Lucretia Borgia Part 26

Bembo, who was in love with the beautiful d.u.c.h.ess, constantly sang her praises, and, August 1, 1504, he dedicated to her his dialogue on love, the _Asolani_, in a letter in which he celebrated her virtues. His friend Aldo first spent some time in Ferrara at the court of Ercole, and subsequently went to the Pio at Carpi; finally he settled in Venice, where he printed the _Asolani_ in the year 1505 and dedicated it to Lucretia. There is no doubt about Bembo's pa.s.sion for the d.u.c.h.ess, but it would be a fruitless undertaking to endeavor to prove, from the evidences of affection which the beautiful woman bestowed upon him, that it pa.s.sed the bounds of propriety. The belief that it did is due to the letters which Bembo wrote her, and which are printed in his works, and still more to those which Lucretia addressed to him. From 1503 to 1506--in which year he removed to the court of Guidobaldo--the intellectual Venetian enjoyed the closest friends.h.i.+p with Lucretia. He corresponded with her while he was living with his friends the Strozzi in Villa Ostellato. These letters, especially those addressed to an "anonymous friend," by which designation he clearly meant Lucretia, are inspired by friends.h.i.+p, and display a tender confidence. Lucretia's letters to Bembo are preserved in the Ambrosiana in Milan, where they and the lock of blond hair near them are examined by every one who visits the famous library. The letters are written in her own hand, and there is no doubt of their authenticity; concerning the lock of hair there is some uncertainty; still it may be one of the pledges of affection which the happy Bembo carried away with him. Lucretia's letters to Bembo were first examined and described by Balda.s.sare Oltrocchi, and subsequently by Lord Byron; in 1859 they were published in Milan by Bernardo Gatti.[199] There are nine in all--seven in Italian and two in Spanish. They are accompanied by a Castilian canzone.

It seems certain that she felt more than mere friends.h.i.+p for Bembo, for she was young, and he was an accomplished cavalier, fair, amiable, and witty, who cast the rough Alfonso completely in the shade. He excited the latter's jealousy, and the danger which threatened him may have been the cause of his removal to Urbino. Lucretia kept up her friendly relations with him until the year 1513.

Several other poets in Ferrara devoted their talents to her glorification. The verses which the two Strozzi addressed to her are even more ardent than those of Bembo--perhaps because their authors possessed greater poetical talent. t.i.to, the father, experienced the same feelings for the beautiful d.u.c.h.ess as did his genial son Ercole, and he expressed them in the same poetical forms and imagery. This very similarity indicates that their devotion was merely aesthetic. t.i.to sang of a rose which Lucretia had sent him, but his son excelled him in an epigram on the _Rose of Lucretia_, which could hardly have been the same one his father had received.[200]

t.i.to, in his epigram, described himself as senescent, and consequently not likely to be wounded by Cupid's darts, but he, nevertheless, was ensnared by Lucretia's charms. "In her," so he says, "all the majesty of heaven and earth are personified, and her like is not to be found on earth." He addressed an epigram to Bembo, with whose pa.s.sion for Lucretia he was acquainted, in which he derives the name Lucretia from "_lux_" and "_retia_," and makes merry over the _net_ in which Bembo was caught.[201]

His son Ercole describes her as a Juno in good works, a Pallas in decorum, and a Venus in beauty. In verses in imitation of Catullus he sang of the marble Cupid which the d.u.c.h.ess had set up in her salon, saying that the G.o.d of Love had been turned into stone by her glance. He compared Lucretia's beautiful eyes with the sun, that blinds whosoever ventures to look at it; like Medusa, whose glance turned the beholder to stone, yet in this case "the pains of love still continued immortalized in the stone."

Is it possible to believe that these poets would have written such verses if they had considered Lucretia Borgia guilty of the crimes which, even after her father's death, had been ascribed to her by Sannazzaro?

Antonio Tebaldeo, Calcagnini, and Giraldi sang of Lucretia's beauty and virtue. Marcelle Filosseno dedicated a number of charming sonnets to her, in which he compared her with Minerva and Venus. Jacopo Caviceo, who in the last years of his life (he died in 1511) was vicar of the bishopric of Ferrara, dedicated to her his wonderful romance "Peregrino," with an inscription in which he describes her as beautiful, learned, wise, and modest. The number of poets who threw themselves at her feet was certainly large, and she doubtless received their flattery with the same satisfied vanity with which a beautiful woman of to-day would accept such offerings. Some of these poets may really have been in love with her, while others burned their incense as court flatterers; all, doubtless, were glad to find in her an ideal to serve as a platonic inspiration for their rhymes and verses.

Ariosto excepted, these poets are to us nothing more than names in the history of literature. The great poet's relations with the princely house of Ferrara began about 1503, when he entered the service of Cardinal Ippolito. Soon after this--in the year 1505--he began his great epic, and the beautiful d.u.c.h.ess appears to have had very little influence on his work. He refers to her occasionally, especially in a stanza for which she owed the poet little thanks if she foresaw his immortality--the eighty-third stanza in the forty-second canto of the _Orlando Furioso_, in which he places Lucretia's portrait in the temple to woman. The inscription under her portrait says that her fatherland, Rome, on account of her beauty and modesty must regard her as excelling Lucretia of old.[202]

A recent Italian writer, speaking of Ariosto's adulation, says, "However much of it may be looked upon as court flattery, and as due to the poet's obligations to the house of Este, we know that the art of flattery had also its laws and bounds, and that one who ascribed such qualities to a prince who was known to be entirely lacking in them would be regarded as little acquainted with the world and with court manners, for he would cause the person to be publicly ridiculed. In this case the praise would degenerate into satire and the incautious flatterer would fare badly."[203] Flattery has always been the return which court poets make for their slavery. Ariosto and Ta.s.so were no more free from it than were Horace and Virgil. When the poet of the _Orlando Furioso_ discovered that Cardinal Ippolito was beginning to treat him coldly, he thought to strike out everything he had said in his praise. Although it was probably merely the name Lucretia which Ariosto and other poets used--comparing it with the cla.s.sic ideal of feminine honor--it is, nevertheless, difficult wholly to reject the interpretation of Lucretia's modern advocates, for, even when this comparison was not made, other admirers--Ariosto especially--praised the beautiful d.u.c.h.ess for her decorum. This much is certain: her life in Ferrara was regarded as a model of feminine virtue.

There was a young woman in her household who charmed all who came in contact with her until she became the cause of a tragedy at the court.

This was the Angela Borgia whom Lucretia had brought with her from Rome, and who had been affianced to Francesco Maria Rovere. It is not known when the betrothal was set aside, although it may have been shortly after Alexander's death. The heir of Urbino married, as has been stated, Eleonora Gonzaga. Among Angela's admirers were two of Alfonso's brothers, who were equally depraved, Cardinal Ippolito and Giulio, a natural son of Ercole. One day when Ippolito was a.s.suring Angela of his devotion, she began to praise the beauty of Giulio's eyes, which so enraged his utterly degenerate rival that he planned a horrible revenge.

The cardinal hired a.s.sa.s.sins and commanded them to seize his brother when he was returning from the hunt, and to tear out the eyes which Donna Angela had found so beautiful. The attempt was made in the presence of the cardinal, but it did not succeed as completely as he had wished. The wounded man was carried to his palace, where the physicians succeeded in saving one of his eyes. This crime, which occurred November 3, 1505,[204] aroused the whole court. The unfortunate Giulio demanded that it be paid in kind, but the duke merely banished the cardinal. The injured man brooded on revenge, and the direst consequences followed.

Ariosto, the wicked cardinal's courtier, fell into difficulties from which he escaped in a way not altogether honorable, which lessens the worth of the praise he bestowed upon Lucretia. He wrote a poem in which he endeavored to clear the murderer by blackening Giulio's character and concealing the motive for the crime. In this same eclogue he poured forth the most ardent praise of Lucretia. He lauded not only her beauty, her good works, and her intellect, but above all her modesty, for which she was famous before coming to Ferrara.[205]

A year later, December 6, 1506, Lucretia married Donna Angela to Count Alessandro Pio of Sa.s.suolo, and by a remarkable coincidence her son Giberto subsequently became the husband of Isabella, a natural daughter of Cardinal Ippolito.

In November, 1505, an event occurred in the Vatican which aroused great interest on the part of Lucretia, and likewise caused her most painful memories. Giulia Farnese, the companion of her unhappy youth, made her appearance there under circ.u.mstances which must have overcome her. We know nothing of the life of Alexander's mistress during the years immediately preceding and following his death. She and her husband, Orsini, were living in Castle Ba.s.sanello, to which her mother Adriana had also removed. At least Giulia was there in 1504, about which time one of the Orsini committed one of those crimes with which the history of the great families of Italy is filled. Her sister, Girolama Farnese, widow of Puccio Pucci, had entered into a second marriage--this time with Count Giuliano Orsini of Anguillara--and had been murdered by her stepson, Giambattista of Stabbia, because, as it was alleged, she had tried to poison him. Giulia buried her deceased sister in 1504, at Ba.s.sanello.

She must have gone to Rome the following year and taken up her abode in the Orsini palace. Her husband was not living, and Adriana may also have been dead, for she was not present at the ceremony in the Vatican in November, 1505, when Giulia, to the great astonishment of all Rome, married her only daughter, Laura, to the nephew of the Pope, Niccol Rovere, brother of Cardinal Galeotto.

Laura pa.s.sed among all those who were acquainted with her mother's secrets as the child of Alexander VI and natural sister of the d.u.c.h.ess of Ferrara. When she was only seven years old her mother had betrothed her to Federico, the twelve-year-old son of Raimondo Farnese; this was April 2, 1499. This alliance was subsequently dissolved to enable her to enter into a union as brilliant as her heart could possibly desire.

The consent of Julius II to the betrothal of his nephew with the b.a.s.t.a.r.d daughter of Alexander VI is one of the most astonis.h.i.+ng facts in the life of this pope. It perhaps marks his reconciliation with the Borgia.

He had hated the men of this family while he was hostile to them, but his hatred was not due to any moral feelings. Julius II felt no contempt for Alexander and Caesar, but, on the other hand, it is more likely that he marveled at their strength as did Macchiavelli. We do not know that he had any personal relations with Lucretia Borgia after he ascended the papal throne, although this certainly would have been probable owing to the position of the house of Este. On one occasion he deeply offended Lucretia when, in reinstating Guglielmo Gaetani in possession of Sermoneta by a bull dated January 24, 1504, he applied the most uncomplimentary epithets to Alexander VI, describing him as a "swindler"

who had enriched his own children by plundering others.[206] This especially concerned Lucretia, for she had been mistress of Sermoneta, which had subsequently been given to her son Rodrigo.

Later, after Alfonso ascended the ducal throne, the relations between the Pope and Lucretia must have become more friendly. She kept up a lively correspondence with Giulia Farnese, and doubtless received from her the news of the betrothal of her daughter to a member of the Pope's family.[207]

The betrothal took place in the Vatican, in the presence of Julius II, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, and the mother of the young bride. This was one of the greatest triumphs of Giulia's romantic life--she had overcome the opposition of another pope, and one who had been the enemy of Alexander VI, and the man who had ruined Caesar. She, the adulteress, who had been branded by the satirists of Rome and of all Italy as mistress of Alexander VI, now appeared in the Vatican as one of the most respectable women of the Roman aristocracy, "the ill.u.s.trious Donna Giulia de Farnesio," Orsini's widow, for the purpose of betrothing the daughter of Alexander and herself to the Pope's nephew, thereby receiving absolution for the sins of her youth. She was still a beautiful and fascinating woman, and at most not more than thirty years of age.

This good fortune and the rehabilitation of her character (if, in view of the morals of the time, we may so describe it) she owed to the intercession of her brother the cardinal. Political considerations likewise induced the Pope to consent to the alliance, for, in order to carry out his plan for extending the pontifical States, it was necessary for him to win over the great families of Rome. He secured the support of the Farnese and of the Orsini; in May, 1506, he married his own natural daughter Felice to Giangiordano Orsini of Bracciano, and in July of the same year he gave his niece, Lucretia Gara Rovere, sister of Niccol, to Marcantonio Colonna as wife.

Again Giulia Farnese vanished from sight, and neither under Julius II nor Leo X does she reappear. March 14, 1524, she made a will which was to be in favor of her nieces Isabella and Costanza in case her daughter should die without issue. March 23d the Venetian amba.s.sador in Rome, Marco Foscari, informed his Signory that Cardinal Farnese's sister, Madama Giulia, formerly mistress of Pope Alexander VI, was dead. From this we are led to a.s.sume that she died in Rome. No authentic likeness of Giulia Bella has come down to us, but tradition says that one of the two reclining marble figures which adorn the monument of Paul III--Farnese--in St. Peter's, Justice, represents his sister, Giulia Farnese, while the other, Wisdom, is the likeness of his mother, Giovanella Gaetani.

Giulia's daughter was mistress of Ba.s.sanello and Carbognano. She had one son, Giulio della Rovere, who subsequently became famous as a scholar.[208]

In the meantime the attempt against Giulio d'Este had been attended by such consequences that the princely house of Ferrara found itself confronted by a grave danger. Giulio complained to Alfonso of injustice, while the cardinal's numerous friends considered his banishment too severe a punishment. Ippolito had a great following in Ferrara. He was a lavish man of the world, while the duke, owing to his utilitarian ways and practical life, repelled the n.o.bility. A party was formed which advocated a revolution. The house of Este had survived many of these attempts. One had occurred when Ercole ascended the throne.

Giulio succeeded in winning over to his cause certain disaffected n.o.bles and conscienceless men who were in the service of the duke; among them Count Albertino Boschetti of San Cesario; his son-in-law, the captain of the palace guard; a chamberlain; one of the duke's minstrels, and a few others. Even Don Ferrante, Alfonso's own brother, who had been his proxy when he married Lucretia in Rome, entered into the conspiracy. The plan was, first to despatch the cardinal with poison; and, as this act would be punished if the duke were allowed to live, he was to be destroyed at a masked ball, and Don Ferrante was to be placed on the throne.

The cardinal, who was well served by his spies in Ferrara, received news of what was going on and immediately informed his brother Alfonso. This was in July, 1506. The conspirators sought safety in flight, but only Giulio and the minstrel Guasconi succeeded in escaping, the former to Mantua and the latter to Rome. Count Boschetti was captured in the vicinity of Ferrara. Don Ferrante apparently made no effort to escape.

When he was brought before the duke he threw himself at his feet and begged for mercy; but Alfonso in his wrath lost control of himself, and not only cast him from him but struck out one of his eyes with a staff which he had in his hand. He had him confined in the tower of the castle, whither Don Giulio, whom the Marchese of Mantua had delivered after a short resistance, was soon brought. The trial for treason was quickly ended, and sentence of death pa.s.sed upon the guilty. First Boschetti and two of his companions were beheaded in front of the Palazzo della Ragione. This scene is faithfully described in a contemporaneous Ferrarese ma.n.u.script on criminology now preserved in the library of the university.

The two princes were to be executed in the court of the castle, August 12th. The scaffold was erected, the tribunes were filled, the duke took his place, and the unfortunate wretches were led to the block. Alfonso made a signal--he was about to show mercy to his brothers. They lost consciousness and were carried back to prison. Their punishment had been commuted to life imprisonment. They spent years in captivity, surviving Alfonso himself. Apparently it caused him no contrition to know that his miserable brothers were confined in the castle where he dwelt and held his festivities. Such were the Este whom Ariosto in his poem lauded to the skies. Not until February 22, 1540, did death release Don Ferrante, then in the sixty-third year of his age. Don Giulio was granted his freedom in 1559, and died March 24, 1561, aged eighty-three.

FOOTNOTES:

[198] Another list of the year 1516 contains a number of magnificently bound breviaries and books of offices, but there are no additional works of a secular nature. For this catalogue I am indebted to Foucard, who copied it from an inventory of the personal property of Lucretia Borgia in the archives of Modena.

[199] Dissertazione del Sig. Dottor Balda.s.sare Oltrocchi sopra i primi amori di Pietro Bembo, indirizzata al sig. Conte Giammaria Mazzucch.e.l.li Bresciana. In the Nuova Raccolta d'Opuscoli Scientifici del Calogera, vol. iv. Lettere di Lucrezia Borgia a messer Pietro Bembo dagli autografi conservati in un Codice della Bibl. Ambrosiana. Milano eoi Tipi dell' Ambrosiana, 1859.

[200]

Laeto nata solo, dextra, rosa, pollice carpta; Unde tibi solito pulcrior, unde color?

Num te iterum tinxit Venus? an potius tibi tantum Borgia purpureo praebuit ore decus?

[201]

Ad Bemb.u.m de Lucretia.

Si mutatur in X. C. tertia nominis hujus Littera lux fiet, quod modo luc fuerat.

Retia subsequitur, cui tu haec subiunge paraque, Subscribens lux haec retia, Bembe, parat.

[202]

La prima inscrizion ch'agli occhi occorre, Con lungo honor Lucrezia Borgia noma, La cui bellezza ed onesta preporre Debbe all' antiqua la sua patria Roma.

I duo che voluto han sopra se torre Tanto eccellente ed onorata soma, Noma lo scritto: Antonio Tebaldeo, Ercole Strozza: un Lino, e un Orfeo.

[203] See the Marquis Giuseppe Campori's work: Una Vittima della Storia, Lucrezia Borgia, in the Nuova Antologia, August 31, 1866.

[204] Frizzi Storia di Ferrara, iv, 205.

[205] Cose tutte che sono in onta del vero, says Antonio Cappelli.

Introduction to his Lettere di Lodovico Ariosto, Bologna, 1866. The eclogue is in Ariosto's Opere Minori i. 267. Angela Borgia is mentioned in the last canto (stanza 4) of the Orlando.

[206] The bull is in the archives of the house of Gaetani.

[207] As late as January 15, 1519, a few months before her death, Lucretia wrote to Giulia. The 13th of that month, Pietro Torelli, the Ferrarese amba.s.sador in Florence, reported that he had received a letter for Giulia and would attend to it. Archives of Modena.

[208] Fioravanti Martinelli Carbognano ill.u.s.trado, Rome, 1644.

CHAPTER VIII

ESCAPE AND DEATH OF CaeSAR