Richard Garnett

“ The suddenness of the event, the rapid decomposition of the corpse, and the circumstance that Cesare Borgia was simultaneously taken ill, accredited the inevitable rumours of poison, and his decease became the nucleus of a labyrinthine growth of legend and romance. Modern investigation has dispelled it all, and has left no reasonable doubt that the death was entirely natural. ”

“ Venice did something; but she was essentially a maritime Power, and her possessions on the mainland were in many respects a source of weakness. The only considerable approach to consolidation was the establishment of the Papal Temporal Power, of which Alexander and Julius were the chief architects. While the means employed in its creation were often most condemnable, the creation itself was justified by the helpless condition of the Papacy without it, and by the useful end it was to serve when it became the only vestige of dignity and independence left to Italy. ”

“ The best of men could, upon the papal throne, have effected nothing without violence and treachery. Innocent's successors were not good men, and recourse to means which would have shocked a good man cost them nothing. But they were indisputably the men for the time.
The mission which we have attributed to Innocent of practically demonstrating the need for a strong man in the chair of St Peter, was worked out through a troubled and inglorious pontificate, whose incidents are too remotely connected with the history of the Temporal Power to justify any fulness of treatment in this place. ”

“ The Florentine people favoured Charles VIII, although their unpopular ruler Piero de' Medici seemed on the side of Naples. Venice pretended to espouse Sforza's cause, but could in no way be relied upon. Cardinal della Rovere, whose old feud with the Pope had broken out anew, fled to France where, striving to incense Charles against the Pope, he unchained the tempest against which he was afterwards to contend when too late. Alexander alone, from whatever motive, acted for a time as became a patriotic Italian sovereign. ”

“ It consisted in the demonstration of the absolute necessity of a great extension and fortification of the papal authority, if the Pope was to enjoy the respect of Christendom, or was even to continue at Rome. Never was anarchy more prevalent, or contempt for justice more universal; and the cause was the number of independent jurisdictions, from principalities like Forli or Faenza down to petty barons established at the gates of Rome,—none of them too petty not to be able to set the Pope at defiance. ”

“ Nothing could really compensate for the degradation of the Spiritual Power by its complicity in so infamous a transaction; but this was a consideration which did not strongly appeal to Alexander. It is only just to observe, however, that at bottom this humiliating action sprang from the great cause of humiliation which he was endeavouring to abolish,—the Pope's weakness as a temporal sovereign. This could not be remedied without foreign alliances, and they could not be had unless he was prepared to meet his allies half-way. ”

“ The political disorganisation was worse than the military, and evinced even more clearly the condition to which centuries of selfish intrigue had reduced Italy. Except the King of Naples, who could not abandon Alexander's cause without deserting his own, no Italian prince gave any material aid to the Pope. Piero de' Medici, the feeble and unpopular successor of the great Lorenzo, professed to be the ally of Rome and Naples. ”

“ Alexander naturally allied himself with Milan, Venice, and other States inimical to the King of Naples, and a general war seemed about to break out, when it was composed (July) by the intervention of Spain, which had penetrated the designs of the young French King, new to the throne and athirst for glory, for the conquest of Naples, and dreaded the opportunity and advantage that would be afforded him if Naples became embroiled with the Pope. A singular change of relations followed. The King of Naples became to all appearance the Pope's most intimate ally. ”

“ At the mature age of sixty-two, dignified in personal appearance and in manner, vigorous in constitution, competently learned, a lawyer and a financier who had filled the office of Vice-Chancellor for thirty-six years, versed in diplomacy and well qualified to deal vigorously with turbulent nobles and ferocious bandits, he appeared the aptest possible representative of the Temporal Power, while his shortcomings on the spiritual side passed almost unnoticed in an age of lax morality, when religion had with most men become a mere form. ”

“ The Duke of Gandia's death is chiefly important on account of the character of his successor. There is nothing to prove the murdered prince anything but an ordinary patrician of his age; Cesare Borgia, however, was the complement of his father. Alexander, an indefatigable man of business, could never have wasted his time in inactivity: yet it is conceivable that, had he been without near relations, he might have applied himself to developing the papal estate as he found it, and attempted no ambitious conquests, beyond what was necessary for his own security. ”

“ Thirst for family aggrandisement was not the sole motive which impelled Alexander to ally himself with the foreigner. The task of maintaining order at his own doors had been too hard for him. During the earlier half of 1498 the Roman territory was distracted by the feuds of the Colonna and Orsini, who pursued their strife in total disregard of the authority of the Pope. It was necessary to enlist support from some quarter; nor did Alexander turn to France until he had tried an Italian sovereign. ”

“ Experience itself could never have given him his father's wisdom and prudence, but his devouring energy was even more intense. From the time of his assumption of a leading part in affairs the papal policy becomes distinctly one of conquest. The profession of care for the general weal of Italy which had marked the first years of Alexander's pontificate disappeared, and any foreign alliance was welcome which seemed to insure another principality for Cesare Borgia. ”

“ To most, however, the experienced statesman and diligent man of business, genial and easy-tempered when not crossed, who knew how to combine magnificence with frugality, and whose deep dissimulation was the more dangerous from the perfect genuineness of the sanguine, jovial temperament beneath which it lay concealed, seemed precisely the Pope needed for restoring the Church's tarnished* dignity. Nor was it long before Alexander justified a portion of the hopes reposed in him by his energy in reestablishing public order and in reinvigorating the administration of justice. ”

“ Ancient liberties too often disappeared, but ancient lawlessness also; the tall poppies fell before the sword of the Tarquins of the age; and the mercantile class, which had hitherto only asserted itself under the aegis of the free institutions of independent urban communities, became a powerful element in every land. Everywhere the tendency was towards centralisation, clans and districts massing into nations, semi-independent jurisdictions merging themselves into a single dominant Power. ”

“ The summer of 1500, nevertheless, passed without further prosecution of Cesare's enterprise, partly because of the difficulty of obtaining the consent of the Venetians to an attack upon Faenza and Rimini; partly, perhaps, from the necessity of replenishing the treasury. It fitted well with the projects of the Borgia that 1500 was the Year of Jubilee. Rome was full of pilgrims, every one of whom made an offering, and the sale pf indulgences was stimulated to double briskness. Money poured into the papal coffers, and thence into Cesare's; religion got nothing except a gilded ceiling. ”

“ Alexander had gone far towards filling the Sacred College with his own countrymen, and although the Conclave is said by a contemporary to have been more decried for venal practices than any before it, the influence of Ferdinand of Aragon, conjoined with that of Cardinal della Rovere, who found the pear not yet ripe for himself, decided the election in favour of one who assuredly had no share in these practices, the upright Cardinal of Siena. Something may be ascribed to the law already noticed, which frequently fills the place of a deceased Pope with his entire opposite. ”

“ All Martin's gains had been lost under Eugenius IV; and Sixtus IV, with all his unscrupulous energy, had achieved nothing beyond carving out a principality for his own family. Alexander's projects went much further; he wished to crush all the vassal States, and build out of them a kingdom for his son,—with what ulterior aim is one of the problems of history. He must have known that no alienation of the papal title in Cesare's favour could be valid, or would be respected by his successors. ”

“ He might naturally wish to repair the mischief he had done by humbling the foreigners in their turn. Other causes concurred,—his dread of the preponderance of the French in Northern Italy, his grief at the subjugation of his own city of Genoa by them; above all, it must be feared, his desire to aggrandise the Church by annexing the dominions of the Duke of Ferrara, who was protected by France. Alfonso of Ferrara had been a useful ally in the Pope's attack upon Venice, but he had declined to follow his example in making peace with her; he was personally obnoxious as Alexander VI's son-in-law ”

“ The vehemence which engaged him in such undertakings made him terrible and indefatigable in the prosecution of them; but, as he was deficient in the prudence and discernment of his predecessor, it frequently hurried him into inconsiderate actions and speeches, detrimental to his interests and dignity. Transplanted, however, to another sphere, it secured him a purer and more desirable glory than any that he could obtain by conquest. ”

“ He appears or affects to have entirely returned to the ideas of the early years of his pontificate, when he formed leagues to keep the foreigner out of Italy. He paints the wretched condition of Italy in eloquent language, declares that her last hope consists in an alliance between himself and Venice, and calls upon the Republic to cooperate with him ere too late. It was too late already; had it been otherwise, the cautious, selfish Venetians would have been the last to have risked anything for the general good. Alexander must have allied himself either with Spain or with France ”

“ The growth of the Temporal Power of the Papacy is as much a phase of the general tendency towards coalescence which we have described as is the beating down of the feudal aristocracy in England, or the consolidation of France under Louis XL The conduct of the Popes in incorporating petty independent or semi-independent principalities with the patrimony of St Peter did not materially differ from the line of action adopted by Louis or Henry towards their over-powerful vassals. ”

“ He became estranged from his recent allies in Venice and Milan, and the Milanese Cardinal Sforza, till now apparently omnipotent at the papal court, lost all credit, notwithstanding the marriage of the Pope's daughter Lucrezia to the despot of Pesaro, a prince of Sforza's house. Yet within two months things took another aspect, when Alexander ignored Ferdinand's wishes in a nomination of Cardinals which gratified the Sforza and drove the freshly reconciled Cardinal della Rovere into new enmity. The entire series of transactions reveals the levity and faithlessness of the rulers of Italy. ”

“ Borgia's election would vacate the lucrative Vice-Chancellorship, and Sforza was tempted with the reversion. Other Cardinals divided among themselves the archbishoprics, abbacies, and other preferments demitted by the new Pope; but Sforza's influence was the determining force. His motives were unquestionably rather ambitious than sordid; he looked to the Vice-Chancellorship to pave his path to the Papacy; and the tale deserves little credence, that a man who in every subsequent passage of his life evinced magnanimity and high spirit was further tempted by mule-loads of silver. ”

“ The fortress was reduced by Spanish troops, brought from Sicily by Gonzalo de Cordova. Their presence in Rome excited tumults, almost a solitary instance of any open expression of public discontent with Alexander's policy. Personally, indeed, he was never popular; but his efficiency as an administrator formed the brightest side of his character, and his care for the material interests of his subjects was exemplary. Years afterwards those who had most detested the man wished back the ruler "for his good government, and the plenty of all things in his time." ”

“ It would be difficult to conceive anything more scandalous than his sudden turning round upon his allies so soon as they had helped him to gain his ends. But he proclaimed, and no doubt with a certain measure of sincerity, that his ultimate aim was the deliverance of Italy from the foreigner; and Italian patriots have been so rejoiced to find an Italian prince actually taking up arms against the foreigner instead of merely talking about it, that they have canonised him,—and canonised he will remain. ”

“ It must always be a question how far Alexander can be said to have ascended the papal throne with a definite intention, either of aggrandising his children or of consolidating his authority as a temporal ruler by the subjugation of his petty vassals. ”