“I have heard little about that,” Ascanio said. “But if it is true my nephew, Giovanni, is sure to get wind of it, for he has taken himself to Ferrara of late. And no matter how hard anyone tries, he cannot be convinced to hold his tongue. I have no doubt that Ferrara will refuse any alliance that involves the infamous Lucrezia. For she is used goods.”
Della Rovere stood up. “Cesare Borgia will capture the territories of the Romagna, and bring them under the control of the Pope. Ferrara is the last remaining territory, and once an alliance is formed the Borgia will own us all. I am certain Alexander would prefer to win by love rather than war. Therefore, he will push hard for this alliance. We must push as hard against it. For he must be stopped.”
Now, with his family back in Rome, Alexander hastened the critical negotiations for the match of his daughter, Lucrezia, with the twenty-four-year-old Alfonso d’Este, the future duke of Ferrara.
The d’Este family was the oldest and most respected of Italian nobility, and everyone thought Alexander’s latest attempt would surely fail. Yet he knew it must not.
The duchy of Ferrara was located in an area of great strategic importance. It formed a buffer between the Romagna and the Venetians, who were often hostile and not to be trusted. Moreover, Ferrara was well armed and well defended, and would make a highly desirable ally.
Yet most Romans found it hard to believe that the aristocratic and powerful d’Este would ever commit the much-adored heir of their proud duchy to a Borgia—a family of Spanish newcomers—despite Alexander’s prestige as Pope and Cesare’s wealth and excellence as a warrior.
But Ercole d’Este, Alfonso’s father and the present duke of Ferrara, was a hardheaded realist. He was quite aware of Cesare’s military skill and aggressiveness. With all its defenses, Ferrara would have a difficult time if Cesare’s powerful army attacked. And Ercole had no guarantee that, in the coming year, Cesare would not attack.
He knew that a Borgia match could change a potentially dangerous enemy into a powerful ally against the Venetians. And, he reasoned, a Pope was, after all, Christ’s Vicar on Earth and supreme head of the Holy Mother Church. If that were taken into consideration, it made up, at least in part, for the lack of family background and culture in the Borgia.
The d’Este, who were dependent on the French, were anxious to please King Louis. Ercole knew that the king was determined to maintain the goodwill of the Pope, and that he favored the match between Alfonso and Lucrezia—a fact he had impressed upon Ercole forcefully in recent weeks.
And so the difficult and complex negotiations continued for days. In the end, as in so many situations of this kind, there was the question of money.
On the final day Duarte Brandao joined Alexander and Ercole d’Este for a session that each hoped would, at last, result in an agreement. The three sat in Alexander’s library.
“Holy Father,” Ercole began, “I have noticed that throughout your splendid apartments you have only the works of Pinturicchio. No Botticelli? No Bellini or Giotto? And what a shame to have none of the works of such artists as Perugino or Fra Lippo Lippi.”
Alexander was unfazed. He had his own unshakable views on art. “I like Pinturicchio. Someday he will be recognized as the greatest of them all.”
Ercole smiled patronizingly. “I think not, Holiness. I suspect that you may be the only man in Italy to hold that view.”
Duarte recognized Ercole’s remarks as a thinly disguised negotiating tactic—a way of emphasizing the greatness and cultural richness of the d’Este, and then by comparison, the pedestrian tastes and cultural ignorance of the Borgia.
“Perhaps you are correct, Don Ercole,” Duarte replied slyly. “The cities we conquered this year contained many works by the fine artists you mention. Cesare offered to send them here, but His Holiness refused. I still hope to persuade him of the value of such artworks, and how they would enhance the Vatican. Indeed, we have only recently discussed that your own city, Ferrara, has the largest and most valuable collection of all—in addition to its wealth in silver and gold.”
Ercole momentarily paled, grasping at once the point Duarte was none too subtly making. “Well,” he said, changing the subject. “Perhaps we should discuss the matter of a dowry.”
“What were your hopes, Don Ercole?” asked Alexander with some apprehension.
“I was thinking of three hundred thousand ducats, Holiness,” Ercole d’Este said smugly.
Alexander, who had planned to begin his offering at thirty thousand, choked on his wine. “Three hundred thousand ducats is an outrage,” he said.
“Yet, that’s the least I could accept without insult,” Ercole replied. “For my son, Alfonso, is a fine young man with an extraordinary future, and in much demand.”
For over an hour they bargained, each side making every imaginable argument about the largesse of its offer. When Alexander refused to budge, Ercole threatened to leave.
Alexander reconsidered, and proposed a compromise.
Ercole refused, and Alexander threatened to leave, until he noticed the startled expression on the duke’s face and allowed himself to be talked into remaining.
Finally Ercole accepted two hundred thousand ducats, which Alexander still considered a huge dowry, for Ercole also insisted on the elimination of the annual tax paid by Ferrara to the Holy Church.
And so it was on that day the match of the decade was made.
One of the first things Cesare did when he returned to Rome was to meet with his father privately to inquire about his prisoner, Caterina Sforza. He was told that she had tried to escape from the Belvedere, and, as punishment, had been held captive in the Castel Sant’ Angelo—a far less pleasant and healthy place.
Cesare went to see her at once.
The Castel Sant’ Angelo was a massive round fortress with richly decorated apartments upstairs, but the massive cellar that comprised much of the fortress housed several large dungeons. Cesare had Caterina brought upstairs by his guards and ushered into a grand reception room. She peered at the world through squinted eyes, for she had not seen the sun for quite some time. She was still beautiful, though somewhat disheveled from her time in the dungeons.
Cesare greeted her warmly, and bowed to kiss her hand. “So, my dear friend,” he said, smiling. “Are you more foolish than I imagined? I place you in the finest quarters in Rome and you repay my generosity by attempting to escape? You are not quite so clever as I imagined.”
“You must have known,” she said, without emotion.
Cesare sat on a brocade couch and offered Caterina a seat, but she refused. “I suppose your attempt to escape crossed my mind,” Cesare explained, “but I counted on your self-interest, and believed you would prefer to be imprisoned in comfort, rather than in misery.”
“Imprisonment in the finest quarters is nonetheless miserable,” she said coldly.
Cesare was amused, for though she spoke with obvious resentment, still he found her charming. “But what is your plan now?” he asked. “For I am certain you cannot spend the rest of your days in Castel Sant’ Angelo.”
“What do you offer as a choice?” she asked defiantly.
“Sign over your territories of Imola and Forli on official papers,” Cesare said. “And agree not to attempt to retake them. I will then give orders to release you, and you may retire freely to any place you choose.”
Caterina smiled at him slyly. “I can sign any paper you present, but how will that prevent me from trying to recapture my lands?”
“Another ruler, less worthy, might do that,” he said, “but I find it difficult to believe that you would betray yourself by signing if you could not in good conscience agree. Of course it is always possible that you might break your word, even after it is given, but in that case we will prove in the courts of Rome that we are the legitimate rulers. And our case will be strengthened by your dishonesty.”
“You count on this?” she asked, laughing good-naturedly. “I find that difficult to believe. There is
something else you are withholding from me.”
Cesare gave her a charming smile. “It is far too sentimental to be clever, but in truth, I dislike the thought of a beautiful creature rotting in a dungeon forever. It seems such a waste.”
Caterina was surprised to find she was enjoying him, but she refused to let that distortion of her heart cause her too big a compromise. She had a secret she could tell, but would she? For that decision she needed time. “Come back tomorrow, Cesare,” she said pleasantly. “Allow me to consider it.”
When Cesare arrived the following day, he had Caterina brought upstairs once more. She had made use of the maids he had sent, to help bathe her and wash her hair. Now, though her clothes were still dingy and torn, he could see that she had attempted to make herself more attractive.
He walked toward her, and instead of stepping back she moved forward. He reached for her and pulled her down onto the couch with him, kissing her passionately. But when she pulled away, he did not force himself upon her.
She spoke before Cesare, as she ran her fingers through his auburn curls. “I will do as you suggest. But others will say you are mad to trust me.”
Cesare looked at her fondly. “They already do. If my commanders had their way, you’d be floating in the Tiber,” he said. “Where have you decided to go?”
They sat up on the couch together, and he held her hand. “To Florence. Imola and Forli are out of the question, and my relatives in Milan are such bores. Florence, at least, is an interesting place. Perhaps I’ll even find another husband there—God help him.”
“He will be a lucky man,” Cesare said with a smile. “The papers will be here tonight, and you can be on your way tomorrow . . . with a reliable guard, of course.”
He began to leave, but stopped at the door and turned to her. “Care for yourself, Caterina.”
“And you as well,” she said.
When Cesare had gone, she felt a surprising sadness. For in that moment she was certain they would not meet again, and so he might never know that those papers could not make any difference. For she held within her womb the part of him she had already claimed. And as the mother of his heir, those territories would in the end once again belong to her.
Filofila was the finest verse scandalmonger of Rome. Secretly in the pay of the Orsini family, he was under the personal protection of Cardinal Antonio Orsini himself. Filofila invented the grossest crimes for the most saintly men. He had an even better time with people of villainous deeds, as long as they were ranked in high place. He could vilify cities as a whole: Florence was the big-breasted, wide-hipped harlot, a city full of riches and great artists but lacking in fighting men. The citizens of Florence were moneylenders, cronies to the Turks, versed in sodomy. And like a whore she went to all kinds of foreign powers for protection, instead of coupling herself with her fellow Italian cities.
Venice was, of course, the secretive unforgiving city of the doges, who would sell its citizens’ blood for trade, who executed its own people if they as much as told a foreigner how many ducats it cost to buy silk in the Far East. Venice was a huge snake, waiting in its great canal to snap up any morsel of the civilized world that could help it profit. A city without art or artisans, without great books or a great library, a city forever closed to the humanities. But a city expert in treachery, executing both small and great alike for their crimes.
Naples was the city of the syphilitic pox, the French disease—just as Milan was the French sycophant, fellow to the sodomitic traitor Florence.
But it was the Borgia clan that Filofila made the target for his most scabrous verses.
He sang out in rhyme about their orgies in the Vatican, their murders in Rome and in all the city-states of Italy. His verse was eloquent, his prose exquisite, when he took up his pen to claim that Pope Alexander had used simony to purchase the papacy, or that he had twenty natural children. He had betrayed the Crusades, stealing money from Peter’s Pence to pay Cesare Borgia’s soldiers, making his son master of Romagna and forcing the Papal States to heel. And for what? To support his family, his bastard children, his mistresses, his orgies. And even more: as if committing incest with his natural daughter were not enough, he had taught her to poison his rich enemies in the college of cardinals and then traded her off in marriage more than once to cement his alliances with other powerful families of Italy. One marriage was annulled; the other ended in widowhood—that condition brought about by her own natural brother, Cesare Borgia.
Yet it was when Filofila wrote his poems about Cesare Borgia that he surpassed himself. With loving detail he described how Cesare always wore a mask to hide a face disfigured by the suppurating sores of the French pox; how he had deceived both the Spanish and French kings, and betrayed Italy with both of them at the same time; how Cesare too committed incest, with both his sister and his sister-in-law. He had made one brother a cuckold and the other a corpse. Rape was his special pleasure, murder his most subtle diplomacy.
But now, with the fabulous d’Este marriage soon to take place, Filofila turned his venomous pen to Lucrezia. She had lain with her father and her brother—separately at first, then all together in the same bed. She had sex with dogs, monkeys, and mules; and when her footman caught her at these vile perversions, she poisoned him. Now unable to bear the shame of her lustful conduct, her father was trading her off to Ferrara to cement a relationship with an illustrious Italian family. Yes, Filofila thought, he had outdone himself with his work on Lucrezia.
All this made Filofila famous. The verses had been copied and posted on the walls of Rome, circulated through Florence, and especially requested by rich Venetians. Not that Filofila dared to sign his name, but the two sketched ravens cawing at each other beneath each poem had become his trademark. And so the people knew.
One sunny afternoon the poet dressed and perfumed himself, preparing to join the court of his patron, Cardinal Orsini. The cardinal had given him the use of a small house on the grounds of the Palazzo Orsini. Like all great lords, the cardinal wanted his supporters and blood relatives nearby to protect him. And Filofila was as expert with a dagger as a quill.
Hearing the clatter of horses and the metallic clanking of armor, he looked out his bedroom window. A dozen mounted horsemen were riding up to his house and surrounding it. They were all in light armor, except for the leader, who was clothed completely in black—black doublet, black hose, black gloves, and, on his head, a black biretta. With a faint sickening in his throat, Filofila recognized the black-masked Cesare Borgia—and noted the sword and dagger he wore.
With relief, Filofila then saw a band of Orsini soldiers approach on foot. But Cesare ignored them and came straight up to the house. Filofila went out to meet him for the first time.
To the poet, Cesare looked as tall and muscular as a German. On his face he wore a cheerful smile. He addressed Filofila directly, with an exaggerated politeness. “Why, Master Poet,” he said, “I have come to help you rhyme. But it is impossible in this place. You must come with me.”
Filofila bowed low. “My Lord, I must decline. My cardinal has summoned me. I will come when you are free again.” He felt resentment that the Borgia had come to his house, but he dared not put his hand on his sword or dagger.
Cesare did not hesitate. Lifting the man as though he were made of rags, he threw him over his horse. When he mounted he hit Filofila just once, but the blow left him unconscious.
When the poet opened his eyes, he saw rough-hewn beams and walls covered with the stuffed heads of animals—boars, bears, and oxen. He seemed to be in some kind of hunting lodge.
Then he looked across the room and saw a man he recognized. Only shock stopped the cry in his throat as his bowels churned with fear: it was the notorious strangler Don Michelotto. He was sharpening a long knife.
After a moment Filofila found the courage to speak. “You must know that Cardinal Orsini and his guard will find me here, and will severely punish anyone who harms me.”
Michelotto said
nothing, just continued sharpening the long blade.
“I suppose you plan to strangle me,” Filofila said, his voice trembling.
Now Michelotto seemed to pay attention. “No, Signor Poet. Not at all. That would be too fast, too easy for a man of your vast cruelty. What I intend to do,” he said smiling, “is to cut out your tongue, then your ears and nose, then your genitals, then your fingers, one at a time. Then I may cut off other things. Or, if I am moved to pity, maybe then I will do you the favor of killing you.”
The following afternoon, a large blood-soaked sack was hurled over the wall of the Palazzo Orsini. The contents sickened the cardinal’s guards who opened it. Inside was a headless, fingerless corpse. Its severed genitals, tongue, fingers, nose, and ears were inside as well, neatly wrapped in one of Filofila’s poems.
Nothing was said of the incident. No further poems by Filofila appeared. The rumor was that he had gone to Germany for the health-giving mineral baths.
26
SILVERLAKE WAS BEAUTIFUL that spring. Cesare and Lucrezia made a handsome couple as they walked along the shore, she in her jeweled cape and hood and he in his black velvet, his beret studded with feathers and precious stones. They had returned to the place where they had spent their happiest moments, for their time together would be scarce now that her marriage to Alfonso d’Este was close at hand.
Cesare’s auburn hair shone bright in the sunlight, and despite his usual black mask the smile on his face was evidence of his joy at being with his sister.
“So next week you will be a d’Este,” Cesare said teasingly. “You will then have the responsibility as well as the good fortune of being a member of a distinguished family.”
“I’ll always be a Borgia, Chez,” Lucrezia said. “And there is no reason for jealousy in the case of this alliance, for I have not fooled myself into believing that this marriage is for love. This Alfonso is as reluctant to have me as a wife as I am to have him as a husband. But, as I am my father’s daughter, he is his father’s son.”