CHAPTER I
Towards the end of the fifteenth century--that is to say, at the
epoch when our history opens the Piazza of St. Peter's at Rome was
far from presenting so noble an aspect as that which is offered in
our own day to anyone who approaches it by the Piazza dei Rusticucci.
In fact, the Basilica of Constantine existed no longer, while that of
Michael Angelo, the masterpiece of thirty popes, which cost the
labour of three centuries and the expense of two hundred and sixty
millions, existed not yet. The ancient edifice, which had lasted for
eleven hundred and forty-five years, had been threatening to fall in
about 1440, and Nicholas V, artistic forerunner of Julius II and Leo
X, had had it pulled down, together with the temple of Probus Anicius
which adjoined it. In their place he had had the foundations of a
new temple laid by the architects Rossellini and Battista Alberti;
but some years later, after the death of Nicholas V, Paul II, the
Venetian, had not been able to give more than five thousand crowns to
continue the project of his predecessor, and thus the building was
arrested when it had scarcely risen above the ground, and presented
the appearance of a still-born edifice, even sadder than that of a
ruin.
As to the piazza itself, it had not yet, as the reader will
understand from the foregoing explanation, either the fine colonnade
of Bernini, or the dancing fountains, or that Egyptian obelisk which,
according to Pliny, was set up by the Pharaoh at Heliopolis, and
transferred to Rome by Caligula, who set it up in Nero's Circus,
where it remained till 1586. Now, as Nero's Circus was situated on
the very ground where St. Peter's now stands, and the base of this
obelisk covered the actual site where the vestry now is, it looked
like a gigantic needle shooting up from the middle of truncated
columns, walls of unequal height, and half-carved stones.
On the right of this building, a ruin from its cradle, arose the
Vatican, a splendid Tower of Babel, to which all the celebrated
architects of the Roman school contributed their work for a thousand
years: at this epoch the two magnificent chapels did not exist, nor
the twelve great halls, the two-and-twenty courts, the thirty
staircases, and the two thousand bedchambers; for Pope Sixtus V, the
sublime swineherd, who did so many things in a five years' reign, had
not yet been able to add the immense building which on the eastern
side towers above the court of St. Damasius; still, it was truly the
old sacred edifice, with its venerable associations, in which
Charlemagne received hospitality when he was crowned emperor by Pope
Leo III.
All the same, on the 9th of August, 1492, the whole of Rome, from the
People's Gate to the Coliseum and from the Baths of Diocletian to the
castle of Sant' Angelo, seemed to have made an appointment on this
piazza: the multitude thronging it was so great as to overflow into
all the neighbouring streets, which started from this centre like the
rays of a star. The crowds of people, looking like a motley moving
carpet, were climbing up into the basilica, grouping themselves upon
the stones, hanging on the columns, standing up against the walls;
they entered by the doors of houses and reappeared at the windows, so
numerous and so densely packed that one might have said each window
was walled up with heads. Now all this multitude had its eyes fixed
on one single point in the Vatican; for in the Vatican was the
Conclave, and as Innocent VIII had been dead for sixteen days, the
Conclave was in the act of electing a pope.
Rome is the town of elections: since her foundation down to our own
day--that is to say, in the course of nearly twenty-six centuries--
she has constantly elected her kings, consuls, tribunes, emperors,
and popes: thus Rome during the days of Conclave appears to be
attacked by a strange fever which drives everyone to the Vatican or
to Monte Cavallo, according as the scarlet-robed assembly is held in
one or the other of these two palaces: it is, in fact, because the
raising up of a new pontiff is a great event far everybody; for,
according to the average established in the period between St. Peter
and Gregory XVI, every pope lasts about eight years, and these eight
years, according to the character of the man who is elected, are a
period either of tranquillity or of disorder, of justice or of
venality, of peace or of war.
Never perhaps since the day when the first successor of St. Peter
took his seat on the pontifical throne until the interregnum which
now occurred, had so great an agitation been shown as there was at
this moment, when, as we have shown, all these people were thronging
on the Piazza of St. Peter and in the streets which led to it. It is
true that this was not without reason; for Innocent VIII--who was
called the father of his people because he had added to his subjects
eight sons and the same number of daughters--had, as we have said,
after living a life of self-indulgence, just died, after a death-
struggle during which, if the journal of Stefano Infessura may be
believed, two hundred and twenty murders were committed in the
streets of Rome. The authority had then devolved in the customary
way upon the Cardinal Camerlengo, who during the interregnum had
sovereign powers; but as he had been obliged to fulfil all the duties
of his office--that is, to get money coined in his name and bearing
his arms, to take the fisherman's ring from the finger of the dead
pope, to dress, shave and paint him, to have the corpse embalmed, to
lower the coffin after nine days' obsequies into the provisional
niche where the last deceased pope has to remain until his successor
comes to take his place and consign him to his final tomb; lastly, as
he had been obliged to wall up the door of the Conclave and the
window of the balcony from which the pontifical election is
proclaimed, he had not had a single moment for busying himself with
the police; so that the assassinations had continued in goodly
fashion, and there were loud cries for an energetic hand which should
make all these swords and all these daggers retire into their
sheaths.
Now the eyes of this multitude were fixed, as we have said, upon the
Vatican, and particularly upon one chimney, from which would come the
first signal, when suddenly, at the moment of the 'Ave Maria'--that
is to say, at the hour when the day begins to decline--great cries
went up from all the crowd mixed with bursts of laughter, a
discordant murmur of threats and raillery, the cause being that they
had just perceived at the top of the chimney a thin smoke, which
seemed like a light cloud to go up perpendicularly into the sky.
This smoke announced that Rome was still without a master, and that
the world still had no pope; for this was the smoke of the voting
tickets which were being burned, a proof that the cardinals had not
yet come to an agreement.
Scarcely had this smoke appeared, to vanish almost immediately, when
all the innumerable crowd, knowing well that there was nothing else
to wait for, and that all was said and done until ten o'clock the
next morning, the time when the cardinals had their first voting,
went off in a tumult of noisy joking, just as they would after the
last rocket of a firework display; so that at the end of one minute
nobody was there where a quarter of an hour before there had been an
excited crowd, except a few curious laggards, who, living in the
neighbourhood or on the very piazza itself; were less in a hurry than
the rest to get back to their homes; again, little by little, these
last groups insensibly diminished; for half-past nine had just
struck, and at this hour the streets of Rome began already to be far
from safe; then after these groups followed some solitary passer-by,
hurrying his steps; one after another the doors were closed, one
after another the windows were darkened; at last, when ten o'clock
struck, with the single exception of one window in the Vatican where
a lamp might be seen keeping obstinate vigil, all the houses,
piazzas, and streets were plunged in the deepest obscurity.
At this moment a man wrapped in a cloak stood up like a ghost against
one of the columns of the uncompleted basilica, and gliding slowly
and carefully among the stones which were lying about round the
foundations of the new church, advanced as far as the fountain which,
formed the centre of the piazza, erected in the very place where the
obelisk is now set up of which we have spoken already; when he
reached this spot he stopped, doubly concealed by the darkness of the
night and by the shade of the monument, and after looking around him
to see if he were really alone, drew his sword, and with its point
rapping three times on the pavement of the piazza, each time made the
sparks fly. This signal, for signal it was, was not lost: the last
lamp which still kept vigil in the Vatican went out, and at the same
instant an object thrown out of the window fell a few paces off from
the young man in the cloak: he, guided by the silvery sound it had
made in touching the flags, lost no time in laying his hands upon it
in spite of the darkness, and when he had it in his possession
hurried quickly away.
Thus the unknown walked without turning round half-way along the
Borgo Vecchio; but there he turned to the right and took a street at
the other end of which was set up a Madonna with a lamp: he
approached the light, and drew from his pocket the object he had
picked up, which was nothing else than a Roman crown piece; but this
crown unscrewed, and in a cavity hollowed in its thickness enclosed a
letter, which the man to whom it was addressed began to read at the
risk of being recognised, so great was his haste to know what it
contained.
We say at the risk of being recognised, for in his eagerness the
recipient of this nocturnal missive had thrown back the hood of his
cloak; and as his head was wholly within the luminous circle cast by
the lamp, it was easy to distinguish in the light the head of a
handsome young man of about five or six and twenty, dressed in a
purple doublet slashed at the shoulder and elbow to let the shirt
come through, and wearing on his head a cap of the same colour with a
long black feather falling to his shoulder. It is true that he did
not stand there long; for scarcely had he finished the letter, or
rather the note, which he had just received in so strange and
mysterious a manner, when he replaced it in its silver receptacle,
and readjusting his cloak so as to hide all the lower part of his
face, resumed his walk with a rapid step, crossed Borgo San Spirito,
and took the street of the Longara, which he followed as far as the
church of Regina Coeli. When he arrived at this place, he gave three
rapid knocks on the door of a house of good appearance, which
immediately opened; then slowly mounting the stairs he entered a room
where two women were awaiting him with an impatience so unconcealed
that both as they saw him exclaimed together:
"Well, Francesco, what news?"
"Good news, my mother; good, my sister," replied the young man,
kissing the one and giving his hand to the other. "Our father has
gained three votes to-day, but he still needs six to have the
majority."
"Then is there no means of buying them?" cried the elder of the two
women, while the younger, instead of speaking, asked him with a look.
"Certainly, my mother, certainly," replied the young man; "and it is
just about that that my father has been thinking. He is giving
Cardinal Orsini his palace at Rome and his two castles of Monticello
and Soriano; to Cardinal Colanna his abbey of Subiaca; he gives
Cardinal Sant' Angelo the bishopric of Porto, with the furniture and
cellar; to the Cardinal of Parma the town of Nepi; to the Cardinal of
Genoa the church of Santa Maria-in-Via-Lata; and lastly, to Cardinal
Savelli the church of Santa Maria Maggiore and the town of Civita
Castellana; as to Cardinal Ascanio-Sforza, he knows already that the
day before yesterday we sent to his house four mules laden with
silver and plate, and out of this treasure he has engaged to give
five thousand ducats to the Cardinal Patriarch of Venice."
"But how shall we get the others to know the intentions of Roderigo?"
asked the elder of the two women.
"My father has provided for everything, and proposes an easy method;
you know, my mother, with what sort of ceremonial the cardinals'
dinner is carried in."
"Yes, on a litter, in a large basket with the arms of the cardinal
far whom the meal is prepared."
"My father has bribed the bishop who examines it: to-morrow is a
feast-day; to the Cardinals Orsini, Colonna, Savelli, Sant' Angelo,
and the Cardinals of Parma and of Genoa, chickens will be sent for
hot meat, and each chicken will contain a deed of gift duly drawn up,
made by me in my father's name, of the houses, palaces, or churches
which are destined for each."
"Capital!" said the elder of the two women; "now, I am certain, all
will go well."
"And by the grace of God," added the younger, with a strangely
mocking smile, "our father will be pope."
"Oh, it will be a fine day for us!" cried Francesco.
"And for Christendom," replied his sister, with a still more ironical
expression.
"Lucrezia, Lucrezia," said the mother, "you do not deserve the
happiness which is coming to us."
"What does that matter, if it comes all the same? Besides, you know
the proverb; mother: 'Large families are blessed of the Lord'; and
still more so our family, which is so patriarchal."
At the same time she cast on her brother a look so wanton that the
young man blushed under it: but as at the moment he had to think of
other things than his illicit loves, he ordered that four servants
should be awakened; and while they were getting armed to accompany
him, he drew up and signed the six deeds of gift which were to be
carried the next day to the cardinals; for, not wishing to be seen at
their houses, he thought he would profit by the night-time to carry
them himself to certain persons in his confidence who would have them
passed in, as had been arranged, at the dinner-hour. Then, when the
deeds were quite ready and the servants also, Francesco went out with
them, leaving the two women to dream golden dreams of their future
greatness.
From the first dawn of day the people hurried anew, as ardent and
interested as on the evening before, to the Piazza of the Vatican,
where, at the ordinary time, that is, at ten o'clock in the morning,
--the smoke rose again as usual, evoking laughter and murmuring, as
it announced that none of the cardinals had secured the majority. A
report, however, began to be spread about that the chances were
divided between three candidates, who were Roderigo Borgia, Giuliano
delta Rovera, and Ascanio Sforza; for the people as yet knew nothing
of the four mules laden with plate and silver which had been led to
Sforza's house, by reason of which he had given up his own votes to
his rival. In the midst of the agitation excited in the crowd by
this new report a solemn chanting was heard; it proceeded from a
procession, led by the Cardinal Camerlengo, with the object of
obtaining from Heaven the speedy election of a pope: this procession,
starting from the church of Ara Coeli at the Capitol, was to make
stations before the principal Madannas and the most frequented
churches. As soon as the silver crucifix was perceived which went in
front, the most profound silence prevailed, and everyone fell on his
knees; thus a supreme calm followed the tumult and uproar which had
been heard a few minutes before, and which at each appearance of the
smoke had assumed a more threatening character: there was a shrewd
suspicion that the procession, as well as having a religious end in
view, had a political object also, and that its influence was
intended to be as great on earth as in heaven. In any case, if such
had been the design of the Cardinal Camerlengo, he had not deceived
himself, and the effect was what he desired: when the procession had
gone past, the laughing and joking continued, but the cries and
threats had completely ceased.
The whole day passed thus; for in Rome nobody works. You are either
a cardinal or a lacquey, and you live, nobody knows how. The crowd
was still extremely numerous, when, towards two o'clock in the
afternoon, another procession, which had quite as much power of
provoking noise as the first of imposing silence, traversed in its
turn the Piazza of St. Peter's: this was the dinner procession. The
people received it with the usual bursts of laughter, without
suspecting, for all their irreverence, that this procession, more
efficacious than the former, had just settled the election of the new
pope.
The hour of the Ave Maria came as on the evening before; but, as on
the evening before, the waiting of the whole day was lost; for, as
half-past eight struck, the daily smoke reappeared at the top of the
chimney. But when at the same moment rumours which came from the
inside of the Vatican were spread abroad, announcing that, in all
probability, the election would take place the next day, the good
people preserved their patience. Besides, it had been very hot that
day, and they were so broken with fatigue and roasted by the sun,
these dwellers in shade and idleness, that they had no strength left
to complain.
The morning of the next day, which was the 11th of August, 1492,
arose stormy and dark; this did not hinder the multitude from
thronging the piazzas, streets, doors, houses, churches. Moreover,
this disposition of the weather was a real blessing from Heaven; for
if there were heat, at least there would be no sun. Towards nine
o'clock threatening storm-clouds were heaped up over all the
Trastevere; but to this crowd what mattered rain, lightning, or
thunder? They were preoccupied with a concern of a very different
nature; they were waiting for their pope: a promise had been made
them for to-day, and it could be seen by the manner of all, that if
the day should pass without any election taking place, the end of it
might very well be a riot; therefore, in proportion as the time
advanced, the agitation grew greater. Nine o'clock, half-past nine,
a quarter to ten struck, without anything happening to confirm or
destroy their hopes. At last the first stroke of ten was heard; all
eyes turned towards the chimney: ten o'clock struck slowly, each
stroke vibrating in the heart of the multitude. At last the tenth
stroke trembled, then vanished shuddering into space, and, a great
cry breaking simultaneously frog a hundred thousand breasts followed
the silence "Non v'e fumo! There is no smoke!" In other words, "We
have a pope."
At this moment the rain began to fall; but no one paid any attention
to it, so great were the transports of joy and impatience among all
the people. At last a little stone was detached from the walled
window which gave on the balcony and upon which all eyes were fixed:
a general shout saluted its fall; little by little the aperture grew
larger, and in a few minutes it was large enough to allow a man to
come out on the balcony.
The Cardinal Ascanio Sforza appeared; but at the moment when he was
on the point of coming out, frightened by the rain and the lightning,
he hesitated an instant, and finally drew back: immediately the
multitude in their turn broke out like a tempest into cries, curses,
howls, threatening to tear down the Vatican and to go and seek their
pope themselves. At this noise Cardinal Sforza, more terrified by
the popular storm than by the storm in the heavens, advanced on the
balcony, and between two thunderclaps, in a moment of silence
astonishing to anyone who had just heard the clamour that went
before, made the following proclamation:
"I announce to you a great joy: the most Eminent and most Reverend
Signor Roderigo Lenzuolo Borgia, Archbishop of Valencia, Cardinal-
Deacon of San Nicolao-in-Carcere, Vice-Chancellor of the Church, has
now been elected Page, and has assumed the name of Alexander VI."
The news of this nomination was received with strange joy. Roderigo
Borgia had the reputation of a dissolute man, it is true, but
libertinism had mounted the throne with Sixtus IV and Innocent VIII,
so that for the Romans there was nothing new in the singular
situation of a pope with a mistress and five children. The great
thing for the moment was that the power fell into strong hands; and
it was more important for the tranquillity of Rome that the new pope
inherited the sword of St. Paul than that he inherited the keys of
St. Peter.
And so, in the feasts that were given on this occasion, the dominant
character was much more warlike than religious, and would have
appeared rather to suit with the election of some young conqueror
than the exaltation of an old pontiff: there was no limit to the
pleasantries and prophetic epigrams on the name of Alexander, which
for the second time seemed to promise the Romans the empire of the
world; and the same evening, in the midst of brilliant illuminations
and bonfires, which seemed to turn the town into a lake of flame, the
following epigram was read, amid the acclamation of the people:
"Rome under Caesar's rule in ancient story
At home and o'er the world victorious trod;
But Alexander still extends his glory:
Caesar was man, but Alexander God."
As to the new pope, scarcely had he completed the formalities of
etiquette which his exaltation imposed upon him, and paid to each man
the price of his simony, when from the height of the Vatican he cast
his eyes upon Europe, a vast political game of chess, which he
cherished the hope of directing at the will of his own genius.
