The crux came early in 1494 – ‘a most unhappy year for Italy, and in truth the beginning of those years of misfortune’, wrote Guicciardini. On 27 January Ferrante of Naples died, and the need for a decision over the investiture of his successor became acute. Charles VIII at once dispatched an embassy to Rome, threatening that if Alexander favoured Ferrante’s heir Alfonso he would call for a General Council, and at the same time he entered into communication with the dangerous Giuliano della Rovere. Alexander, who had hitherto tried to keep up the appearance of being uncommitted, was now forced to come out into the open. He had in fact already decided that French control of Naples would be fatal to the independence of the Papacy, while his natural inclinations favoured the Aragonese. On 16 March, in public consistory, he declared himself favourable to Alfonso’s claims, and two days later, against bitter opposition from Giuliano, now joined by the pro-French, violently anti-Neapolitan Ascanio Sforza, a bull was read appointing his nephew Juan Borgia, Cardinal of Monreale, as Legate for Alfonso’s coronation. The next day Alexander sent Charles a Golden Rose to palliate this rebuff.
It was too late: on 17 March Charles announced his intention of invading Italy, and events moved with gathering momentum. The cardinals opposed to Alexander began to leave Rome to gather round the French King, which gave the forthcoming invasion an increasingly ecclesiastical character as Alexander’s enemies called for a General Council, reform of the Church, and the deposition of the Pope on the grounds of his simoniacal election. On 23 April Giuliano, refusing the desperate attempts by Alfonso of Naples and Virginio Orsini to reconcile him with the Pope, fled from his fortress at Ostia, which he left in the hands of his friends the Colonnas. From Genoa he went to his archiepiscopal palace at Avignon, and from thence to the French court, arriving on 1 June. In Guicciardini’s words, ‘he was received by the King with the greatest honour and ceremony, and joined with the others who were making ready to loose troubles upon Italy’.
Defiantly, Alexander strengthened his bonds with Naples; in the first week of April, through the medium of Virginio Orsini, agreement was reached between Alexander and Alfonso of Naples, by which Alfonso was made to pay dearly for the Pope’s support. In return for his coronation by the Legate Juan Borgia, Jofre was to be officially married to Sancia with the title of Prince of Squillace and 40,000 ducats annual income, while Juan Gandia gained the principate of Tricario and the counties of Carinola and Clarimonte, and Cesare received numerous rich benefices. Cesare, as he proudly informed Juan in a letter of 19 April, had taken part in all the negotiations: ‘This agreement has been reached ten or twelve days ago, and Your Grace will be amazed that I should not have informed you of it earlier, but, finding myself somewhat indisposed when the aforesaid peace was concluded, in which I have always been concerned from the beginning until the end, I left for the baths of Stigliano, where I have been until yesterday, returning thence in good health by God’s grace …’ The tone of the letter was somewhat condescending and elderbrotherly, as if Cesare wished to impress upon Juan the relation in which he now stood to his father: ‘We have reason, my lord brother, to kiss continually the ground on which His Holiness walks and to pray always for the life of him who has made us so great; and therefore I pray you to seek continually to serve and please His Holiness, in a manner that you may show him on our behalf our gratitude in everything that we can.’
Cesare did not attend the double celebrations at Naples in the second week of May when Alfonso was crowned and Jofre and Sancia married by Juan Borgia of Monreale; he remained in Rome during the difficult and anxious months preceding the French invasion. Alexander was isolated: he could expect no help from any of the European powers, the loyalty of the Papal States was doubtful, and the French had suborned the Roman nobles. The Neapolitan army, although commanded by three of the most experienced condottieri in Italy, Gian Jacopo Trivulzio and Niccolò and Virginio Orsini, could hardly be expected to defeat the French single-handed; the papal forces were insignificant, and of the two other major military powers in Italy, Milan was on the side of the French, while Venice, as was her custom, remained neutral. Florence, the Pope’s other ally, was militarily weak. Desperate, the Pope even appealed to the Sultan for help, but none was forthcoming from any quarter, and so on 12 July Alexander and Cesare rode to Virginio Orsini’s stronghold of Vicovaro to meet King Alfonso and agree on a combined plan of action. Alfonso with part of the combined forces was to occupy Tagliacozzo, while Virginio Orsini remained in the Campagna as a check on the Colonnas; the mass of the allied armies under Alfonso’s eldest son Ferrantino were to march into the Romagna and threaten the territory of Ludovico of Milan, while a fleet under Alfonso’s brother Federigo was to attack Genoa. It was a reasonable plan, but unfortunately it was not put quickly enough into action. On 3 September 1494 Charles VIII crossed the Alps into Italy with the largest army seen in Europe for more than a century.
In his sermons for Lent 1494, the great preacher Savonarola had prophesied from his Florentine pulpit the coming of a ‘new Cyrus’ who would lead his army through the whole of Italy without breaking a lance or meeting with any resistance; the prophecy was about to come true. Although the Italians, with their appreciation of physical beauty, scoffed at the new Cyrus’ dwarfish looks, they were impressed by the size of his army of some 30,000 men, and particularly by his artillery, forty heavy siege pieces which were more mobile and had a greater hitting power than contemporary Italian guns. The Italian princes flocked to do homage to the powerful ‘barbarian’ as soon as he reached Asti. It was there that Charles received news of the defeat of the Neapolitan fleet at Rapallo by his cousin Louis of Orleans, a victory which created an immense effect in Italy. After a bout of smallpox he resumed his triumphant march southward, stopping at Pavia to visit the sick Duke Gian Galeazzo in the great Sforza castle, where he returned empty words to Isabella’s impassioned pleas for the defence of the rights of her ailing husband and his young heir. Ten days later Gian Galeazzo was dead. Ludovico Sforza, amid rumours, probably unfounded, that he had poisoned his nephew, achieved his ambition of the ducal crown.
‘God is with the French,’ wrote de Comines, who accompanied the expedition, amazed at the ease of their advance. It might have been more true to say that most of the Italians were not against them, and those who were, were physically powerless to oppose them. The bulk of the Papal – Neapolitan forces were stationed in the Romagna in the belief that Charles would choose the easy route down the east side of the peninsula, and that if he did not, the Florentines would hold the Apennine passes. But fortune did not favour Alexander. Due to the lateness of the season Charles and his commanders chose the most direct route south, through Tuscany, thus outflanking the allied forces in the Romagna, while the pusillanimous Piero de’ Medici yielded up the Florentine fortresses without a fight. ‘The sword has come!’ Savonarola cried from the pulpit of the Duomo at Florence on All Saints’ Day, 1 November; on the 9th the Florentines, disgusted with Piero, rose against the Medicis and plundered their palace. Two weeks later Charles entered the city in triumph, welcomed as a liberator by the populace with cries of ‘Viva Francia’, and as the messenger of God by Savonarola, now virtual ruler of the city. On 22 November Charles issued a proclamation from Florence declaring that his object was the recovery of the Holy Land, and that the possession of his Neapolitan kingdom was a necessary step towards that goal. He demanded free passage through the Papal States and wielded the threat of a General Council and the deposition of the Pope.
At Rome, Alexander refused all attempts to persuade him to desert Alfonso and win him to France. He declared to the envoys of the Duke of Ferrara that he would rather leave Rome and give up both his life and his tiara than become the slave of the King of France, who was bent upon becoming the master of all Italy. ‘And although he might be a Spaniard, not the less for that did he love Italy, nor did he wish to see her in the hands of anyone but Italians …’ The Ferrarese envoy reported that he spoke with such vehemence of word and ge
sture that they seemed to come from the heart, and that at times his eyes were brimming as if the tears would flow. In fact the situation was now hopeless; the Colonnas had deserted the Pope in mid-September, hoisting the French flag over the fortress at Ostia, commanding the mouth of the Tiber. In mid-November Giuliano’s brother Giovanni della Rovere captured the papal envoy returning from his mission to the Sultan, with letters (which may have been forged) incriminating the head of Christendom with soliciting the help of the enemy of the Faith against the Most Christian King of France. By late November the French were pouring into the Papal States, and their advance was so rapid that on 27 November they captured Giulia Farnese and Adriana Orsini, Alexander’s ‘heart and eyes’, as Ludovico il Moro remarked. The French chivalrously returned the Pope’s women on 1 December, and on 10 December Alexander’s spirits were briefly raised by the arrival in Rome of the Papal – Neapolitan force under Ferrantino. It was a vain hope; on 17 December the French captured Civita Vecchia, and the Orsinis surrendered their fortress of Bracciano north of Rome.
For Alexander and Cesare, waiting helplessly in the Vatican, it was now a question of days. On the 18th everything was packed for flight and valuables were sent to the castle of Sant’Angelo. On the 19th the first French outposts appeared on Monte Mario and from the windows of the Vatican Alexander and Cesare could see the enemy cavalry exercising their horses in the meadows under Sant’Angelo. The scarcity of supplies in the city was becoming intolerable, and the Romans informed Alexander that if he did not come to terms with Charles within two days they would open the gates to the French. The allied commanders suggested that the Pope should flee to Naples, and that Cesare should guard the precious hostage Djem in the castle of Gaeta. Alexander rejected the idea. He did not intend to become a prisoner of Naples, and very probably considered that the sight of an empty Vatican would be too much of a temptation to Giuliano and the opposition cardinals who followed the King. He was a man of considerable physical courage, who had already proved that he did not lose his head in a crisis. His enemies in the French camp were pressing for a General Council and for his deposition; in these days of confusion and disaster he knew that to save his personal position it was necessary to come to terms personally with the young King, and being well aware of Charles’ nature, he can have had few doubts as to the outcome of such a confrontation.
On the morning of Christmas Day he informed the cardinals and the allied commanders that he had decided to admit the King. The allied forces rode south to defend the kingdom of Naples, accompanied to the Lateran gate by Cesare, who then returned to the Vatican. During the night three French envoys entered Rome. When their suite coolly sat themselves in the places reserved for prelates in the palace chapel, the shocked master of ceremonies tried to oust them; Alexander told him angrily that he wished to destroy him and must let the French sit where they pleased. The Pope’s troops, numbering only some thousand horse and a few infantry, occupied the Borgo. Alexander and Cesare shut themselves up in the Vatican with their Spanish bodyguard to await the coming of their conqueror.
Charles chose St Silvester’s Day, 31 December, which his astrologers had predicted would be favourable, for his solemn entry into Alexander’s capital. As he rode through mud and rain towards Rome, the young King bombarded Alexander’s master of ceremonies, Burchard, with questions ‘about the ceremonies to be performed, the state of the pope and the cardinals, the power and rank of Cardinal Cesare Borgia of Valencia, and many other things …’ The French army entered Rome through the Porta del Popolo and marched down the Via Lata (the Corso) under the excited gaze of the Romans. Their entry lasted from three in the afternoon until nine o’clock at night, so that torches had to be lit, heightening the impressiveness of the long columns of armed men. The King’s German and Swiss mercenaries came first, dressed in short multi-coloured uniforms, with plumed helmets, carrying short swords and the great ten-foot pikes which had made them the most feared foot-soldiers in Europe. They were big, powerful men and marched in perfect time to the sound of trumpets, making a contrast to the following 5000 Gascon cross-bowmen who were small and soberly dressed. After the infantry rode 2500 heavy cavalry, the core of the King’s army, the nobles of France with gorgeous silk cloaks over their gleaming armour, carrying lances and maces, riding heavy chargers whose ears and tails were cropped in the French fashion, and behind them some 5000 light cavalry-armed with English longbows. Then came the King’s guard of four hundred archers, including a hundred Scots, followed by his personal bodyguard of nobles, armed, marching on foot and carrying iron maces over their shoulders. Most impressive of all to the Italians was the artillery which rattled through the streets at a rapid trot, the uncertain light of the torches flickering over the long bronze bodies of the heavy cannon, eight feet long, weighing 6000 lb and with a bore the size of a man’s head. Above the clanking armour, the jingle of harness and the rumble of the artillery carriages, the streets rang with cries of ‘Francia, Colonna, Vincoli’ – the Pope’s supporters, if any there were, having the sense to keep their mouths shut. It was a day of triumph for Alexander’s enemies. Giuliano and Ascanio, riding in the places of honour beside the King, accompanied him to the Palazzo Venezia where he was to reside.
The King of France was ill at ease in the Borgia capital. The Venetian diarist Sanuto, who recorded information from the Republic’s envoys and agents throughout Europe, reported that he took stringent precautions against poison: ‘He always ate alone with his nobles standing in attendance, while four physicians observed him closely to see whether he ate too much or too little, and whose job it was to test the wine for poison. The wine was served in a cup, stirred with a golden spoon in which was embedded a piece of unicorn horn [a protection against poison], and tasted by the head servitor.’ Despite Burchard’s careful instructions, Charles showed himself lamentably ignorant of the strict etiquette of the Roman court, and shocked the master of ceremonies by his offhand treatment of the cardinals who flocked to visit him, ‘not coming forward to meet them, nor accompanying them to the head of the stairs as they departed, nor showing them any of the honour due to them …’ Burchard was horrified by the state of squalor to which the ‘barbarian’ court soon reduced one of the most magnificent palaces in Rome. Although the French were provided with plenty of straw beds, he wrote: ‘I observed that at no time were the sacks of straw cleaned. Tallow candles were hung over the doors of the rooms and in the fireplaces, and, although there were most beautiful tapestries decorating the walls, everything was like a pig-sty.’ Yet despite the unfamiliarity of his surroundings, Charles was master of Rome. He sent to Alexander to demand that the castle of Sant’Angelo and the person of Prince Djem be handed over to him, and that Cesare should accompany the expedition to Naples; on 6 January Alexander uncompromisingly refused. When the cardinals carried his reply to Charles, the King replied menacingly: ‘My barons will acquaint the Pope with my will.’ That evening Alexander and Cesare with four cardinals retreated through the underground passage from the Vatican to the safety of the fortress of Sant’Angelo. The Borgias were at bay.
One wonders what it must have been like for Cesare as he and his father with their few followers awaited the outcome of events within the thick walls of Sant’Angelo. This was the first crisis of his career; in the most anxious moments he must indeed have wondered whether they would lose everything that they had so briefly enjoyed, the position and the wealth, above all the Papacy and the future which it afforded him. All the odds were against them. They had no weapons beyond his father’s experience, skill and courage with which to combat their adverse fortune. Yet one of the secrets of the Borgias’ success, which Cesare perhaps learned in this time of crisis, was a refusal to give up even in the most apparently hopeless circumstances, and, as events were to show, there can be little doubt that Alexander and Cesare spent their time discussing contingency plans.
Outside the walls of Sant’Angelo the city was in an uproar. Panic-stricken citizens buried their valuables t
o save them from the pillaging troops. The Mantuan envoy Brognolo wrote on 6 January: ‘The discontent of the people is at its height, the requisitions are fearful, the murders innumerable, one hears nothing but moaning and weeping. In all the memory of man the Church has never been in such evil plight.’ Charles ordered gallows to be set up in the squares to discourage looting, but the disorders continued. Burchard returned home one day to find his house requisitioned by some French noblemen, whose mules were eating up his hay, and on the 8th he recorded: ‘Even the house of Donna Vannozza Cattanei, the mother of Cardinal Cesare Borgia, did not escape being pillaged.’
Meanwhile Charles menaced the beleaguered Borgias with his artillery, but his cannon proved unnecessary. On 10 January, without a shot being fired, a greater part of the outer wall of Sant’Angelo collapsed over a length of thirty feet from the tower to the gate, killing three guards. Alexander capitulated, and on 15 January agreement was signed. Cesare was to accompany Charles to Naples for a period of three months, Djem was to be handed over to the King’s custody for the duration of the expedition against the Turks (but Alexander was to keep the pension), free passage through the States of the Church was to be allowed the French army, and amnesty promised for the churchmen and nobles who had rebelled against the Pope. In return Charles was to profess public obedience to the Pope, to impose no constraint upon him in things either spiritual or temporal, and to protect him against all attacks. The next day Charles met Alexander in the garden of the Vatican with mutual displays of courtesy and respect, and took up residence in the papal palace. On the 19th he made a public profession of obedience to the Pope, whereupon Alexander took him by the hand and called him his first-born son.
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