. . .19 Since Alfonso’s first wife had died in childbirth this outburst must have been prompted by the old fear of non-consummation which had agitated him at the time of Juan Gandia’s marriage. Probably he suspected the Este might try to wriggle out of this marriage on these grounds, as indeed he himself had done with Giovanni Sforza. Concern for Lucrezia’s wellbeing in what was in truth a forced marriage was evidently still in his mind. Three days later, in discussions with Costabili over Cento and La Pieve, Alexander ‘speaking afterwards of his family links with the Estense, had declared that if they would treat Duchessa Lucrezia well, he would think of ways of making them great . . .’20
In the end, Lucrezia and the Este travelled to Ferrara not by road but along the waterways in a ship, a bucentaur (bucintoro), provided by Ercole. The most usual means of travelling in the region, the Val Padana, was by water. At the time a system of rivers and canals linked most of the important cities of Lombardy, the Emilia and the Veneto. Bologna, Modena, Argenta and most of the Este villas could be reached by water from Ferrara, and the Po was the most important artery for travel across northern Italy. The bucentaur was equipped with a mast and a sail as well as oars, and in shallower waters would be drawn by horses. Its superstructure contained several rooms magnificently decorated, painted by artists and hung with tapestries.
The anxious ambassadors had actually succeeded in getting the party off before dawn the next day in order to keep to the schedule planned by Ercole. At Malalbergo, Lucrezia was met by her new sister-in-law – one of the most famous and formidable women in Italy, Isabella d’Este, Marchioness of Mantua, wife of Francesco Gonzaga. Neither of the women was looking forward to the encounter. Lucrezia was intelligent enough to be aware that Isabella did not welcome her. Isabella was seething throughout these days of celebration when Lucrezia, not herself, would be the centre of attention. Indeed, she had written to her husband the previous day that ‘to my great displeasure’ she would have to get up early to go by boat to meet the bride. At twenty-eight, Isabella was six years older than Lucrezia and had already been married twelve years. She was of middle height with a tendency to plumpness and had dark eyes and an abundance of fair hair with a reddish tint. She was extremely intelligent and well informed and a passionate, even rapacious, collector of antiquities and works of art. She was cultivated and well read, sang and accompanied herself on the lute and was accustomed to praise from the great men of literature of the day. Niccolò da Correggio called her ‘la prima donna del mondo’ – the first lady of the world. She patronized the leading artists of the time – even Leonardo da Vinci sketched her. She was very conscious of her high birth, as the eldest daughter of the Duke of Ferrara and of Eleonora d’Aragona, daughter of King Ferrante of Naples, and her pride was cut to the quick at the thought of the upstart Borgia occupying the place of her royal mother as Duchess of Ferrara. Like most aristocrats of her day but more so, Isabella was a tremendous snob. An inscription round the courtyard near her studiolo proclaimed her status as granddaughter of a king, daughter of a duke, and wife of a marquis. She was conscious that Lucrezia as Duchess of Ferrara would outrank her. Mantua was a small and relatively unimportant state which could not be compared in territory or wealth with Ferrara; indeed, Isabella resented the fact that her revenues could not keep up with her expensive tastes. Francesco Gonzaga supplemented his income by making his name as a condottiere, working under contract to the various powers in Italy. Her letters to Francesco (who was not at the wedding as he had been advised not to attend by Ercole, probably because of the Pope’s loud complaints against him for harbouring Cesare’s enemies, such as Giovanni Sforza) were redolent of her distaste for the Borgia marriage.
Isabella was accompanied by Giulio, the handsomest of the Este brothers, and Ercole’s illegitimate son, born in 1478 from a relationship with one of his wife’s (married) ladies, Isabella Arduino. As Isabella described it to her husband, Francesco Gonzaga, the two sisters-in-law greeted each other with embraces and happy faces before continuing down the canal to Torre de Fossa where Ercole, with the entire court, was waiting on the river bank to greet Lucrezia. When she disembarked he took her hand and kissed her, although she attempted to kiss his hand first. Then they embarked on the great ducal bucentaur which was already crowded with the ambassadors of all the powers, among whom Isabella and Lucrezia were seated. Alfonso and Ercole were on the poop, amusing themselves by listening to the jesters who, in Ferrarese dialect and Spanish rhyme, eulogized Lucrezia and the Este. The party arrived to the sound of trumpets and artillery at the house of Ercole’s illegitimate brother, Alberto d’Este, where Lucrezia was to spend the night before making her ceremonial entry into Ferrara. ‘I will not describe her to you because I know you have seen her,’ Isabella wrote to Francesco, before then going into great detail about her clothes: Lucrezia wore a robe of drawn gold garnished with crimson satin with sleeves in the Castilian style and a cloak slashed with mulberry satin lined with sable, and a necklace of large pearls with a pendant spinel, pierced with a pendant pear-shaped pearl. She wore a gold headdress without a veil.21
For Lucrezia this was the first sight of the father-in-law she had so assiduously courted. At seventy-one Ercole was tall, with strongly marked features, an aquiline nose and a thin, forbidding mouth. He was born in October 1431, the son of the Marquis Niccolò III by his third wife, Ricciarda da Saluzzo, but had spent most of his early life, from fourteen to the age of almost thirty, at the court of Naples where he and his brother Sigismondo had had a humanist education with the future King Ferrante. They had in fact been exiled by their father to keep them out of Ferrara so that their illegitimate half-brothers, Leonello and Borso, could succeed. From the time Ercole grew up he had spent his time as a leading condottiere, first for the Aragonese and then the Angevin factions in Naples and finally for Venice. He was devious and ruthless, having engineered his own succession as Duke in 1471 in place of the chosen heir, Niccolò, whom he then plotted unsuccessfully to have poisoned. Five years later, when Niccolò attempted to take over Ferrara, Ercole had him beheaded privately in the cortile of the Castello and then, for reasons of family pride, had his head sewn back on and the body dressed for burial in gold brocade. The history of the ancient Este family was as bloodstained as most of the great Italian families, a record of plot and counterplot, executions and torture, as Lucrezia herself was to discover. The plots were customarily among themselves and not takeover attempts by outsiders, a pattern of behaviour which was to repeat itself with tragic consequences early in Alfonso’s reign.
Ercole was an astute and cautious ruler but, as the historian of Ferrara has remarked, hardly one to be trusted.22 In Naples he betrayed the Aragonese in favour of their predecessors, the Angevins, then married Eleonora, daughter of the childhood companion, Ferrante, whom he had betrayed. He then betrayed the Venetians who had helped him secure the duchy, an act of treachery which resulted in the disastrous war of Ferrara (1482 – 4) and the loss of the Polesine of Rovigo. Ercole was absolute master of Ferrara and popular with his people, although in recent years the extravagance with which he had indulged his passions for building, music and musicians and the theatre had led to administrative abuses such as the sale of offices. His greatest achievement as ruler had been his success in involving the citizens of Ferrara in the identity of the Este, with theatrical spectacles, jousts, tournaments and religious and charitable ceremonies. Bernardino Zambotti, the not-unprejudiced author of the Diario Ferrarese, wrote of him: ‘. . . this Duke of Ferrara in wisdom, shrewdness, experience and goodness was the first man of Italy, and thus more faithful and discreet, and loved by all the governments of Italy, except by the Venetians, who barely wished to hear his name mentioned’.23 Since the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent in 1492, the defeat of Ludovico il Moro in 1500, and the destruction of the Aragonese in Naples, Ercole was indeed the preeminent prince in Italy. Altogether, despite his defects, his indecision and inattention to administration, Lucrezia’s future father-in-law, soberl
y dressed in black as was his wont, was an impressive figure.
The Ferrara which Lucrezia saw across the River Po from the house of Alberto d’Este on the opposite bank was a glittering city, with walls, towers and battlements frescoed with chivalric scenes or painted in the Este colours of red, white and green. In the centre of the city, the grim fourteenth-century dark red brick Castello (the Castel Vecchio, or Old Castle), with its moat, four towers, and below-ground dungeons dominated its surroundings. It was linked by a covered way with the Palazzo del Corte, the Court Palace, a graceful building with arches and loggias of white Istrian stone in the style of the Doge’s Palace in Venice, overlooking the cathedral and the main square, the theatre for public events – jousts, tournaments and, less pleasantly, executions. To the north of the Castello, a whole new quarter known as the Terra Nova was Ercole’s creation, with new streets, a piazza, palaces, gardens, churches and monasteries built over the last twenty years. The city was well defended with ramparts, redoubts and another castle, the Castel Novo, overlooking the Po. The Este dukes had created an impressive setting for the display of their power and prestige and, under their initiative, fifteenth-century Ferrara had become one of the major centres of Renaissance theatre, music and the decorative arts. The court was one of the most splendid in Italy, the palaces richly furnished with tapestries, silk hangings, oriental carpets, alabaster and painted and frescoed rooms. Its splendours rivalled Florence of the Medici, far outstripped those of the contemporary papal court, certainly the provincialism of Pesaro and even the magnificent ducal palace at Urbino. Outside the city, Este wealth and power were demonstrated by a number of magnificent villas and hunting lodges. All this was to be the state of Lucrezia Borgia, bastard daughter of a Spanish pope.
8.A New Life
‘She is most beautiful of face, with vivacious, laughing eyes, upright in her posture, acute, most prudent, most wise, happy, pleasing and friendly’
—The Ferrarese chronicler Bernardino Zambotti, describing Lucrezia’s arrival in Ferrara, 2 February 1502
Ferrara, a northern river city on a flat plain ribboned with waterways and marshes, could hardly have been more different from Rome, some two hundred miles to the south. In the autumn heavy rains drenched the streets: now in winter, with chilling mists rising from the surrounding waters and the canals that bisected the town, its gaily painted battlements and gilded towers took on the appearance of a medieval miniature. And on 2 February 1502, the day appointed for Lucrezia’s formal entry into the city which was to be her home for the rest of her life, the scene was a blaze of colour.
The arrival of the bride destined to be the next Duchess of Ferrara had been the occasion for months of preparations intended to impress not just Lucrezia and her suite but also the envoys of all the powers represented and the citizens themselves with the ducal magnificence of the Este. Lucrezia crossed the bridge over the Po into the city through the fortified gate of Castel Tedaldo, where doctors of the University of Ferrara waited to hold a canopy of white silk over her. She was mounted on a splendid horse caparisoned in cloth of gold with gilded harness, and accompanied on foot by eight of Alfonso’s courtiers. This was fortunate for, a few moments later, the horse, startled by a shot, threw her and she had to be helped to her feet, laughing, and remounted on a mule which Ercole had thoughtfully provided. Riding beside her under the canopy in the place of honour was the ambassador of the King of France, signifying his approval of the marriage.1
The bridal procession then wound through the streets headed by seventy-five of Alfonso’s mounted crossbowmen in his red and white livery, wearing white plumed caps in the French style, followed by eighty trumpeters and twenty-four musicians playing woodwind instruments, then the Duchess of Urbino’s company, in black satin and velvet, with Alfonso and his brother-in-law, Annibale Bentivoglio, bringing up the rear. Alfonso rode a great bay horse, with trappings of purple velvet glittering with plates of beaten gold in high relief. He himself wore a tunic of grey velvet all covered with scales of beaten gold, a black velvet beret on his head, with laces of beaten gold and white plumes, and short boots of soft grey skin made from unborn calves. Behind him marched Lucrezia’s company, ten Spanish arquebusiers dressed in gold brocade and black velvet, followed by five bishops and the Ferrarese gentlemen and courtiers marching two by two with the Italian ambassadors. Lucrezia rode behind, then Ercole and the Duchess of Urbino side by side, followed by Geronima Borgia and Adriana de Mila, then Lucrezia Bentivoglio in a carriage covered with gold brocade and, following her, in twenty court carriages decorated in gold brocade and white silk drawn by white horses, the Ferrarese and Bolognese gentlewomen and damsels allotted by Ercole to attend the bride.
Lucrezia herself sparkled, her dress carefully noted by Isabella d’Este in one of her daily reports to her absent husband, Francesco Gonzaga. She wore a robe with long sleeves in the French style lined with ermine and decorated with interwoven stripes of cloth of gold and violet satin and over it a cloak of drawn cloth of gold open on one side to reveal its ermine lining. Bitterly, Isabella noted round Lucrezia’s neck a diamond and ruby necklace which had belonged to the Duchess Eleonora and on her head the headdress which Ercole had sent to Rome for her,2 also undoubtedly a part of the family jewels since it was loaded with spinels, diamonds and sapphires and other precious stones, including very large pearls. ‘The jewellers,’ wrote Bernardino Zambotti, ‘estimated its worth at 30,000 ducats.’ Zambotti was equally impressed by Lucrezia’s baggage train of seventy-two mules caparisoned in her livery of yellow and mulberry and carrying her rich trousseau worth at least 200,000 ducats beyond the 100,000 in cash. He was very taken with the bride’s appearance (he gave her age as twenty-four although she was still only twenty-two – since other authorities overestimated her age, Lucrezia must have looked older than she actually was). ‘She is,’ he wrote, ‘most beautiful of face, with vivacious, laughing eyes, upright in her posture, acute, most prudent, most wise, happy, pleasing and friendly. ‘The people were pleased by her, he said, hoping therefore for help and good government from her and beyond that great benefit to the city, particularly by the authority of the Pope, ‘who loves this daughter of his above all things, as he has demonstrated with the dowry and the castles (Cento and Pieve) which he has conceded to Don Alfonso’. Lucrezia’s prize for completing the final part of her journey to Ferrara was another valuable consignment of Este family jewels presented to her that day, including a silver gilt mirror surrounded by rubies and diamonds.3
Winding through the streets of the city, past platforms of citizens declaiming the praises of Lucrezia and the Pope, the procession reached the piazza in front of the cathedral and the Palazzo del Corte, where two acrobats swung down on ropes from two towers to arrive simultaneously at the cathedral door, to the great amazement of the crowd. As soon as Lucrezia had dismounted at the palace, in the customary division of spoils Ercole’s crossbowmen seized the baldachin and fell to squabbling with Alfonso’s men over her mule, an argument won by Alfonso’s servants. At the head of the marble staircase (which still exists) she was greeted by Isabella, with Lucrezia Bentivoglio, three bastard daughters of Ercole’s brother Sigismondo d’Este, including one of the principal courtiers, Diana, Countess Contrari, and the ladies of the court, and taken through the Great Hall (Sala Grande) decorated with cloth of silver and gold and precious silks, and featuring two gilded giants with maces in hand. From there they proceeded to Ercole’s apartments in the Palazzo del Corte which had been specially prepared for the bridal couple, while Ercole himself retreated to newly decorated rooms in the Castel Novo.
After a short while Lucrezia and Alfonso were left alone together for the first time. Forced marriage or not, Alfonso found Lucrezia sexually attractive: that night, according to the report of Isabella’s chancellor to Francesco, he made love to her three times (‘ha camminato tre miglia’).4 He continued to spend every night with her. What he did during the day was another matter, returning to his former ‘Prince Hal’ life of
whores and low tavern companions. Lucrezia’s father, however, was characteristically delighted by the news, ‘particularly understanding that they continue to sleep together at night’, Beltrando Costabili, the Ferrarese envoy at Rome, reported, ‘although he has heard that Don Alfonso takes his pleasure in diverse places as a young man, His Holiness says that he does very well’.5
Although Ercole reported happily to the Pope that Alfonso and Lucrezia ‘gave each other pleasure’, that did not mean they loved each other. It was a marriage of state, eagerly entered into by the one, reluctantly by the other. Lucrezia was not attracted by Alfonso’s rough ways and manners and reserved character, but she had achieved her ambition and she was determined to make a success of her career as Duchess of Ferrara. She used charm and tact to consolidate her position. She had already won over the Este men; she even attempted to win over Isabella herself, but here she met with a polite, well-concealed rebuff. Isabella’s family pride was offended by this young cuckoo in the Este nest, resentful that anyone with Lucrezia’s background should occupy her mother’s place. She had her spy in the Este chancellery, Bernardino di Prosperi, a devoted follower who gave her daily news of Lucrezia’s progress, and whose letters, running into thousands, provide the best and most continuous contemporary account of Lucrezia’s life in Ferrara.
Isabella’s letters to her husband, describing the post-marriage festivities which took place during those carnival days at Ferrara, make clear her resentment. She was not, she made it plain, enjoying herself. There had been no boisterous matinata with the family and favoured courtiers waking the newly-wed couple with lewd jokes. Perhaps, since the bride could by no stretch of the imagination be described as a virgin, it was considered inappropriate by the Este. Lucrezia, reportedly ‘tired from her night’s engagement with her husband’, kept to her apartments with her household the next day and did not leave them until Isabella and her ladies came after dinner to take her into the Sala Grande for dancing. Lucrezia, with Isabella, the Duchess of Urbino, and Lucrezia’s company of Roman and Ferrarese ladies, sat on a tribune decorated with cloth of curled gold and tapestries. Isabella complained that the hall was so crowded that dancing was almost impossible and after two dances Ercole paraded 110 actors in their costumes for the five comedies by Plautus which were to be enacted over the following days. The party then went by covered way to the Palace of Justice (the Palazzo della Ragione) nearby, where there would be more space for plays. A stage was set up with painted wooden houses and castles and the company disposed themselves on specially constructed rows all around the room. The comedy the Epidicus was presented, interspersed with moresche —dancing tableaux – including a mock fight of gladiators. Isabella, like her sister-in-law and close friend Elisabetta da Montefeltro, the latter nine years older than Lucrezia, must have felt their noses out of joint at the younger woman’s glamour and her position at the centre of attention; they did not enjoy themselves. The first play, the Epidicus, always had been mediocre, Isabella told Francesco, although she went into detail about the four moresche, which featured soldiers, Moors and mock battles. There was no time to describe the variety and number of changes of Lucrezia’s dresses, she said, and complained of the numerous pickpockets operating there – one thief had been found hiding under the bed in the Palazzo Schifanoia and had robbed Cesare’s envoy of a valuable gold chain, for which he was hanged the next day as a deterrent to other. 6
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