The fear never wholly left her but it gave an added excitement, an additional color, to the limitless admiration with which she came to regard her eldest brother after Juan's death. The mutual antagonism receded, giving way to a very close, intuitive relationship. Lucrezia, indeed, seems to have been the only person with whom Cesare established any real contact, the only person who could penetrate the fagade of polished charm with which he faced the world. And when circumstances forced them to live in different parts of Italy, repeatedly during his whirlwind campaigns he would suddenly descend upon her, riding perhaps scores of miles to spend an hour or so with her. His affection did not prevent him from resenting the favors their father showered upon her, but that resentment sprang from the knowledge that the immense revenues granted her were necessarily diverted from Cesare—and he needed money for his vast schemes. For her part Lucrezia became his most loyal and constant ally. When later, as duchess of Ferrara, she bore a stillborn child and collapsed both mentally and physically, it was Cesare alone who could rally her. The doctors reported that they had attempted to bleed her but she had stubbornly refused. Cesare arrived suddenly at the palace and persuaded her to allow the operation. "We bled madonna on the right foot. It was exceedingly difficult to accomplish, and we could not have done it but for the duke, who held her foot—he made her laugh and cheered her greatly."
It was against this formidable rivalry that Giovanni Sforza, her lackluster first husband, had to fight. The marriage got off to a bad start with Lucrezia impatiently returning to Rome, but worse was to follow. Giovanni had been chosen as husband solely because he was related to the powerful Sforza family of Milan, but when Ludovico Sforza deliberately brought about that invasion of Italy which nearly toppled the pope off his throne, Giovanni's position became intolerable. In a moving letter to Ludovico, he spelled out what it was like to be trapped between conflicting loyalties. Gone now was his glittering future as the pope's son-in-law. "My lord, if I had foreseen in what position I would be placed I would have sooner eaten the straw under my body than have entered into such an agreement. Do not, I beg you, desert me but give me help, favor and advice."
Ludovico Sforza had his own problems, and without compunction left his wretched kinsman to make what he could of his situation. But although Giovanni did not know it, even had the Sforza of Milan remained the Borgia's most loyal ally, the Borgia—and Cesare in particular—had already decided that Lucrezia was wasted on Giovanni. Cesare began a campaign of naked intimidation. Lucrezia either assisted him or, more likely, merely stood by and watched, for she had no feeling for the man she had been forced to marry. Giovanni hurriedly left Rome and the marriage was over, for all practical purposes.
It was Lucrezia's misfortune to have married a stubborn, if weak man. Any smart husband would have recognized the realities of the situation, sold his agreement for the best price he could get and consented to divorce on almost any terms. Giovanni Sforza declined to act sensibly. Instead, he pestered Ludovico and all who would listen with his wrongs and maintained his demand that Lucrezia should join him in Pesaro. She had no such intention and could not have done so even if she had wished, because her father had appointed a commission to examine the grounds for her divorce. Alexander remembered that convenient betrothal of hers to young Gaspare d'Alversa. It had never been formally dissolved. Therefore, she had been legally betrothed at the time of her marriage to Sforza; therefore, that marriage was no marriage. Pleased, Alexander put the idea before his commission but even his supple lawyers found they could not stomach this grotesque inversion of reality. If His Holiness wanted a reasonably legal divorce, he would have to think again. His Holiness thought again and came up with the idea that his daughter was still a virgin after four years of marriage. Giovanni Sforza, it seemed, was impotent "because of certain physical practices." Impotence was the perfect grounds for divorce. Not only did non-consummation mean that there had been, in fact, no marriage, but it would also leave Lucrezia in the state she had been before the wedding "and it would therefore be easier to find husbands for her."
What was satisfactory for Lucrezia was, however, considerably less than ideal for her husband, held up thereby as a stock figure of fun. Giovanni furiously retorted that their marriage had been consummated at least a thousand times—an impressive record, considering that they had actually lived together for much less than a thousand days. He also pointed out that his first wife had died in childbirth, so how could he possibly be impotent? Alexander stuck grimly to his intention: he wanted a divorce for Lucrezia and he wanted her declared virgo intacta. Lucrezia had already obediently signed a declaration which specifically stated that "after three years of marriage and more she was still without sexual relations and without nuptial intercourse and carnal knowledge, and that she was prepared to swear and submit herself to the examination of midwives." Unless she was to be convicted of perjury, Sforza had to sign a similar declaration.
Giovanni took his troubles to Ludovico but met a sardonic response. The French had left Italy, conditions seemed to have returned to normal, and the last thing Ludovico wanted was to stir up trouble with Alexander. Ludovico seems, indeed, to have found amusement in the situation. He could hardly have taken seriously his own proposal that Giovanni and Lucrezia give a demonstration before witnesses on neutral territory; or perhaps Giovanni could have some public "tryouts" with selected women in Milan. Goaded, humilated, half mad between public shame and anger, Giovanni burst out that the true reason why Alexander wanted to get rid of him was so that the father could enjoy his daughter himself. It was the first time Giovanni had made the accusation specific, but he had dropped hints in plenty before—so much so that the ambassador of the marchese of Mantua wrote to his master saying that "Giovanni Sforza had evidently found something in his home which did not please him." The marchese of Mantua was Sforza's kinsman by his first marriage but, like most people who came in contact with the unfortunate Giovanni, he was little disposed to help his relative. The accusation remained where it fell. No one examined it closely, to confirm or deny it. But the charge of incest existed and would grow until at last it threw a monstrous shadow over the entire family.
Alexander, if he heard of Sforza's wild remark, did nothing about it. Instead, the machinery of divorce ground on and at last Sforza gave in—but bitterly, aware that he had been abandoned by every natural ally. "If His Holiness wants to create his own kind of justice there is nothing I can do about it. Let him do what he wishes—but God watches all things," he wrote. On December 22, 1497 Lucrezia appeared before a formal commission and there heard its solemn sentence. Her marriage with Giovanni Sforza, lord of Pesaro, was at an end on grounds of his inability to consummate it. In the eyes of the law she was virgo intacta and therefore free to contract another marriage as a spinster.
At the hearing she was able, fortunately, to follow the eccentric fashions of the day and wear a gown of graceful but voluminous cut, for she was, in fact, six months pregnant. The father, however, was not Giovanni Sforza but a handsome Spanish page of her father's court, the young man called Pedro Calderon whose body was found in the Tiber some six weeks after the divorce hearing.
Despite the impression of gaiety that she conveyed and her somewhat shallow light-heartedness, Lucrezia, like her father, was capable of profound, if very brief, emotions. That year 1497 had been particularly difficult for her. She could hardly have been unaware of the vile rumors speeding around Rome regarding her relationship with her father and brothers. She had no affection for Giovanni Sforza —but he was her husband, and the tactics of her father and brother had placed her in a kind of social limbo, possessing neither the status of a married woman nor the freedom of a maiden. Then in June occurred the murder of her brother Juan, which struck her with particular force. Not only was she attached to the handsome young braggart, there had also been a scheme for Juan to take her with him when he returned to Spain, that magical land which loomed so large in the Borgia consciousness. Had she been taken out of Rome
's festering atmosphere, her entire life probably would have changed. At least she would have been removed during an embarrassing period. Childish disappointment, deep shock and the long drawn-out, distasteful business of her divorce helped push Lucrezia into the arms of Calderon. Since the late spring of that year she had been living in the convent of San Sisto not far from the Circus Maximus, where she had withdrawn in an attempt to find some privacy. Pedro Calderon was one of the frequent messengers who traveled between the Vatican and the convent and, with the aid of Lucrezia's maid Pantiselia, Pedro's relationship with Lucrezia passed rapidly from that of servant to lover.
On February 14, 1498, Burchard noted briefly that the bodies of Calderon and of Pantiselia had been found floating in the Tiber. On March 15 the Ferrarese agent in Venice reported that Lucrezia had had a child—a boy—in Rome. A year later the Venetian Paolo Cappello arrived in Rome to assume his post as ambassador and immediately regaled his senate with a dramatic story of how Cesare, naked sword in hand, had pursued Calderon through the Vatican halls. Calderon had taken refuge in the arms of Alexander but Cesare had stabbed repeatedly, lentil the lover's blood, spurting out, had dyed the pontifical robes. Cappello's story was at least a year old when he picked it up. Burchard, in his usual tight-lipped manner, merely recorded the fact that Calderon's body had been found. All that was known for certain was that a young man who had been a close friend of Lucrezia's had been found murdered, and that a new Borgia baby had appeared on the scene.
Had the story been left at that, it would have been nothing more than the very common tale of a young girl's indiscretion. Alexander, however, with that fatal desire of his to weave a web of legal protection around his family, was directly responsible for turning that commonplace story into a monstrosity. He wanted to recognize, and so protect, the new Borgia baby, but he also wanted to free Lucrezia of the charge of having given birth to an illegitimate child. He adopted the same device he had used in order to ease Cesare into the Sacred College—the issuing of two bulls, one for public consumption, the other, containing contradictory facts, to remain secret. The public bull stated that the child, baptized Juan, was the son of Cesare Borgia by an unnamed Roman spinster. The secret bull stated that it was not Cesare, but Alexander himself who was the father of the child by the unnamed Roman spinster.
Either of the bulls is puzzling; together they bristle with almost insoluble problems. Presumably Alexander had to name the closest possible blood-relative of Lucrezia in order to give her child maximum protection, to ensure that it was regarded as a member of his own family—his grandchild, as it was. But why, after publicly naming Cesare as the father, did he privately withdraw and name himself? For Cesare, a well-known gallant, to admit the paternity of an illegitimate child would not have been shameful; it was, if anything, a badge of manhood. Possibly, Cesare assented to the public imputation in order to maintain his sister's reputation—and value in the dynastic market—but insisted that the family's own private records should show the true facts. But this, the most likely solution, does not explain why Alexander, in that private record, should name himself as the father. He was faced with a graver embarrassment regarding the identity of the mother; that had to remain a secret. Lucrezia obviously could not be named. A fictitious name would have been swiftly found out, and to arrange for another woman to admit to the child would open the close secrets of the family to an outsider. But the "Roman spinster" began to take on an identity of her own, one which Alexander had certainly not planned. Taking his private declaration at face value, it meant that he dared not name the woman by whom he was supposed to have had another child. Inevitably, the provisions of the bull leaked out and speculations began regarding the identity of this woman who could not be named. Such delicacy was wholly foreign to Alexander's normal practice. Did not all Rome know that Giulia Farnese actually boasted of being the mother of his daughter, even though the father might plausibly have been her husband? And was not Vannozza Catanei publicly recognized as the mother of his second family? Why then, this sudden reticence?
The false and the true parts of the declaration were put together to form a monstrous equation: Pope Alexander dared not name the mother of the child whose paternity he claimed because she was his own daughter. In doubling on his tracks, Alexander had yet again trampled on his own reputation—and blackened his daughter's forever.
But the two bulls with their badly concealed secret and their scandalous results lay in the future. In the summer of 1498 there was only an enigmatic quality about Lucrezia's reputation, the mere shadow of the later cloud, and certainly not sufficient to put off any prospective bridegroom. After her divorce from Giovanni Sforza there were plenty of suitors for her hand. Even a member of the Orsini clan came forward, but he was turned down with the rest. This was the time when Cesare began his own wooing of Carlotta, daughter of the king of Naples, and using Lucrezia as pawn in that direction was an obvious move. Besides Sancia, there was another illegitimate member of the royal house of Naples—Alfonso, her eighteen-year-old brother, a handsome, fair-haired youth with all the charm of his sister and a considerably nicer nature. Sancia was already married to Lucrezia's brother Joffre, and it was a neat move to marry Lucrezia to Alfonso, thus brother and sister marrying brother and sister to tie Borgia and Aragon together in the tightest possible way. The ceremony was designed to ease Cesare into Carlotta's bed and thence on to the throne of Naples itself. It failed in that purpose but, as a by-product, it provided Lucrezia with a period of brief but profound happiness. She fell genuinely in love, probably for the first and only time in her life. Her handsome, chivalrous young husband returned her love and for perhaps eighteen months she lived a normal life as a happy wife and, later, a proud mother. She and Alfonso lived in or near Rome, for even now Alexander could not bear being parted from her. But for most of that period Alexander and Cesare were concerned with propitiating the king of Naples, and Alfonso was accordingly treated both as visiting royalty and as a dear member of the family. But with the eruption of the second French invasion in Italy the picture changed drastically. Cesare Borgia was now the dear cousin of King Louis; and King Louis had let Europe know that, just as soon as he had settled the Milanese affair, he intended marching south and at last place the crown of Naples on the head of its legitimate owner—himself. Ascanio Sforza, just before escaping from Rome, urgently advised Alfonso to do the same. Alfonso sensibly took the advice; foolishly, however, he listened to his father-in-law's protests and promises and returned after a few weeks' absence. Alfonso and Lucrezia settled down again to their life of blissful domesticity and were in Rome to welcome Cesare when he, too, returned to the city in his triumphant procession after the capture of Forli.
That was in February 1500, and for nearly five months thereafter the Borgia family seemed, outwardly, both unified and amicable. For the first time in many months Alexander had his three children living almost within calling distance. Cesare was now almost openly Sancia's lover, but that did not appear to disturb Joffre. Sancia and Lucrezia were close friends, much as Lucrezia and Giulia had been friends. Alfonso appeared to be on courteous terms with the Borgia brothers and was very much a favorite of his father-in-law's; Alfonso was a happy, attractive young man with a witty tongue and must have reminded Alexander of his own youth.
The brief halcyon period ended the night of July 15. Alfonso had dined with Alexander, Sancia and Lucrezia in an intimate family party in the Borgia Apartments. It was late when he left with a gentleman-in-waiting, Tomaso Albanese, and a young page; and the square outside was in darkness. According to Albanese's later report, they noticed a number of figures huddled on the steps of St. Peter's but paid little attention, for in that jubilee year pilgrims slept almost every night outside the great basilica. The men were halfway across the square, headed for the palace of Santa Maria in Portico, when a group of the supposed pilgrims suddenly hurled themselves upon the three. Alfonso was badly wounded and fell. The page began dragging him back to the Vatican while Alb
anese fought off the assassins, both men shouting for help. Their cries alerted the Vatican guard within the palace; the great gates were opened and a detachment rushed out. By then the attackers had escaped on horseback, but Albanese had recognized at least one.
Alexander, Lucrezia and Sancia were still conversing over the supper table when the door was thrown open by a captain of the guard who had forgotten his etiquette in his terror. Behind him some of his men were carrying the bleeding Alfonso, and coming into the room, they gently laid him at Alexander's feet. Before Alfonso lost consciousness he raised his head and named his assailant. Lucrezia fainted. Alexander, genuinely horrified, gave immediate orders that Alfonso should be carried at once to one of Alexander's own rooms. These were located deep in the palace, and the palace itself was garrisoned by an army of completely loyal soldiers. He nevertheless ordered that sixteen picked men should be stationed in and outside the room, testimony enough to his fear that the danger to Alfonso came from within the Vatican circle. He also gave the Neapolitan ambassador the news and told him that messengers had already been sent to Naples to bring the king's own physicians to Rome.
The morning brought a spate of rumors. The ambassadors and observers of the Italian powers hurried to the Vatican to glean what information they could from a tight- lipped staff and sent it on to their principals with or without embellishments. The Venetian Cappello was, for once, cautious in his opinion. "It has been spread through Rome that these things happened among the Borgias, for in that palace there are so many hatreds old and new, and so much envy in state—and in other matters—that such scandals must needs occur often."53 Most were in agreement as to the author of the deed. "It is not known who committed the assassination but it is said to have been perpetrated by the same hand which struck down the duke of Gandia,"54 Sanuto, the Venetian observer, wrote. The Neapolitan ambassador wrapped his suspicions in a heavy irony. "The originator of the crime is without doubt a man more powerful than Alfonso, although Alfonso is a lord, the nephew of a living king, the son of a dead king, and the son-in-law of the pope."55
The Fall of the House of Borgia Page 21