Part I: The House Of The Bull

Preface

This is no Chronicle of Saints. Nor yet is it a History of Devils. It is a record of certain very human, strenuous men in a very human, strenuous age; a lustful, flamboyant age; an age red with blood ...

Preface. Part 2

The history of this amazing Pope Alexander is yet to be written. No attempt has been made to exhaust it here. Yet of necessity he bulks large in these pages; for the history of his dazzling, meteoric ...

Preface. Part 3

Whilst the actual sources of historical evidence shall be examined in the course of this narrative, it may be well to examine at this stage the sources of the popular conceptions of the Borgias, since...

Preface. Part 4

In its proper place shall be considered what else Macchiavelli had to say of Cesare Borgia and what to report of events that he witnessed connected with Cesare Borgia's career. Meanwhile, the above...

Chapter I. The Rise Of The House Of Borgia

Although the House of Borgia, which gave to the Church of Rome two popes and at least one saint,1 is to be traced back to the eleventh century, claiming as it does to have its source in the Kings of A...

The Rise Of The House Of Borgia. Part 2

Don Pedro Luis made haste to depart, contrived to avoid the Orsini, who had made him their special quarry, and getting a boat slipped down the Tiber to Civita Vecchia, where he died suddenly some six ...

The Rise Of The House Of Borgia. Part 3

Petriolo, June II, 1460. Such a letter is calculated to shock us in our modern notions of a churchman. To us this conduct on the part of a prelate is scandalous beyond words; that it was scandalo...

Chapter II. The Reigns Of Sixtus IV And Innocent VIII

The rule of Sixtus was as vigorous as it was scandalous. To say as has been said that with his succession to St. Peter's Chair came for the Church a still sadder time than that which had preceded it, ...

The Reigns Of Sixtus IV And Innocent VIII. Part 2

The only one of the four nephews of Sixtus and to this one was imputed no nearer kinship who was destined to make any lasting mark in history was Giuliano della Rovere. He was raised by his uncle ...

The Reigns Of Sixtus IV And Innocent VIII. Part 3

Let us look at these documents. They are letters from ambassadors to their masters ; probably correct, and the more credible since they happen to agree and corroborate one another ; still, not so utte...

The Reigns Of Sixtus IV And Innocent VIII. Part 4

Open war was the only bolt remaining in the papal quiver, and open war he declared, preluding it by a Bull of Excommunication against the Florentines. Naples took sides with the Pope. Venice and Milan...

The Reigns Of Sixtus IV And Innocent VIII. Part 5

The marriage contract shows that by this time Vannozza had removed her residence to Piazza Branchis. In addition to this she had by this time acquired a villa with its beautiful gardens and vineyards ...

Chapter III. Alexander VI

The ceremonies connected with the obsequies of Pope Innocent VIII lasted as prescribed nine days ; they were concluded on August 5, 1492, and, says Infessura naively, sic finita fuit eius memoria. ...

Alexander VI. Part 2

By the outrageous discrepancy between the Papacy's professed and actual aims it was fast becoming an object of execration, and it is Alexander's misfortune that, coming when he did, he has remained as...

Alexander VI. Part 3

It is surprising that upon no better authority than this should these precious tears of Ferrante's have been crystallized in history. If this trivial instance has been dealt with at such length it ...

Alexander VI. Part 4

Simony was rampant at the time, and it is the rankest hypocrisy to make this outcry against Alexander's uses of it, and to forget the others. Whether he really was elected by simony or not depends ...

Alexander VI. Part 5

Our quarrel is with that; with that, and with those writers who have taken Alexander's simony for granted eagerly almost for the purpose of heaping odium upon him by making him appear a scandalous exc...

Chapter IV. Borgia Alliances

At the time of his father's election to the throne of St. Peter, Cesare Borgia now in his eighteenth year was still at the University of Pisa. It is a little odd, considering the great affection fo...

Borgia Alliances. Part 2

Alexander protested strongly against this illegal transaction, for Cervetri and Anguillara were fiefs of the Church, and neither had Cibo the right to sell nor Orsini the right to buy them. Moreover, ...

Borgia Alliances. Part 3

Thus Ferrante of the man whose friendship he had been seeking some six weeks earlier, and who had rejected his advances. It is as well to know the precise conditions under which that letter was indite...

Borgia Alliances. Part 4

At the end of his letter, which describes the proceedings and the wedding gifts and their presentation, he tells us how the night was spent. Afterwards the ladies danced, and, as an interlude, a wor...

Borgia Alliances. Part 5

To mention it may be of help in visualizing and understanding that direct and forceful epoch, and may even suggest some lenience in considering a Pope's carnal paternity. To those to whom the point of...

Part II: The Bull Pscant

Chapter I. The French Invasion

You see Cesare Borgia, now in his nineteenth year, raised to the purple with the title of Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria Nuova notwithstanding which, however, he continues to be known in preference, a...

The French Invasion. Part 2

The Consistory which received the French ambassador Peron de Basche became the scene of stormy remonstrances, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, of course, supporting the ambassador and being supported i...

The French Invasion. Part 3

The misshapen monarch himself was the very caricature of a man, hideous and grotesque as a gargoyle. He was short of stature, spindle shanked, rachitic and malformed, and of his face, with its colossa...

The French Invasion. Part 4

Charles remained twelve days longer in Rome, and set out at last, on January 28, upon the conquest of Naples. First he went solemnly to take his leave of the Pope, and they parted with every outward m...

The French Invasion. Part 5

1 In Mem. Storiche dei Monarchi Ottomani. Now the place where Djem died, and the date of his death, were public facts about which there was no mystery; they were to be ascertained as they are still...

Chapter II. The Pope And The Supernatural

By the middle of March of that year 1495 the conquest of Naples was a thoroughly accomplished fact, and the French rested upon their victory, took their ease, and made merry in the capital of the vanq...

The Pope And The Supernatural. Continued

In the few years that were sped since then, however, Sister Colomba had acquired the great reputation of which Matarazzo tells us, so that, throughout the plain of Tiber, the Dominicans were preaching...

Chapter III. The Roman Barons

Having driven Charles VIII out of Italy, it still remained for the allies to remove all traces of his passage from Naples and to restore the rule of the House of Aragon. In this they had the aid of Fe...

The Roman Barons. Continued

It was a severe and sudden conclusion to a war that had begun under such excellent auspices for the Pontificals. Yet, notwithstanding that defeat, which had left guns and baggage in the hands of the e...

Chapter IV. The Murder Of The Duke Of Gandia

On June; 14, 1497, the eve of Cesare and Giovanni Borgia's departure for Naples, their mother Vannozza gave them a farewell supper in her beautiful vineyard in Trastevere. In addition to the two guest...

The Murder Of The Duke Of Gandia. Part 2

At last he roused himself, partly in response to the instances of the Cardinal of Segovia, partly spurred by the desire to avenge the death of his child, and he ordered Rome to be ransacked for the as...

The Murder Of The Duke Of Gandia. Part 3

According to the general opinion of the day, which in all probability was correct, Cesare was the murderer of his brother. Thus Gregorovius in his Lucrezia Borgia. A deliberate misstatement! For...

The Murder Of The Duke Of Gandia. Part 4

The question is frivolous, for the whole trouble in this matter is that there were no sources at all, in the proper sense of the word good or bad. There was simply gossip, which had been busy with a d...

The Murder Of The Duke Of Gandia. Part 5

1 It is rather odd that, in the course of casting about for a possible murderer of Gandia, public opinion should never have fastened upon Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. He had lately been stripped of th...

Chapter V. The Renunciation Of The Purple

At the Consistory of June 19, 1497 the Sacred College beheld a broken hearted old man who declared that he had done with the world, and that henceforth life could offer him nothing that should endear ...

The Renunciation Of The Purple. Part 2

The Duke of Gandia left a widow and two children Giovanni, a boy of three years of age, and Isabella, a girl of two. In the interests of her son, the widowed duchess applied to the Governor of Valenci...

The Renunciation Of The Purple. Part 3

With him the Valois dynasty came to an end. He was succeeded by his cousin, the Duke of Orleans, who, upon his coronation at Rheims, assumed the title of King of France and the Two Sicilies and Duke o...

The Renunciation Of The Purple. Part 4

Although the proposal was politically sound, it constituted at the same time an act of flagrant nepotism. But let us bear in mind that Alexander did not lack a precedent for this particular act. When ...

Part III: The Bull Rampant

Chapter I. The Duchess Of Valentinois

King Louis XII dispatched the Sieur de Sarenon by sea, with a fleet of three ships and five galleys, to the end that he should conduct the new duke to France, which fleet was delayed so that it did no...

The Duchess Of Valentinois. Part 2

Cesare was mounted on a superb war horse that was all empanoplied in a cuirass of gold leaves of exquisite workmanship, its head surmounted by a golden artichoke, its tail confined in a net of gold ab...

The Duchess Of Valentinois. Part 3

Louis XII had also discovered an alternative to the marriage of Cesare with Carlotta, and one that should more surely draw the Pope into the alliance with Venice and himself. Among the ladies of th...

Chapter II. The Knell Of The Tyrants

In the hour of his need Lodovico Sforza found himself without friends or credit, and he had to pay the price of the sly, faithless egotistical policy he had so long pursued with profit. His far rea...

The Knell Of The Tyrants. Continued

It has been said again and again that this Bull amounting to a declaration of war, was no more than a pretext to indulge his rapacity; but surely it bears the impress of a real grievance, and, however...

Chapter III. Imola And Forli

Between his departure from Milan and his arrival before Imola, where his campaign was to be inaugurated, Cesare paid a flying visit to Rome and his father, whom he had not seen for a full year. He rem...

Imola And Forli. Part 2

On the 28th Cesare opened the attack, training his guns upon the citadel; but it was not until a week later that, having found a weak spot in the walls on the side commanding the town, he opened a bre...

Imola And Forli. Part 3

She came down from the ramparts, and, ordering the lowering of the bridge, invited him to meet her upon it that there they might confer more at their ease, having, meanwhile, instructed her castellan ...

Imola And Forli. Part 4

All measures being taken so far as Forli was concerned, Cesare turned his attention to Pesaro, and prepared to invade it. Before leaving, however, he awaited the return of his absent cousin, the Cardi...

Imola And Forli. Part 5

Order was at last restored, and the Bailie of Dijon was compelled to surrender back the countess to Cesare. But their departure was postponed until the morrow. On that day, January 23, after receiving...

Chapter IV. Gonfalonier Of The Church

Although Cesare Borgia's conquest of Imola and Forli cannot seriously be accounted extraordinary military achievements save by consideration of the act that this was the first campaign he had conducte...

Gonfalonier Of The Church. Part 2

Shortly after Cesare's return to Rome, Imola and Forli sent their ambassadors to the Vatican to beseech his Holiness to sign the articles which those cities had drawn up and by virtue of which they cr...

Gonfalonier Of The Church. Part 3

Meanwhile, Cesare abode in Rome, no doubt impatient of the interruption which his campaign had suffered, and which it seemed must continue yet awhile. Lodovico Sforza had succeeded in driving the Fren...

Chapter V. The Murder Of Alfonso Of Aragon

We come now to the consideration of an event which, despite the light that so many, and with such assurance, have shed upon it, remains wrapped in uncertainty, and presents a mystery second only to th...

The Murder Of Alfonso Of Aragon. Part 2

On the face of it, that edict of Valentinois' seems to argue vexation at what had happened, and the desire to provide against its repetition a provision hardly likely to be made by the man who had org...

The Murder Of Alfonso Of Aragon. Part 3

(v) Valentinois . . . said that what had not been done at breakfast might be done at supper. It will be observed that Capello never once considers it necessary to give his authorities for anything ...

Chapter VI. Rimini And Pesaro

In the autumn of 1500, fretting to take the field again, Cesare was occupied in raising and equipping an army an occupation which received an added stimulus when, towards the end of August, Louis de V...

Rimini And Pesaro. Part 2

In that year in September twelve new cardinals were appointed, and upon each of those was levied, as a tax, a tithe of the first year's revenues of the benefices upon which they entered. The only just...

Rimini And Pesaro. Part 3

Imola and Forli had, themselves, applied to the Pontiff to appoint Cesare Borgia their ruler in the place of the deposed Riarii. To these was now added Cesena. In July disturbances occurred there betw...

Rimini And Pesaro. Part 4

As for Giovanni Sforza of whom so many able pens have written so feelingly as the constant, unfortunate victim of Borgia ambition, there is no need to enter into analyses for the purpose of judging hi...

Rimini And Pesaro. Part 5

A proof of the splendid discipline prevailing in Cesare's army is afforded during his brief sojourn in Pesaro. In the town itself, some two thousand of his troops were accommodated, whilst some thousa...

Chapter VII. The Siege Of Faenza

The second campaign of the Romagna had opened for Cesare as easily as had the first. So far his conquest had been achieved by little more than a processional display of his armed legions. Like another...

The Siege Of Faenza. Part 2

At last he succeeded in regaining control of them, and in compelling them to make an orderly retreat, and curb their impatience until the time for storming should have come, which was not yet. In the ...

The Siege Of Faenza. Part 3

The Pope accounted that the check endured by Cesare before Faenza was due not so much to the foul weather by which his army had been beset as to the assistance which Giovanni Bentivogli had rendered h...

The Siege Of Faenza. Part 4

The French ambassador certainly appears to have attached implicit faith to Cesare's statement, and he privately informed Manenti that Ramires was believed to be at Medola, and that the Republic might ...

Chapter VIII. Astorre Manfredi

On March 29 Cesare Borgia departed from Cesena whither, meanwhile, he had returned to march upon Faenza, resume the attack, and make an end of the city's stubborn resistance. During the past months...

Astorre Manfredi. Continued

On the 26th the Council waited upon Cesare at the Hospital of the Osservanza where he was lodged to tender the oath of fealty. That same evening Astorre himself, attended by a few of his gentlemen, ca...

Chapter IX. Castel Bolognese And Piombino

To return to the surrender of Faenza on April 26, 1501, we see Cesare on the morrow of that event, striking camp with such amazing suddenness that he does not even pause to provide for the government ...

Castel Bolognese And Piombino. Continued

Scarcely was the treaty with Bologna signed than Cesare received letters from the Pope recalling him to Rome, and recommending that he should not molest the Florentines in his passage a recommendation...

Chapter X. The End Of The House Of Aragon

Cesare arrived in Rome on June 13. There was none of the usual pomp on this occasion. He made his entrance quietly, attended only by a small body of men at arms, and he was followed, on the morrow, by...

The End Of The House Of Aragon. Continued

The allies brought up their cannon, and opened the bombardment. This lasted incessantly from July 17 which was a Monday until the following Friday, when two bastions were so shattered that the French ...

Chapter XI. The Letter To Silvio Savelli

By September 15 Cesare was back in Rome, the richer in renown, in French favour, and in a matter of 40,000 ducats, which is estimated as the total of the sums paid him by France and Spain for the supp...

The Letter To Silvio Savelli. Part 2

The appalling publication, which is given in full in Burchard, was fictitiously dated from Gonzola de Cordoba's Spanish camp at Taranto on November 25. A copy of this anonymous pamphlet, which is the ...

The Letter To Silvio Savelli. Part 3

The narrative, too, is oddly suspiciously circumstantial, even to the unimportant detail of the particular gate by which the peasants entered Rome. In a piece of fiction it is perfectly natural to fil...

Chapter XII. Lucrezia's Third Marriage

At about the same time that Burchard was making in his Diarium those entries which reflect so grossly upon the Pope and Lucrezia, Gianluca Pozzi, the ambassador of Ferrara at the Vatican, was writing ...

Chapter XIII. Urbino And Camerino

It may well be that it was about this time that Cesare, his ambition spreading as men's ambition will spread with being gratified was considering the consolidation of Central Italy into a kingdom of w...

Urbino And Camerino. Part 2

And so, the matter being considered and determined, Cesare quitted Rome on the 12th and left it for the Pope to give answer to the Pisan envoys in the Consistory of June 14 that neither his Holiness n...

Urbino And Camerino. Part 3

Guidobaldo da Montefeltre was a good prince. None in all Italy was more beloved by his people, towards whom he bore himself with a kindly, paternal bonhomie. He was a cultured, scholarly man, a patron...

Urbino And Camerino. Part 4

To Soderini the duke expounded his just grievance, founded upon the Florentines' unobservance of the treaty of Forno dei Campi; he demanded that a fresh treaty should be drawn up to replace the broken...

Chapter XIV. The Revolt Of The Condottieri

The coincidence of the arrival of the French army with the conquest of Urbino and Camerino and the Tuscan troubles caused one more to be added to that ceaseless stream of rumours that flowed through I...

The Revolt Of The Condottieri. Part 2

Before accusing Valentinois of treachery to his condottieri, before saying that he shifted the blame of the Tuscan affair on to the shoulders of his captains, it would be well to ascertain that there ...

The Revolt Of The Condottieri. Part 3

It was for such a contingency as this that provision was made by the clause concerning them in Cesare's treaty with Louis. The Orsini were still in the duke's service, in command of troops levied f...

Chapter XV. Macchiavelli's Legation

On October 2 news of the revolt of the condottieri and the diet of Magione had reached the Vatican and rendered the Pope uneasy. Cesare, however, had been informed of it some time before at Imola, whe...

Macchiavelli's Legation. Part 2

It was a busy time of action with the duke at Imola, and yet, amid all the occupation which this equipment of a new army must have given him, he still found time for diplomatic measures, and, taking a...

Macchiavelli's Legation. Part 3

When it can be shown that every other of those conquerors who cut heroic figures in history were purest altruists, it will be time to damn Cesare Borgia for his egotism. What Villari says, for the ...

Macchiavelli's Legation. Part 4

Well might it have pleased Cesare to oblige the Orsini to the letter, and to give a lesson in straight dealing to these shuffling Florentine pedlars who sent a nimble witted Secretary of State to hold...

Chapter XVI. Ramiro De Lorqua

It really seemed as if the condottieri were determined to make their scoreasheavyaspossible. For even whilst Paolo Orsini had been on his mission of peace to Cesare, and whilst they awaited his return...

Ramiro De Lorqua. Continued

Cesare answered him calmly ( senza segno d'alter azione alcuna) that without a condotta, he didn't know what to make of a private friendship whose first principles were denied him. And there the mat...

Chapter XVII. The Beautiful Stratagem

Cesare left Cesena very early on the morning of December 26 the morning of Ramiro's execution and by the 29th he was at Fano, where he received the envoys who came from Ancona with protestations of lo...

The Beautiful Stratagem. Part 2

The duke's reception of them was invested with that gracious friendliness of which none knew the art better than did he, intent upon showing them that the past was forgiven and their offences against ...

The Beautiful Stratagem. Part 3

On the morrow January I, 1503 the duke issued dispatches to the Powers of Italy giving his account of the deed. It set forth that the Orsini and their confederates, notwithstanding the pardon accorded...

Chapter XVIII. The Zenith

Andrea Doria did not remain to make formal surrender of the citadel of Sinigaglia to the duke for which purpose, be it borne in mind, had Cesare been invited, indirectly, to come to Sinigaglia. He fle...

The Zenith. Part 2

Here in Assisi, too, he received the Siennese envoys who came to wait upon him, and he demanded that, out of respect for the King of France, they should drive out Pandolfo Petrucci from Siena. For, to...

The Zenith. Part 3

Now if Asquino defamed the memory of Cardinal Michieli it seems to follow naturally that he had hated the cardinal; and, if we know that he hated him, we need not marvel that, out of that hatred, he p...

The Zenith. Part 4

Those entries in the diary of the Master of Ceremonies constitute an incontrovertible document, an irrefutable testimony against the charges of poisoning when taken in conjunction with the evidence of...

The Zenith. Part 5

If Venice was jealous and hostile in the north, Florence was scarcely less so in mid-Italy though perhaps with rather more justification, for Cesare's growing power and boundless ambition kept the lat...

Part IV: The Bull Cadent

Chapter I. The Death Of Alexander VI

Unfortunate Naples was a battle field once more. France and Spain were engaged there in a war whose details belong elsewhere. To the aid of France, which was hard beset and with whose arms things w...

The Death Of Alexander VI. Part 2

On the 17th the Pope was much worse, and on the 18th, the end being at hand, he was confessed by the Bishop of Culm, who administered Extreme Unction, and that evening he died. That, beyond all man...

The Death Of Alexander VI. Part 3

The devil was seen to leap out of the room in the shape of a baboon. And a cardinal ran to seize him, and, having caught him, would have presented him to the Pope; but the Pope said, ' Let him go, l...

Chapter II. Pius III

The fever that racked Cesare Borgia's body in those days can have been as nothing to the fever that racked his mind, the despairing rage that must have whelmed his soul to see the unexpected the one c...

Pius III. Continued

Thence, carrying the war into the Romagna itself, d'Alviano marched upon Cesena. But the Romagna was staunch and loyal to her duke. The governor had shut himself up in Cesena with what troops he could...

Chapter III. Julius II

Giuliano della Rovere, Cardinal of S. Pietro in Vincoli, had much in his character that was reminiscent of his terrible uncle, Sixtus IV. Like that uncle of his, he had many failings highly unbecoming...

Julius II. Part 2

On November 3 Julius II issued briefs to the Romagna, ordering obedience to Cesare, with whom he was now in daily and friendliest intercourse. In the Romagna, meanwhile, the disturbances had not on...

Julius II. Part 3

It was specious which is the best that can be said for it. As for putting an end to the war, the papal brief was far indeed from achieving any such thing, as was instantly plain from the reception ...

Julius II. Part 4

To Cesare this would have been the thin end of a mighty edge. Here was a chance to begin all over again, and, beginning thus, backed by Spanish arms, there was no saying how far he might have gone. Me...

Chapter IV. Atropos

Vain were the exertions put forth by the Spanish cardinals to obtain Cesare's enlargement, and vainer still the efforts of his sister Lucrezia, who wrote letter after letter to Francesco Gonzaga of Ma...

Atropos. Part 2

If the people of Medina organized a pursuit it availed them nothing, for Cesare was carried safely to Benavente's stronghold at Villalon. There he lay for some five or six weeks to recover from the...

Atropos. Part 3

Cesare Borgia, landless, without right to any title, he that had held so many, betrayed and abandoned on every side, had now nothing to offer in the world's market but his stout sword and his glad cou...