The Borgias

by Paul Strathern

  Meanwhile, Cardinal della Rovere pressed on ahead, preparing the way, arranging matters of diplomatic concern. And in this he proved particularly successful. On Tuesday 17 December, the very day before Cesare Borgia was due to arrive at Chinon, della Rovere received the official verdict of the Papal Divorce Committee, presided over by the Cardinal of Luxembourg. Louis XII had been granted an annulment of his marriage to Joan of France. He was now free to marry Anne of Brittany and preserve the unity of his kingdom.

  Cesare Borgia’s entry into Chinon next day proved a momentous affair. The royal chateau, surrounded by high walls, stood on a hill overlooking the River Vienne (a tributary of the Loire). The chateau was approached by a long ramp leading up to the main gate. Alexander VI and his son had spent much time and trouble choreographing Cesare’s arrival at the chateau. Cesare’s entrance was intended to be as spectacular as possible, with the aim of impressing both Louis XII and his court of nobles. The procession through the streets of Chinon and up the ramp towards the chateau was led by several dozen liveried attendants. These were followed by no less than seventy mules laden with boxes and chests containing all manner of gifts and treasures. Then came sixteen chargers led by grooms bedecked in the Borgia colours of red and yellow. Last of all came Cesare himself, mounted on a high charger covered with red and yellow satin. According to an eyewitness:

  In his cap were two double rows of five or six rubies, as large as a big bean, which gave out a great light. On the brim of his cap there were also a great quantity of jewels.

  Added to this, Cesare wore a collar studded with diamonds said to have been worth 30,000 ducats; and he was accompanied on foot by ‘four musicians with trumpets and clarions of silver, richly dressed, playing their instruments without ceasing’. The welcoming crowd of citizens lining the route were awestruck.

  On the other hand, the court of Louis XII and his assembled nobles were somewhat less impressed. Fashion had changed in France: mere brash display had given way to a more subtle and civilized restraint. Unlike in Italy, parading such a blatant spectacle of one’s wealth was considered tasteless vulgarity. Cesare, whose lavish display was intended to impress upon the French the full might of Italy’s wealth and power, had only made himself into a covert laughing stock.

  Yet despite the subtle mockery of the French nobility and their courtiers, Cesare was to make an impression upon the one person who mattered – namely, Louis XII. The thirty-six-year-old French monarch graciously did his best to put the bold but awkward young Cesare at his ease. And soon a confident Cesare was exhibiting the legendary Borgia charm. He quickly established a personal rapport with the king, exhibiting to the full his exceptional intellect, responding to the king with impressive wit and aplomb. D’Amboise, Louis XII’s closest adviser and friend, was equally impressed.

  After enjoying the pleasures of Chinon, the French court and Cesare’s entourage moved on. It was customary for the French king to change residences on a regular basis, moving from one magnificent castle to another along the Loire Valley. Cesare Borgia would doubtless have been impressed by these superb chateaux, which remain to this day the finest examples of secular French medieval architecture. Though he would have been of sufficient intellect and taste to appreciate that Italy was already beginning to progress beyond such achievements, its architecture, art and culture by now embodying the unmistakable advances of the Renaissance. Such was the irony of that era. France was indisputably the more powerful country, its riches far exceeding that of any Italian city state. Yet it was the squabbling insecurity of a divided Italy which was giving birth to the modern age.

  The French nobility may have been sniggering down their long medieval sleeves at the vulgar excesses of Cesare Borgia’s entourage, yet it was their more rigid culture which was receding into abeyance. The tasteless display of Cesare’s procession was if anything an aberration: the ‘art’ of the parade has to this day advanced very little since the preclassical era. Apropos such matters, it is worth noting that during these very years Leonardo da Vinci was in the employ of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan. Here, besides working sporadically on his Last Supper and attempting to construct unsuccessful flying machines, a large part of his time was devoted to creating fantastical ice sculptures, spectacular stage mechanisms, fantastic costumes and procession floats for the duke’s festivals. And as we shall see, ironically it would be Cesare Borgia himself who would rescue Leonardo from such ephemeral pursuits.

  Meanwhile, through the early winter months of 1499 Cesare Borgia would accompany Louis XII, Cardinal d’Amboise and the French court as it moved from chateau to chateau along the Loire Valley. For entertainment, the king and his party would set off into the wooded countryside with horns calling through the morning mist as they hunted their prey. This was the falconry season, and instead of gruesome displays of Spanish bullfighting Cesare learned the more delicate art of hunting with the finest trained birds of prey. On returning home to their current chateau, the royal party would dine on game and the finest local French wine.*

  There was but one snag, though this would unfortunately skew the entire purpose of Cesare Borgia’s visit. Carlotta of Naples, daughter of King Federigo of Naples, still remained in love with Guy, Count of Laval. Louis XII, and even the persuasive Cardinal d’Amboise, proved unable to induce the wilful nineteen-year-old to change her mind. Louis XII felt a genuine fatherly affection for Carlotta, and had no intention of forcing her into marriage against her will, no matter the political importance of such a union between France and the papacy. This left Cesare Borgia in considerable embarrassment. Having set off for France with such extravagant ceremony and intentions, his fruitless return to Italy would, however unjustly, have cast aspersions on his manhood and left him open to public ridicule.

  The news of Cesare’s failed project also gave Alexander VI considerable cause for thought back in Rome. The Pope’s position now looked increasingly precarious. Both Milan and Naples were more than apprehensive over Alexander VI’s detente with France. Indeed, in their own separate ways they both felt threatened. Likewise, Spain was becoming increasingly suspicious of the Pope’s devious political manoeuvring. On hearing news of the new alliance between France and the papacy, the Spanish ambassador had departed from Rome in a fury. In his view, the papal office was becoming little more than the chaplaincy to the king of France, and if Alexander VI wasn’t sufficiently careful he, too, might soon find himself taking refuge in Spain. Suddenly, with the failure of his plan to marry his son Cesare into the French royal family, Alexander VI found himself surrounded by hostility on all sides.

  Once again, history was conforming to what Machiavelli would harshly characterize as ‘Virtù e Fortuna’. Alexander VI had placed all his ambitions on the Virtù (strength and quality) of his diplomatic manoeuvres. Now Fortuna (luck) had turned against him. March and April passed with the sixty-eight-year-old pope isolated in Rome – worried, afraid and increasingly conscious of his age. Then, once again, history repeated itself. Lucrezia’s husband Alfonso, Duke of Bisceglie, suddenly fled Rome in fear of his life – first taking refuge with the Colonna family, now more than ever enemies of the Borgias, and eventually fleeing back to Naples. This time the nineteen-year-old Lucrezia was distraught. She was six months pregnant and the husband she so loved had not even warned her of his imminent departure, for fear of word reaching her father. At the sight of his daughter, wailing in tears, Alexander VI too was stricken with remorse at the turn events had taken. But this was to be no isolated family event. A few weeks later Sancia of Aragon, young Jofrè Borgia’s wayward wife, also took flight back home to Naples. This time Alexander VI was less upset. His seventeen-year-old son Jofrè’s behaviour was becoming a source of increasing scandal. To such an extent that the Pope had recently taken the extreme step of confining him to the precincts of the Castel Sant’Angelo after he had been involved in yet another drunken brawl, during which a member of the city constabulary had been seriously wounded.

  For their own pro
tection, Alexander VI now despatched Lucrezia and Jofrè to Spoletto, in the papal territories some eighty miles north of Rome. At the same time, he wrote to the authorities in Spoletto:

  We trust you will receive Duchess Lucretia [sic], as is your duty, with all due honour as your regent, and show her submission in all things . . . collectively and severally, in so far as law and custom dictate in the government of the city, and whatever she may think proper to exact of you, even as you would obey Ourselves, and to execute her commands with all diligence and promptness.

  Indicatively, Alexander VI was appointing the young and pregnant Lucrezia as Governor of Spoleto, rather than Jofrè. It was highly unusual for a young woman to be appointed to such a post (especially in preference to her male sibling). It also ensured her independence, sweeping powers and her own income – in case of need, or in case political events took a turn for the worse and her father was cut off in Rome. Alexander VI’s fortune was now at its lowest ebb and he was all too aware of his vulnerability. Cesare was away in France, his mission come to nothing. There was not a single major city state in Italy that he could trust. He had, by now, betrayed each one of them in his own way by his devious politicking. Meanwhile, he was no longer safe even in Rome, having made enemies of the Colonna, the Caetani and the majority of the aristocratic families of the holy city. Even his cardinals could no longer be trusted.

  Then, out of the blue, Fortuna came to Alexander VI’s rescue. Back in France, Louis XII had remained so enamoured of his new friend Cesare that he had determined to find for him a French royal bride. Since Carlotta was out of the question, he secured for Cesare the attractive nineteen-year-old Charlotte d’Albret, whose mother was related to Louis XII’s new queen, Anne of Brittany. As chance would have it, Charlotte d’Albret was also the younger sister of King John III of Navarre, whose north-eastern Spanish kingdom occupied the Basque region straddling the territory either side of the Pyrenees. Cesare Borgia and Charlotte d’Albret were married in the queen’s chamber at the grand chateau of Blois on 12 May 1499. Days later Louis XII wrote delightedly informing Alexander VI that his son Cesare had ‘broken his lance’ no less than eight times during his wedding night, confessing that this was double the amount he had managed on his own first night with Anne of Brittany. Indeed, Alexander VI was so overjoyed at this news of his son’s virile prowess that he insisted Louis XII’s letter be read out to the assembled cardinals at his next consistory.

  The news that the papacy was now indissolubly linked with the fortunes of France came as more than a relief to Alexander VI. Even though it meant the final extinction of Cesare’s remote chance of inheriting the throne of Naples, it had the advantage of reopening papal ties with Spain. More heartening still, news now came through that Louis XII had despatched the first of his forces south towards the Alps. At last he was determined to stake his claim to the duchy of Milan. The leading French forces were commanded by Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, the skilled condottiere who had served Milan under Ludovico Sforza, until Sforza had given command of the army to his rival. Trivulzio had then defected, offering his services to France, determined to wreak revenge on his untrustworthy former master.

  Following Trivulzio, the slower-moving main force of the French army began making its way south under Louis XII, accompanied by Cardinal d’Amboise and Cesare Borgia. The Duke of Valentinois had been permitted little time to celebrate his honeymoon at Blois. Though he did find occasion to inform his father that he ‘was the most contented man in the world’. The nineteen-year-old Charlotte was showered with gifts: ‘brocades, silks and jewels worth 20,000 ducats . . . [a] great long emerald’, as well as all manner of silverware, gowns and bejewelled couture. Presumably these had all been recently tailored to fit their new owner, as they had in fact originally been purchased in Rome for Carlotta of Naples. Meanwhile in Paris, according to the Milanese ambassador, the students of the Sorbonne had celebrated Cesare’s marriage by staging ‘a farce which tended to the great ignominy of the pontiff ’. When the king had ordered the authorities to suppress this, ‘there had been a great riot’.

  By July Louis XII and the bulk of his army had assembled at Lyons in preparation for their march across the Alps into Italy. The king had been particularly impressed by the way in which Cesare Borgia had used the last of his fortune to hire a mercenary army to support the French. Owing to Cesare’s extravagance at the French court, there had not been a sufficient amount left from his original funds, so he had been obliged to write home to his father, who had immediately transferred a further generous sum for his son’s use. Louis XII had marked his gratitude by granting Cesare Borgia the right to add the armorial bearings of the French royal house to his coat of arms. From now on, the shield of the Duke of Valentinois would bear the coat of arms of the red Borgia bull, quartered with the three golden fleurs-de-lis of France.

  Ever the opportunist, Alexander VI had gone so far as to suggest to Louis XII that once France had conquered Milan, Cesare Borgia should be allowed to lead his mercenary soldiers, along with an even larger force than the 1,000 men which Louis XII had already promised, back to Rome. However, instead of marching directly to Rome, Alexander VI proposed that his son Cesare be allowed to lead his forces on a campaign through the north-eastern territories known as the Romagna and the Marches, which bordered the Adriatic. This remote, hilly littoral was officially part of the Papal Territories, but most of its small cities had fallen under the rule of various independent petty tyrants. Whilst for the most part paying little more than nominal dues to their papal overlord, many of these tyrants had imposed notorious regimes similar to that of the ‘humanist tyrant’ Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, Lord of Rimini, who had publicly sodomized the papal emissary sent by Pius II. Alexander VI saw the subjugation of these territories as the first step in his larger strategy of establishing his own state in central Italy.

  With the prospect of action, Louis XII had placed Cesare Borgia in direct command of a squadron of heavy cavalry, so that he might gain some experience in battle. Back in Rome there was another disappearance. Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, setting out on one of his regular hunting trips, unexpectedly slipped away, first seeking the protection of the Colonna family, before fleeing to join his brother Ludovico Sforza in Milan. Within weeks, Trivulzio’s leading French forces were approaching the city. On 1 September Cardinal Ascanio Sforza and his brother Ludovico, the Duke of Milan, deserted the city, fleeing north to the Tyrol, where they sought sanctuary with Maximilian I, the Holy Roman Emperor. Milan offered little resistance, and soon the entire territory was under French control.

  On 6 October Louis XII entered the city in triumphal procession, escorted by Cesare Borgia and Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere. The occupying French troops were hardly welcomed by the Milanese. Ludovico, Duke of Milan, may not have been particularly popular, but the invaders did little to endear themselves to the local population. The cultured Milanese regarded the French invaders as barbarians. A Venetian report spoke of how: ‘The French captains spit on the floors of the rooms, while their soldiers outrage the women in the streets.’ Yet not all of the invaders displayed such uncouth behaviour. Ludovico, Duke of Milan, had employed a number of artists, chief of which was, of course, Leonardo da Vinci. Cesare Borgia shared with Louis XII an appreciation of the arts, and the two of them travelled together to the outskirts of Milan, to the monastery of Santa Marie delle Grazie, where Leonardo had painted The Last Supper. Louis XII was so overwhelmed by this painting that he ‘wanted to remove it to his kingdom . . . but as the painting was done on a wall his majesty failed to have his way’.

  Some days afterwards Cesare Borgia paid a visit to Leonardo in his studio at the Corte Vecchio, the abandoned former palace of the city’s rulers, whose large, tall-ceilinged rooms and empty courtyards provided the artist with ideal working space. Here Cesare Borgia saw Leonardo’s enormous clay model for the Gran Cavallo, the ‘Great Horse’. This was intended as a mount for the statue of Francesco Sforza, the powerful condottiere wh
o had been the first of the family to rule Milan after the ousting of the Visconti. The prototype statue was a model of considerable artistic and engineering skill, in preparation for what was intended to be the largest bronze equestrian statue ever cast. Days after Cesare Borgia’s visit, French soldiers broke into the Corte Vecchio and began using Leonardo’s clay horse for target practice, reducing the model for the finest and largest equine statue yet contemplated to a pile of rubble.

  Leonardo had already been planning to leave Milan and was becoming disillusioned with art in general. His errors of judgement over the experimental materials used in the painting of The Last Supper meant that, although it had only recently been completed, this masterpiece was already starting to peel from the wall. Leonardo had long wished to try his prowess as a military engineer. He already had pages of elaborate sketches of civil and military engineering projects – as well as blueprints for all manner of advanced weaponry, including tanks, flailing machines and mortars. Following the defeat of the Sforzas, Leonardo was planning to return to his native Florence, but it seems that Borgia made him an enticing offer. He explained to Leonardo in the strictest confidence that he was intending to set out on a campaign to conquer the Romagna and the Marches, with the aim of establishing this territory as a powerful new Italian state. If Leonardo chose to join him, he would be charged with reinforcing castles, bolstering military defences and the like. But there was the prospect of so much more than just military engineering. The new state would require a complete overhaul of the backward Romagna. New roads, pioneering canals, the building of dams – Leonardo would be entrusted with all of these. He would be building a new state, as well as ensuring its permanence. Leonardo was determined to get back to his native Florence, but it seems he gave Borgia a loose assurance that he might join him some time during the ensuing year.