Murder of Alfonso of Naples, Duke of Bisceglia—The second campaign in Romagna—Pesaro surrenders—Caesar’s private life—Pandolfaccio Malatesta gives up Rimini—Astorre Manfredi—Faenza’s brave resistance—The Pope threatens Bologna—Faenza surrenders—Caesar returns to Rome—Astorre Manfredi flung into prison—Giovanni Bentivoglio—Giuliano and Piero de’ Medici—Caesar’s agreement with Florence—Piombino invested—Caesar returns to Rome—Coalition of the Pope and the King of France for the destruction of the House of Naples—Yves d’Allegre comes to Rome—Berault Stuart, Commander of the French Army, enters the city.

Alexander VI. nearly lost his life in an accident which occurred in the Vatican, June 27, 1500, when the ceiling of a room fell down and he was buried in the rubbish, from which, however, he was finally extricated, having received only a few scratches. His escape, according to his Holiness, was due to the Blessed Virgin Mary; solemn thanks were therefore rendered her July 2nd. She, however, did not interfere about two weeks after Alexander’s providential escape to prevent the brutal murder of Lucretia Borgia’s second husband, Alfonso of Naples, Duke of Bisceglia.

Early in the evening, July 15th, Alfonso was attacked at the entrance to St. Peter’s by several armed men and wounded in the head, the right arm, and the leg. The ruffians, about forty in number, ran down the steps of the church, hastily158 mounted their horses, and escaped by the Pertusa Gate. Such is Burchard’s account of the affair.

The orator of Naples adds: “And the prince ran to the Pope and told him that he had been attacked and wounded, and Madonna Lucretia, who was with the Pope, fainted.” Alfonso was placed in a room in the Vatican, and his wife and his sister, Sancia, consort of the Pope’s son Giuffre, Prince of Squillace, took entire care of him, even cooking his meals themselves for fear of poison, owing to Valentino’s hatred of him. The Pope had him guarded by sixteen men, fearing the Duke might murder him. Only on one occasion, when the Pope went to see Alfonso, did Caesar accompany him, and then he was heard to remark to his father, “What is not finished at dinner may be finished at supper.” When the orator asked the Pope about the affair his Holiness told him that Valentino said, “I did not attack Alfonso, but if I had done so, it would have only been what he deserved”; but one day—August 17th—-Caesar entered the wounded man’s room, drove Lucretia and Sancia out, and ordered Don Michele to strangle the youth, and that night the body was buried—a murder so cold-blooded that all Rome was horrified, though no one dared mention it openly. Finally Valentino admitted that he had caused Alfonso’s death because he feared the Duke would murder him. Such is Capello’s account. Burchard adds that Alfonso’s physicians and attendants were arrested and examined but immediately set at liberty, as there was no doubt of their innocence.

Alfonso, sacrificed by his father for political159 reasons, had married Lucretia, and when the plans of Alexander and Caesar required his elimination she was unable to save him. He had been frequently warned by his friends that Rome was a dangerous place for him. Caesar hated the House of Aragon, and he had derived no greater profit from his sister’s marriage with Alfonso than he had from her former union with Giovanni Sforza of Pesaro. Valentino apparently had another alliance in mind for his sister which he hoped would prove more advantageous to himself.

As a son had been born to Lucretia and Alfonso, the marriage could not be set aside as easily as the former had been; therefore heroic treatment was necessary. When the war broke out in Milan Alfonso left Rome, and he returned only on the urgent solicitations of his wife and the Pope, his fears having been somewhat allayed by the warm congratulations which Caesar had sent him on the birth of his son.

In a dispatch of July 19th the Venetian ambassador says: “It is not certain who wounded Alfonso, but it is said to have been the same person who killed the Duke of Gandia!”

Burchard merely records: “Alfonso was strangled in his bed about the nineteenth hour, and in the evening, about the first hour of the night, the body was carried to the basilica of St. Peter, accompanied by Francesco Borgia, Archbishop of Cosenza, and his household.”

Various reasons have been adduced to explain Caesar’s hatred of his sister’s husband. It has even been said that Caesar wished to have him out of the way in order that he himself might enjoy her160 favours; however, although this charge and others equally hideous, which were made at the time, are no longer believed, they show to what extremes calumny would go in those days and how ready chroniclers and historians, inspired by hate, were to repeat slanders; but they also show the execration and abhorrence in which the Borgias were held.

There was a Neapolitan party in Rome, and Alfonso may have been a member of it; his sister Sancia was the wife of Giuffre, Caesar’s brother, and probably the latter’s mistress. Subsequently she and Valentino became bitter enemies, and she was the only person about the Vatican who dared oppose him in anything.

All Rome, prelates, citizens, Lucretia, Giuffre, the Pope himself seemed afraid of Caesar. Of the Pope it was said that he both loved and feared him—ama ed ha paura. Valentino, hating the House of Naples, and especially Sancia, whose strong nature and unprincipled character clashed with his own, could easily bring himself to compass the death of her brother because it would also leave his sister free for him to marry her into some powerful family which would prove of great assistance to him in his far-reaching projects.

Lucretia and Alfonso, whom his contemporaries described as one of the handsomest men in Italy, apparently loved each other. She had been greatly distressed when he fled from Rome, and had begged him to return. On his death Lucretia, who was wholly without will and character, who had none of the traits of the virago, such as Caterina Sforza possessed, retired to Nepi for a time.

In speaking of the prompt release of Alfonso’s161 physicians and servants, “because they were innocent,” Burchard adds the significant remark, “as those sent to arrest them knew perfectly.”

The attack on the Duke of Bisceglia evidently was well planned, and he was subsequently strangled within the very walls of the Vatican. The servants and physicians were immediately exonerated. Who, then, was responsible for the murder?

All the chroniclers, historians, and ambassadors either openly or by implication charge Caesar with the crime. According to the standards of that perfidious and brutal age, he had ample grounds for the murder—grounds based on both personal hatred and on political ambition.

The conquest of Romagna was intimately connected with the aims of the King of France with respect to Naples, and Alfonso was an obstacle in Caesar’s path. The Neapolitan House had refused Valentino one of its daughters for wife, and he had married a French princess; the destruction of the Aragonese family was therefore the logical sequel.

When Alfonso of Bisceglia was murdered, Lucretia was only twenty years of age; she was beautiful and wealthy, and had powerful kinsmen and a considerable domain of her own; it would be a comparatively easy matter, in view of these attractions, to find her another husband in one of the great families of the peninsula, who would be of help to Alexander and Caesar in subjugating Romagna, and in any other ambitious projects they might evolve.

Alfonso of Bisceglia was useless to such practical162 men as Valentino and his father; he was honest, gentle, and weak, and such men had even less place in the swift movement of the Renaissance than they have in modern politics and industry, and he had to be removed.

Alexander perhaps recognised his own blood in Caesar, and discovered in him the same cynical contempt for all laws, human and Divine, that he himself felt. If he had any horror of his son’s deed, it was not of long duration, for Capello, wrote in September, a month after the murder: “The Pope is daily growing younger; his greatest sorrows pass in a night; he is of a most cheerful disposition, and never undertakes anything but what promises to turn to his own profit; all his thoughts are directed to a single end—to make great personages of his children—to all else he is indifferent.”

Efforts have been made to place the responsibility for the murder of Alfonso on the Sanseverini, who were robbed of the Principality of Salerno in order that it might be given the prince; and on the Gaetani, who had been despoiled of the Duchy of Sermoneta that it might be bestowed on Alfonso’s infant son, Rodrigo. However, neither of these families, who must also have had their enemies, was ever charged with the crime by their contemporaries, and had Caesar and Alexander ever suspected either of them, they certainly would not have treated the affair with such indifference. The only one charged with it at the time was the Duke of Valentino.

An ingenious eulogist of the Borgias has suggested that the strangling in the Borgia tower, which was doubtless reported by Lucretia or Sancia,163 was no strangling at all, but probably tetanic convulsions due to infected wounds caused by the daggers—poignards usually being cleaned in the earth; he, however, neglects to explain away the attack when the daggers were used two weeks before.

Early in July the Pope had placed the ban on Faenza, on the ground that Astorre Manfredi had refused to pay the tribute; the reduction of Faenza and Rimini, therefore, was decided upon by the Pope and Caesar. By his ambassador, Villeneuve, Louis XII. sent his consent for the undertaking, and also his promise to help as far as he was able. In addition the Venetian ambassador assured the Vatican of the neutrality of his Government.

Valentinois had formed an army which he was holding in Umbria, in order that it might be near at hand to be used to destroy the Colonna, who were allies of Federigo of Naples, or for the operations in Romagna.

According to the statement of the Venetian orator, the King of France was to furnish six hundred men-at-arms and the same number of Swiss, in case it should be necessary to crush the Bentivoglio of Bologna, who might attempt to aid their kinsmen in Faenza, Rimini, and Pesaro. On the advice of the King they had withdrawn their protection from the Malatesta and the Manfredi.

When the letter of the Signory was delivered by the ambassadors, Capello and Giorgi, the Pope was so delighted that in spite of his promise to keep it secret, the whole palace knew of it at once, and the same night a great banquet was given in celebration of the event.

164 When Valentino was ready to set forth on the second campaign for the conquest of Romagna, he had about ten thousand soldiers, partly enlisted by himself and partly by Paolo Orsini and Giampaolo Baglioni, who were waiting for him and his army in Perugia.

Caesar’s departure from Rome having become known, October 5th, Pandolfo Malatesta sent his wife and children to the Court of his brother-in-law, Giovanni Bentivoglio, in Bologna, and fortified himself in the castle of Rimini, knowing he could no longer count on the help of Venice.

To secure funds for the second campaign in Romagna, Alexander created twelve cardinals, charging each of them one-tenth of the ecclesiastical revenues. To this was added the plunder derived from the Gaetani and other Roman nobles, and large sums were borrowed from the great banker Agostino Chigi. This was one of the worst scandals of Alexander’s reign. At this creation two members of the Borgia family were made cardinals—Francesco of Sueca and Pier Luigi, the Pope’s nephew. All the cardinals except the last paid well for the dignity. The Bishop of Catania paid the highest—the enormous sum of 25,000 gold ducats; Louis, Bishop of Acqui, and Jacobus, Archbishop of Oristano, paid 5,000 each; while D’Albret, Caesar’s brother-in-law, was charged ten thousand.

It is Burchard himself who gives the amount each cardinal was required to pay. This creation was entirely political. Caesar had found that he needed money for his undertakings, and he had enjoined165 the Sacred College to ratify the nominations, and he had fixed the prices himself.

September 26th Capello wrote the Signory: “I understand that orders have been given so that—the cardinals having been selected—the Duke of Valentinois may set out in two or three days, provided the astrologers say that the moment is favourable.”

The Holy Father, by the agreement with the King of France, was to help Louis in case he decided to undertake the conquest of Naples, and the King was to aid Caesar, to whom he now sent a considerable force under Yves d’Allegre.

Caesar’s foot-soldiers were clad in red and yellow doublets with his insignia, and were armed with short pikes and swords and casques of iron. They were well drilled, and far superior to the earlier troops, which had been little more than poorly armed mobs.

The army set forth the last of September, and it soon became known that it was Caesar’s intention to drive Giovanni Sforza from Pesaro, and the last of the Malatesta from Rimini. Sforza was a military commander of no little reputation, and he decided to resist. He first endeavoured to secure the help of his former wife’s brother, Francesco Gonzaga, and also that of the Emperor Maximilian, with whom he was connected through Bianca Sforza.

Early in 1500 Gonzaga had asked Valentino to stand as sponsor for his infant son, a child who two years later was betrothed to Caesar’s own daughter by Charlotte d’Albret. Giovanni Sforza plainly had not appreciated the relations of Valentino with the166 Gonzaga family, who, like all the princely families of Italy at that time, were ever ready to ally themselves with the stronger and especially with the Papacy.

Struggling for existence, all were playing a desperate game of politics. The duplicity of the age is again disclosed by the fact that Gonzaga did send one hundred men to the assistance of the Lord of Pesaro, who had only two hundred of his own. Giovanni had not been an altogether unjust ruler, consequently a considerable portion of his subjects remained loyal to him. While the nobles opposed him he could count on the support of the lower classes; the middle classes, as is usual, held aloof, ready to go over to the victor.

Most of the petty lords in the Romagna were upstarts and adventurers, and as such were tyrants and entirely indifferent to the welfare of their subjects; being politicians, they were wholly unable to look ahead and provide for the future—their measures were always mere temporary expedients to provide against present difficulties, chiefly of a personal nature; being both ignorant and egotistical, they had no just appreciation of their actual position, which they were compelled to hold by force; the result was that they themselves were constantly the victims of the treachery of their subjects—if treachery it could be called, for their people professed no loyalty. For them a change of masters only meant a change of evils, with the chance that for a while, at least, their condition would be ameliorated. When the people did not actually oppose their lords, they were indifferent to them. This explains why many of the cities in Romagna made no resistance and voluntarily opened their gates to Caesar.

PESARO.

From an early engraving.

To face p. 166.

167 Pesaro promptly surrendered to Bentivoglio, Caesar’s lieutenant, but before the town yielded Giovanni Sforza managed to make his escape, and October 27th the Duke himself entered the city with his usual brilliant array of nobles and officers, by which he knew he could impress the vulgar imagination. Valentino was theatrical in whatever he did, and he studiously preserved an air of mystery at all times. When in Rome he would keep himself in seclusion, and then suddenly on some pretext would exhibit himself to the populace.

The castle of Pesaro was famous for its strength, and Caesar had sketches made of it, which he sent to his father, who was interested in affairs military.

Pandolfo Collenuccio, Ercole d’Este’s orator, arrived in Pesaro the very day Caesar entered the place, and the Duke sent Don Remiro de Lorca to call on him.

Collenuccio, a humanist of great reputation among the writers and jurists of the day, had been exiled in 1489 by Giovanni Sforza in order that he might confiscate the scholar’s property, and at the same time be rid of an honest counsellor. After holding offices in various cities of Italy, he had entered the service of the Este of Ferrara.

Caesar sent the orator a present of grain, wine, candles, a sheep, and a number of capons and chickens, and in writing to his master, Pandolfo said Caesar was “brave and generous—and it is believed he will take care of deserving men. He is determined in his vengeance; his is a great soul,168 eager for glory and power, but he seems more anxious to acquire new States than to give those he already has a good government”—a statement which does not wholly agree with those of others. Pandolfo, however, failed to secure a public office, consequently he discovered some of the Duke’s defects.

One day when conversing with the ambassador, Caesar remarked: “I do not know what Faenza will do, but she will not cause us any greater difficulties than the other places have—still, she may try to hold out.” To which the accomplished diplomatist replied: “If she does it will only give your lordship another opportunity to display your valour and skill in taking the place.”

In one of his letters to the Duke, Ercole d’Este, Collenuccio gives a description of Caesar’s personal habits which is interesting, as details regarding his private life are few. “The Duke’s life is as follows: he goes to bed between eight and ten at night. At the eighteenth hour it is dawn; at the nineteenth the sun rises, and at the twentieth it is broad daylight. Then he rises and immediately sits down to the table. After this he gives his attention to business affairs.”

While Caesar was in Fano and Pesaro, Astorre Manfredi—the only tyrant in that part of Italy who enjoyed the confidence and affection of his people—was preparing to defend himself in Faenza.

Aid came to him from an une............