King Ferrante’s throne was now claimed by his son Alfonso II. But ‘the greatest peace and tranquility [which] reigned everywhere’ in Italy was already beginning to fall apart. Prior to his death, King Ferrante had fallen out with Ludovico Sforza, ruler of Milan. In retaliation, Sforza took the unprecedented step of asking the French king Charles VIII to march into Italy and invade Naples, reminding Charles VIII that under the ancient Anjou claim to the throne he was the rightful heir. This claim was further encouraged by Cardinal Giulio della Rovere, who well understood the danger posed to Alexander VI by a French army marching through Italy on its way to Naples. As it happened, the twenty-four-year-old French king needed little encouragement on this score.
Charles VIII had been something of an oddity since childhood. During his minority, a regency had run the country, while tutors had attempted unsuccessfully to instill in him the rudiments of literacy. Instead, he had been reading – and inspired by – tales of chivalry. Charles VIII longed to emulate such noble deeds, though his physical attributes were hardly suited to this purpose. Short, hunchbacked, with flapping, oversized feet (each with six toes), he suffered from the inbreeding which had begun to afflict the French royal family in its attempt to retain its familial power. Charles VIII’s appearance was matched by his behaviour. He had a habit of muttering ominously to himself, instilling fear in his attendants; while all who encountered him were struck by his ugliness: ‘he seemed more like a monster than a man’. Another observed: ‘His prodigious sexual appetite was accompanied by an overweening ambition that bordered on megalomania.’ It suited Charles’s guardians to leave him to his own devices, but by the time he attained his majority and ascended to the throne, there was little they could do. Any prospect of modifying his behaviour, or indeed reforming his character, appeared long lost. Charles VIII would remain an awkward blend of ignorance, naivety and ambition. (The apparent normality of his official portrait is a masterly fiction.)
On hearing that King Ferrante had died, Charles VIII decided it was time to live out his childhood dreams of chivalry. He would lead the French army over the Alps into Italy, and then have himself crowned king of Naples. But this was just the beginning. From Naples he would sail east with a huge fleet to launch a crusade in the Holy Land, and here he would retake Jerusalem.* The French court and his powerful former guardians were in many ways only too pleased to have him out of the way, and acquiesced to his plans.
France was at the time the most powerful country in Europe, and its army of 30,000 men appeared unstoppable as it poured over the Alps into Italy. In Milan, Charles VIII was warily welcomed by Ludovico Sforza, who was beginning to have misgivings about what he had set in motion. From Milan, Charles VIII continued south towards Florence. It looked as if Savonarola’s apocalyptic prophecy about ‘the scourge of God who would cross the mountains and destroy everything in his path’ was coming true.
Catastrophe upon catastrophe now followed in rapid succession. As Charles VIII’s massive army swept south, approaching Florentine territory, the young Piero de’ Medici rashly decided to try and emulate his father – who had staked his life and the future of Florence on his brave dash south to meet King Ferrante of Naples. Only Piero de’ Medici was no Lorenzo the Magnificent, and his impetuous ride across the mountains to meet Charles VIII only served to emphasize Piero’s weakness. On arriving at the French king’s camp he found himself overawed. Immediately he agreed to all Charles VIII’s demands that his French army be allowed to march down the Italian peninsula unopposed. Defensive castles were to be surrendered and Florentine territory would be violated with impunity. On Piero de’ Medici’s return to Florence the population erupted in fury, forcing him and his brother Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici to flee the city. Whereupon the mob broke into the Palazzo Medici and ransacked its treasures. A republican government, heavily influenced by Savonarola, now assumed control of the city, which would soon succumb to a fundamentalist Christian rule.
Alexander VI watched impotently from Rome as Charles VIII continued his march south towards the Holy City. Was Rome to suffer the same fate as Florence? Would Charles VIII simply depose the Pope, in line with the calls of Cardinal della Rovere? Alexander VI now faced the supreme test of his political and diplomatic skills. Both the Orsini and the Colonna families fled, defecting to the French. The Colonna seized the fortress at Ostia, and French troops took Civitavecchia. Rome was now cut off from the sea, its main supply route. Worse was to follow. French troops moving south through the countryside near Viterbo, some fifty miles north of Rome, surprised a party of noble ladies travelling south towards the capital. It soon became clear that amongst these were Giulia Farnese and Adriana de Milà, the Pope’s young mistress and his sister, returning from a visit to the Farnese castle at Capodimonte. Fortunately for Alexander VI, their captor was willing to accept a ransom for the safe return of the ladies to Rome. Meanwhile, the French army continued its march south.
Alexander VI understood that armed resistance was futile, and despatched his few remaining forces south to Naples, personally retiring into the Castel Sant’Angelo. On 14 December 1494 the French army entered Rome unopposed, marching in through the northern gate, the Porta del Popolo. The crowds lining the streets watched aghast as the army marched into the city. It would take from three o’clock in the afternoon until nine o’clock at night for the columns of French foot soldiers, Swiss and other mercenaries, as well as squadrons of cavalry, to pass through the city gate – finally followed by the thunder of thirty-six huge cannon dragged across the cobbles by lines of carthorses. To the surprise of all, Charles VIII himself held back from entering the city: ‘Charles delayed his own entry until New Year’s Eve, a day approved by his astrologers.’
The following day Charles VIII lined up his cannon outside the Castel Sant’Angelo and ordered the Pope to come out and meet him. Alexander VI chose to remain put. But after one shot from a French cannon caused a large section of the ancient medieval walls to crumble in a cloud of dust, Alexander VI capitulated.
But it was at this point that Alexander VI played his masterstroke. After suitable negotiations through intermediaries, it was arranged that Alexander VI and Charles VIII should stage a formal meeting in the Vatican gardens. Alexander VI emerged from the papal residence clad in the full panoply of his papal regalia, his demeanour embodying his sacred authority. Here was the spiritual ruler of all Christendom, Christ’s vicar on earth through his divine succession from St Peter. The naive young Charles VIII was more than impressed. As he approached the Pope, the French king sank to his knees, attempting to kiss the pontiff ’s foot. With gracious benevolence Alexander VI raised the awkward young king to his feet. He welcomed him as a son and pronounced on him a blessing. It immediately became clear to Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere that there would be no question of deposing the Pope.
Even so, Charles VIII’s troops now occupied the Holy City; and his military commissioners advised him to insist that Alexander VI should contribute from the papal coffers towards the expense of the last stage of the French army’s journey to Naples. Alexander VI was obliged to agree to this demand. Then Charles VIII expressed his wish that the Pope should surrender Cem, the brother of the Ottoman sultan who was being held captive by the Pope. Charles VIII was mindful of using Cem as a bargaining tool against the Ottomans, when he eventually set out on his crusade to take Jerusalem. Cem remained ‘a valuable hostage and a potent symbol of resistance to the sultan’s rule’. With a characteristic sleight of hand, Alexander VI agreed to surrender Cem to Charles VIII, but only on condition that the annual 45,000 ducats paid by Sultan Bayezid continued to be paid into the papal coffers. This proved but a small victory, yet a victory nonetheless; it also gave Alexander VI further insight into Charles VIII’s attitude. Money appeared not to be of fundamental importance to the king. Acting out his naive chivalric dream was his prime concern. Why, he had even brought along with him the legendary symbol of his nation’s greatness: Charlemagne’s sword.*
Despite Alexander VI’s psychological insight into the unworldly character of Charles VIII, there was no denying that the French king retained a distinctly down-to-earth attitude towards the practicalities of supporting his large army. The price for him leaving the Holy City would be costly indeed. Along with the French army went a ‘contribution’ Alexander VI had been required to donate. This took the form of a train of no less than nineteen mules laden with boxes of jewels, gold plate and other treasures (almost five times as many as it had taken him to purchase the papacy). And as a show of good will, Alexander VI was asked to appoint his son Cardinal Cesare Borgia as papal legate to accompany the king. This meant that to all intents and purposes the Pope’s son was a hostage, held to prevent Alexander VI from entering into negotiations with any power which might be opposed to Charles VIII’s presence in Italy. This was a humiliation indeed for Cardinal Cesare Borgia, who remained averse to even the slightest affront to his dignity. And to make matters worse, on the second evening of their march south, the French king and his entourage (which naturally included the papal legate) were received at the city of Velletri by the local bishop, a post occupied by Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere. Yet it was now that Cardinal Cesare Borgia showed his true mettle. In the words of the Pope’s master-ofceremonies Johann Burchard, who remained back in Rome:
On 30 January [1495] news arrived that Cardinal Cesare Borgia had eluded the grasp of the French king and escaped from Velletri disguised as a groom from the royal stables, and that he had travelled so swiftly that he slept that night in Rome.
In order to elude any pursuers, and to avoid embroiling his father, Cardinal Cesare Borgia slipped out of the city when the gates opened at dawn. Further insult was added to Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere’s hospitality when it was discovered that Cardinal Cesare Borgia had also engineered the escape of nine mules from the treasure train. On inspection, it was found that beneath the coverings in the boxes on the remaining mules there was nothing but stones and earth.
When Charles VIII was informed of the news that he had been outwitted in such a fashion, he was overcome with a violent rage. According to those present, he yelled: ‘All these Italians are filthy curs and none is worse than their Holy Father!’ The French king was probably mistaken in his guess that Alexander VI was behind this escapade. In fact, Alexander VI even sent an apology to the king for his son’s behaviour, realizing that it was in his best interests to keep on the right side of Charles VIII, at least for the time being. This entire incident bears all the hallmarks which would come to be associated with Cardinal Cesare Borgia: deception, daring, avoidance of humiliation – and, lastly, vicious revenge for any possible insult (especially where the women in his family were concerned).
This last particular trait is best exemplified by an earlier episode, retribution for which would only come at a later date. The details are simple enough. When Charles VIII had despatched his forward troops to take Rome, all soldiers had been under the strictest instructions to respect the inhabitants of the Holy City and their property. In order to make this abundantly clear, the French king had instructed his commanders to erect gallows in the public squares, where any soldier who disobeyed the order banning all looting and pillage could be hanged as an example. However, such good intentions had been impossible to maintain in practice. Burchard records how:
On their way into the city the French troops forced an entrance into houses on either side of the road, throwing out their owners, horses and other goods, setting fire to wooden articles and eating and drinking whatever they found without paying anything.
A few days later he records how ‘even the house of Donna Vanozza Cattanei, the mother of Cardinal Cesare Borgia, did not escape’. To add insult to injury, the looters also ‘robbed her of 800 ducats and other possessions of value’. Cardinal Cesare Borgia could only watch impotently from the Castel Sant’Angelo, where he had taken refuge with his father. Yet he would not forget this insult to his mother.
After escaping from the clutches of Charles VIII at Velletri and riding post-haste through Rome, Cardinal Cesare Borgia had taken refuge in the countryside some seventy miles north of the city at the papal stronghold of Spoleto. Here he had lain low for two months before quietly slipping back into Rome. Some days after his return, a troop of Swiss mercenaries belonging to the French force occupying the city were on patrol and happened to march into St Peter’s Square. Whereupon they found themselves surrounded by 200 armed Spanish soldiers, who immediately set upon them. After the ensuing melee, twenty-four Swiss soldiers lay dead, with many more severely wounded. It was Swiss soldiers who had been responsible for ransacking the house of Vanozza de’ Cattanei, and Cardinal Cesare Borgia had taken particular note of this. Cardinal Cesare Borgia may have been a prince of the Church, but where lay matters were concerned he settled scores with military efficiency. Alexander VI may have been impressed, but he was also aware that once again his son had acted far beyond the limits of his father’s wishes.
By now Alexander VI was maintaining a difficult, if duplicitous balance requiring all the diplomatic skills he had learned as vice-chancellor. Prior to Charles VIII leaving Rome, the Pope had been forced to issue a public statement confirming his friendship with the French king, and Rome itself had remained garrisoned by a French force. At the same time, Alexander VI had opened up secret negotiations with the ambassadors of Milan, Venice and Spain, with the aim of forming an alliance to drive the French from Italy. Ludovico Sforza of Milan had realized that inviting Charles VIII into Italy had been a colossal mistake, and was even willing to make amends by allying with Milan’s traditional enemy Venice. At the same time, King Ferdinand of Aragon was determined to thwart Charles VIII’s declared aim of deposing the Aragonese ruler of Naples, Alfonso II. Naples had traditionally been within the Spanish sphere of influence, and he had no wish to cede this to France.
Yet there had been no stopping the French army as it marched south towards Naples, sweeping all before it. Fortresses were overrun and their garrisons put to the slaughter. Meanwhile in Naples the populace, along with a section of the nobility, were soon in open rebellion against their hated Aragonese masters. Sizing up the situation, the new king Alfonso II decided to abdicate in favour of his son Ferrantino.
Taking his treasures with him, [Alfonso II] set sail for the island of Sicily and, in the city of Mazara, retired to a monastery of Olivetans, devoted himself to Christian penance, and died on 19th of November of that same year.
As the French came even closer, the new King Ferrantino also decided to flee, first to the offshore island of Ischia, and then to Sicily. He was accompanied by his loyal entourage, which included Alexander VI’s thirteen-year-old son Jofrè and his tempestuous bride Sancia of Aragon. On 22 February 1495 Charles VIII entered Naples in triumph, with Cem, the half-brother of Sultan Bayezid, at his side. This was intended to emphasize that capturing the city was but the first step in his crusade to retake Jerusalem.
As we have seen, by ancient right the Kingdom of Naples remained under the suzerainty of the Pope, with any new ruler requiring his blessing. Indeed, it was customary for the Pope to conduct the coronation of the king of Naples, and Charles VIII was eager to take part in this noble, ancient ceremony, which appealed to his sense of chivalry. In an attempt to persuade Alexander VI into recognizing him as ruler of Naples, Charles VIII now offered the Pope the generous sum of 150,000 ducats, followed by an annual tribute of 40,000 ducats. To the disappointment of Charles VIII, his new friend Alexander VI failed to respond. But this was just a minor setback. Charles VIII had been welcomed into Naples, for, according to Guicciardini: ‘The reputation of the last two kings was so odious among all the people and almost all the nobles, and there was much eagerness for the French regime.’ Here Charles VIII found what he called ‘an earthly paradise’, where he was able to indulge his prodigious sexual appetite to the full. Contemporary sources claim that he was given a book filled with pictures of Neapolitan ladies, which he would slaver over in an
ticipation of their favours. Other sources provide a variant on this characteristic picture. Despite his obsession with copulation, Charles VIII is said to have insisted upon the novelty of never having the same woman twice.
In the midst of his idyll, Charles VIII was to receive some bad news. Bayezid II’s half-brother Cem was found to have died in his sleep. He was just thirty-six years old. Inevitably, poison was suspected, with Alexander VI being seen as responsible. According to Guicciardini and others, Alexander VI had Cem poisoned ‘with a white powder’ – a conjecture which has persisted through the ages. This is unlikely on several counts. Firstly, the Pope would have found difficulty in hiring an assassin in the French court; and secondly, Alexander VI was in favour of Charles VIII continuing on his crusade to Jerusalem, which was the purpose of Cem’s presence in his entourage. On top of this, the death of Cem meant the end of Sultan Bayezid II’s annual stipend of 45,000 ducats which the Pope was receiving. On the other hand, as we have seen, and shall see on many future occasions, the notion of revenge was firmly engrained in the Borgia family nature, and often overrode even their most carefully planned strategies. Putting an end to Charles VIII’s cherished dream of conquering Jerusalem was just the kind of revenge which Alexander VI would have sought, following the public humiliation he had recently suffered in Rome at the hands of the gauche young French king, together with his troops which had so despoiled the Holy City. And indeed, following the death of Cem, even Charles VIII would gradually come to understand the impossibility of achieving his transcendent chivalric feat – without Cem as a hostage against the Turks, it was simply too dangerous to risk launching his crusade so that he could be crowned King of Jerusalem in Christendom’s other Holy City.
The Borgias Page 13