The Borgias

by G. J. Meyer

  An eager buyer turned up in the person of Virginio Orsini, lord of Bracciano and at this time his family’s most powerful layman; only his cousin Cardinal Giovanni Battista Orsini possessed comparable influence. Virginio, recognizing a rare opportunity, declared himself willing to pay Cibo upward of forty thousand ducats for an assortment of castles and settlements less than a day’s ride north of Rome. There were difficulties, however. They began with the fact that the location of Cibo’s properties—at Cerveteri, Anguillara, Canale Monterano, and Rota—gave them strategic value in the eternal contest for control of the Papal States. Nobody distrustful of the Orsini, or of their ally and patron Ferrante of Naples, would be happy to see them fall into Virginio’s hands. The Sforza would regard such a development as intolerable. Worse, the properties in question were not actually Cibo’s to sell; they were fiefs of the pope. Complicating the situation still further, Virginio Orsini was himself simultaneously a papal vassal by virtue of his lordship of Bracciano and a condottiere serving as great constable of the kingdom of Naples—as, that is, commander of the armies of that tormenter of popes King Ferrante. At a time of recurrent friction between Naples and Rome, Virginio’s position was so ambiguous, his loyalties so mixed, as to be indecipherable. Such were the ambiguities of Italian life as the Renaissance was coming to full flower.

  Not surprisingly, in light of how useful Cibo’s castles could prove to Ferrante whenever he next set out to make trouble in the Papal States, Alexander thought he saw the king’s hand in the proposed sale. He became convinced, very likely with Ascanio Sforza’s encouragement, that Ferrante was lending the purchase price to Virginio as the first step in a plan to turn the castles into outposts from which Naples could threaten Rome. About the financing of the transaction, at least, Alexander was wrong. The money was being supplied by Piero de’ Medici, whose mother and wife were both Orsini and whose sister was married to Cibo. But even if he had learned of his error, the pope would have had reason to remain troubled. The proposed sale would weaken papal authority in the Campagna district near Rome whether the castles ended up in Virginio’s possession or in Ferrante’s, and regardless of where the money came from. And an important principle was at stake: if Cibo and Virginio could close the deal without so much as acknowledging a need for papal approval, all the warlords of the Papal States would be encouraged to forget their obligations to Rome.

  Nor would Alexander have been comforted had he known how deeply the Medici were involved. Or if he had been able to see that the driving force behind the crisis, its evil genius, was Giuliano della Rovere, whose continually building anger at having lost the papal election had sent him to Florence in search of ways to make trouble. He found his opportunity in Cibo’s eagerness to sell, Virginio’s hunger to buy, and Piero’s willingness to arrange the financing. The situation must have delighted him, especially the prospect of punishing Alexander and Ascanio for denying him the papal crown. The ramifications reached in every direction, and so many powerful men had a stake in the outcome that the potential consequences were beyond reckoning. Even the College of Cardinals broke once again into factions.

  It was from such petty beginnings that the undoing of all Italy proceeded. Cibo had already handed over the castles to Virginio by the time Alexander learned of the sale, and when the pope objected, he was ignored. When word reached Milan of what was happening, Ludovico Sforza’s fear of being left isolated turned into something approaching panic. It was undoubtedly his brother Ascanio who, making full use of his insider position as vice-chancellor and papal friend, persuaded Alexander to summon a consistory at which he denounced Ferrante and effectively accused della Rovere of treason. Ferrante, himself alarmed now and in the unfamiliar position of being innocent of the charges against him, sent his son Federico to Rome to smooth things over. Duke Federico’s instructions were to offer not just an alliance but marriages between two members of the Neapolitan royal family and a couple of the numerous young Borgias who had been crowding into the papal court since Alexander’s election. Nothing came of this; a pact with Naples would have wrecked negotiations that Ascanio Sforza already had in process, on the pope’s behalf, to reconcile his brother in Milan and the government of Venice. Federico had to return to his father with nothing to show for two months at the papal court. Della Rovere, back in Rome but seeing the tide running strongly against him, withdrew to Ostia and barricaded himself inside a fortress commanding the Vatican’s access to the sea. Alexander responded by moving troops into the nearby coastal city of Civitavecchia, creating a standoff. When Ascanio’s negotiations bore fruit in the form of a new League of St. Mark, allying Rome not only with Milan and Venice but with the smaller city-states of Siena, Mantua, and Ferrara, a shocked Ferrante assured della Rovere that Naples would come to his aid if Alexander moved against him. General war seemed just one provocation away.

  Everyone was afraid and mistrustful, and therefore everyone had become dangerously unpredictable. The League of St. Mark, created largely to assuage Ludovico Sforza’s sense of isolation, was inherently unstable. Though its members pledged themselves to remain allies for twenty-five years, Venice’s hunger for Milanese territory made this almost laughably unrealistic. Nevertheless it spooked Ferrante into preparing for a war that he emphatically did not want, the forces arrayed against him being now so numerous, and simultaneously launched him on an almost hysterical campaign to break the bond of trust that had linked Ferdinand of Spain and Rodrigo Borgia for the past twenty years. In a flurry of letters to his agents in Spain, to officials at the Spanish court, and to Ferdinand and Isabella themselves, Ferrante warned that Rome was now ruled by a monster in human form. In one of these missives, signed on June 7, 1493, and addressed to Ferdinand, he complained that “the Pope leads such a life that he is abhorred by everyone … he is anxious to be engaged in war, for from the beginning of his papacy he has done nothing else than seeking or causing trouble [and is] constantly at work with fraudulent machinations.”

  Ferrante’s motives were transparently self-serving, his credibility nil. Ferdinand of Spain was as far from being credulous as it is possible for a human being to be, and he knew his Neapolitan cousin far too well not to see through this invective. Thus Ferrante’s word had no effect on Ferdinand’s opinion of a pope whom he had good reason to regard as a friend. To the extent that those words have provided rich fertilizer for the black Borgia myth, they should be measured against the reply of Juan López, bishop of Perugia, when asked by Spain for his opinion. “Rest assured,” López replied, “that the life, the intentions, and the sagacity of the Pontiff are different from what your letter represents them to be. I tell you, sir, that of the other popes whom you mention, not a one had a mind so exalted nor was one so respected as Pope Alexander, for his long experience, his intelligence, and his activity.” López was a native of Valencia who had entered the service of Rodrigo Borgia at an early age and served for a time as his private secretary. He knew whereof he wrote, therefore, and would appear to have had no reason to deceive the Spanish court. Even if one assumes that loyalty caused his opinion of Alexander VI to be excessively high, surely this implies nothing discreditable about the object of his admiration. Nor does it seem likely that loyalty to a onetime patron would have induced him to deceive a monarch as powerful as Ferdinand of Spain.

  At the same time that Ferrante was attempting to interest Ferdinand in his problems, Ludovico Sforza of Milan was attempting to interest Charles of France in his. In this lay the tragedy of Italy—that its arcane quarrels drove its most important rulers to seek outside help at precisely the moment when the two rising powers of the north, France and Spain, were looking for new worlds to conquer. France, having absorbed the great duchies of Brittany and Burgundy and recovered from its long war with England, was as the 1490s began in the hands of an inexperienced king who nursed fantasies of achieving military glory on an intercontinental scale. Ferdinand and Isabella, having completed the unification of Spain by conquering Granada just seven months
before Rodrigo Borgia became pope, were brimming with confidence and looking for uses for their growing power. Though they neither respected nor trusted their cousin in Naples—in fact they believed that their own claim to the Neapolitan crown superseded that of the bastard Ferrante—they were also acutely aware of French claims not only to Naples but to Milan as well. There could be no doubt about which side they would favor if Ferrante found himself in conflict with Milan and, through Milan, with France. And so the ludicrous character of Ferrante’s complaints about Pope Alexander did not deter Ferdinand from dispatching one of his most distinguished envoys to Rome to intervene on Ferrante’s behalf. Diego López de Haro arrived at the pontifical court with a long list of issues that his master wanted resolved. At the top were the League of St. Mark’s hostility to Naples and—another matter with which the Spanish monarchs urgently wanted help—Spain’s rights in the uncharted lands that Christopher Columbus had reported finding upon returning from his epic voyage of discovery only a few months earlier.

  The timing was good, and things came together nicely. When the pope issued a bull legitimating Spanish claims in what Columbus himself believed was easternmost India or perhaps China, López de Haro was freed to be equally cooperative in return. And when Ferrante offered to press Virginio Orsini to compromise on Franceschetto Cibo’s disputed castles—he would have been eager to get that quarrel settled even if he had not been prodded by Ferdinand’s ambassador—Alexander too was willing to be responsive. It was known that representatives of Charles of France were in Italy on their way to Rome and that their assignment was to request—to demand, really—that Alexander invest their master with the crown of Naples. Ferrante most desperately of all, but also the pope and López de Haro, wanted to get their business settled before the Frenchmen arrived. Alexander knew as well as anyone that the League of St. Mark was worth little more than the parchment it was written on, and he was quicker than most to see the dangers of the Sforzas’ growing entanglement with France. As for Virginio, not even the chief of the Orsini could defy a combination that included his liege lord the pope, his employer the king of Naples, and the distant but fearsome king of Spain.

  Thus it was all speedily wrapped up: a multifaceted settlement at the core of which was an end to the quarrel over the Cibo castles. Virginio agreed to pay thirty-five thousand ducats for the properties and to pay them not to Franceschetto Cibo, who was left out in the cold, but to Alexander as overlord. To put some political distance between the castles and Naples, they were sold not to Virginio himself but to his son. Virginio acknowledged that the transaction required the pope’s approval, thus resolving a crucial question of principle in Rome’s favor. The extent of Ferrante’s fear of the French, his determination to get everything settled before Charles VIII’s representatives could get to Rome, is evident in the fact that he and not the Medici bank ended up advancing the Orsini the purchase price. When Charles’s envoy Peron de Basche arrived just a few days later and demanded that the pope acknowledge the French king’s right to Naples, Alexander replied that the issue was legal rather than political and would have to be decided by a panel of lawyers. Basche responded angrily, knowing that he was being finessed, warning that the pope’s refusal to cooperate could lead to the calling of a general council. He knew, however, that the answer he had been given was as reasonable as it was adroit. Alexander took pains to be clear about one thing: his willingness to submit Charles’s claim to the scrutiny of experts would be contingent on France’s refraining from the use of force. If France attacked Naples, its claim would be rejected forthwith. In laying down these terms he foreshadowed the policy that would guide him in the months ahead and make it forever impossible to accuse him of being duplicitous in this matter. His deflection of Basche’s demands was masterful. Though it baffled and infuriated the ambassador, it kept Alexander free to offer his friendship to Charles and Ferrante alike.

  On the diplomatic front, Alexander was racking up one success after another. He had profited handsomely from the transfer of the castles from Franceschetto Cibo to the Orsini, receiving both an infusion of gold ducats and confirmation of the papacy’s feudal rights. He had diverted Ferrante from going to war and had settled his own differences with the Orsini. He had even effected a reconciliation with Giuliano della Rovere, who came out from behind his battlements in Ostia and in company with Virginio journeyed to the Vatican to dine with the pope. The stature that these achievements had conferred upon him, and through him on his family, is reflected in the sudden interest of the kings of Naples and Spain alike in linking themselves to the pope through marriage.

  There were difficulties all the same, and if these were unintended, they were nonetheless laden with danger. The return of della Rovere to the papal court was taken as a rebuke by Ascanio Sforza, who repaired to his brother’s court in Milan. His arrival, which Ludovico may have interpreted as meaning that Ascanio had been banished, angered and frightened the regent anew. Seeing that Naples was now rich in allies, certain that at the first opportunity Ferrante would gleefully drive him out of Milan and make Gian Galeazzo duke in fact as well as in title, Ludovico can hardly be blamed for thinking that his survival depended on recruiting support wherever it might be found.

  He must have been comforted, however, by evidence that the rapprochement between Rome and Naples was quickly beginning to fray. When Alexander tried to demonstrate that he would welcome friendship with Milan and France, Ferrante took this as a betrayal. He resumed his old game of hiring condottieri to make trouble in the Papal States. Sensitivities grew so keen that it became impossible for Alexander to strike a balance acceptable to both sides. His nomination in September 1493 of twelve new cardinals sparked angry objections among the Sacred College’s sitting members. This happened not for the reason usually given—the youth of two of the pope’s choices, Alessandro Farnese and the same Cesare Borgia who had earlier been given the see of Valencia—but mainly because of the sheer number of nominees, and to a lesser extent because so many of them were longtime associates of the pope’s and disposed to follow his lead.

  The college had always been uneasy about increases in its size, nothing being more obvious than that as the number of members grew, each member declined in importance. And now Alexander was adding a full dozen at once, more than half of them Curia officials likely to side with him in almost any crisis, plus two fellow Spaniards and a scattering of northern Europeans unlikely ever to become much involved in Roman or Vatican politics. The number was not unprecedented, but it was certainly unusual, half a century having passed since Eugenius IV’s creation of seventeen new cardinals at a single stroke in 1439. Even those cardinals who were not in sympathy with Alexander’s policies would have conceded that it made good sense for an ambitious pontiff to start loading the Sacred College with longtime associates, youthful protégés, and distant foreigners. To do otherwise would have been folly; by appointing cardinals likely to be uncooperative, Alexander would have been impeding the pursuit of his own priorities. His choices confirmed—as though confirmation were needed—that he was no fool and that he was in firm charge of Rome and the Church. He was entrenching himself for the battles he knew to lie ahead.

  As for Farnese and Cesare Borgia, there was no real problem. Farnese was of distinguished family and well known at court, having been singled out for advancement in the reign of Innocent VIII. He was also virtually a member of the papal household, his famously beautiful sister Giulia being married to Orsino Orsini, the son of Alexander’s cousin and domestic manager Adriana del Milà. Cesare Borgia, if not familiar to many of the cardinals, was certainly a familiar type, and no one could have been astonished by the spectacle of a pope raising an unproven kinsman to the highest level of the hierarchy. The question of exactly how this particular young favorite was related to this particular pope will be addressed in due course.

  The real problem with the new cardinals rose out of the grievances of the Italian states. Not one of the appointees was from Naples, Alexan
der perhaps thinking that he was already seen as excessively friendly to Il Regno. Predictably, Ferrante took this as an affront. The sole Milanese nominee was a protégé of Ascanio Sforza, who in fact had proposed him as a candidate, but by this point Alexander’s relations with the Sforza brothers had deteriorated to such an extent that no mere red hat could make a significant difference. Ludovico had become convinced that his fate and those of his wife and children depended upon getting himself invested as duke, and that the only man in Europe with both the ability and the willingness to make this happen was Charles VIII of France.

  Charles for his part had ample reasons to want to be helpful: dreams of greatness that he thought it his destiny to fulfill. Barely twenty-three years old in the summer of 1493, he had inherited the crown from his father Louis XI while still a child and spent several years under the tutelage of his canny sister Anne de Beaujeu, who ruled as regent until he came of age. He was an odd little figure, comically ill formed, with a large red nose on a head too big for his spindly body and splayed feet that caused him to walk in a crablike shuffle. Not long after he became king, his sister’s government had provided men and ships for the quixotic expedition that led to their cousin Henry Tudor’s coronation as Henry VII of England. The improbable success of this adventure undoubtedly contributed to Charles’s romantic vision of himself as a future conquering hero. He fixated on a part of his supposed inheritance that his father had been too shrewd to take seriously: the idea that with the extinction of the House of Anjou they had become the rightful kings of Naples, and that Alfonso V and his son Ferrante were interlopers with no legitimate claim. Told that as king of Naples he was also king of Jerusalem, Charles clutched that fantasy to his breast as well.