In October 1500 Cesare again set out for the Romagna, on the strength of Venetian friendship, with an army of 10,000 men. Pandolfo Malatesta of Rimini and Giovanni Sforza of Pesaro fled, and those cities opened their gates to Cesare. Faenza held out, for the people were devoted to their lord, Astorre Manfredi, a handsome and virtuous youth of eighteen. Manfredi surrendered in April 1501, on the promise that his life should be spared; but Cesare broke his word, and sent him a prisoner to Rome, where he was afterwards foully outraged and put to death. After taking Castel Bolognese he returned to Rome in June, to take part in the Franco-Spanish intrigues for the partition of Naples. He was now lord of an extensive territory, and the pope created him duke of Romagna. His cruelty, his utter want of scruple, and his good fortune made him a terror to all Italy. His avidity was insatiable and he could brook no opposition; but, unlike his father, he was morose, silent and unsympathetic. His next conquests were Camerino and Urbino, but his power was now greatly shaken by the conspiracy of La Magione (a castle near Perugia where the plotters met). Several of the princes deposed by him, the Orsinis, and some of his own captains, such as Vitellozzo Vitelli (q.v.), Oliverotto da Fermo, and G.P. Baglioni, who had been given estates but feared to lose them, joined forces to conspire against the Borgias. Risings broke out at Urbino and in Romagna, and the papal troops were defeated; Cesare could find no allies, and it seemed as though all Italy was about to turn against the hated family, when the French king promised help, and this was enough to frighten the confederates into coming to terms. Most of them had shown very little political or military skill, and several were ready to betray each other. But Cesare, while trusting no one, proved a match for them all. During his operations in northern Romagna, Vitelli, Oliverotto, Paolo Orsini, and the duke of Gravina, to show their repentance, seized Senigallia, which still held for the duke of Urbino, in his name. Cesare arrived at that town, decoyed the unsuspecting condottieri into his house, had them all arrested, and two of them, Vitelli and Oliverotto, strangled (December 31, 1502).
He was back in Rome early in 1503, and took part in reducing the last rebel Orsinis. He was gathering troops for a new expedition in central Italy in the summer, when both he and his father were simultaneously seized with fever. The pope died on the 18th of August, while Cesare was still incapacitated, and this unfortunate coincidence proved his ruin; it was the one contingency for which he had not provided. On all sides his enemies rose up against him; in Romagna the deposed princes prepared to regain their own, and the Orsinis raised their heads once more in Rome. Cesare’s position was greatly shaken, and when he tried to browbeat the cardinals by means of Don Michelotto and his bravos, they refused to be intimidated; he had to leave Rome in September, trusting that the Spanish cardinals would elect a candidate friendly to his house. At the conclave Francesco Todeschini-Piccolomini was elected as Pius III., and he showed every disposition to be peaceful and respectable, but he was old and in bad health. Cesare’s dominion at once began to fall to pieces; Guidobaldo, duke of Urbino, returned to his duchy with Venetian help; and the lords of Piombino, Rimini and Pesaro soon regained their own; Cesena, defended by a governor faithful to Cesare, alone held out. Pius III. died on the 18th of October 1503, and a new conclave was held. Cesare, who could still count on the Spanish cardinals, wished to prevent the election of Giuliano della Rovere, the enemy of his house, but the latter’s chances were so greatly improved that it was necessary to come to terms with him. On the 1st of November he was elected, and assumed the name of Julius II. He showed no ill-will towards Cesare, but declared that the latter’s territories must be restored to the church, for “we desire the honour of recovering what our predecessors have wrongfully alienated.” Venice hoped to intervene in Romagna and establish her protectorate over the principalities, but this Julius was determined to prevent, and after trying in vain to use Cesare as a means of keeping out the Venetians, he had him arrested. Borgia’s power was now at an end, and he was obliged to surrender all his castles in Romagna save Cesena, Forli and Bettinoro, whose governors refused to accept an order of surrender from a master who was a prisoner. Finally, it was agreed that if Cesare were set at liberty he would surrender the castles; this having been accomplished, he departed for Naples, where the Spaniards were in possession. The Spanish governor, Gonzalo de Cordova, had given him a safe-conduct, and he was meditating fresh plans, when Gonzalo arrested him by the order of Ferdinand of Spain as a disturber of the peace of Italy (May 1504). In August he was sent to Spain, where he remained a prisoner for two years; in November 1506 he made his escape, and fled to the court of his brother-in-law, the king of Navarre, under whom he took service. While besieging the castle of Viana, held by the rebellious count of Lerin, he was killed (March 12, 1507).
Cesare Borgia was a type of the adventurers with which the Italy of the Renaissance swarmed, but he was cleverer and more unscrupulous than his rivals. His methods of conquest were ferocious and treacherous; but once the conquest was made he governed his subjects with firmness and justice, so that his rule was preferred to the anarchy of factions and local despots. But he was certainly not a man of genius, as has long been imagined, and his success was chiefly due to the support of the papacy; once his father was dead his career was at an end, and he could no longer play a prominent part in Italian affairs. His fall proved on how unsound a basis his system had been built up.
The chief authorities for the life of Cesare Borgia are the same as those of Alexander VI., especially M. Creighton’s History of the Papacy, vol. v. (London, 1897); F. Gregorovius’s Geschichte der Stadt Rom, vol. vii. (Stuttgart, 1881); and P. Villari’s Machiavelli (London 1892); also C. Yriarte, César Borgia (Paris, 1889), an admirable piece of writing; Schubert-Soldern, Die Borgia und ihre Zeit (Dresden, 1902), which contains the latest discoveries on the subject; and E. Alvisi, Cesare Borgia, Duca di Romagna (Imola, 1878).
(L. V.*)
BORGIA, FRANCIS (1510-1572), Roman Catholic saint, duke of Gandia, and general of the order of Jesuits, was born at Gandia (Valencia) on the 10th of October 1510, and from boyhood was remarkable for his piety. Educated from his twelfth year at Saragossa under the charge of his uncle the archbishop, he had begun to show a strong inclination towards the monastic life, when his father sent him in 1528 to the court of Charles V. Here he distinguished himself, and on his marriage with Eleanor de Castro, a Portuguese lady of high rank, he was created marquis of Lombay, and was appointed master of the horse to the empress. He accompanied Charles on his African expedition in 1535, and also into Provence in 1536; and on the death of the empress in 1539 he was deputed to convoy the body to the burial-place in Granada. This sad duty confirmed his determination to leave the court, and also, should he survive his consort, to embrace the monastic life. On his return to Toledo, however, new honours were thrust upon him, much against his will; he was made viceroy of Catalonia and commander of the order of St James. At Barcelona, the seat of his government, he lived a life of great austerity, but discharged his official duties with energy and efficiency until 1543, when, having succeeded his father in the dukedom, he at length obtained permission to resign his viceroyalty and to retire to a more congenial mode of life at Gandia. Having already held some correspondence with Ignatius Loyola, he now powerfully encouraged the recently founded order of Jesus. One of his first cares at Gandia was to build a Jesuit college; and on the death of Eleanor in 1546, he resolved to become himself a member of the society. The difficulties arising from political and family circumstances were removed by a papal dispensation, which allowed him, in the interests of his young children, to retain his dignities and worldly possessions for four years after taking the vows. In 1550 he visited Rome, where he was received with every mark of distinction, and where he furnished the means for building the Collegium Romanum. Returning to Spain in the following year, he formally resigned his rank and estate in favour of his eldest son, assumed the Jesuit habit, was ordained priest, and entered upon a life of penance and prayer. At his own earnest request, seconded by Loyola, a proposal that he should be created a cardinal by Julius III. was departed from; and at the command of his superior he employed himself in the work of itinerant preaching. In 1554 he was appointed commissary-general of the order in Spain, Portugal and the Indies, in which capacity he showed great activity, and was successful in founding many new and thriving colleges. In 1556, shortly after Charles V. retired, Borgia had an interview with him, but would not yield to his inducements to transfer his allegiance to the older order of Hieronymites. Some time afterwards Borgia was employed by Charles to conduct negotiations with reference to a project which was to secure for Don Carlos of Spain the Portuguese succession in the event of the death of his cousin Don Sebastian. On the death of Lainez in 1565, Francis Borgia was chosen to succeed him as third general of the Jesuits. In this capacity he showed great zeal and administrative skill; and so great was the progress of the society under his government that he has sometimes been called “its second founder,” The peculiarities which are most characteristic of the order were, however, derived from Loyola and Lainez, rather than from Borgia, whose ideal was a simple monasticism rather than a life of manifold and influential contact with the world. He died at Rome on the 30th of September 1572. He was beatified by Urban VIII. in 1624, and canonized by Clement X. in 1671, his festival being afterwards (1683) fixed by Innocent XI. for the 10th of October.
Several works by St Francis Borgia have been published, the principal of these being a series of Exercises similar to the Exercitia Spiritualia of Loyola, and a treatise Rhetorica Concionandi. The Opera Omnia were published at Brussels in 1675. His life was written by his confessor Pedro de Ribadeneira. See also A. Butler’s Lives of the Saints, and the Breviarium Romanum (second nocturn for October 10).