Giovanni, the unfortunate first husband of Lucrezia, not only had been caught up in the same political catastrophe produced by the French invasion but had also recently been divorced on the grounds of his alleged impotence.
The last person to be cleared by Alexander was his own son Joffre. The inclusion of Joffre's name was curious, for he was only fifteen years old at the time and his only possible motive arose from a separate family scandal of a type which Alexander never made public. In naming Joffre he was tacitly admitting that the scandal was so notorious as to give the boy a motive for fratricide, and a public denial was therefore necessary. Rome believed, and with excellent reason, that both Juan and Cesare had made a cuckold of their young brother.
Joffre Borgia, the youngest son of Vannozza, plays a pathetic figure beside his glamorous brothers and sister, his activities appearing as a mere postscript to theirs. A drab, spiritless young man whose apathy so goaded Alexander that he had been heard to declare in anger that he could not claim him as son, it was peculiarly unfortunate that Sancia of Aragon, of all women, should have been chosen as wife for him. Four years older than her boy- husband, she was a beauty, had considerable spirit and no morals. The marriage to Joffre was forced upon her and she had no choice but to accept. But from the beginning she declared she had no intention of playing the passive role expected, of being only the means of transferring titles and land and, in due course, providing an heir for them. It is possible that had Joffre been of stronger character or older when he married her, he might have been able to restrain her. Possible—but unlikely. Brought up as she had been in the corrupt ambience of the Neapolitan court, herself the product of an illicit affair and her chastity therefore of little dynastic importance, Sancia was notorious in Naples even before she married. Joffre, colorless even in favorable circumstances, became a nonentity among the swaggering, arrogant nobles who formed Sancia's social world; and her attitude toward him was one of open contempt tinged with malice. That the boy collapsed and wept on his wedding night was common knowledge, which regaled the courts of both Rome and Naples. That choice information could have come only from one source. Alexander, always wanting to have his children around him, insisted that Joffre and Sancia should come to Rome—with results that might have been expected. Sancia—black-haired, with a glowing olive- tinted skin and startling blue-green eyes—was reckoned extraordinary even in a city sated with beautiful women. Brought into intimate and prolonged contact with a twosome such as Juan and Cesare Borgia and sharing their amorality, Sancia, through her activities in the weeks before Juan's death, gave grounds enough for Alexander's anxious disclaimer. No one believed that the puny Joffre himself could have wielded the sword that slashed open Juan's throat, but there were any number of men who might have played upon his impotent hatred and used him as a cover for the slaying. The Orsini, who had been feuding with the Borgia for a generation now, some other enraged cuckold, a disappointed social climber—it could have been anyone.
Neither Alexander nor anybody else in Rome the summer of 1497 mentioned as suspect the man whom posterity was to condemn almost unanimously as the murderer. Nothing is known of Cesare's activities on that June night, nor during the days immediately following. After he left Juan he presumably continued on to his suite in the Vatican. He remained in Rome until July, when he went to Naples to carry out the postponed coronation; but he played no part in the investigations. The fact that gossip touched the characterless Joffre and ignored Cesare is extraordinary. The only possible interpretation is that those who were best in the position to know accepted as axiomatic that Cesare had nothing to gain from the murder. Certainly, their father did not think it necessary to exonerate Cesare publicly, although in the tangled affair any one of the brothers had motive for murdering either of the others. Rome knew, as did Cesare, that Juan's titles and estates would pass to Juan's son born three years earlier. But Rome did not then know that Cesare intended to relinquish the hated cardinal's hat and, succeeding, would draw exclusively to himself the secular honors that would otherwise have fallen to Juan. It was only when this became apparent that rumor sought to link Cesare with the murder and which, in the manner of gossip, became fact after it had been repeated and elaborated upon through a chain of correspondents and chroniclers.
Examining the sparse, contradictory evidence regarding the murder itself, dubiously assessing the testimony of contemporaries, of whom none were disinterested and few even moderately well informed—the only verdict at which posterity can arrive is a cautious "not proven," leaving in permanent abeyance the question of Cesare Borgia's guilt or innocence. There is no doubt that he had the ability, and little doubt that he had the desire, to plan; and surely he gained considerably, if indirectly. Apart from the opinion of people in Rome at the time, there are two later pieces of evidence—one negative, and one positive—which can be adduced in Cesare's favor. Federigo of Naples, who disliked him intensely, nevertheless did not protest receiving his crown from Cesare's hands a few weeks afterwards— had urged, indeed, that the coronation be postponed so that Cesare could attend as planned. Federigo was a truly religious man, and although politics forced him to accept his crown from an illegitimate cardinal—it seems unlikely that he would have taken part in a religious ceremony conducted by a fratricide. And it was Cesare whom Alexander appointed as trustee to administer Juan's estate on behalf of the dead man's infant son. Alexander would have been indeed the monster of his legend had he charged the murderer of his beloved son with such a pious task.
But there was one person who, from the beginning, believed implicitly in Cesare's guilt—his sister-in-law Maria Enriquez, Juan's widow. Grief undoubtedly poisoned her mind. Her marriage had lasted less than four years, but she, it seems, had found qualities in Juan that others did not suspect, for they were unusually happy together. Then, brutally, that loved husband had been taken from her, the two little children left fatherless. The court of Spain was, on the whole, neutral with a mild bias in favor of Cesare's innocence. It was to be his misfortune that the only Spaniard to convict him should have been in a position to do him immense harm, for Maria was high in favor with her royal relatives. Better than anyone else in Spain she knew the bitterness of the dynastic rivalry between the brothers. How much she was aware or believed of that other rivalry for Sancia's favors cannot be conjectured. It is unlikely that what was openly spoken of in Rome was unknown in Aragon, but the knowledge seems not to have affected her feelings for her worthless husband. He appears almost saint-like in the group portrait she commissioned ten years later to commemorate his murder. Paradoxically, the painting also provided Cesare with a species of immortality for it shows one of the few reasonably authentic portraits of him, although even here exists the enigma attached to all Borgia portraits. Juan is unequivocal, a beautiful flower- crowned figure kneeling in adoration before the Virgin, unaware of the brutal figure behind him about to plunge a dagger in his back. Facing him are his brothers Cesare and Joffre, Cesare apparently surrendering his sword while Joffre turns to him. The somewhat pedestrian painter may have intended Cesare's act of surrendering to be interpreted as an admission of his inferiority to the noble figure of Juan. Alternatively, it could be a near-literal depiction of Cesare's catastrophic end. But either interpretation shows clearly where Maria Enriquez placed the blame for Juan's murder, and how she kept its memory green years after persons in Rome had discreetly tucked it aside.
Investigations were still being pursued in Rome nearly a year after the murder, but they became increasingly desultory, almost certainly because Alexander was truly convinced that he knew the murderer and was biding his time. Naturally buoyant, he had in any case rapidly persuaded himself, or been persuaded, that in Cesare he had a far more fitting heir than Juan. What arguments Cesare used or what pressure he exerted were unknown outside the Borgia Apartments, but they were sufficient to overturn within two months the plans for him which Alexander had cherished more than five years. In August the remarkable news sped around
Rome that Cardinal Cesare Borgia, whose head was still regularly shaved in the tonsure of the priest, was looking for a wife and had apparently found her —none other than Sancia, his sister-in-law. The plan was admirably economical, involving a simple exchange. Joffre was to obtain Cesare's hat and Cesare was to have Joffre's wife. Doubtlessly, Joffre would have made a somewhat better cardinal than Cesare, and Sancia would have been considerably improved as the wife of Cesare; but Cesare had set his sights higher than the illegitimate princess of Squillace.
The bride-to-be now canvassed was the widow of Ferrantino, the late king of Naples. But no sooner had the tongues of Rome got to work on this new aspect of Cesare's ambitions when they again changed. The widow of an ex- king and the bastard of another had not the status commensurate with that in the heady future envisaged for the eldest son of Pope Alexander. Cesare sought now a legitimate princess with prospects: Carlotta, daughter of King Federigo of Naples, through whom he could hope to clutch at the crown of Naples itself. And at the same time negotiations were started to bring about a marriage between Lucrezia and Alfonso, the brother of Sancia.
King Federigo appeared unimpressed by the double honor offered his house. From his viewpoint it more nearly resembled a pincer movement than the opportunity to ally himself with the dominant family in Italy. In the previous three years he had had opportunity to learn how precarious was his family's hold on Naples: two reigning monarchs had been bundled off the throne by the mere threat of invasion. Too, he was aware that no other state in Italy offered the unscrupulous quite such an attractive package of vast wealth and extreme vulnerability. The gift of the crown lay in the hands of Alexander, and Federigo's peculiar problem was to placate the pope and yet prevent his getting a toehold in the state as a result of that placation. The negotiations for Lucrezia's betrothal went slowly but smoothly enough, for her intended Alfonso, though bearing the splendid style of duke of Bisceglie, was also illegitimate. But Cesare's offer for the hand of the Princess Carlotta, Federigo's own daughter, encountered steady if hidden opposition from the outset.
Throughout the lengthy, tedious negotiations, Federigo impresses as a weak but honorable man; loath to antagonize his all-powerful suzerain, seeking to escape the impasse by somewhat feebly leaving to his daughter the responsibility of accepting or rejecting her suitor, but who ultimately made his own courageous decision on largely moral grounds. That Carlotta was absent from Naples throughout the negotiations considerably strengthened Federigo's hand, for though the daughter of a great house was self-evidently a piece of merchandise to be bartered for dynastic gain, nevertheless, the Christian ceremony which sealed that bargain required her personal and explicit assent. Carlotta was a lady-in-waiting in the court of France, following that custom whereby the children of one house were brought up in another to widen their horizon and their marriage market; and each embassy sent to her in France comfortably ate up weeks of time. Negotiations dragged through the autumn and winter of 1497, and the spring of 1498. Then, in June the Venetian ambassador reported to his senate that the all-important marriage had "gone up in smoke," giving as reason an explanation that must have caused raised eyebrows even in Venice. "Nothing more is spoken of about this marriage because Federigo has said, 'It seems to me that the son of a pope, who is also a cardinal, is not the ideal person to give my daughter to wife. If the pope can make it possible for a cardinal to marry and keep his hat, I'll think about giving him my daughter.' "44
It was the first open rebuff the Borgia ever received, and Federigo was to suffer for it. Initially, his objection was founded on the reasonable grounds that two Borgia relatives in the house of Aragon were enough, even though both were bastards. He had good reason to know that, once the Borgia were fastened on to the vitals of Naples there was no getting rid of them; for he had been obliged to agree to the transference of the Neapolitan estates of the dead Juan to Cesare, whose claims were not so much sketchy as non-existent. In addition he had learned from France that Carlotta objected strongly to the idea of becoming "la cardinala," as she put it, refusing even to consider marrying "a priest and the son of a priest"—an unfair and sweeping criticism, for Cesare was not yet quite a priest. Carlotta could not have then known him personally but, apart from her religious scruples, enough of the Borgia reputation had percolated into France to make Cesare appear somewhat less than an ideal husband. She was, moreover, in love with a young Breton nobleman. Dynastically considered, all her objections were frivolous and under normal circumstances she should have met the brief but effective family coercion which usually resolved such difficulties. But Federigo seems genuinely to have loved Carlotta and her refusal, in any case, echoed his own moral and political objections. He passed the rejection on to Rome with the equivalent of a shrug. Alexander and Cesare received the humiliating snub without public comment, but almost immediately a papal envoy left for France with instructions to employ upon the recalcitrant princess the most powerful instrument of all, the king of France himself.
Alexander had made other attempts to use this obvious leverage, but the king had then been Charles VIII of the Italian invasion, an unhappy young man, uncertain of himself and of the incomprehensible world which mocked his knightly endeavors. In addition Charles nursed the wounds of his previous encounter with Italy. He had promised vaguely to do what he could in the matter of Carlotta, but nothing had come of it. Then he died in March 1497, still a young man, the victim neither of disease nor of war but, appropriately enough, of his own clumsiness. He struck his head on the lintel of a door although, as Comines remarked caustically, Charles was short enough to pass through with ease. His cousin Louis succeeded him, and almost immediately appealed to Rome for help of the kind that only Alexander could give.
Louis was entangled in one of those common matrimonial problems that made of European politics a complex dynastic web. He wanted a divorce from his present wife so he could marry Charles's widow, Anne of Brittany, and thus secure his hold over the province. Repeatedly, pure chance was to give Alexander the kind of opportunity for which more skilled men worked in vain. It was in the grasping of these opportunities and turning them to his own advantage that Alexander supremely displayed his expertise. Louis's matrimonial problems not only helped him solve Cesare's but also provided the means to release Cesare from the burden of a cardinal's hat.
8 At the Court of France
Juan's death totally altered Alexander's plans for his family. There was now no other person but Cesare upon whom the dynasty could be built. Lucrezia was a woman, destined eventually to be absorbed into another family; Joffre was far too weak and young. Only through Cesare could Alexander's ambitions be fulfilled; even if the young man had enthusiastically embraced his religious career it would have been necessary to separate him from it now. And fortunately Cesare, for the past five years, had displayed nothing but irritation at his gorgeous but meaningless Church role; only the desire to create himself a prince in the outside world.
There had been one obstacle to such a renunciation: the bulk of Cesare's revenues came from the Church. In renouncing the hat he would make himself a poor man, as the Borgia counted poverty. Alexander could perhaps have openly robbed the Church to maintain his son in a secular status, but consistent throughout his career was his passion for legality; every ducat that passed into the Borgia coffers was paid out, in theory, on behalf of the papacy for services rendered. He could, perhaps, have tried to secure for Cesare the Dukedom of Benevento that had been intended for Juan. Cesare was already receiving most of its revenue, and it would have been little more than turning a de facto into a dejure situation. But that would consume time as would the search for another barony in the states of the Church itself, for the current occupant would have to be dispossessed. Then suddenly, Alexander found himself talking to the French ambassador, hearing of Louis's urgent needs and assessing the price that he could be made to pay for them. Louis could only promise to use his influence on Carlotta, but he could contract outright to grant Cesare an app
ropriate honor as repayment for the much-needed dispensation to remarry. The bargaining was swiftly concluded. In August 1498, just four months after Louis had become king, he agreed to invest Cesare with the duchy of Valentinois complete with revenues befitting a royal duke of France. The Italians, with their love of nicknames, already had dubbed Cesare "Valentino," from his bishopric of Valencia in Spain; the outlandish "Valentinois" received an identical change in the Italian tongue and it was as Duke Valentino that Cesare at last emerged upon the secular stage.
On August 17 Cesare attended a full consistory, dressed for the last time in the crimson of a prince of the Church, to make his formal plea to be allowed to renounce his priestly role. The argument he put forward—presumably that was placed in his mouth by the canon lawyers with Alexander's approval—explicitly branded his father a liar and himself a bastard. The opening of his speech was unexceptional enough. It was well known, he said, that he had never been blessed with a sense of vocation and that his preferred path of life was at variance with that considered appropriate for an ecclesiastic. Then Cesare turned to the circumstances under which he had originally entered the Sacred College. It had been stated then, he said, that he had been the legitimate son of Domenico d'Arignano. This was not the case; he was, in fact, the son of Pope Alexander and therefore, because he was illegitimate and his election the result of a "misstatement," he was automatically disqualified from office. It was a curious plea. The statement that the cardinal of Valencia was the son of the reigning pope could hardly be classed as one of the great discoveries of the age, and the fact that the bull which legitimized him was a tissue of obvious lies must have been known before the ink on the parchment dried. Alexander's passion for the outward forms of legality now led him yet again into an unsavory situation. Possibly, he had expected a greater degree of opposition from the Spanish cardinals than, in fact, Cesare encountered. Garcilaso de la Vega, the Spanish ambassador, did indeed register a strong protest, for not only was Spain losing a cardinal but France was gaining a duke. Cesare's sacred colleagues accepted his loss without sign of grief, and Alexander smoothly blocked the Spanish protest by employing his spiritual authority. It was necessary for the good of Cesare's soul that he should cease to bear the burden of an office unsuited to him. Ferdinand and Isabella perforce also accepted the situation, but with a very bad grace.
The Fall of the House of Borgia Page 16