The Life of Cesare Borgia

em a farewell supper in her beautiful vineyard in Trastevere. In addition to the two guests of honour several

e, attended only by a few servants and a mysterious man in a mask, who had come to Giovanni whilst he was

o the Vatican just yet, as he was first "going elsewhere to amuse himself." With that he took his leave of Cesare, and, with one single exception-in addition to the man in the mask-dismissed his servants. The latter

s of it. The Pope, however, was not at all alarmed. Explaining his son's absence in the manner so obviously suggested by Giovanni's parting word

e stirrup-leather, the other having clearly been cut from the saddle, and, at the same time, it was related that the servant who had accompanied him after he had se

o these inquiries that a boatman of the Schiavoni-one Giorgio by name-came forward with the story of what he had seen on the night of Wednesday. He had passed the night on b

eir refuse carts into the water. These men had looked carefully about, as if to make sure that they were not being observed. Seeing no one astir, they made a sign, whereupon a man well mounted on a handsome white horse, his heels armed with golden spurs, rode ou

heard the horseman inquire whether they had thrown well into the middle, and had heard him receive the affirmative answer-"Signor, Si." The horseman then sat scanning the surface a while, and

hy he had not immediately gone to give notice of what he had witnessed, to which this Giorgio replied that, in his ti

e afternoon the body of the ill-fated Duke of Gandia was brought up in one of the nets. He was not only completely dressed-as was to have been expected from Giorgio's story-but his gloves and his purse containing thi

from ten to fourteen wounds on his body, i

ptain-General of the Church. That same night, on a bier, the body covered with a mantle of brocade, the face "looking more beautif

s of an eye-witness quoted by Sanuto. Alexander shut himself up in his apartments with his passionate sorrow, refusing to see anybody; and it was only by insistence that the Cardi

y spurred by the desire to avenge the death of his child, and he ordered Rome to be ransacked fo

facts concerning it that are known or that ever will be known. The rest is spec

self thus upon the Pope for the treatment he had received. There certainly existed

Rome was busy for months. It was known that he had quarrelled violently with Gandia, who had been grossly i

the accusation alive at the Vatican, and Ascanio, in fear for his life, had left Rome and fled to Grottaferrata. When summoned to Rome, he had refused to come save under safe-

mention been made of the wanton ways of Giuffredo's Neapolitan wife, Do?a Sancia. That she was prodigal of her favours there is no lack of evidence, and it appears that, amongst those she admitted to them, was the

cci, the Florentine ambassador, explains this action of Alexander's. He writes that his Holiness knew who were the murderers, and that he was

e. He repeats that the investigations have been suspended, and that to account for this some say wh

ador, Manfredi, had written that the death of the Duke of Gandia was being imputed to Bartolomeo d'Alviano, and in December we see

the crime in turn upon everybody it could think of as at all likely to have had cause to commit it, and more important still for the

doubt that the former sprang from the latter. The world conceived that it had discovered on Cesare's part a motive for the murder of his brother. That motive-of which so very much has been made-shall presently be examined. Meanwhile, to deal with

against Cesare, all of which find a prominent place in Gregorovius's Geschichte der Stadt R

thor of that mighty History of Rome in the Middle Ages, but conscience and j

n know; occasionally his knowledge, transcending the possible, quits the realm of the historian for that of the romancer, as for instance-to cite one amid a thousand-when he actually tells us what passes in Cesare Borgia's mind at the

hat, again, you see the God-like knowledge which he usurps; you see him clairvoyant rather than historical. Starting out with the positive assertion that Cesare

day, which in all probability was correct

c opinion could conceive to be a possible assassin, not until nearly a year after Gandia's death did rumour for the first time connect Cesare with the deed. Until then th

writings of every defamer of the Borgias, and from several of

nsideration, in its reaction from the age of chivalry, could have dared to level it without a careful examination of its sources-was Cesare's jealousy, springing from the incestuous love for their sister Lucrezia, which he is alleged to have disputed with

spread in that most corrupt age." Yet the authorities urging one motive are commonly those urging the other, and Gregorovius quotes those tha

ow that Cesare Borgia was guilty of both those revolting crimes are: Sanazzaro, Capello,

e by one, at close quarters, and take a c

, he crystallized them into lines which, whilst doing credit to his wit, reveal his brutal cruelty. No one will seriously suppose that such a man would be concerned with the veracity of the matter of his verses-even leaving out

er of his son-a grief which so moved even his enemies that the bitter Savonarola, and the scarc

num ne te non,

tum retibus

es whether this is a man who would immolate the

s he mention that Cesare was the murderer, and we think that his silence upon the matter, if it shows anything, s

til three years later, when he merely repeated the rumour

upon no better authority than his own. It is Capello who tells us that Cesare stabbed the chamberlain Perrotto in the Pope's very arms; he adds the details that the man had fled thither for shelter from Cesare's fury, and that the blood of him, when he was stabbed, spurted up into the very face

earlier-"non libenter." This statement, coming from the pen of the Master of Ceremonies at the Vatican, requires no further corroboration. Yet corroboration there actually is in a letter from Rome of Febr

ns to be the chief "witness for the prosecution" put forward by Gregorovius. "Is it not of great significance," inquires the German

here were no sources at all, in the proper sense of the word-good or bad.

in which he mentions the death of Gandia, adding that "at first nothin

Macchiavelli (in his capacity of Secretary to the Signory of Florence) from the dispatches of her ambassadors. But it has been shown-though we are h

nghold of the blood-dripping Baglioni. He enlivened it by every scrap of scandalous gossip that reached him, however alien to his avowed task. The authenticity of this scandalmongering c

er he has a tale to tell entirely different from any other that has been left us. For, whilst he urges the incest as the motive of the crime, the murderer, he tells us, was Giovanni Sfo

has ever been treated; but it is as plausible as it is untrue, and, at lea

urder confines himself to quoting the letter of February 1498, in which the accusation against Cesare is first mentioned, after havin

s indiscretions, and the suggestion that, through jealousy on her account, it was rumoured t

vinced of the fratricide. It is interesting to know of that conviction

xpresses that conviction is dated April 1497-two months before the murder took pla

Capello and others have said before him. It is for him to quote authorities for what he writes, and not to be set up as an authority. He is not r

and his History of the Popes was not written until some sixty years after the murder of the Duke of Gandia. This his

e have gone for our narrative of that event) until the month of August following. And now we may see Gregorovius actually using silence as evidence. He seizes upon th

tter what their nature. Besides, any significance with which that lacuna might be invested is discounted by the fact that such gaps are of fairly common occurren

ich is not quite clearly defined-Gregorovius claims to have proved that the murde

, in the course of cast

blic opinion should ne

arnese. He had lately

that the governorship o

tment had been provoke

ns between himself and

there was clear proof t

on with

given by those authorities and by later, critic

aughter Lucrezia and Giovanni Sforza, and the grounds for the dissolution w

a scripto qua de sua

otente, alias la sentent

er scripto cosi per obed

s letter from Rome to t

14

om Calabria to the Alps, and well may it have filled the handsome weakling who was the object of its cruel ridicule with a talion fury. The weapons he took up wherewith to defend himself were a little obvious. He answered the odious reflections upon his virility by a wholesale charge of incest against the Borgia family; he screamed that what

to de fare prova de qu

che era qua, sebbene s

a facto offerta." And

lte, ma chel Papa non

(Costabili's letter f

June 23

on on which the accusation of incest was raised. Of course it persisted; such a charge could not do oth

the dead Gandia were included in it, and presently it suggested a motive-n

no case could it be such proof, even if it were admitted as a motive. But is it really so to be admitted? Did such a motive exist at all? Does it really follow-as has been taken for granted-that Cesare must have remained an ecclesiastic had Gandia lived? We cannot see that it does. Indeed, such evi

coveted; but if that were really the case why, when eventually (some fourteen months after Gandia's death) Cesare doffe

n-General of the Church in his dead brother's place; but for that his brother's death was not necessary. Gandia had neither the will nor the intellect to undertake the things that awaited Cesare. He was a soft-natured, pleasure-loving youth, whose way of life was

eer which Cesare afterwards made his own, and to say that Cesare murdered him to supplant

e-in its assigning the guilt to Cesare-fatuous of him to suppose that, as

atricide. Indeed the few really known facts of the murder all point to a very different conclusion-a conclusi

mbued with political motives? Where the need to accuse in turn every enemy th

to much, but at least it is sufficient to warrant a plausible conclusion, and there is no justific

accounted for. That he is connected with the crime

Gandia almost daily. He comes to Vannozza's villa on the night of the murder. Is it too much to s

ure-going to amuse himself. Even without the knowledge which we possess of his licentious habits, no doubt could arise as to the nature of the amusement upo

et in existence. It wa

r Pa

draw from the few facts that we possess? That it was the inference drawn by the Pope and clung to even some time after the crime and while rumours of a different sort were rife, is shown by the perquisition made in th

the man in the mask, but it is not our business to s

as to a fierce, lustful butchery of vengeance. Surely it suggests that Gandia may have been tortured before his throat was cut. Why else were his wrists pinioned? Had he been swiftly done to death there would have b

man, dealing him one by one the ten or fourteen wounds in the body before making an end of him by cutting his throat. We cannot explain the pinioned wrists in any other way. Then the man on the handsome white horse, the

enemy himself-and it was not Cesare, fo

we leave it convinced that, such scant evidence as there is, points to