Chapter XXXII: Mrs. Q. and the Borgia Family

“I am going to introduce you to such a nice woman,” Mrs. Barfleur told me the second morning I was in Rome, in her very enthusiastic way. “She is charming. I am sure you will like her. She comes from America somewhere--New York, I think. Her husband is an author, I believe. I heard so.” She chattered on in her genial, talk-making way. “I don’t understand these American women; they go traveling about Europe without their husbands in such a strange way. Now, you know in England we would not think of doing anything of that kind.”

Mrs. Barfleur was decidedly conservative in her views and English in manner and speech, but she had the saving proclivity of being intensely interested in life, and realized that all is not gold that glitters. She preferred to be among people who know and maintain good form, who are interested in maintaining the social virtues as they stand accepted and who, if they do not actually observe all of the laws and tenets of society, at least maintain a deceiving pretense. She had a little coterie of friends in the hotel, as I found, and friends outside, such as artists, newspaper correspondents and officials connected with the Italian court and the papal court. I never knew a more industrious social mentor in the shape of a woman, though among men her son outstripped her. She was apparently here, there and everywhere about the hotel, in the breakfast-room, in the dining-room, in the card-room, in the writing-room, greeting her friends, planning games, planning engagements, planning sightseeing trips. She was pleasant, too; delightful; for she knew what to do and when to do it, and if she was not impelled by a large constructive motive of any kind, nevertheless she had a sincere and discriminating love of the beautiful which caused her to excuse much for the sake of art. I found her well-disposed, kindly, sympathetic and very anxious to make the best of this sometimes dull existence, not only for herself, but for every one else. I liked her very much.

Mrs. Q. I found on introduction, to be a beautiful woman of perhaps thirty-three or four, with two of the healthiest, prettiest, best-behaved children I have ever seen. I found her to be an intellectual and brilliant woman with an overwhelming interest in the psychology of history and current human action.

“I trust I see an unalienated American,” I observed as Mrs. Barfleur brought her forward, encouraged by her brisk, quizzical smile.

“You do, you do,” she replied smartly, “as yet. Nothing has happened to my Americanism except Italy, and that’s only a second love.”

She had a hoarse little laugh which was nevertheless agreeable. I felt the impact of a strong, vital temperament, self-willed, self-controlled, intensely eager and ambitious. I soon discovered she was genuinely interested in history, which is one of my great failings and delights. She liked vital, unillusioned biography such as that of Jean Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions, Cellini’s Diary, and the personal reminiscences of various court favorites in different lands. She was interested in some plays, but cared little for fiction, which I take to be commendable. Her great passion at the moment, she told me, was the tracing out in all its ramifications of the history and mental attitude of the Borgia family especially Cæsar and Lucrezia--which I look upon as a remarkable passion for a woman. It takes a strong, healthy, clear-thinking temperament to enjoy the mental vagaries of the Borgias--father, son and daughter. She had conceived a sincere admiration for the courage, audacity, passion and directness of action of Cæsar, to say nothing of the lymphatic pliability and lure of Lucrezia, and the strange philosophic anarchism and despotic individualism of their father, Alexander VI.

I wonder how much the average reader knows of the secret history of the Borgias. It is as modern as desire, as strange as the strangest vagaries of which the mind is capable. I am going to give here the outline of the Borgia family history as Mrs. Q. crisply related it to me, on almost the first evening we met, for I, like so many Americans, while knowing something of these curious details in times past had but the haziest recollection then. To be told it in Rome itself by a breezy American who used the vernacular and who simply could not suppress her Yankee sense of humor, was as refreshing an experience as occurred in my whole trip. Let me say first that Mrs. Q. admired beyond words the Italian subtlety, craft, artistic insight, political and social wisdom, governing ability, and as much as anything their money-getting and money-keeping capacities. The raw practicality of this Italian family thrilled her.

You will remember that Rodrigo Lanzol, a Spaniard who
afterwards assumed the name of Rodrigo Borgia, because his
maternal uncle of that name was fortunate enough to succeed
to the papacy as Calixtus III, and could do him many good
turns afterwards, himself succeeded to the papacy by bribery
and other outrages under the title of Alexander VI. That was
August 10, 1442. Before that, however, as nephew to Calixtus
III, he had been made bishop, cardinal, and vice-chancellor of
the Church solely because he was a relative and favored by his
uncle; and all this before he was thirty-five. He had proceeded
to Rome, established himself with many mistresses at his call
in a magnificent palace, and at the age of thirty-seven, his
uncle Calixtus III having died, was reprimanded by Pius II, the
new pope, for his riotous and adulterous life. By 1470, when
he was forty-nine he took to himself, as his favorite, Vanozza
dei Cattani, the former wife of three different husbands. By
Vanozza, who was very charming, he had four children, all of
whom he prized highly--Giovanni, afterwards Duke of Gandia,
born 1474; Cæsar, 1476; Lucrezia, 1480; Geoffreddo or Giuffré,
born 1481 or 1482. There were other children--Girolamo,
Isabella and Pier Luigi, whose parentage on the mother’s side
is uncertain; and still another child, Laura, whom he acquired
via Giulia Farnese, the daughter of the famous family of
that name, who was his mistress after he tired, some years
later, of Vanozza. Meanwhile his children had grown up or were
fairly well-grown when he became pope, which opened the most
astonishing chapter of the history of this strange family.

Alexander was a curious compound of paternal affection, love
of gold, love of women, vanity, and other things. He certainly
was fond of his children or he would not have torn Italy with
dissension in order to advantage them in their fortunes. His
career is the most ruthless and weird of any that I know.

He was no sooner pope (about April, 1493) than he proposed to
carve out careers for his family--his favored children by his
favorite mistress. In 1492, the same year he was made pope,
he created Cæsar, his sixteen-year-old son, studying at Pisa,
a cardinal, showing the state of the papacy in those days. He
proposed to marry his daughter Lucrezia well, and having the
year before, when she was only eleven, betrothed her to one Don
Cherubin de Centelles, a Spaniard, he broke this arrangement
and had Lucrezia married by proxy to Don Gasparo de Procida,
son of the Count of Aversa, a man of much more importance, who,
he thought, could better advance her fortune.

Italy, however, was in a very divided and disorganized state.
There was a King of Naples, a Duke of Venice, a Duke of Milan,
a separate state life at Pisa, Genoa, Florence and elsewhere.
In order to build himself up and become very powerful, and
to give preferment to each of his sons, some of these states
had to be conquered and controlled; and so the old gentleman,
without conscience and without mercy except as suited his whim,
was for playing politics, making war, exercising treachery,
murdering, poisoning, persuading, bribing--anything and
everything to obtain his ends. He must have been well thought
of as a man of his word, for when he had made a deal with
Charles VIII of France to assist him in invading and conquering
Naples, the king demanded and obtained Cæsar, Alexander’s son,
aged twenty-one, as a hostage for faithful performance of
agreement. He had not taken him very far, however, before the
young devil escaped and returned to Rome, where subsequently
his father, finding it beneficial to turn against the King of
France, did so.

But to continue. While his father was politicking and
trafficking in this way for the benefit of himself and his dear
family, young Cæsar was beginning to develop a few thoughts
and tendencies of his own. Alexander VI was planning to create
fiefs or dukedoms out of the papal states and out of the
Kingdom of Naples and give them to his eldest son, Giovanni,
and his youngest, Giuffré. Cæsar would have none of this. He
saw himself as a young cardinal being left out in the cold.
Besides, there was a cause of friction between him and his
brother Giovanni over the affections of their youngest brother
Giuffré’s wife, Sancha. They were both sharing the latter’s
favors, and so one day, in order to clear matters up and teach
his father (whose favorite he was) where to bestow his benefits
and so that he might have Sancha all to himself--he murdered
his brother Giovanni. The latter’s body, after a sudden and
strange absence, was found in the Tiber, knife-marked, and all
was local uproar until the young cardinal was suspected, when
matters quieted down and nothing more was thought of it. There
was also thought to be some rivalry between Cæsar and Giovanni
over the affections of their sister Lucrezia.

After this magnificent evidence of ability, the way was clear
for Cæsar. He was at once (July, 1497) sent as papal legate to
Naples to crown Frederick of Aragon; and it was while there
that he met Carlotta, the daughter of the king, and wanted
to marry her. She would have none of him. “What, marry that
priest, that bastard of a priest!” she is alleged to have said;
and that settled the matter. This may have had something to
do with Cæsar’s desire to get out of Holy Orders and return
to civil life, for the next year (1498) he asked leave of
the papal consistory not to be a cardinal any longer and was
granted this privilege “for the good of his soul.” He then
undertook the pleasant task, as papal legate, of carrying to
Louis XII of France the pope’s bull annulling the marriage of
Louis with Jeanne of France in order that he might marry Anne
of Brittany. On this journey he met Charlotte d’Albret, sister
of the King of Navarre, whom he married. He was given the duchy
of Valentinois for his gracious service to Louis XII and,
loaded with honors, returned to Rome in order to further his
personal fortunes with his father’s aid.

In the meanwhile there were a number of small principalities in
Romagna, a territory near Milan, which his father Alexander VI
was viewing with a covetous eye. One of these was controlled
by Giovanni Sforza, Lord of Pesaro, whom Alexander, at a
time when he wanted to pit the strength of Milan against the
subtle machinations of the King of Naples--caused Lucrezia
his daughter, then only thirteen years of age, to marry,
her union with the Count of Aversa having by this time been
severed. Alexander having won the friendship of the King of
Naples, he decided to proceed against the princelings of
Romagna and confiscated their property. Cæsar was tolled off
as general to accomplish this for himself, being provided
men and means. Young Sforza, who had married Lucrezia, found
himself in a treacherous position,--his own brother-in-law,
with the assistance of his father-in-law, plotting against
his life,--and fled with his wife, the fair Lucrezia, aged
fifteen, to Pesaro. There he was fought by Cæsar who, however,
not having sufficient troops was checked for the time being and
returned to Rome. A year or so later, Pope Alexander being in a
gentler frame of mind--it was Christmas and he desired all his
children about him--invited them all home, including Lucrezia
and her husband. Then followed a series of magnificent fêtes
and exhibitions in honor of all this at Rome, and the family,
including the uncertain son-in-law, husband of Lucrezia, seemed
to be fairly well united in bonds of peace.

Unfortunately, however, a little later (1497) the pope’s mood
changed again. He was now, after some intermediate quarrels,
once more friendly with the King of Naples and decided that
Sforza was no longer a fit husband for Lucrezia. Then came the
annulment of this marriage and the remarriage of Lucrezia to
Alphonso of Aragon, Duke of Bisceglie, a relative and favorite
of the King of Naples, aged eighteen and handsome. But, alas!
no sooner is this fairly begun than new complications arise.
The pope thinks he sees an opportunity to destroy the power
of Naples as a rival with the aid of the King of France, Louis
XII. He lends assistance to the latter, who comes to invade
Naples, and young Bisceglie, now fearing for his life at the
hands of his treacherous father-in-law, deserts Rome and
Lucrezia and flees. Louis XII proceeds against Naples. Spoleto
falls and Lucrezia, Bisceglie’s wife, as representative of the
pope (aged eighteen) is sent to receive the homage of Spoleto!

But the plot merely thickens. There comes a nice point in here
on which historians comment variously. Incest is the basis. It
was one time assumed that Alexander, the father, during all
these various shifts treated his daughter as his mistress.
Her brother Cæsar also bore the same relation to her. Father
and son were rivals, then, for the affections and favors of
the daughter-sister. To offset the affections of the son the
father has the daughter lure her husband, Bisceglie, back to
Rome. From all accounts he was very much in love with his wife
who was beautiful but dangerous because of her charms and the
manner in which she was coveted by others. In 1499, when he was
twenty and Cæsar twenty-three, he was lured back and the next
year, because of Cæsar’s jealousy of his monopoly of his own
wife (Cæsar being perhaps denied his usual freedom) Bisceglie
was stabbed while going up the steps of the papal palace by
Cæsar Borgia, his brother-in-law, and that in the presence of
his father-in-law, Alexander VI, the pope of Rome. According
to one account, on sight of Cæsar, jumping out from behind a
column, Alphonso sought refuge behind Alexander, the pope, who
spread out his purple robe to protect him, through which Cæsar
drove his knife into the bosom of his brother-in-law. The dear
old father and father-in-law was severely shocked. He was quite
depressed, in fact. He shook his head dismally. The wound was
not fatal, however. Bisceglie was removed to the house of a
cardinal near-by, where he was attended by his wife, Lucrezia,
and his sister-in-law, Sancha, wife of Giuffré, both of whom he
apparently feared a little, for they were compelled first to
partake of all food presented in order to prove that it was not
poisoned. In this house--in this sick-chamber doorway--suddenly
and unexpectedly one day there appears the figure of Cæsar.
The ensuing scene (Lucrezia and Sancha present) is not given.
Bisceglie is stabbed in his bed and this time dies. Is the
crime avenged? Not at all. This is Papa Alexander’s own
dominion. This is a family affair, and father is very fond of
Cæsar, so the matter is hushed up.

Witness the interesting final chapters. Cæsar goes off,
October, 1500, to fight the princes in Romagna once more, among
whom are Giovanni, and Sforza, one of Lucrezia’s ex-husbands.
July, 1501, Alexander leaves the papal palace in Rome to fight
the Colonna, one of the two powerful families of Rome, with the
assistance of the other powerful family, the Orsini. In his
absence Lucrezia, his beloved, is acting-pope! January first
(or thereabouts), 1501, Lucrezia is betrothed to Alphonso, son
and heir to Ercole d’Este, whose famous villa near Rome is
still to be seen. Neither Alphonso nor his father was anxious
for this union, but Papa Alexander, Pope of Rome, has set his
heart on it. By bribes and threats he brings about a proxy
marriage--Alphonso not being present--celebrated with great
pomp at St. Peter’s. January, 1502, Lucrezia arrives in the
presence of her new husband who falls seriously in love with
her. Her fate is now to settle down, and no further tragedies
befall on account of her, except one. A certain Ercole Strozzi,
an Italian noble, appears on the scene and falls violently
in love with her. She is only twenty-three or four even now.
Alphonso d’Este, her new husband, becomes violently jealous
and murders Ercole. Result: further peace until her death in
1511 in her thirty-ninth year, during which period she had four
children by Alphonso--three boys and one girl.

As for brother Cæsar he was, unfortunately, leading a more
checkered career. On December 21, 1502, when he was only
twenty-six, as a general fighting the allied minor princes
in Romagna, he caused to be strangled in his headquarters at
Senigallia, Vitellozzo Viletti and Oliveralto da Fermo, two
princelings who with others had conspired against him some time
before at Perugia. Awed by his growing power, they had been so
foolish as to endeavor to placate him by capturing Senigallia
for him from their allies and presenting it to him and allowing
themselves to be lured to his house by protestations of
friendship. Result: strangulation.

August 18, 1503, Father Borgia, Pope Alexander VI, charming
society figure, polished gentleman, lover of the chase, patron
of the arts, for whom Raphael, Michelangelo and Brabante had
worked, breathes his last. He and Cæsar had fallen desperately
sick at the same time of a fever. When Cæsar recovers
sufficiently to attend to his affairs, things are already in a
bad way. The cardinals are plotting to seat a pope unfriendly
to the Borgias. The Spanish cardinals on whom he has relied
do not prove friendly and he loses his control. The funds
which Papa Borgia was wont to supply for his campaigns are no
longer forthcoming. Pope Julius II succeeding to the throne,
takes away from Cæsar the territories assigned to him by his
father “for the honor of recovering what our predecessors have
wrongfully alienated.” In May, 1504, having gone to Naples on
a safe conduct for the Spanish governor of that city, he is
arrested and sent to Spain, where he is thrown into prison.
At the end of two years he manages to escape and flees to the
court of his brother-in-law, the King of Navarre, who permits
him to aid in besieging the castle of a refractory subject.
Here, March 12, 1507, while Lucrezia elsewhere is peacefully
residing with her spouse, he is killed.

I have given but a feeble outline of this charming Renaissance idyl. Mixed in with it are constant murders or poisonings of wealthy cardinals and the confiscation of their estates whenever cash for the prosecution of Cæsar’s wars or the protection of papal properties are needed. The uxorious and child-loving old pope was exceedingly nonchalant about these little matters of human life. When he died there was a fight over his coffin between priests of different factions and mercenaries belonging to Cæsar Borgia. The coffin being too short, his body was jammed down in it, minus his miter, and finally upset. Think of so much ambition coming to such a shameful end! He achieved his desire, however. He wrote his name large, if not in fame, at least in infamy. He lived in astonishing grandeur and splendor. By his picturesque iniquities he really helped to bring about the Reformation. He had a curious affection for his children and he died immensely rich--and, pope. The fair Lucrezia stands out as a strange chemical magnet of disaster. To love her was fear, disappointment, or death. And it was she and her brother Cæsar, who particularly interested Mrs. Q., although the aged Alexander amused her.

During her vigorous recital I forgot the corner drug store and modern street cars of Rome, enthralled by the glamour of the ancient city. It was a delight to find that we had an intellectual affinity in the study of the vagaries of this strange phantasmagoria called human life, in which to be dull is to be a bond-slave, and to be wise is to be a mad philosopher, knowing neither right from wrong nor black from white.

Together Mrs. Q. and I visited the Borghese and Barberini Palaces, the Villa Doria, the Villa Umberto, the Villa d’Este and the Appian Way. We paid a return visit to the Colosseum and idled together in the gardens of the Pincian, the paths of the Gianicolo, the gardens of the Vatican and along the Tiber. It was a pleasure to step into some old court of a palace where the walls were encrusted with fragments of monuments, inscriptions, portions of sarcophagi and the like, found on the place or in excavating, and set into the walls to preserve them--and to listen to this clever, wholesome woman comment on the way the spirit of life builds shells and casts them off. She was not in the least morbid. The horror and cruelties of lust and ambition held no terrors for her. She liked life as a spectacle.