Yet the king took no notice when his archers used Leonardo’s marvelous clay statue of a horse, stationed in the square, for target practice, destroying it completely. The cultured citizens of Milan thought the French soldiers barbarians, for they spit on the floors of the castles and laid waste to the streets.
Had the territories of the Romagna been unified, Louis’s invasion of Italy might have been stopped there. But they were not. And so Alexander knew this was his moment to set claim to them, for they were, after all, Papal States, and it was only due to his generosity and indulgence that their greedy warlords had been able to rule them for this long.
Now Cesare had only to overthrow the petty princes to conquer the rest of the territories in the Papal States, in order to unify Italy and bring glory and riches to his family and Rome.
In Nepi, Lucrezia threw herself wholeheartedly into her administrative duties. She set up a lawmaking body, and a force of police to implement those laws and keep peace in the streets. As her father had done, each Thursday he was in Rome, she invited the citizens into the castle to voice their discontents, and then did all she could to remedy those situations. She seemed to have a talent for ruling and her citizens became quite fond of her.
During this time Jofre was a comfort to Lucrezia when she longed for Alfonso, and she was a comfort to him. For Jofre was despondent over Sancia, difficult as she sometimes was. As Lucrezia learned to govern, Jofre hunted and rode through the beautiful countryside and the days grew easier for both of them.
As a reward for her excellence and service, one month after Lucrezia arrived in Nepi, the Pope managed to convince Alfonso to join her. For this, he generously bestowed upon the young couple the city, the castle, and the lands surrounding Nepi. The two young lovers were so filled with ecstasy at being together again that neither of them asked what the Pope wished in return.
Alexander gave Lucrezia and Alfonso several weeks before he paid them a visit. He could give them no more time, for there was none to give. On his second day in Nepi, during a sumptuous family lunch, the Pope asked Lucrezia if she would be willing to return to Rome to have her baby. He was most convincing when he explained that he was getting on in age, and having a new grandson would bring him great pleasure. Filled with happiness at being with her husband again, and relieved at the prospect of being with Julia and Adriana, she agreed to go. Having vowed that they would never again part, Alfonso agreed to go with her.
Lucrezia returned to Rome with her husband, Alfonso, and her brother Jofre, and found that the Pope had sent a musical band, mimes, and jugglers to meet them at the gates.
While she had been gone, Lucrezia’s Palace of Santa Maria in Portico had been decorated with rich hangings of silk and intricate tapestries. The Pope himself wasted no time in coming to greet her and welcome her back. “What a happy day,” he exclaimed, embracing her, until even in her delicate condition she was lifted off her feet. “My dear daughter returns, and before too long my son Cesare will arrive, a conquering hero.” He even gave Jofre a reluctant embrace, for he could hardly restrain himself. On this day, he felt all of his prayers had been answered.
Shortly afterward his joy was unbounded when he received news of Cesare’s invasion of Milan. Within a short time Lucrezia gave birth to a healthy baby boy, called Rodrigo in honor of her father, and Alexander was so exhilarated that an episode of syncope forced him to bed for the day. But the moment he recovered he began to prepare for the child’s baptism.
III
20
CESARE BORGIA, DRESSED in black armor and mounted on a magnificent white charger, met his commanders at the gates outside Bologna. There the army of Swiss and German mercenaries, Italian artillerymen, and Spanish officers were joined by a large contingent of veteran French troops.
The king had kept his promise.
With his standard bearer just behind him flying the white banner emblazoned with the charging Borgia bull, Cesare’s army of fifteen thousand soldiers snaked its way down the Bologna-Rimini road toward the cities of Imola and Forli.
The golden bull carved on Cesare’s black chestplate shone bright in the noonday sun. His new armor was made light to allow greater freedom and still offer vital protection. Now he could fight effectively even on foot if he were dismounted.
Cesare’s men, heavily armored and atop powerful horses, were efficient fighting machines, difficult to stop and fearsome to oppose. His light cavalry was protected by chain mail and tough seasoned leather, armed with swords and lethal lances.
The infantry was made up of hardy Swiss soldiers with frightening ten-foot pikes, Italian troopers with various weapons, and swarthy Germans bearing crossbows and small-caliber long guns.
But the most devastating weapon of Cesare’s entire arsenal was Captain Vito Vitelli’s powerful Italian artillery.
Imola and Forli had always been a source of trouble in the Romagna. These two lands had once been ruled by Girolamo Riario, the rude and brutish heir of a powerful northern Italian family and the son of old Pope Sixtus. Girolamo had married Caterina Sforza, a niece of Milan’s Ludovico Sforza, when she was only a girl. When Girolamo was murdered twelve years later, Caterina had grown up and grown angry; instead of retiring to a convent, she mounted her horse and led her soldiers in swift pursuit of her husband’s killers.
When they were captured and brought before her, Caterina exacted a fierce and terrible revenge on the aristocratic assassins. She sliced off their genitals, lifted them with her own hand to place them in a linen handkerchief, and, with ribbons she had taken from her hair, tied their penises around their necks, for she thought them a breed not to be encouraged.
“These lands are mine,” she said, standing over them. “I had no wish to be a widow.” Then she stayed to watch as the blood from their bodies spilled onto the ground in small spidery veins of red until the murderers turned stiff and cold. Ah, what she would have done had she truly loved him.
Immediately upon her return, Caterina had claimed both Imola and Forli in the name of her son, Otto Riario, a godson of Pope Alexander. Once word spread throughout the towns and territories of her ruthless punishment, Caterina became as famous for her ferocity as she was for her beauty. For truly she was as vicious as any warrior—and as feminine as any duchess. Her long blond hair framed a fine-featured face; her skin, as soft as sable, was her pride; and though she was taller than many men, she was a beautiful woman. She spent much of her time with her children, and for enjoyment she often created special salves for her flawless pale skin, bleaches for her ash-blond hair, and lotions for her large, firm breasts which she often displayed almost uncovered. She used charcoal to shine her even white teeth, and it was said that she kept a book in which she journaled all her magic spells. It was well-known in the villages that she had an appetite for sensual pleasure that could equal any man’s. She was, in Renaissance terms, a true virago—a woman to admire for her courage and culture, a testimony to her powerful steely mind and unscrupulous will.
When she married again—and her second husband was also murdered—she again took a furious revenge. This time she had the limbs torn from the bodies of the assassins, and then hacked their remains to pieces.
Three years later she had married Giovanni Medici, and together they had a son. Bando Neir was the name of the babe, and he was her favorite child. She enjoyed having Gio as a husband; even his ugliness appealed to her, for in the night, and in the bedchamber, he was more of a man than any she’d known. But in the year just passed she had again become a widow. Caterina was now thirty-six years old, and so fierce that she had become known as the She-Wolf.
Caterina Sforza despised the Borgia family for their betrayal of her after her husband Riario died, and had no intention of allowing them to take control of the territories that she and her son Otto Riario ruled. Months before, she had received the papal bull demanding the monies that were owed in taxes for her territories, and accusing her of withholding tithes to the Pope and the church. Having foreseen t
his papal ploy, Caterina sent her tithe in advance, and in full, to Rome by special messenger. But still Alexander was determined to claim her lands for the Romagna. And so she prepared for battle.
Her informers, well paid but not loyal, brought her word that Cesare was leading the army to conquer her cities. She in turn sent a gift to the Pope—a black shroud from a corpse who had died of the plague, which she twisted tight and placed in a hollowed-out cane. When Alexander opened her gift, she hoped, the sickness would befall him, and he would give up his plans for this conquest. But under torture her informers informed on her, and so while they were put to death, the Pope was saved.
Cesare’s plan was first to take Imola, then Forli. As the papal army neared Imola, Cesare marshaled his troops, moved the artillery forward, and used the light cavalry and infantry as a barrier. Then he rode ahead with a special battalion of armed soldiers.
But his preparation was unnecessary, for as he approached, the gates of the city swung open and a worried group of citizens rushed forward. In an attempt to spare themselves and their city from being sacked, robbed, and pillaged by the papal army, they quickly surrendered.
Caterina Sforza, because of her well-known cruelty and ferociousness, was not a popular or beloved ruler. Her subjects had nothing to gain by fighting for her. On the first day two French lancers discovered a local carpenter who had been wronged by Caterina, and wanted his revenge. He asked to meet with Cesare. Hoping to spare himself, he eagerly pointed out the weakest points in the structure of the castle walls.
But there was a small fortress inside the city, and its commander, Dion Naldi, was a true soldier. Now he called out from the rooftop, “We will fight!”
And so Cesare’s army prepared for a siege.
Vito Vitelli, the Italian commander, moved his cannons to the front line, readied his troops, and began to bombard the castle walls with continuous shots. Realizing his peril, Dion Naldi called a truce, and announced that if help hadn’t arrived within three days he would surrender the city.
Knowing that negotiation would save both money and lives, Cesare set up camp, and for three days they waited.
No help came. Naldi, a skilled officer from a famous fighting family, also bore a grudge, and so he threw down his guns and dismissed his men. He would have fought till his death if he felt some loyalty to his ruler; but even now, as he stood in defense of her castle, Caterina Sforza held his wife and children hostage in the citadel at Forli. Naldi surrendered Imola, on one condition: that he himself could join Cesare and the papal forces when they rode into Forli.
Therefore Cesare Borgia accomplished the first goal of his campaign without losing a man . . . or facing Caterina Sforza.
Forli held Caterina’s principal fortress, and it was there that Cesare would have to face the She-Wolf herself. The son of the Pope was younger and had much less experience than the ferocious Caterina and so he approached the gates with some caution. But once again the gates swung open, and a crowd of citizens rushed out to announce their surrender.
Atop the ramparts of the castle, Caterina Sforza stood dressed in full armor, wielding a sword with one hand and holding a falcon on the other. All along the rooftops her archers stood, their arrows set, their bows poised.
The moment Caterina saw her citizens with Cesare she became enraged, and shouted to her soldiers, “Shoot the citizens! Shoot the lily-livered cowards who abandon our good city!”
Arrows flew like flocks of birds, and her subjects fell at Cesare’s feet.
“My God,” Cesare said, turning to Vitelli. “The woman is mad. She is slaying her own people.”
One of her commanders shouted from a tower window that the countess wished to meet with Cesare Borgia, to negotiate a peaceful surrender.
“Cross the drawbridge,” the commander shouted. “The countess will meet you in the sheltered pathway.”
Cesare watched the drawbridge slowly descend and the castle gates swing open. He and the Spanish captain, Porto Díaz, began to walk through the gates, but when Cesare looked up through the wide opening in the wooden roof above the entrance, he thought he heard something scurrying above them. Suddenly, he turned around in time to see several of Caterina’s men raising the drawbridge. He turned back to see the iron grate dropping in front of him.
Cesare grabbed for Porto Diaz and shouted, “Be quick. A trap!”
He leapt atop the giant steel-toothed pulley that raised the bridge. It was only inches from crushing him as the bridge swung shut, and in a fit of daring Cesare dove sideways into the moat below. Dozens of crossbows shot heavy iron spearheads into the water, barely missing him as he desperately swam toward the far bank.
Three swarthy Swiss soldiers cursed Caterina loudly as they pulled Cesare from the water.
But Porto Diaz was not so lucky. He was trapped between the iron grating and the closed drawbridge. As soon as Cesare was on land again, Caterina ordered boiling oil to be poured upon Diaz from the opening in the roof above. Standing on the bank, Cesare listened to his bloodcurdling screams and vowed Caterina would not escape without punishment for the torture of this good captain.
Cesare knew she would not surrender without a deadly battle. And so he retreated to his camp to make a plan. Finally, after several hours, he believed he had a surprise that might change her mind. Two of her children had been captured in Imola, and he brought them to the bank of the moat in sight of the castle.
He called to her, “Caterina, I have something here that is yours.”
She looked down to see him, and he pointed to her children.
“If this castle is not surrendered, and the torture of my commander stopped immediately, I will slaughter these children right before your eyes.”
In the dim twilight, with the falling orange sun behind her, Caterina emerged, a dark shadow. She laughed raucously, and her laughter echoed menacingly. Then she lifted her skirt up to her chestplate to expose herself.
“Look, you son of a whore,” she shouted at Cesare, and then pointed at her loins. “Do you see this? Go ahead and destroy them: I have the mold. I can make more children—many more—so do what you must.”
Just then Caterina waved her arm, and Cesare heard a splash. The headless, scalded body of Porto Diaz had been thrown into the moat.
And so it was that Cesare Borgia, duke of Valentinois and son of the Pope, ordered the bombardment to begin. Vito Vitelli’s cannons fired round after round at the castle walls.
In the dark of night, Dino Naldi approached him. “Are you going to order the children killed?” he asked Cesare.
Cesare looked surprised; he had forgotten. Quickly, he reassured Naldi. “It was only a threat. And it would have worked with any normal mother. Then we could have saved many lives. Now, because of this crazy woman, those lives will be lost. But killing two children won’t serve. Take them away.”
“What shall I do with them?” Naldi asked.
“Keep them,” he said. “Raise them as your own.”
Naldi smiled in gratitude, and crossed himself in prayer. Why they called this man a monster he could not imagine, for the woman who now held his sons was far worse indeed.
As soon as the sun appeared the following morning, Cesare bombarded the fortress. Still, Caterina stood on the ramparts brandishing her sword. Cesare turned away and ordered his men to cut nearby trees, to build square rafts to transport them.
“Each must hold thirty soldiers,” he shouted. “For when the walls are breached, these will carry our soldiers across the moat.”
The end did not come quickly. But finally the stone balls shot by Vitelli’s cannons broke through the fortress wall, and Cesare heard the shout: “A breach! A breach!” The north wall had crumbled.
The French captain led his soldiers onto the rafts that were already floating in the moat. Paddling rapidly, with their weapons at the ready, they disembarked and sent the rafts back to be reloaded. In all, more than three hundred of Cesare’s men stormed the castle.
Once his sold
iers lowered the drawbridge, Cesare and his men galloped across the bridge and into the castle, shouting, “Attack!”
It was then that Caterina, from her perch on the rooftop, took note of the stock of munitions and gunpowder heaped in great mounds in the center of the fortress. With all her might she dislodged one of the fiery torches from the ramparts, and tossed it into the hill of gunpowder. She would blow herself and her city up rather than fall captive to this enemy! The explosion rocked the castle, destroyed homes and shops, and killed over four hundred citizens of Forli. But Cesare and many of his soldiers remained unharmed. Caterina’s soldiers emerged from the rooftops, towers, balconies, and other embankments. Wounded and bedraggled, they surrendered, relieved by Cesare’s victory.
Unfortunately for her, Caterina Sforza was not injured. Instead she was taken hostage by the French captain, who later that night, over a card game after dinner, ransomed her to Cesare for thirty thousand ducats.
Caterina Sforza now belonged to Cesare Borgia, and he could do with her what he wished.
After supper, Cesare took a long, hot bath and then dressed in his black silk robe, retrieved for him from his baggage. The master bedroom of the castle in Forli had remained intact, and now he lay on the bed considering what he would do with Caterina.
She was at this very moment a captive in a small darkened room in the basement of the castle, guarded by two of Cesare’s most trusted guards. He had given them explicit instruction not to take their eyes off her for a moment.