WHEN INNOCENT III. DIED, VAST sums began to pour into the Roman banks. It was evident that the Papacy was for sale to the highest bidder, and that the bidding would run high. One of the competitors, Roderigo Borgia, the nephew of Calixtus III., was a man of great wealth. He expended it lavishly, and by this and by the unsparing but judicious placing of big promises, he got the requisite majority of votes. It is said that only five votes were not for sale. Roderigo was then a hale, sanguine man of sixty-one years, of no very large brain, but of a good deal of driving power. He was half intoxicated with joy at his success. “I am Pope, Pontiff, Vicar of Christ !” he shouted, with the delight of a successful schoolboy at a game. Roderigo was the adoring father of a fair-sized family, chiefly by a lady to whom he gave a variety of husbands and to her husband’s place and emolument; but this hardly deserves notice: his predecessor had openly avowed himself as the proud head of a family of sixteen well-favored youths and maidens, all of his own begetting, and the new Pope does not appear to have laid claim to so |many. He was, indeed, rather a welcome successor to the Papal chair, for he had had considerable discipline and experience in affairs, was a trained jurisconsult of Bologna, and esteemed to be a good companion and full of bonhomie. For Alexander was one of those essentially selfish men who gain a good name among their fellows by a bluff manner and the absence of any hypocrisy concerning those little frailties to which most men are inclined, and which they freely excuse in one another. Such petits défauts were almost commendable in a man who had become an Italian Prince and the official head of a Church that was now almost purely official. They did not detract from the qualifications of the Vicar of Christ.
Borgia took the title of Alexander VI., and his consecration was marked by all kinds of mythological festivities, while inscriptions in his honour unformed an admiring world that “in Caesar Rome was great; now she is at her greatest, for Alexander VI. reigns: the first was a hero, the last a God “ I—” Caesare magna fuit, nunc Roma est maxima. Sextus Regnet Alexander, ille vir, iste Deus “ (Greg., Luc. Borg.). But the new Pope’s position was not wholly satisfactory. The son of the late Pope had sold his possessions to the powerful Orsini, and it was not at all certain that Ferrante of Naples had not supplied the purchase-money to get a fulcrum near Rome. Vain, foolish Medici (the younger Piero of that House) piqued at what he considered to be a want of consideration for His Magnificence, had induced Ferrante not to send an Embassy to the new Pope. The result was that Lodovico Sforza, surnamed the Moor, alarmed at the general demand made on him to give up the rule of his duchy to the nephew whom he had dispossessed under the pretence of regency, and conceiving that Florence and Naples were allied against him, concluded a counter-alliance with Venice and the Pope, and threw himself on Charles VIII. of France, who was meditating a renewal of the ancient claim of Anjou to the kingdom of Naples. His nephew, the legitimate heir to Milan, was, we are told by Comines, a quite incapable person (Mem. Ph. Com., L. vii., c. ii.); and Lodovico gave his niece in marriage to the newly-elected Emperor of Germany, and obtained for himself the investiture of the duchy. But this grant was secret, and Lodovico was anxious to get Charles into Italy, so that, by increasing his own importance and support, he might declare his investiture and secure his position (1493).
It was a dangerous game to play. The various States of Spain were united by the marriage of Ferdinand the Catholic with Isabella of Castile, and by the conquest of the Moorish kingdom of Granada. The Emperor, Maximilian, united the Low Countries and Burgundy with Austria, and was likely to recover Imperial authority in Germany. The French Crown had subjugated the peers of the realm, and controlled a vast and obedient kingdom, enjoyed a large revenue, and commanded a brilliant army. The Turks menaced the whole shore of the Adriatic, and the Swiss, who had learned how to fight by maintaining their independence against Charles the Bold, were turning their valour and skill to market advantage, and becoming the hardy mercenaries of the highest bidder. Italy was surrounded on all sides by powers that had become gigantic, and not one of which, fifty years before, had given her the least uneasiness. Nor was she uneasy now. Her wealth, her previous superiority, had given her a sense of being perfectly secure from the uncivilized peoples across the Alps. One man, and one only, sounded the note of alarm. Jacopo Sannazaro, a Neapolitan Court poet of Spanish origin, called attention to the danger, a danger which, as their despatches show, even the astute political agents of Venice failed to realize.
Charles, educated on romances, thought himself another Charlemagne. He entered Italy with an excellent, well-equipped army of nearly 4,000 heavy cavalry, nearly 30,000 foot (Gascons, Bretons, Swiss, and French), and a train of the best artillery in Europe (1494). But, as Comines tells us, “everything really needful to a great enterprise was wanting there were no tents, there was no ready cash.” Savoy and Montferrat threw open the gates of the Alps and the fortresses of Piedmont. Lodovico gave them access to the ships of Genoa. Venice, confident in her own strength, observed neutrality, and compelled Ferrara and Mantua to follow suit. Naples was joined by the Tuscan Republics and the Papacy.
At Asti Charles was assailed by the plaints of the young Duke of Milan, (Gian Galeazzo Sforza) and his mother; but the smiles of Milanese ladies had greater power over him than the widow’s tears. Charles adhered to the supplanter who had called him in, and a few days after, by the hand of God or of his uncle, Galeazzo conveniently ceased to breathe. The Neapolitan army was held in check in the Apennines, the Neapolitan fleet defeated off Rapallo, and Charles advanced along the shore-line, where Florentine fortresses might have delayed his army and exposed the besiegers to the pestilential fevers of the marches. Piero dei Medici was seized with terror, however, advanced to greet Charles, surrendered the fortresses to him, and lost Florence in consequence; her citizens rose against Medicean rule. Pisa revolted: the sea had receded from her harbour, but the ancient spirit survived in her diminished population, and she furnished the mercenary troops of Italy and Europe with soldiers that commanded admiration, even of the French. Charles left a garrison in Pisa and advanced to Florence; he found it impossible to restore Piero dei Medici. He was threatened by Piero Capponi, and dreading attack in the narrow streets, departed for Rome by way of Siena, the Neapolitan army retiring as he advanced. He entered Rome on the last day of the year, without encountering the least opposition.
Now, for the first time, the Italians learned the changes that had taken place across the Alps. Hitherto she had been held facile princeps among European countries. Her wealth was still as great as that of all the European nations put together, for she had been their manufacturer, carrier, and banker. But while they were becoming colossi she had developed no principle of nationality; she had entrusted her defences to mercenary troops that had developed the art of war by developing the art of avoiding battle. This was not the first time that the Northern nations had been called in to Italy: it was the first time that they had appeared as mighty. Had she possessed any principle of union she might even now have held her own, for her common people were still uncorrupt. But she possessed no such principle, and just as the more intellectual Greek fell before the Roman, so was she destined to fall before races of lower type. The very intellectuality and individuality of her men was in her disfavour. In spite of the shiftings of trade, wealth, and power caused by the discovery of a new world across the Western ocean, and the opening up of a new route to the East by the Cape, she would probably have fallen to the strongest of her own despots, developed a principle of nationality, and in some way regenerated herself, had she been left alone. Other nations have passed through periods of corruption and survived, and although foreigners often spoke of the treachery of her politics, they exhibited no less treachery among themselves or towards her; they complained of the Italian because he had a finer intelligence, and beat them at their own game. But the bad faith of the monarchs of Europe concealed a vital principle of growth; behind the greed of the throne there was the support and impetus of growing nations, the desire for unity and order. In Italy there was no nation and there was no patriotism: each despotic, each republican State was for itself alone. Individualism had triumphed, and it fell in the moment of its triumph before a loftier principle. The Pope was inclined to resist Charles. But his latest mistress, the beautiful Giulia Farnese, tell into the hands of the French, and His Holiness was in despair until she was ransomed. And when Charles pointed his guns at the castle of St: Angelo the Pope gave way.
Alexander had the faculty of throwing off disagreeable reflections. Even when Charles was advancing, he devoted his days to hunting, his nights to dancing and feasting arid the company of light women and of his children, of whom he was passionately fond. He paid for these entertainments by the sale of benefices, and by wringing money out of unhappy wretches, Moslems and Jews, driven from Spain, who could find no better refuge than the Holy City. For, truly, a cut-throat and graceless city had Rome ever been, even in the days when Boccaccio feigned that it converted a Jew to Christianity when he beheld that religion survive in such a sink of iniquity. And now it was so full of loose depravity, knavery, rascality, grossness, and atrocity of every kind; it had become so unutterably vicious and so full of villainy, that the poor souls must have been hard put to it indeed before they took refuge in a place that might have passed for some miscreated consequence of hell.
Alexander celebrated Mass before his new friend the King, and knew so little of priestly duty that he had to be prompted. Charles passed on towards Naples. Here he met with some slight resistance, which he punished by the massacre of all the inhabitants of two small towns which he carried by assault. Alfonzo II., the reigning monarch, abdicated on behalf of his son, Ferrante II., and whether they were influenced by terror or discontent, or by both, his subjects began to revolt; the barons, the cities, sent deputations to Charles, and the whole kingdom of Naples surrendered without fighting a single battle. He was crowned King of Naples and Jerusalem, Emperor of the Orient. It is a French contemporary writer who bears witness to the excessive cruelties of the French. He says that it hardly appeared to the French that the Italians were men (Zeller). They had all the contempt of rude warriors for a people unaccustomed to the use of arms.
Meanwhile the Powers of North Italy regarded the facile conquest with jealousy and alarm. The Duke of Orleans, afterwards Louis XII., who had remained behind at Asti, declared his pretension to the duchy of Milan as heir to his grandmother, Valentina Visconti, for it had been agreed that in default of main heirs the duchy should pass to Valentina’s issue. Lodovico Sforza, alarmed at this, brought about a league of Venice, the Pope, the King of Spain, and the Emperor Maximilian, and he and Venice assembled a powerful army, chiefly of Venetian troops, near Parma. Thirty thousand men were ready to oppose Charles’ retreat.
Charles determined to return to France, leaving half his army to hold Naples. He passed through Rome in peace, the Pope shutting himself up in the castle of St. Angelo. He refused to surrender Pisa to Florentine subjection, and marched on to the Apennines. Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, commanded the allied troops, and awaited him. Charles was attacked while in full march just after crossing the Taro; his divisions were at some distance from each other, and for some time his army was in great danger, but French impetuosity and Swiss obstinacy ultimately carried the day. The Italian men-at-arms were dishorsed in large numbers, and immediately slain by the camp-followers. Three thousand five hundred Italians lay dead on the field. At Asti he had to ransom the Duke of Orleans from Sforza, who was besieging him, and then repassed the mountains (1495) after having produced in Italy violent disturbances as of a passing hurricane. Pisa had thereby been set free from Florence, Florence from the Medici; the old equilibrium of States was destroyed; Italy was rendered dependent on foreign nations, and a vicious tyrant and a vicious Pope were lei it undisturbed to earn the hatred of their contemporaries and the obloquy of posterity.
Naples, which had welcomed the advent of the French, now rose against them. Ferrante II. was recalled by his people, and after many battles the French were expelled from the kingdom (1496).
THE ACCESSION OF THE DUKE of Orleans to the French Crown (1498) boded fresh ill to Italy. He took the titles of Duke of Milan and King of Naples. Venice was again menaced by the Turk and by Maximilian, who laid claim to Venetian possessions on the mainland as appertaining to the Empire. The Senate signed an alliance with Louis to abandon the duchy to him, reserving Cremona and the Ghiara d’Adda to themselves. Maximilian was irritated by the Swiss, and to attack them the more effectually abandoned his alliance with Lodovico. Alexander seized the opportunity to consolidate and extend his temporal power. He had a son, Cesare Borgia, a man of force and energy, who knew no restraint human or Divine, but only the skilful gratification of his lusts and ambitions—a crafty, prudent, calculating statesman, handsome, and whose personal magnetism made him the most powerful person of Rome and seems to have fascinated his father, even though he was believed, probably with justice, to have murdered his own brother, the Duke of Gandia, with whom he had quarrelled concerning the loose affections of the wife of a third brother.
The only restraint known in Rome was the restraint of personal consequences, the only duty conceived of was to enjoy life to the fullest, and to devote all one’s powers to the protection, perfection, and adornment of one’s personal existence and the exercise of its power. Cesare was a man of no scruple but of great intellectual ability, and it became Alexander’s aim to enrich his son’s life and to gain him great possessions. He determined that Cesare was the man to do the needful work of consolidating and augmenting the Papal States; he combined statecraft with paternal benevolence, and the Vatican looked on with equanimity at the prospect of a powerful Church vassal replacing those disorderly municipalities and rebellious despots of the worst type that still occupied a feudal position towards the Papacy. For the condition of the Papal feudatory States was indeed deplorable, and nothing but complete subjugation could possibly relieve them from the incessant warfare between jealous and ambitious petty rulers, and the rivalries of families that were forever executing vendetta within the circuit of almost every city. The condition of the country may be gathered from the fact that when one of the Papal legates was nominated to Perugia and Umbria he found, among other quite ordinary incidents, that one baron had smashed the heads of the children of a rival against his walls, cut the throat of the wife, who was big with child, and then, discovering that there still remained one infant, had nailed it like vermin to the door of his palace (Josephi Ripamonti, Hist. Urbis Med., L. vii.). The Campagna had been emptied by the wars of the Orsini and Colonna, and crime, cruelty, and treachery were doing their best to depopulate and brutalize the other States of the Church. Devoid of moral scruple as was Cesare Borgia, cruel as he could be in warfare, it is an evidence of his brilliant intellectual powers that, as we shall see, he not merely succeeded in re-establishing full authority, but in instituting good government in the districts that had been disordered for so many years.
The Papacy had its due share in the iniquity of calling in the foreigner. For Alexander secured French aid for the enterprise of his son. Louis VII. desired a divorce from his wife in order that he might marry Charles’ widow, and so possess himself of her dowry of Brittany. Alexander granted it, relieved Cesare of his ecclesiastical vows, and sent him to the French Court with an autograph letter recommending him “ as our most dear son, our very heart, than whom we hold nothing dearer “ (Molini, Document di Storia Italiana.—Firenze, 1836, 1837, vol. i.,). The King made Cesare, who had been a Cardinal, but was released from priestly vows, Duke of Valentinnois, and it was understood that the Pope would support the King’s claim to Milan as a descendant of the Visconti on the spindle side. Nevertheless, the Pope had certain designs on Naples which required the aid of Spain, and the Spanish Ambassador and Alexander frightened one another with threats; the one offered to prove that Alexander had become Pope by nefarious means, the other promised to throw the Ambassador into the Tiber. The Venetian Ambassador, a clear-sighted man, after the manner of the emissaries of his State, wrote home full details of the Papal Court; he said that Alexander’s policy was wobbling, that his sole design was to advance his family, that he wished to get Naples for Cesare, and that meanwhile he was making Rome the noisome dung heap of the world.
Lodovico had no allies. Florence had to guard against the intrigues of the Medici; she was bent on bringing Pisa again into subjection, but fearing to excite jealousy she dared not assemble an adequate army for that purpose, and her rivals, Siena, Lucca, and Genoa, actuated by dislike of Florence rather than love of Pisa, sent the beleaguered city aid. Frederick of Naples was fully occupied in re-establishing order in his exhausted kingdom, and had neither money nor men to spare.
A powerful French army crossed the Alps (August, 1499). They took two petty frontier fortresses by assault, and put the garrisons and almost all the inhabitants of the villages they had served to protect to the sword. This ferocious proceeding had its due effect; it spread terror among the Milanese troops, and the Duke fled to Germany to seek the protection of Maximilian. Louis arrived at Milan, and the trembling people of Lombardy, and even of Genoa, placed themselves under the French yoke. But when Louis returned to France at the end of the year a general ferment spread through Lombardy. The insolence of the victors, their violation of all national institutions, their contempt for Italian manners, their evil administration, their oppressive taxation, rendered the yoke, odious and unsupportable. Lodovico the Moor, acquainted with the general unrest, returned to Italy in February, 1500 ; he appeared at the) head of a small Swiss army. Como, Milan, Parma, and Pavia threw open their gates to him; Novara capitulated. Louis sent De la Tremouille with an army, in which there were 10,000 Swiss, to suppress the “ Moor.” The Swiss in both camps came to a base understanding an order from home, or the gold of Louis, effected the desertion of Lodovico’s mountaineers, and the ex-Duke, who attempted to escape in disguise, was betrayed by a soldier of Uri and sent to France, where he ended his days in the obscurity of the State prison “of Loches. A strong Governor, the Cardinal George d’Amboise, was given to Milan; his moderation and the reconstitution of a land of national assembly reconciled the Milanese to French direction.
Frederick of Naples, alarmed by the facility with which Louis had conquered the duchy, now sued for peace, and offered to hold his kingdom as tributary to the French Crown. He relied, however, on the support of Ferdinand the Catholic, who had sent sixty vessels and 8,000 chosen infantry to Sicily. But Ferdinand had recently proposed a secret understanding to Louis whereby, while the French entered the kingdom from the North, its ostensible defenders should advance from the South, and instead of giving battle should occupy and divide the kingdom between their respective masters. “ This infamous treaty,” says Creighton, “ was the first open assertion in European politics of the principles of dynastic aggrandizement.” The French army arrived at Rome at the same moment that the Spaniards landed in Calabria; they passed on to Capua, and entering the city while the magistrates were signing the document of capitulation, put 7,000 of its inhabitants to the sword. Frederick gave up hope, surrendered to Louis, and was sent to France, where he was kept in captivity, but his imprisonment was rendered as little galling as possible. The whole country surrendered without resisting, and Cesare Borgia entered Naples with the French army (1501). The object of his presence was to show the amity between the Pope and France; the Colonna and the malcontents at Rome could no longer oppose a Pope that had the support of France, and with Rome quiet it was possible to proceed with the reduction of Romagna.
But no sooner was the Neapolitan conquest terminated than disputes began concerning boundaries, and soon they broke into open warfare. Louis delayed sending reinforcements to his General while negotiations were pending the result was that, after a struggle in which the famous chevalier Bayard, “ sans peur et sans reproche,” fought bravely, the French army was practically destroyed, and by 1504 the whole kingdom of Naples had, like Sicily, become a Spanish possession.
WHEN LOUIS ENTERED MILAN, CESARE hied thither to pay court, bearing the French flag. Louis gave him money and some French lances, and with the title of Gonfaloniere of the Church he set out to eject the petty tyrants of Romagna and the marches of Ancona, the last nurseries of arms in Italy; for every one of the feudatories was a condottiere. The Pope had already plied the Orsini against the Colonna and the Colonna against the Orsini in the Campagna, where these two great families were paramount, and he had succeeded in weakening both. He was thus fairly secure at home, and under the pretext that they had not paid their dues, Cesare set out to dethrone the Vicars of the Church. Ancona, Assisi, Spoleto, Terni, and Narni still remained republics, delivered over to faction and constantly at war with their neighbours. Vicars of the Church ruled the rest of the States, the Varani and Fogliani dividing the marches almost entirely between them. Sinigaglia was a fief held by the Rovere; the ancient House of Montefeltro held sway in the mountains of Urbino; in Umbria the fierce family of the Baglioni governed Perugia Citta di Castello was under the excellent military rule of the Vitelli; in Romagna a Sforza ruled at Pesaro; the Malatesta held Rimini, which they had governed since the thirteenth century, and the present ruler, of evil renown for cruelty and debauchery, like the other condottieri Princes of the province, was subsidized by Venice and practically independent of the Pope. Cesena, indeed, was under the immediate government of the Church, which had snatched it from the Malatesta, but Forli and Imola were subject to the House of Riario, which Sixtus IV. had raised from utter meanness and obscurity; while the Manfredi held Faenza, situate between Forli and Imola, under the supervision of Venice, for whom it laid open an easy passage into Florentine territory. Venice had also possession of Ravenna and Cervia, snatched respectively from the Houses of Polenta and a branch of the Malatesta; Giovanni Bentivoglio had for forty years been despot of Bologna; and Ferrara, the remotest and most independent of Church feudatories, had for ages been in the possession of the noble House of Este, which united with this the Imperial fiefs of Modena and Reggio. The numerous Courts of so many little despots that had displaced republican Governments gave Romagna an appearance of wealth and elegance; they were the resort of scholars and poets; architects built and painters adorned shapely palaces, and delicacy and refinement characterized the society within them. But the expenses of these luxurious Courts crushed an overtaxed and miserable people, and the struggle for power among the petty Princes engendered an insecurity which led to treason, assassination, and atrocity of every kind within the family circle itself. Each petty government was founded on force, maintained by force, and only force could overturn it. Cesare Borgia knew full well that if he could become master of the petty States of Romagna, the people would pardon every crime, every cruelty, every treason, if only he secured them peace and granted them justice.
He took Imola and Forli (1499); the successes of the French caused Bologna, Ferrara, and Florence to withhold their aid from the Romagnol princelets. In 1501 Faenza had to capitulate; Cesare violated the terms of surrender, and after overwhelming Manfredi with protestations of friendship, had him strangled. Cesare was now (1501) invested with the duchy of Romagna by his father; he exercised cruel severity to repress crime by means of his subordinate, Ramiro d’Orco, and in order that no resentment caused by his lieutenant’s inflexible administration might fall on himself, he knew when and how to dispose of him. One morning a scaffold was found standing in the market-place of Cesena, and from it hung the corpse of the man before whom all had trembled; the stained instruments of death lay beside the body, and this bloody exhibition was the only, but suggestive communication on the subject vouchsafed by Cesare to his new subjects.
He now sought to enter Tuscany, divided between four republics and the little principality of Piombino. The republics were enfeebled by their wars with each other, and Siena had come under the control of a citizen, Petrucci, who was fully occupied in maintaining his position. Cesare forced Bentivoglio to pay him tribute for Bologna, and tried to foment a conspiracy in Florence, but found himself unable to procure revolt; he secured a subsidy, and left his lieutenants to take Piombino, while he joined the French forces that were marching on Naples. He could do no more at present, as he was forbidden by-France (1501).
The Pope, who had favoured the entrance of Louis into Italy to further the interests of Cesare and so strengthen his own temporal power, was privy to the secret negotiations between France and Spain for the division of Naples; indeed, he hoped to get something out of it for Cesare, and had dreams that his son, who had exhibited the craft then needed for greatness, would perchance arrive at the kingship of all Italy. When the Spaniards rounded on the French the Pope bargained with Louis to help him if Naples or Sicily were given to Cesare. He married his daughter Lucrezia to the Duke of Ferrara, who was too strong to be dispossessed at present. Twice had the Pope annulled his daughter’s previous marriages for political reasons, and Cesare had made away with her third husband, the Duke of Bisceglie. After the failure of a first attempt on the Duke’s life Borgia remarked that “ what could not be done at dinner shall be done at supper.” Lucrezia and Bisceglie’s sister cooked the wounded man’s food since no one else was to be trusted; but, unable to use poison, Cesare appeared one evening, sent away the two unresisting ladies, and had the Duke strangled in bed. The Pope was in such awe of his son that it is said he did not dare utter a word when Cesare murdered his favourite servant and confidant in his arms; indeed, he was extremely proud of so hopeful a young Prince, and sold red hats to furnish him with money for his wars (P. Cappello, Venetian Ambassador; vide Albert, Relazione.— Gregorovius Geschict. v. Rom.).
Returned from Naples, Cesare induced the Duke of Urbino to lend him artillery and forces to reduce Camerino; he turned them against Urbino itself and captured it. The little Republic of San Marino sought his protection; he took Camerino, and had its lord and his two sons strangled. Complaints of his conduct reached the Court of Louis, who had come to Asti. The Borgia seduced Louis’ great Minister, the Cardinal Amboise, by dangling the prospect of succession to the Papacy before him; it was proposed to elevate to the Sacred College a sufficient number of priests who could be relied on to vote for him. Louis was influenced by his adviser, and also by the personal charm of Cesare; he lent him 300 lances to continue his work, even against Bologna, though Bentivoglio had paid him for his protection.
The treachery of Cesare towards Urbino was a mistake; the Duke was popular with his subjects; they revolted and restored him; and some of Cesare’s own condottieri, including the lords of Citta di Castello, Perugia, Fermo, and the representatives of Bologna and Siena, afraid lest their turn might come next, entered into a conspiracy with the Orsini to overthrow him. These men were no less perfidious than Cesare, and one of them, at least, was of a character even more false-hearted. They were incapable of mutual trust or of obtaining the confidence of the other foes of the Borgia. Cesare had remarkable suppleness in diplomacy, a frank, genial address, a persuasive charm, a confiding manner, which deceived even the shrewdest. He was made aware of the plot, and effected an apparent reconciliation; the Duke of Urbino fled; Sinigaglia was captured, and then Cesare seized and executed the conspirators, while in Rome Cardinal Orsini was arrested and imprisoned. Citta di Castello and Perugia submitted to Cesare, and when France tried to check his career Cesare took advantage of the successful treachery of Ferdinand towards Louis in Naples to turn his coat, enter into friendly relations with Spain, protect Pisa, and scheme to subdue the republics of Bologna and Florence. With France and Spain at war, the Papacy felt tolerably secure, and Central Italy seemed to be within Borgia’s easy grasp. “ If there were not war between Spain and France, where should we be ?” exclaimed the Pope: Aut Cœsar aut nihil was now the frequently-repeated motto of the young model of Machiavelli’s “ Prince.” Cesare told Machiavelli that he had prepared for every eventuality; for his father’s death; for the manipulation of the conclave; for the elevation of one of his own creatures to the Papal throne. One thing only did he forget— the possibility of being himself ill at the time of Alexander’s decease.
Yet it may be doubted whether all the political acumen and ingenuity in the world could, even under the most favourable circumstances, have led to solid success and the establishment of an Italian kingdom. There was no national sentiment in Italy; she was a heterogeneous collection of different kinds of government, different institutions, different traditions, different impulses; she was now subject to the interference of two strong European Powers, governed by absolute monarchs who pursued single ends, one of them firmly established in the North, the other still more firmly fixed in the South of her territory; the republics were indeed weak, and Venice was the only State that was capable of real resistance; but the resistance of Venice would have thrown Cesare on the support either of France or Spain. Alexander leaned towards Spain, for he was a Spaniard; but he intrigued with France, offered North Italy to the Venetians as the price for their aid, pressed Maximilian (who was meditating a descent into Italy to take the Imperial crown) to give Pisa to Cesare, as otherwise he would accept the French offer of Naples in exchange for Romagna (Giustinian. Despatches, May 29, June 7, 8, 31, 1503). Such fickle diplomacy at such a time shows the uneasiness and impotence of the Borgian policy.
Alexander fell sick and died, and Cesare was ill at the time, and unable to make any essay of his designs. Of course, it’ was said that the Pope was poisoned: the evidence shows that he died of Roman fever, and that many ambassadors, cardinals, and Cesare himself, who had sat with the Pope al fresco after a banquet, were seized at the same time with the same complaint.