CHAPTER II
The world had now arrived at one of those supreme moments of history
when every thing is transformed between the end of one period and the
beginning of another: in the East Turkey, in the South Spain, in the
West France, and in the North German, all were going to assume,
together with the title of great Powers, that influence which they
were destined to exert in the future over the secondary States.
Accordingly we too, with Alexander VI, will cast a rapid glance over
them, and see what were their respective situations in regard to
Italy, which they all coveted as a prize.
Constantine, Palaeologos Dragozes, besieged by three hundred thousand
Turks, after having appealed in vain for aid to the whole of
Christendom, had not been willing to survive the loss of his empire,
and had been found in the midst of the dead, close to the Tophana
Gate; and on the 30th of May, 1453, Mahomet II had made his entry
into Constantinople, where, after a reign which had earned for him
the surname of 'Fatile', or the Conqueror, he had died leaving two
sons, the elder of whom had ascended the throne under the name of
Bajazet II.
The accession of the new sultan, however, had not taken place with
the tranquillity which his right as elder brother and his father's
choice of him should have promised. His younger brother, D'jem,
better known under the name of Zizimeh, had argued that whereas he
was born in the purple--that is, born during the reign of Mahomet--
Bajazet was born prior to his epoch, and was therefore the son of a
private individual. This was rather a poor trick; but where force is
all and right is naught, it was good enough to stir up a war. The
two brothers, each at the head of an army, met accordingly in Asia in
1482. D'jem was defeated after a seven hours' fight, and pursued by
his brother, who gave him no time to rally his army: he was obliged
to embark from Cilicia, and took refuge in Rhodes, where he implored
the protection of the Knights of St. John. They, not daring to give
him an asylum in their island so near to Asia, sent him to France,
where they had him carefully guarded in one of their commanderies, in
spite of the urgency of Cait Bey, Sultan of Egypt, who, having
revolted against Bajazet, desired to have the young prince in his
army to give his rebellion the appearance of legitimate warfare. The
same demand, moreover, with the same political object, had been made
successively by Mathias Corvinus, King of Hungary, by Ferdinand, King
of Aragon and Sicily, and by Ferdinand, King of Naples.
On his side Bajazet, who knew all the importance of such a rival, if
he once allied himself with any one of the princes with whom he was
at war, had sent ambassadors to Charles VIII, offering, if he would
consent to keep D'jem with him, to give him a considerable pension,
and to give to France the sovereignty of the Holy Land, so soon as
Jerusalem should be conquered by the Sultan of Egypt. The King of
France had accepted these terms.
But then Innocent VIII had intervened, and in his turn had claimed
D'jem, ostensibly to give support by the claims of the refugee to a
crusade which he was preaching against the Turks, but in reality to
appropriate the pension of 40,000 ducats to be given by Bajazet to
any one of the Christian princes who would undertake to be his
brother's gaoler. Charles VIII had not dared to refuse to the
spiritual head of Christendom a request supported by such holy
reasons; and therefore D'jem had quitted France, accompanied by the
Grand Master d'Aubusson, under whose direct charge he was; but his
guardian had consented, for the sake of a cardinal's hat, to yield up
his prisoner. Thus, on the 13th of March, 1489, the unhappy young
man, cynosure of so many interested eyes, made his solemn entry into
Rome, mounted on a superb horse, clothed in a magnificent oriental
costume, between the Prior of Auvergne, nephew of the Grand Master
d'Aubusson, and Francesco Cibo, the son of the pope.
After this he had remained there, and Bajazet, faithful to promises
which it was so much his interest to fulfil, had punctually paid to
the sovereign pontiff a pension of 40,000 ducats.
So much for Turkey.
Ferdinand and Isabella were reigning in Spain, and were laying the
foundations of that vast power which was destined, five-and-twenty
years later, to make Charles V declare that the sun never set on his
dominions. In fact, these two sovereigns, on whom history has
bestowed the name of Catholic, had reconquered in succession nearly
all Spain, and driven the Moors out of Granada, their last
entrenchment; while two men of genius, Bartolome Diaz and Christopher
Columbus, had succeeded, much to the profit of Spain, the one in
recovering a lost world, the other in conquering a world yet unknown.
They had accordingly, thanks to their victories in the ancient world
and their discoveries in the new, acquired an influence at the court
of Rome which had never been enjoyed by any of their predecessors.
So much for Spain.
In France, Charles VIII had succeeded his father, Louis XI, on the
30th of August, 1483. Louis by dint of executions, had tranquillised
his kingdom and smoothed the way for a child who ascended the throne
under the regency of a woman. And the regency had been a glorious
one, and had put down the pretensions of princes of the blood, put an
end to civil wars, and united to the crown all that yet remained of
the great independent fiefs. The result was that at the epoch where
we now are, here was Charles VIII, about twenty-two years of age, a
prince (if we are to believe La Tremouille) little of body but great
of heart; a child (if we are to believe Commines) only now making his
first flight from the nest, destitute of both sense and money, feeble
in person, full of self-will, and consorting rather with fools than
with the wise; lastly, if we are to believe Guicciardini, who was an
Italian, might well have brought a somewhat partial judgment to bear
upon the subject, a young man of little wit concerning the actions of
men, but carried away by an ardent desire for rule and the
acquisition of glory, a desire based far more on his shallow
character and impetuosity than on any consciousness of genius: he was
an enemy to all fatigue and all business, and when he tried to give
his attention to it he showed himself always totally wanting in
prudence and judgment. If anything in him appeared at first sight to
be worthy of praise, on a closer inspection it was found to be
something nearer akin to vice than to virtue. He was liberal, it is
true, but without thought, with no measure and no discrimination. He
was sometimes inflexible in will; but this was through obstinacy
rather than a constant mind; and what his flatterers called goodness
deserved far more the name of insensibility to injuries or poverty of
spirit.
As to his physical appearance, if we are to believe the same author,
it was still less admirable, and answered marvellously to his
weakness of mind and character. He was small, with a large head, a
short thick neck, broad chest, and high shoulders; his thighs and
legs were long and thin; and as his face also was ugly--and was only
redeemed by the dignity and force of his glance--and all his limbs
were disproportionate with one another, he had rather the appearance
of a monster than a man. Such was he whom Fortune was destined to
make a conqueror, for whom Heaven was reserving more glory than he
had power to carry.
So much for France.
The Imperial throne was occupied by Frederic III, who had been
rightly named the Peaceful, not for the reason that he had always
maintained peace, but because, having constantly been beaten, he had
always been forced to make it. The first proof he had given of this
very philosophical forbearance was during his journey to Rome,
whither he betook himself to be consecrated. In crossing the
Apennines he was attacked by brigands. They robbed him, but he made
no pursuit. And so, encouraged by example and by the impunity of
lesser thieves, the greater ones soon took part in the robberies.
Amurath seized part of Hungary. Mathias Corvinus took Lower Austria,
and Frederic consoled himself for these usurpations by repeating the
maxim, Forgetfulness is the best cure for the losses we suffer. At
the time we have now reached, he had just, after a reign of fifty-
three years, affianced his son Maximilian to Marie of Burgundy and
had put under the ban of the Empire his son-in-law, Albert of
Bavaria, who laid claim to the ownership of the Tyrol. He was
therefore too full of his family affairs to be troubled about Italy.
Besides, he was busy looking for a motto for the house of Austria, an
occupation of the highest importance for a man of the character of
Frederic III. This motto, which Charles V was destined almost to
render true, was at last discovered, to the great joy of the old
emperor, who, judging that he had nothing more to do on earth after
he had given this last proof of sagacity, died on the 19th of August,
1493; leaving the empire to his son Maximilian.
This motto was simply founded on the five vowels, a, e, i, o, u, the
initial letters of these five words
"AUSTRIAE EST IMPERARE ORBI UNIVERSO."
This means
"It is the destiny of Austria to rule over the whole world."
So much for Germany.
Now that we have cast a glance over the four nations which were on
the way, as we said before, to become European Powers, let us turn
our attention to those secondary States which formed a circle more
contiguous to Rome, and whose business it was to serve as armour, so
to speak, to the spiritual queen of the world, should it please any
of these political giants whom we have described to make
encroachments with a view to an attack, on the seas or the mountains,
the Adriatic Gulf or the Alps, the Mediterranean or the Apennines.
These were the kingdom of Naples, the duchy of Milan, the magnificent
republic of Florence, and the most serene republic of Venice.
The kingdom of Naples was in the hands of the old Ferdinand, whose
birth was not only illegitimate, but probably also well within the
prohibited degrees. His father, Alfonso of Aragon, received his
crown from Giovanna of Naples, who had adopted him as her successor.
But since, in the fear of having no heir, the queen on her deathbed
had named two instead of one, Alfonso had to sustain his rights
against Rene. The two aspirants for some time disputed the crown.
At last the house of Aragon carried the day over the house of Anjou,
and in the course of the year 1442, Alfonso definitely secured his
seat on the throne. Of this sort were the claims of the defeated
rival which we shall see Charles VIII maintaining later on.
Ferdinand had neither the courage nor the genius of his father, and
yet he triumphed over his enemies, one after another he had two
rivals, both far superior in merit to him self. The one was his
nephew, the Count of Viana, who, basing his claim on his uncle's
shameful birth, commanded the whole Aragonese party; the other was
Duke John of Calabria, who commanded the whole Angevin party. Still
he managed to hold the two apart, and to keep himself on the throne
by dint of his prudence, which often verged upon duplicity. He had a
cultivated mind, and had studied the sciences--above all, law. He
was of middle height, with a large handsome head, his brow open and
admirably framed in beautiful white hair, which fell nearly down to
his shoulders. Moreover, though he had rarely exercised his physical
strength in arms, this strength was so great that one day, when he
happened to be on the square of the Mercato Nuovo at Naples, he
seized by the horns a bull that had escaped and stopped him short, in
spite of all the efforts the animal made to escape from his hands.
Now the election of Alexander had caused him great uneasiness, and in
spite of his usual prudence he had not been able to restrain himself
from saying before the bearer of the news that not only did he fail
to rejoice in this election, but also that he did not think that any
Christian could rejoice in it, seeing that Borgia, having always been
a bad man, would certainly make a bad pope. To this he added that,
even were the choice an excellent one and such as would please
everybody else, it would be none the less fatal to the house of
Aragon, although Roderigo was born her subject and owed to her the
origin and progress of his fortunes; for wherever reasons of state
come in, the ties of blood and parentage are soon forgotten, and,
'a fortiori', relations arising from the obligations of nationality.
Thus, one may see that Ferdinand judged Alexander VI with his usual
perspicacity; this, however, did not hinder him, as we shall soon
perceive, from being the first to contract an alliance with him.
The duchy of Milan belonged nominally to John Galeazzo, grandson of
Francesco Sforza, who had seized it by violence on the 26th of
February, 1450, and bequeathed it to his son, Galeazzo Maria, father
of the young prince now reigning; we say nominally, because the real
master of the Milanese was at this period not the legitimate heir who
was supposed to possess it, but his uncle Ludovico, surnamed
'il Moro', because of the mulberry tree which he bore in his arms.
After being exiled with his two brothers, Philip who died of poison
in 1479, and Ascanio who became the cardinal, he returned to Milan
some days after the assassination of Galeazzo Maria, which took place
on the 26th of December 1476, in St. Stephen's Church, and assumed
the regency for the young duke, who at that time was only eight years
old. From now onward, even after his nephew had reached the age of
two-and-twenty, Ludovico continued to rule, and according to all
probabilities was destined to rule a long time yet; for, some days
after the poor young man had shown a desire to take the reins
himself, he had fallen sick, and it was said, and not in a whisper,
that he had taken one of those slow but mortal poisons of which
princes made so frequent a use at this period, that, even when a
malady was natural, a cause was always sought connected with some
great man's interests. However it may have been, Ludovico had
relegated his nephew, now too weak to busy himself henceforward with
the affairs of his duchy, to the castle of Pavia, where he lay and
languished under the eyes of his wife Isabella, daughter of King
Ferdinand of Naples.
As to Ludovico, he was an ambitious man, full of courage and
astuteness, familiar with the sword and with poison, which he used
alternately, according to the occasion, without feeling any
repugnance or any predilection for either of them; but quite decided
to be his nephew's heir whether he died or lived.
Florence, although she had preserved the name of a republic, had
little by little lost all her liberties, and belonged in fact, if not
by right, to Piero dei Medici, to whom she had been bequeathed as a
paternal legacy by Lorenzo, as we have seen, at the risk of his
soul's salvation.
The son, unfortunately, was far from having the genius of his father:
he was handsome, it is true, whereas Lorenzo, on the contrary, was
remarkably ugly; he had an agreeable, musical voice, whereas Lorenzo
had always spoken through his nose; he was instructed in Latin and
Greek, his conversation was pleasant and easy, and he improvised
verses almost as well as the so-called Magnificent; but he was both
ignorant of political affairs and haughtily insolent in his behaviour
to those who had made them their study. Added to this, he was an
ardent lover of pleasure, passionately addicted to women, incessantly
occupied with bodily exercises that should make him shine in their
eyes, above all with tennis, a game at which he very highly excelled:
he promised himself that, when the period of mourning was fast, he
would occupy the attention not only of Florence but of the whole of
Italy, by the splendour of his courts and the renown of his fetes.
Piero dei Medici had at any rate formed this plan; but Heaven decreed
otherwise.
As to the most serene republic of Venice, whose doge was Agostino
Barbarigo, she had attained, at the time we have reached, to her
highest degree of power and splendour. From Cadiz to the Palus
Maeotis, there was no port that was not open to her thousand ships;
she possessed in Italy, beyond the coastline of the canals and the
ancient duchy of Venice, the provinces of Bergamo, Brescia, Crema,
Verona, Vicenza, and Padua; she owned the marches of Treviso, which
comprehend the districts of Feltre, Belluno, Cadore, Polesella of
Rovigo, and the principality of Ravenna; she also owned the Friuli,
except Aquileia; Istria, except Trieste; she owned, on the east side
of the Gulf, Zara, Spalatra, and the shore of Albania; in the Ionian
Sea, the islands of Zante and Corfu; in Greece, Lepanto and Patras;
in the Morea, Morone, Corone, Neapolis, and Argos; lastly, in the
Archipelago, besides several little towns and stations on the coast,
she owned Candia and the kingdom of Cyprus.
Thus from the mouth of the Po to the eastern extremity of the
Mediterranean, the most serene republic was mistress of the whole
coastline, and Italy and Greece seemed to be mere suburbs of Venice.
In the intervals of space left free between Naples, Milan, Florence,
and Venice, petty tyrants had arisen who exercised an absolute
sovereignty over their territories: thus the Colonnas were at Ostia
and at Nettuna, the Montefeltri at Urbino, the Manfredi at Faenza,
the Bentivogli at Bologna, the Malatesta family at Rimini, the
Vitelli at Citta di Castello, the Baglioni at Perugia, the Orsini at
Vicovaro, and the princes of Este at Ferrara.
Finally, in the centre of this immense circle, composed of great
Powers, of secondary States, and of little tyrannies, Rome was set on
high, the most exalted, yet the weakest of all, without influence,
without lands, without an army, without gold. It was the concern of
the new pope to secure all this: let us see, therefore, what manner
of man was this Alexander VI, for undertaking and accomplishing such
a project.
