d’Aubigny overran the whole country almost without striking a blow; and the greater part of the Neapolitan nobility gave their adhesion to the French. Nothing, however, could be more impolitic or more ungrateful than the manner in which Charles made use of his unexpectedly acquired authority, and it soon became evident that the new state of affairs in Naples would not be of very long duration. The moment for the judicious interference of Ferdinand of Aragon had not been long in arriving.