The crowd acclaimed his election with cheers. The new pope had long established himself as a popular figure amongst the Roman populace. They had warmed to his charms, his public displays of benevolence, as well as his evident enjoyment of life. And within no time he would further gain their respect. In the thirty-six days following the death of Innocent VIII and Alexander VI’s accession as pope, the customary interregnum mayhem in the streets had resulted in no less than 220 murders within the walls of the city. Within days of gaining a new pope, Rome would be transformed: all mercenaries and private armies were expelled from the city and a new armed City Watch was created. This was a considerable force, which even extended to squads of armed men charged with guarding the bridges across the Tiber. By 3 September the two most powerful criminals, the del Rosso brothers, had been hunted down, publicly hanged and their family house bludgeoned to rubble. Lesser known criminals were simply rounded up and flung into the dungeons of the Castel Sant’Angelo. At the same time the city justice system was completely overhauled. New judges were appointed to try malefactors and hear civil complaints; more important still, they were paid a sufficient salary to enable them to resist bribes, while they and their houses were protected by the new constabulary.
Such moves hardly endeared Alexander VI to the aristocratic families of Rome, in particular the Orsini, who had previously regarded themselves as friends of the new pope. They had also commanded feudal respect amongst their favoured citizens and prided themselves on their company of armed, liveried retainers. Now, instead of queuing up outside the grand palazzi of the aristocrats to beg favours, the citizens were free to register their complaints to newly appointed magistrates, for the most part educated men who had studied law. And on Tuesdays, every week, even the Pope himself was available for any man or woman to petition. Such practices were unprecedented in the entire history of the papacy. Yet Alexander VI was fully conscious of the deeper historical precedent for what he was doing. As he wrote at the time: ‘The town which gave Law to the world, should be prepared to give laws to itself.’
However, if Alexander VI was to live up to his classical predecessors, the inhabitants of the eternal city expected more than laws. Another tradition harking back to classical times was the provision of entertainments: the famous pane e circo (‘bread and circuses’). And here too the new pope would not disappoint. His coronation would prove a spectacular event:
Alexander VI . . . rode through Rome in a resplendent ceremony to take possession of the Lateran, attended by thirteen squadrons of cavalry, twenty-one cardinals, each with a retinue of twelve, and ambassadors and noble dignitaries vying in the magnificence of their garments and equestrian draperies. Streets were decorated with garlands of flowers, triumphal arches, living statues formed by gilded naked youths and flags displaying the Borgia arms, a rather apt red bull rampant on a field of gold.
Although it is said that the intense summer heat, heavy robes and sheer oppressiveness of the cheering crowds lining the route caused the normally robust Alexander VI to faint, he soon recovered. And he would prove his usual ebullient self when it came to presiding over the entertainments laid on during the following days. Most spectacularly, these included a series of public bullfights in the piazza in front of St Peter’s. Here the Borgia flags flying the ‘red bull rampant’ proved even more apt. There was no mistaking Alexander VI’s message: the Spanish had arrived. And for the most part, even Alexander VI’s detractors were grudgingly impressed. The contemporary Roman diarist Stefano Infessura was forced to concede that Alexander VI’s reign ‘began most admirably’.
A more controversial note was introduced by Alexander VI’s decision to move his family into the Vatican apartments. Once again, such action was unprecedented. Yet it could be argued that this was proof of positive qualities in Alexander VI. Previous popes had kept their women, children or handsome young men under wraps, so to speak. No matter that their existence was common knowledge. Alexander VI was merely being open and honest, even if the behaviour so revealed was hardly in keeping with the highest office in the Church. To say nothing of the example which it set. Yet it could be argued that he was also exhibiting a quality which struck a chord with many Italians. Namely, love of family. Indeed, he seems to have preferred stable, uxorious relationships – apart from the odd sensational episode, which usually occurred after a period when he was obliged to observe priestly standards. All this is hardly exceptional, especially when judged by the standards of many of his predecessors in this office, as well as the general upper-class morality of the period.
Even so, there was no denying that the disparity between the sixty-year-old pope’s age and that of his new ‘bride’ – the eighteen-year-old Giulia Farnese – caused something of a scandal. And then there was the fact that she was now to all intents and purposes his third ‘wife’ – following his long relationships with his two previous ‘wives’. Firstly, the unknown woman who had given birth to his three oldest children: Pedro Luis, Isabella and Girolama; and then Vanozza de’ Cattanei, who had given birth to his four favourite children: Cesare, Juan, Lucrezia and Jofrè; and now a teenager . . .
Alexander VI had fallen in love with Giulia Farnese some two years previously. She was widely known as ‘Giulia la bella’ on account of her radiant beauty, and contemporary descriptions reinforce this view. According to a letter written by her brother-in-law Puccio Pucci, Giulia was ‘a most beautiful creature. She let her hair down before me and had it dressed; it reached down to her feet; never have I seen anything like it.’ Another source speaks of her as having ‘dark colouring, black eyes, round face and a particular ardour’.
Initially, despite being married off to the hapless Orsino Orsini, Giulia had moved into the Palazzo Santa Maria, residence of her lover’s cousin Adriana de Milà, which was in the Portico district, beside the grand steps which led up to St Peter’s. But it is now that the complications in this arrangement become apparent. Besides being Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia’s cousin, Adriana de Milà also happened to be the mother of Guilia Farnese’s official husband Orsino Orsini. And on top of this, Adriana was also looking after the cardinal’s young daughter by his previous mistress Vanozza Cattanei – namely his beloved twelve-year-old Lucrezia.
When Cardinal Borgia became pope, both Giulia and Lucrezia were moved into the Vatican, whereupon Giulia was dubbed by the Roman public ‘The Bride of Christ’. All the indications are that the teenage Giulia and the adolescent Lucrezia, after an initial wariness and jealousy, soon developed a fond, sisterly relationship. Surprisingly, it was Alexander VI who now developed feelings of jealousy. Whether in her innocence or out of some remnant feelings of marital orthodoxy, Giulia Farnese now took to visiting her husband at his twelfth-century castle in Basanello, some fifty miles north of Rome. On one occasion Alexander VI wrote:
We have heard that you have again refused to return to us [from Basanello] without Orsini’s consent. We know the evil of your soul and of the man who guides you, but would never have thought it possible for you to break your solemn oath not to go near Orsino. But you have done so . . . to give yourself once more to that stallion. We order you, under pain of eternal damnation, never again to go to Basanello.
From this it would appear that Giulia was far from being cowed by the imposing preeminence of her lover. Indeed, this evidence suggests that she was possessed of the carefree wilfulness of youth. As well as a certain naivety. At least in her eyes, her marriage to Orsini was not the sham that was intended. Alexander VI’s characterization of Orsini as ‘that stallion’ is undeniably at odds with other contemporary descriptions mentioned earlier (‘devoid of meaningful self-confidence’, etc.). Though in this instance, the Pope’s words could well have been prompted by the intense jealousy of an older man.
On the other hand, there was soon to be an even more inexplicable complication. In 1492 Giulia Farnese gave birth to a daughter, who was named Laura. It has been widely assumed that Alexander VI was the father of Laura, but there is convincing ev
idence that this was not the case. In the words of Mallet: ‘Alexander showed no interest in the child during his lifetime,’ and later Laura would marry into none other than the della Rovere family, the sworn enemies of the Borgias. Whatever the truth of this matter, Alexander VI certainly forgave his beloved young Giulia, who even managed to persuade the Pope to promise that he would award a cardinalate to her twenty-five-year-old brother Alessandro in the coming year.* Giulia Farnese would retain Alexander VI’s fond affections for some years to come, though to his irritation she refused to remain constantly at his side in the Vatican. In 1494 she would set off for Capodimonte, on the shores of Lake Bolsano, some sixty miles north-west of Rome, where she would spend some months attending the bedside of her fatally ill brother Angelo.
At the same time as Lucrezia Borgia and Giulia Farnese moved into the papal apartments, Alexander VI’s three sons by Vanozza de’ Cattanei – the seventeen-year-old Cesare, sixteen-year-old Juan,* and the eleven-year-old Jofrè – would also take up residence in the Vatican. Alexander VI had long had great futures in mind for his sons. From the outset, Cesare had been groomed for high office in the Church. As we have seen, this had been made possible when Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia had managed to persuade his friend Sixtus IV to issue a bull legitimizing the five-year-old Cesare, without which he would not have been able to assume any official position in the Church. Ten years later, the vice-chancellor had seen to it that Cesare was appointed to the Spanish bishopric of Pamplona, and other benefices had soon followed. Upon Alexander VI’s ascension to the papal throne, he had ceded his major post as Archbishop of Valencia to his son Cesare. And as we shall see, in the following year he would appoint Cesare a cardinal. Despite such efforts on behalf of Cesare, it seems that Alexander VI’s real favourite was the younger Juan, in whom he placed his greatest hopes. One of his first acts on ascending the papal throne had been to issue a bull legitimizing Juan, and he would also make him Captain-General of the Papal Forces. In view of Alexander VI’s as yet unrevealed territorial ambitions, this latter was in fact a much more significant appointment than all those accorded to the older Cesare. It so happened that Juan had also succeeded to the title which had previously been held by Alexander VI’s first son (by the unknown mother) Pedro Luis, who had been born in 1462. Whilst Alexander VI had been vice-chancellor, he had managed to persuade his friend King Ferdinand of Aragon to appoint his firstborn Pedro Luis to a newly created Spanish title: Duke of Gandia. At the time, the title of duke was an honour usually reserved for members of the royal family; significantly, this dukedom also included the familial Borgia estates in Spain. In order to consolidate the standing in Spain of Pedro Luis, 1st Duke of Gandia, in 1485 his father had organized for him to become betrothed to Maria Enriquez, the first cousin of King Ferdinand of Aragon. Unfortunately, all this had come to nothing when Pedro Luis had died in 1488. But the far-sighted Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia had prepared Pedro Luis for such an eventuality. In his will Pedro Luis had bequeathed his title to his nine-year-old half-brother Juan Borgia, as well as 10,000 ducats to be set aside as a dowry for his half-sister Lucrezia. In this way, Juan Borgia became 2nd Duke of Gandia. And on top of this he also inherited his older brother’s Spanish fiancée Maria Enriquez, whom he was now set to marry in Barcelona, in the presence of King Ferdinand of Aragon and his wife Queen Isabella of Castile. Meanwhile, Alexander VI’s youngest son, the eleven-year-old Jofrè, was likewise included in his dynastic plans: he was betrothed to Sancia of Aragon, the illegitimate granddaughter of King Ferrante of Naples, who rewarded young Jofrè with the Neapolitan royal title Prince of Squillace.
Alexander VI’s relations with Milan were already cordial, thanks to Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, the man who had finally been persuaded to sway the conclave in his favour. As we have seen, Cardinal Sforza had received handsome financial compensation for his vote. On top of this, the grateful Alexander VI also appointed Cardinal Sforza to his old job as vice-chancellor, at the same time gifting him the luxurious palazzo which he had made his residence and chancellery headquarters. In return, Cardinal Ascanio Sforza arranged through his brother Ludovico Sforza, the de facto ruler of Milan, for Alexander VI’s beloved thirteen-year-old Lucrezia to be married by proxy to the twenty-five-year-old Giovanni Sforza, Lord of Pesaro, a widower who was an illegitimate descendant of the ruling Milanese family. Giovanni Sforza also held the added advantage that he was a skilled condottiere, whose domain on the north Adriatic Coast was allied to both Milan and Venice.
Four months later the actual marriage took place, when the couple met for the first time in Rome. This was to be but the first of many grand occasions staged during the reign of Alexander VI, and would last over several days. On 9 June, to the acclaim of the Roman crowds, Giovanni Sforza entered the city through the Porto Santa Maria del Popolo. He rode at the head of a large train, which included forty laden pack animals accompanied by no less than 280 flamboyantly liveried attendants on horseback. From here he was escorted past the cheering multitude to the Vatican, where he ceremonially kissed the Pope’s foot. After a series of festivities, the actual marriage ceremony took place on 12 June, when Lucrezia’s brother Juan gave away the bride. The scene was described in some detail by Johann Burchard, the Pope’s master of ceremonies:
The great hall, known as the Sala Reale, and other rooms were covered abundantly with tapestry and velvet hangings. At the end of the Sala Reale, to the right of the entrance, a throne approached by four steps was set up for the Pope . . . On the orders of the Pope, Don Juan Borgia, Duke of Gandia, son of the Pope and brother of the bride, escorted his sister . . . through the rooms, Don Juan on the left of his sister, whose robe had a long train carried by a young black girl . . .
After her came Giulia Farnese, the concubine of the Pope, followed by some 150 Roman ladies, who proceeded past the Pope on his throne. Despite my strict instructions, none of these ladies genuflected before the Pope, apart from his daughter and one or two others who were near to her . . . His Holiness was dressed in his official vestments and a crimson hood. On either side of his throne he was attended by ten cardinals, five priests on his right, five deacons on his left. Then the Duke of Gandia approached with his sister to kiss the Pope’s foot, and they were followed by all the ladies. On the Pope’s left, by the wall, stood Don Cesare Borgia, the Bishop-Elect of Valencia.
At this point the editor of Burchard’s diaries, Geoffrey Parker, interjects the telling point that: ‘As only an ecclesiastic, Cesare had very definitely a secondary rank at this wedding, where his brother Don Juan was the leading figure.’ He also mentions how other diplomats observed that Cesare was hardly noticeable amongst all the cardinals and clergy, ‘and was necessarily far outshone by his younger brother’. There was no doubt that Cesare felt himself humiliated, and ‘jealous of Juan’s rank and opportunities’.
The ceremonies continued: ‘When all the ladies had kissed the Pope’s foot, Don Giovanni with Donna Lucrezia on his left, knelt on two cushions before the Pope.’ The official wedding ceremony, along with the exchange of vows, now took place, presided over by ‘Don Leonello, the Bishop of Concordia’, who eventually placed the rings on the fingers of the bride and groom. Afterwards, the bridal feast was staged in the Sale Reale.
An assortment of all kinds of sweets, marzipans, crystalized fruits and wines were served . . . over 200 dishes were carried in by the stewards and squires, each with a napkin over his shoulder, offering them first to the Pope and his cardinals, then to the bridal couple, and lastly the guests. Finally they flung what was left out of the window to the crowds of people below in such abundance that I believe more than 100 pounds of sweetmeats were crushed and trampled underfoot.
That evening a grand dinner was staged. After the more faint-hearted guests had retired, this developed into a boisterous and bawdy affair, where, according to gossip retailed to the diarist Infessura: ‘all the guests were at the same table and each cardinal had a young lady next to him’. As more wine was taken, the male guests ‘
threw sweetmeats into the cleavages of many ladies, especially the good-looking ones’. This was followed by ‘a series of entertainments’, which, according to Burchard, included a comedy which was acted with ‘such elegance that everyone loudly applauded’. On the other hand, Infessura insists that ‘the meal went on until long after midnight’, when ‘lascivious comedies and tragedies were performed which provoked much laughter in the audience’. Afterwards, Alexander VI personally accompanied the bride and groom to the next-door Palazzo Santa Maria, where, according to Infessura, ‘the groom took marital possession of his bride’. Such public witnessing of the first conjugal intimacy was traditional in Italy at the time, as well as elsewhere in Europe. Indeed, Geoffrey Parker insists that this quaint custom was ‘to ensure that legal requirements for completing the ceremony of marriage were fulfilled’. Consequently a bloodied sheet was frequently exhibited to demonstrate for all to see that intercourse had taken place, as well as the fact that the bride had been a virgin. As we shall see, Alexander VI’s ‘witnessing’ (which almost certainly did not include a bloodied sheet) would take on a crucial significance in the marriage of Don Giovanni and his bride Donna Lucrezia. Whether or not Alexander VI then returned to the party is not stated. However, by this stage its guests – in all likelihood aided and abetted by Cesare Borgia – appear to have resorted to their own entertainments, for as Infessura reports: ‘I could tell you many other things, but I will not recount them because some are not true and those that are, are anyway unbelievable.’
Some two months later, Alexander VI took a further step to consolidate his position. Cesare Borgia, as well as Alessandro Farnese, were just two of the unprecedented twelve cardinals which the Pope appointed in September 1493. Although Sixtus IV and Innocent VIII had both ignored the ban on appointing more than one nephew-cardinal on their accession, neither had dared to appoint more than eight new members to the College of Cardinals.
The Borgias Page 11