Alexander later indirectly confirmed that it was Cesare, not he, who was responsible. A disappointed courtier protested because he had not been placed on the list of nominations. Cesare had drawn up the list, Alexander replied, with what seemed to be a hint of wryness, of apology. It had nothing to do with him.
What means Cesare employed to gain ascendancy over the tough old man was never certain. Initially, Cesare's power sprang from his father's overweening pride and love of family. In a matter of weeks Cesare had done more for that family than his dead brother Juan had accomplished in years: the state of Caterina Sforza was now, for all practical purposes, a Borgia appanage. Cesare had amply justified his choice of career and Alexander could deny nothing to a son who was manifestly bringing such glory to the Borgia name. It was natural, too, that a vigorous and intelligent young man of twenty-four should shoulder increasingly the burdens of an old man. Alexander by no means abdicated power in his son's favor. It was he who planned the overall strategy, sometimes even in opposition to Cesare's desires, and it was usually the young man who gave way, if with a bad grace. But to most observers it appeared that Duke Valentino was now the head of the Borgia clan, directing it toward a still secret goal.
During that glorious spring and early summer of 1500 when Rome was filled with the chatter of every tongue in Europe, when the great city became again a cosmopolitan center, Cesare Borgia emerged at last into full public view. Yet it was a deceptive publicity, concealing probably more than it revealed. The man seemed to move behind a veil, never quite in focus. No writer, except the Florentine diplomat Niccolo Machiavelli, ever reported any direct speech of his. Information was always at second or third hand, the writer retailing what someone else had told him that Cesare had said. Every man who knew him—and they included such as Machiavelli and the Venetian ambassadors, men experienced to the last degree in the art of character assessment—agreed that his ability to disguise his thoughts and control his emotions amounted to the inhuman. He had made a fool of himself in France by reacting openly; he never did that again. It was impossible to know whether he was in a towering rage or gloating with satisfaction; he appeared exactly the same whether he was on the brink of triumph or facing disaster. In this he differed totally from his father, who reacted impulsively, extravagantly, to the vagaries of fortune—crying or laughing or raging as the occasion demanded. Cesare listened, said nothing, and acted. No one ever knew for certain where he was, or where he was likely to appear. He made a fetish out of mystery, frequently going about masked, or traveling at night when everyone else was in bed. He was helped here by his curious personal timetable. "He goes to bed between three and five o'clock in the morning, his dawn occurs at one o'clock in the afternoon, 2 P.M. is his sunrise and he gets up at 3 P.M. Immediately on arising he sits down to breakfast and while there attends to business affairs."
Despite his slim and elegant figure he was immensely strong. Once, he concluded a bullfight by beheading the animal with one single, terrible blow of the sword. During the months of campaign he would while away an occasional hour by making a tour of the villages, in disguise and with only a handful of personal friends, challenging village champions to boxing or wrestling bouts—which invariably he won, to the dismay and shame of his bull-like opponents. He was also extraordinarily handsome—far more so than even his attractive father had been at the same age. Not one of Cesare's alleged portraits can be linked to him with absolute certainty, but they bear a close enough resemblance to each other to allow the reasonable assumption that they were painted from an authentic original, if not from life. Only the supposed portrait by Raphael shows something of the evil figure of legend. Here the watchful eyes are cold, the beautiful, full mouth cruel; the whole appearance having a coiled, cobralike tension. But the
other portraits show a curiously sensitive, thoughtful face —that by Giorgione in particular could be the portrait of a saint or some great national hero who had deliberately given his life for a high ideal.
The portraits are utterly at variance with legend; but so too are some of the precisely written descriptions of the man recorded by those who knew him personally. Pandolfo Collenuccio, the humanist scholar who was so fascinated by his irregular hours, went on to say, "He is considered brave, strong and generous and it is said he sets great store by straightforward men. He is terrible in revenge—so many tell me. In my opinion, he is a man of strong good sense, thirsting for greatness and fame."
Machiavelli thought much the same, "This duke is a man of splendor and magnificence. He has great confidence in himself, treating the greatest enterprise as though it were a small thing. In his search for glory he will deny himself rest, treating fatigue and peril alike with contempt." 50 Even Guicciardini, who pursued the entire Borgia clan with an unwearying malevolence, could not wholly ignore these favorable opinions of intelligent men and grudgingly allowed that Cesare, at least, possessed gifts of administration.
The contrasting contemporary opinions of Cesare Borgia, opinions which saw him alternatively as a blood- maddened fiend and as a level-headed, vigorous man can be explained and reconciled in simple clinical terms. He was suffering from an advanced form of syphilis, contracted on his first visit to Naples in 1497. The disease achieved epidemic proportions at the turn of the century and was viewed with a horror exacerbated by its mysterious nature.
The Italians, believing that the French had brought it into Italy on their first invasion in 1494, called it the "French disease": the French, equally as convinced that they had contracted it in Naples, called it the "Neapolitan disease." Guicciardini classed it with the other great catastrophes that had struck Italy during the closing years of that century. "This distemper, either quite new or never before known in our hemisphere, has made for a number of years such a havoc that it deserves to be mentioned as a fatal calamity." He cleared the French of the charge of having brought it into Italy: "It was conveyed, via Spain to Naples, from those islands which, about this time, were discovered by Christopher Columbus. Nature has been indulgent to the inhabitants of those islands in providing an easy remedy for it by drinking the juice of a noble wood which grows among them; they are easily cured." 51 Quinine, that "noble wood," seemed to be considerably less efficient among Europeans than among Caribbeans and the unfortunate sufferer was usually condemned to a treatment that was painful, disgusting and all too often fatal in itself. Alexander's physician, Caspare Torella, for two months studied the disease at close quarters—its prevalence among the Borgia was remarkably high—and analysed its components without undue squeamishness. But it was not until a generation later that the poetic physician, Girolamo Fracostoro, named the disease in a poem written in the classical manner and "syphilis" at last entered the European vocabulary.
The first visitation of the disease had affected Cesare very badly in Naples, confining him to bed for over six weeks at a period of intense political activity. But though Burchard mentioned the fact, he gave no hint as to its cause, for Burchard, like the rest of Europe, was unaware that a new scourge was moving through the continent.
Throughout Cesare's life its effect upon him would rise and fall, compelling him at times to withdraw into total privacy. In the beginning its sores seemed to have affected only his groin but later the disfigurement spread to his face, and the masks he wore—sometimes sinister, more often incongruously carnival—were intended as much to hide the dreadful ravages as to confer mystery upon him. Whether raging or quiescent, the disease must have had a profound effect upon a handsome man who was otherwise so attractive to women, and accounts reasonably enough for the bursts of near fiendish cruelty of which he was capable.
Apart from the effect that syphilis had upon him, Cesare was, by nature, impatient and totally intolerant. Here, again, he differed profoundly from his father. Alexander could act terribly against those who traduced his children or who stood in his political path, but he seemed indifferent to the vicious attacks made on him personally. He pointed out the difference between him
self and his son to the Venetian ambassador, who had come to plead for the life of a Venetian condemned to death by Cesare for circulating a scurrilous pamphlet. "The duke is a good- natured man, but cannot tolerate insults. I have often told him that Rome is a free city and that everyone may speak and write as he pleases. Evil is often spoken of me but I let it pass. The duke replied to me 'It may be true that Rome is accustomed to speak and write as it pleases—but I will teach people to take care.' " The Venetian pamphleteer ended in the Tiber, as condemned. Another man, a drunken masquerader, lost his hand and tongue for mocking Cesare.
To Cesare, the halt in the Romagna campaign caused by the withdrawal of the French troops was no more than an irritating delay—one which ultimately proved valuable. Successes had piled up with an almost embarrassing swiftness, and during the nine months Cesare remained in Rome he and his father were able to catch up with themselves and plan ahead. Alexander had been very caustic about Ludovico's return. "The French certainly know how to take things," he remarked to the French ambassador, "but they are not so good at keeping them." Then in April came the news that Ludovico, the "fox of Milan," had doubled on his last tracks. He was captured and taken to a prison in France, there to spin out the remaining ten years of his life in despair. Ascanio Sforza, too, was thrown into prison and shortly afterward French envoys came to Rome anxious to refurbish the Borgia alliance. Louis would again put his troops at Cesare's disposal, provided that the Borgia assisted him in the forthcoming dismemberment of Naples.
The French proposals created a certain embarrassment for both Cesare and his father. Lucrezia's second husband, Alfonso, the duke of Bisceglie, was a Neapolitan and even then present in Rome. In the past it had been a simple matter to break Lucrezia's fragile betrothals or marriage vows as politics required. But here, unexpectedly, Borgia policy suddenly met an unbreakable barrier—the will of the pretty, shallow, complaisant daughter of Alexander himself. Lucrezia was deeply in love with her husband; moreover, she was now the mother of a six-month- old boy, Rodrigo. Maternal pride and wifely love combined to present a formidable obstacle to the plans of her brother, and presumably of her father. But the obstacle did not halt Cesare.
10 Lucrezia
Here in her tomb lies Lucrezia by name, Thais in fact Daughter, bride and daughter-in-law of Alexander
"She is of incontestable beauty and her manners add to her charm. She seems so gifted that we cannot, and should not, suspect her of unseemly behavior. Apart from her perfect grace in all things, her modest affability and propriety, she is a Catholic and shows she fears God." 52
Jacopo Sanazzaro wrote the mock epitaph. He was a Neapolitan, exiled as a result of Alexander's policies and in revenge lashed back with this venom-filled indictment. The sober, considered assessment, written in 1501, was the work of the ambassador of the duke of Ferrara, specifically charged to find out everything, good or bad, about the girl chosen as wife to the heir of the dukedom. The epitaph was obviously the product of bitter political hatred, but it swiftly made the rounds, for
Sanazzaro was a poet of distinction and his neat, precise Latin couplet was highly quotable. The ambassador's assessment was of no interest to anybody outside the bridegroom's family, and the report therefore entered the secret archives of Ferrara and stayed there. As far as the general public was concerned, Lucrezia stood convicted as the incestuous partner of her father and brothers.
Lucrezia was not quite fourteen when she was first married and not quite eighteen when she was divorced. It was during those four years of marriage with Giovanni Sforza—specifically during the tortuous negotiations that at length produced her divorce—that the charge of incest was first whispered, and then shouted. And the maker of that charge was her husband himself. Giovanni Sforza cut a poor figure from any angle. His splendid relatives Ascanio, Ludovico and Caterina, looked down on him as a provincial; he was a soldier without troops and a husband without a wife. But he was also deserving of some sympathy, caught up as he was in the powerful centripetal currents of Borgia family love.
Law and custom dictated that Giovanni should have taken his bride to Pesaro, his home. He and Lucrezia did live together there for a short period but it was an unhappy experiment. The dreary little town on the Adriatic, set between two sad hills and entirely involved in fishing, was a poor place to bring a young girl who had spent all her life at the glittering center of affairs. There was a handsome new palace and a red brick fort in the standard Romagnese design, but not much else. Any other bride would have been obliged to accept the limitations and settle down to create her own pattern of life, but always pulling at Lucrezia was the knowledge that her own lively family was together in Rome, pursuing their fascinating occupations, the center of attraction and gaiety—and waiting for her eagerly should she decide to return. So she did. Giovanni Sforza began to drift into the background, and her own life-pattern became ever more inextricably intertwined with those of her father and brothers.
Although the Borgia had been in Italy for over sixty years and despite the fact that Lucrezia and her brothers had all been born in Rome, the family was essentially, intensely Spanish. All Lucrezia's ladies-in-waiting, like all her brother's lieutenants, were Spanish. The Borgia spoke Spanish, dressed in the Spanish manner, rode like Spaniards, ate like Spaniards. Above all, their fierce family loyalty was characteristic of Spain, not of Italy. Italians looked upon dynastic interrelationships coolly, treating them as useful political alliances. In Spain—still a frontier state with an alien, resourceful, fierce enemy on her very doorstep— the blood-tie was something sacred, transcending all other considerations. In this more primitive, tribal society a man or woman of necessity owed loyalty first to the clan, whatever that clan might do to him or her.
Like the rest of the family, Lucrezia had little time for her younger brother Joffre. Soft-hearted and generous as she was, she could occasionally feel a fleeting sense of pity and was prepared to defend him, if not very enthusiastically, in the family councils. She was on far better terms with Joffre's notorious wife Sancia, even though Lucrezia must have known that the Neapolitan beauty was continually cuckolding Joffre and that the catholicity of Sancia's favors spelled danger and disgrace for the family. But she, like Lucrezia, was young, vivacious, fond of clothes, singing and dancing.
Lucrezia's relationship with Alexander was more that of brother and sister than father and daughter. Apart from the solemn ceremonials of state and Church, Alexander much preferred informality in his human contacts and Lucrezia responded warmly, joyously. He adored his lively, pretty daughter, smiled benignly at her teasing, laughed his splendid, full-bodied laughter at the sparkling wit of her conversation. Although no great scholar himself, he had made sure that his only daughter had a good education in the new learning. Her Latin and Greek, he admitted, were never very good but she spoke Italian, Spanish and French like a native, and was even capable of writing poems in the three languages. Socially, she would have been an asset in any company; small wonder, then, that Alexander, with his pride and delight in family, should want her near him as often and as long as possible. So great was his pride in her that, on one extraordinary occasion, he even made Lucrezia a kind of deputy pope, turning over all the business affairs to her when he had to be absent from Rome for two or three weeks. Burchard recorded this remarkable essay in Church government with his usual impassivity. No member of the Sacred College protested; even the old cardinal of Lisbon, to whom she turned for advice on a difficult matter, seemed more than happy to discuss state affairs with a pretty young woman, garnishing the dullness of politics with an obscene joke according to Burchard. "I can write very well," Lucrezia announced proudly. "Ah, but where is your pen?" he retorted roguishly. She looked at him blankly for a moment, and then "saw that he was joking, and she laughed and thus their conference had a fit ending."
Apart from the unusually deep love that Alexander bore his daughter, and the fact that it lay within his power to make her an unusually wealthy woman, there was nothin
g extraordinary about their relationship. In all matters that affected the family as a whole, he behaved toward her exactly as any other dynastic head would toward a marriageable daughter, arranging her betrothals and marriages on strictly political grounds, irrespective of what she might feel or wish. It was only in Lucrezia's relationship with her brothers that there is some ambiguity, something to give color to, if not make credible, the charge of an illicit relationship. As far as Juan Borgia was concerned, that relationship undoubtedly sprang from nothing more than the powerful Spanish bond of blood, raised to a potent degree by the hero-worship any normal young girl would hold for a glamorous older brother. But an analysis of the attraction that Cesare held for Lucrezia leads straight into the very heart of the Borgia enigma.
There was, to begin with, something of a mutual rejection between the two. At times Cesare seemed to go out of his way, if not to degrade her, at least to lead her into degrading situations. There was, in particular, the notorious contest held before the Borgia family when fifty Vatican servants coupled with fifty Roman prostitutes for prizes— an event arranged by Cesare for Lucrezia's entertainment. On another occasion she stood by his side on one of the Vatican's balconies while he shot down unarmed criminals running around terrified in the courtyard below. Was her presence at these and other debaucheries voluntary or forced? No one knew; it was simply reported that Donna Lucrezia took part—as spectator if nothing else—in activities which surprised the by no means impressionable Romans. On her part Lucrezia seemed, in the early years, to treat her brother with a reserve tinged with fear. This was the period when he cast aside his incongruous priest's robes and passionately threw himself into the business of carving himself a princedom. If anybody in Rome suspected Cesare of the murder of Juan in the summer of 1497, that person was his sister.
The Fall of the House of Borgia Page 20