Caesar or Nothing Part 39

"Because this belongs to the Dominions of the Pope."

"And what kind of guards are these?"

"These are pontifical Swiss guards."

"They look comic-opera enough," said Caesar.

"My dear man, don't say that. This costume was designed by no one less than Michelangelo."

"All right. At that time they probably looked very well, but now they have a theatrical effect."

"It is because you have no veneration. If you were reverential, they would look wonderful to you."

"Very well, let us wait and see whether reverence will not spring up in me. Now, you go on and explain what there is here."

"This first room, the Hall of Audience, or of the Popes, does not contain anything notable, as you see," said Kennedy; "the five we are coming to later, have been restored, but are still the same as at the time when your countryman Alexander VI was Pope. All five were decorated by Pinturicchio and his pupils, and all with reference to the Borgias.

The Borgias have their history, not well known in all its details, and their legend, which is more extensive and more picturesque. Really, it is not easy to distinguish one from the other."

"Let's have the history and the legend mixed."

"I will give you a resume in a few words. Alfonso Borja was a Valencian, born at Jatiba; he was secretary to the King or Aragon; then Bishop of Valencia, later Cardinal, and lastly Pope, by the name of Calixtus III.

While Calixtus lives, the Spaniards are all-powerful in Rome. Calixtus protects his nephews, sons of his sister Isabel and a Valencian named Lanzol or Lenzol. These nephews drop their original name and take their mother's, Italianizing its spelling to Borgia. Their uncle, the Pope, appoints the elder, Don Pedro Luis, Captain of the Church; the second, Don Rodriguez...."

"Don Rodriguez?" said Caesar. "In Spanish you can't say Don Rodriguez."

"Gregorovius calls him that."

"Then Gregorovius, no doubt, knew no Spanish."

"In Latin he is called Rodericus."

"Then it should be Don Rodrigo."

"All right, Rodrigo. Well, this Don Rodrigo, also from Jatiba, his uncle makes a Cardinal, and at the death of Pedro Luis, he calls him to Rome. Rodrigo has had several children before becoming a Cardinal, and apparently he feels no great enthusiasm for ecclesiastical dignities; but when he finds himself in Rome, the ambition to be Pope a.s.sails him, and at the death of Innocent VIII, he buys the tiara? Is it legend or history that he bought the tiara? That is not clear. Now we will go in and see the portrait of Rodrigo Borgia, who in the series of Popes, bears the name Alexander VI."

_ALEXANDER VI AND HIS BROTHER_

Kennedy and Caesar entered the first room, the Hall of the Mysteries, and the Englishman stopped in front of a picture of the Resurrection.

"Here you have Alexander VI, on his knees, adoring Christ who is leaving the tomb. He is the type of a Southerner; he has a hooked nose, a long head, tonsured, a narrow forehead, thick lips, a heavy beard, a strong neck, and small chubby hands. He wears a papal robe of gold, covered with jewels; the tiara is on the ground beside him. Of the soldiers, it is supposed that the one asleep by the sepulchre and the one who is waking and rising up, pulling himself to his knees by the aid of his lance, are two of the Pope's sons, Caesar and the Duke of Gandia. I rather believe that the little soldier with the lance is a woman, perhaps Lucrezia. How does your countryman strike you, my friend?"

"He is of Mediterranean race, a dolichocephalic Iberian; he has the small melon-shaped head, the sensual features. He is leptorrhine. He comes of an intriguing, commercial, lying, and charlatan race."

"To which you have the honour to belong," said Kennedy, laughing.

"Certainly."

"They say this man was a great enthusiast about his countrymen and the customs of his country. These tiles, which are remains of the original floor, and the plates you see here, are Valencian. A Spanish painter told me that several letters of Alexander VI's are preserved in the archives of the cathedral at Valencia, one among them asking to have tiles sent."

Kennedy walked forward a little and planted himself before an a.s.sumption of the Virgin, and said:

"It is supposed that this gloomy man dressed in red, with a little fringe of hair on his brow, is a brother of the Pope's."

"A bad type to encounter in the Tribunal of the Inquisition," said Caesar; "imagine what this red-robed fellow would have done with that Jew at the Excelsior, Senor Pereira, if he had happened to have him in his power."

"In the soffits," Kennedy went on, "as you see, are repet.i.tions of the symbols of Iris, Osiris, and the bull Apis, doubtless because of their resemblance to the Christian symbols, and also because the bull Apis recalls the bull in the Borgia arms." "Their arms were a bull?"

"Yes; it was a 'scutcheon invented by some king-at-arms or other, a symbol of ferocity and strength."

"Were they of a n.o.ble family, these Borgias?"

"No, probably not. Though I believe some people suppose that they were descended from the Aragonese family of Atares. Now that we know Alexander VI, let us take a glance at his court. It has often been said, and is no doubt taken from Vasari's book, that in the Borgia Apartment Pinturicchio painted Pope Alexander VI adoring the Virgin represented under the likeness of his beloved, Julia Farnese. The critic must have been confused, because none of these madonnas recalls the face of _Giulia la bella_, whom people used to call the Bride of Christ. The picture that Vasari refers to must be one in the museum at Valencia."

_THE HALL OF THE SAINTS_

They went into another room, the Hall of the Saints, and Kennedy took Caesar in front of the fresco called, _The Dispute of Saint Catherine with the Emperor Maximian_.

"The place of this scene," said Kennedy, "Pinturicchio has set in front of the Arch of Constantine. The artist has added the inscription _Pacis Cultori_, and below he has embossed the Borgia bull. The subject is the discussion between the Emperor and the saint. Maximian, seated on a throne under a canopy, is listening to Saint Catherine, who counts on her fingers the arguments she has been using in the dispute. Who was it served as model for the figure of Maximian? At first they imagined it was Caesar Borgia; but as you may observe, the appearance of the Emperor is that of a man of twenty odd years, and when Pinturicchio painted this, Caesar was about seventeen. So it is more logical to suppose that the model must have been the Pope's eldest son, the Duke of Gandia. A chronicler of the period says that this Duke of Gandia was good among the great, as his brother Caesar was great among the wicked. Also, legend or history, whichever it be, says that Caesar procured his elder brother's murder in a corner of the Ghetto, and that the Pope on learning of it, became as if crazy, and went into the full Consistory with his garments torn and ashes on his head."

"What love for traditional symbolism!" said Caesar.

"Everybody is not so anti-traditional as you. I will go on with my explanation," added Kennedy. "Saint Catherine has Lucrezia's features.

She is small and slender. She wears her hair down, a little cap with a pearl cross which hangs on her forehead, and a collar also of pearls.

She has large eyes, a candid expression. Cagnolo da Parma will say of her, when she goes to Ferrara, that she has '_il naso profilato e bello, li capelli aurei, gli occhi bianchi, la bocea alquanto grande con li denti candiaissimi._' Literature will portray this sweet-faced little blond girl as a Messalina, a poisoner, and incestuous with her brothers and her father. At this time Lucrezia had just married Giovanni Sforza, although as a matter of fact the two never lived together. Giovanni Sforza is the little young man who appears there in the back of the picture riding a spirited horse. Sforza wears his hair like a woman, and has a broad-brimmed hat and a red mantle. A little later Caesar Borgia will try several times to a.s.sa.s.sinate him."

"What for?" asked Caesar.

"No doubt he found him in the way. The man who is in the foreground, next to the Emperor's throne, is Andrew Paleologos," Kennedy continued.

"He is the one wearing a pale purple cloak and looking so melancholy. It used to be supposed that he was Giovanni Borgia. Now they say that it is Paleologos, whom the death of the Emperor Constantine XIII, about this time, had caused to lose the crown of Byzance.

"Here at the right, riding a Barbary horse, is Prince Djem, second son of Muhammad II, whom Alexander VI kept as a hostage. Djem, as you see, has an expressive face, a prominent nose, lively eyes, a long pointed beard, a shock of hair, and a big turban. He rides Moorish fas.h.i.+on, with his stirrups very short, and wears a curved cutla.s.s in his belt. He is a great friend of Caesar Borgia's, which does not prevent Caesar and his father, according to public rumour, from poisoning him at a farewell banquet in Capua. And here is Giovanni Sforza again, on foot. Are those two children the younger sons of Alexander VI? Or are they Lucrezia and Caesar again? I don't know. Behind Paleologos are the Pope's domestic retainers, and among them Pinturicchio himself."

_THE LIFE OF CaeSAR BORGIA_

After explaining the picture in detail, Kennedy went into the next room, followed by Caesar. This is called the Hall of the Liberal Arts, and is adorned with a large marble mantel.

"Is there no portrait here of Caesar Borgia?" asked Caesar.

"No. Here I have a photograph of the one by Giorgione," said Kennedy, showing a postal card.

"What sort of man was he? What did he do?"

Kennedy seated himself on a bench near the window and Caesar sat beside him.

"Caesar Borgia," said Kennedy, "came to Rome from the university of Pisa, approximately at the time when they made his father Pope. He must then have been about twenty, and was strong and active. He broke in horses, was an expert fencer and shot, and killed bulls in the ring."

"That too?"

"He was a good Spaniard. In a court that cannot be seen from here, on account of those thick panes, but on which these windows look, Caesar Borgia fought bulls, and the Pope stood here to watch his son's dexterity with the sword."