Borgia family

“ Not ever, not like Joffré, for a wife.
You shall not sit there looking lone—beside you,
Father, a power we have not measured yet,
That we shall measure. After all my wars,
And all my wars will be to draw you peace,
I shall return.
Kiss me.
ALEXANDER.
My heart,
No blessing—oh, a kiss!
SCENE III
A room in the Palace of Santa Maria in Porticu belonging to Donna Lucrezia Borgia d’Aragon. Donna Lucrezia sits at the head of a couch; Duke Cesare de Valentinois lies along it. They are both dressed in white satin, embroidered with gold and pearls.
LUCREZIA.
You have seen the little mother? ”

“ Ah, Paynim, had you been chosen for me instead of Joffré!
CESARE. You have chosen me instead of Joffré.{37}
SANCIA.
My little Joffré is no more to me than the pet foal of the stables. If His Holiness would grant divorce....
CESARE.
What may not His Holiness grant at my suggestion! Commend me by letter to your cousin Carlotta. I shall meet her in France; persuade her to desire me, and your Ippolito shall be safe. I would marry Naples, the rightful line.
SANCIA.
For this you have flaunted me through the stone-staring church! You Borgia! Always the trap in your mighty simpleness. ”

“ But all this pomp had no effect on the lady for whose sake it had been displayed; for when Dona Carlota was told that Caesar Borgia had come to France in the hope of becoming her husband, she replied simply that she would never take a priest for her husband, and, moreover, the son of a priest; a man who was not only an assassin, but a fratricide; not only a man of infamous birth, but still more infamous in his morals and his actions. ”

“ He climbed to a high window and looked down into the moonlight. "The Nonesi in force. Cesare Borgia and the troops. Hist! He is going to speak to them; they are holding him up." He strained to listen—and it seems that he heard.
"Citizens," said the Borgia, in fact, "I pledge you my sacred word that the Duchess shall be delivered to you whole and in honour. She shall be in the Palace within an hour. The Secretary who has her there, who stabbed his master and (as I learn from Milan) hatched all the plot, must be left to me. Madonna Maria saved my life at the peril of her own. ”

“ He accomplished his purpose so well that they intermarried with the Borgias; Paolo Orsini, Giambattista's brother, uniting his son Fabio with Girolama, a sister of Cardinal Giovanni Borgia the younger, September 8, 1498. The marriage contract was concluded in the presence of the Pope and a brilliant gathering in the Vatican, and one of the official witnesses was Don Alfonso of Biselli, who held the sword over the young couple. ”

“ The mother of the Infant of Rome must have been a woman who had extended her favors to both the Borgia, the pope and his son Cesare. This circumstance alone eliminates Julia Farnese as the possible mother of the boy. It has also been maintained that the pope in providing two putative fathers for the boy merely sought to shield his daughter Lucrezia, who gave birth to an illegitimate male child in the time between the annulment of one marriage and her entry into another. ”

“ CESARE.
You startled me. How lost!
[He closes his eyes.
LUCREZIA.
[Stealing away to Adriana.] He is dreaming; he has quite forgotten me.
Come, Adriana, soft! As an astronomer
He must not be disturbed: he is quite lost.
SCENE V
The Pope’s Bedroom in the Borgia Apartments at the Vatican.
The Lord Alexander VI. is extended asleep on the bed.
The Lord Cardinal Bartolomeo of Segovia and Monsignore Gaspare Poto.
CARDINAL SEGOVIA.
I thank God for this sleep. ”

“ He appears to be sleeping, except that now and again he slowly rolls from hand to hand a gold ball of perfumes. His Spanish page Juanito Grasica is asleep. Behind the couch, across a table, the great ceremonial sword lies naked, and near it is a new purchase, the sleeping Cupid with broken foot of Messer Buonarotti.
Donna Lucrezia Borgia enters with Donna Adriana Orsini, whose hand she clasps: she looses it, and, after a moment’s pause, comes to her brother.
LUCREZIA.
Madonna Adriana brought me here ”

“ Never, even in the later years of her life, does she appear as a woman of unusual genius; she had none of the characteristics of the viragos Catarina Sforza and Ginevra Bentivoglio; nor did she possess the deceitful soul of an Isotta da Rimini, or the spirituelle genius of Isabella Gonzaga. If she had not been the daughter of Alexander VI and the sister of Cæsar Borgia, she would have been unnoticed by the historians of her age or, at most, would have been mentioned only as one of the many charming women who constituted the society of Rome. ”

“ Until the beginning of last century masses were still being said in this church for the repose of her soul and that of her ill-starred son Juan Borgia, buried with her under one tombstone.
I may remark in passing that tradition by word of mouth lives long in the Eternal City, almost as long as in the countries of the East. Much of it may be gossip but there is always a vein of truth. The men who deal in books and pictures, following in the footsteps of remote ancestors, preserve many a curious and interesting fact which is not found in formal chronicles. ”

“ Signor Mercado," he said, " I come from Alexander Borgia. One of the chief elements of my business is briefness ; so I shall not trouble you long. My master has learned that you are in love with his daughter which he dislikes. You are condemned to death, and only one course can save you. If you will leave Home forever, and within the hour, and swear never to have any further acquaintance with Donna Lucretia, either by word or deed, you will be set at liberty. ”

“ When all things take enchantment, even sin,
And pardon waits if one should sin too deep
[Pointing to the Pope.] Of Heaven itself, shall we not be content?
Shall we not cease from talking?
ALFONSO.
[Vehemently drawing her to his breast.] While he sleeps.
SCENE III
An apartment next to the Borgia Tower, which is reached by a passage on which the door gives. Don Michelotto Corella stands in the centre, the door being open. Suddenly Duke Cesare de Valentinois della Romagna comes to him in a blaze of passion.
CESARE.
Eigh, Michelotto, shall a vermin kill? ”

“ I urge the fulfilment of your promise now, this very hour."
" And what if I refuse ? " asked Borgia, with assumed carelessness, as an evil look appeared in his dark eyes.
"Refuse! You dare not; nor is it wise in you to trifle longer with me. Mercado is still in a loathsome dun- geon "
" Where he will remain till he becomes food for worms," interrupted the Pope, with a look of infernal tri- umph. " Dare not ! There 's not a heaven I dare not defy, a hell I dare not brave, when, by so doing, I can avenge the injuries I received at the hands of your mother." ”

“ Was as his hearth! Rodrigo Borgia’s son
Asks your forgiveness.
VANOZZA.
Excellence!... But loose me!
Are you so strong?
Your breath beats at the nostrils as his beat.
Loose!... Let me meet Messer Agapito....
[The Mute has pointed toward the horizon, touching Agapito’s sleeve; he has watched intently for some time, and now advances.
AGAPITO.
News, news, Signore!
I did not tell you till these travellers
Were at our very gates.
CESARE.
[Shivering.] The dew comes down.
Mother, the cloak with ermine! ”

“ The tyrant of Bologna, who owed his escape from Cæsar wholly to the protection of the French, spared nothing to honor his enemy's sister. Accompanied by several hundred riders, he led her in triumph through the city, where the arms of the Borgias, of Cæsar, the Pope, and Lucretia, and those of France, and of the Este met her eye on every side. The proud matron Ginevra, surrounded by a large number of noble ladies, received Lucretia at the portals of her magnificent palace. How this famous [Pg 236] woman, the aunt of Giovanni Sforza of Pesaro, must in her soul have hated this Borgia! ”

“ No name could have been more welcome to the motley bands, for Borgia was by far the richest man in the College of Cardinals. With a rush like that of the whirlwind the crowds sped toward the Borgian palace and seized every movable thing to be found within its chambers. The cardinal, sure of his victory at the conclave, had removed every thing of great value but there was enough left to satisfy the savage plunderers.
In all the history of popedom there had never been an election like this which placed Roderigo Borgia on the so-called throne of St. Peter. ”

“ In Ferrara, where the Borgias reign. Where the cruel Duke Alfonzo reigns, where also his cruel wife is Duchess, the terrible Lucrezia Borgia.
See, in this grand square, there is the palace of the duke. Mark his arms carved over the gateway, the awful name Borgia swelling from the stone beneath.
The new Venetian ambassador with his suite had arrived.
It is night-time, and plot and murder are awake.
Look! is not this the figure of the tall, proud-looking man who watched the Borgia from a gondola in Venice. And the man with him, ’tis he who told of Gennaro. ”

“ I pledge my life to its truth. The children ivere changed by the nurse in the employ of my sister. The noble lady's child grew up in poverty, while my sister's child your child, Alexander Borgia was tenderly cared for by the Senorita Caselli, who deemed it her own."
" Liar ! This be thy passport to hell, where you can tell the story to the fiends ! " cried the madly-excited man, as he drew his dagger and plunged it to the hilt in mad ”

“ The Borgian Bull,
A victim at its feet. The flames are blown;
There will be sacrifice! It was a dream
I told to Messer Bernardino....
[To Poto.] Swift,
Come swiftly to the Vatican! Giovanni—
Well, is he dead, or will he yet return?
SCENE III
The Vatican: a room overlooking the Tiber. It is twilight.
Don Joffré Borgia and Donna Sancia d’Aragon, who is weeping, look out from a distant window; near at hand the Lord Cardinals Francesco Borgia and Bartolomeo of Segovia are also looking out.
The Lord Alexander VI. is pacing backward and forward.
ALEXANDER.
[Pausing by the Cardinals.] ”

“ Rome is full of dark and distressing memories but nowhere more so than where the Tiber makes its historic elbow toward the Gianicolo.
Almost within the shadow of the grim castle was committed the blackest of all the crimes of the house of Borgia—the one crime that shook even the remorseless soul of Alexander VI to its depths and drove him in fear and trembling from his chambers in the Vatican into the gray and dismal silence of this refuge in his favorite fortress. The crime itself is one of the unsolved mysteries of the ages. ”

“ These women were recognized socially by the customs of the time, their meretricious character was well known but their "affairs" and "romances" with eminent men in all walks of life were tolerated and often made the theme of poetry and song. What distinguished Cardinal Borgia from his contemporaries and colleagues in holy office were two things
First, the boldness with which he flouted the injunction of the church to be discreet and careful even if immoral and licentious and second, a curious and sinister delight in the degradation rather than in the mere possession of women. ”

“ Every emperor has left some vestige of his power, and so has every pope. The yesterdays of Rome may be taken almost literally.
Numerous are the souvenirs of the Borgias. Of some of them I have spoken in other chapters, but all of them are interesting and valuable to the historian. Next to the Borgia apartments in the Vatican, mentioned elsewhere at some length, the one building richest in Borgia memorials is the famous Castel Sant' Angelo. Alexander, though he had not even a conscience in embryo, never ceased to dread the Roman populace. ”

“ To His Holiness’s enemies the mere touch of my ladie’s soft hand meant certain death, and feastes were given at the which those singled out were swept away like flies. None who dared to thwart the Borgia Pope or the lord Duke of Valentinois escaped swift and certain destruction. For them, death lurked at all times no matter how much care they took of their personal safetie. The fiendish ingenuity of Cesare Borgia showed itself in divers and sundry ways all to encompass the death of rivals that the House of Borgia became paramount, and its power overwhelming. ”

“ In the Loggia several Cardinals, the Lords Francesco Borgia, Bartolomeo of Segovia, Giovanni Michele, Gianstefano Ferreri and Giambattista Orsini.
In the Hall are Donna Adriana Orsini, Donna Lucrezia Borgia d’Aragon, Donna Sancia Borgia, Donna Giulia Farnese and Don Alfonso, Prince Duke of Bisceglia.
DONNA ADRIANA.
Already looking out;
The balcony already crammed with watchers,
That strain beyond the roofs! But this impatience
Is almost genius in its quality.
Poor children, you were hurried from your beds.
{55} GIULIA.
As if there were a fire ”

“ There he was awaited by Cardinal Valentino, who was about to accompany him, as we know, as a hostage, and who had remained behind to exchange a few words with his father. In a moment Caesar Borgia appeared, riding on a splendidly harnessed mule, and behind him were led six magnificent horses, a present from the Holy Father to the King of France. Charles at once mounted one of these, to do honour to the gift the pope had just conferred on him, and leaving Rome with the rest of his troops, pursued his way towards Marino, where he arrived the same evening. ”