GIUSTINIA NI'S DESPATCHES.* (SECOND NOTICE.] IMPORTANT as are the notices
in Giustiniani's despatches for our better knowledge of the political transactions in that period of troubled events, when Italy was being torn on the rack between France, Spain, and the fiendish machinations of Caesar Borgia, the most interesting passages in the volumes for the general reader will be those containing incidental illustrations of the customs and practices habitual in the Court of Alexander VI., and of the circumstances which attended the close of his life. It must be borne in mind that Giustiniani came to Rome only in the last year of Alexander's reign, when age had chilled the boisterousness of his nature, and tempered the scandals of his more youthful indulgences by less glaring displays of im- proprieties. Still, there occur in these letters casual statements which are all the more weighty from the evident absence of studied intention on the part of the writer to make insinuations- In the Borgia pedigree there is a Giovanni, of uncertain parent- age, who, as a mere child, became invested by the Pope with the fief of Camerino. Caesar was said to be his father, but there are statements that he was a son born to Alexander VI. as late as 1494. Burkard, when recording the distribution of the confis- cated Colonna estates, makes this dry entry :—" Partem dominii Columnensium applicavit ducatui Nepeaino et in- veativit Joannem Borgiam filium auum (quem in Pon- tificatu habuit cum quadam Romani) de ducatu Nepeaino." Our diplomatist, without specifying who the mother was, con- firms this allegation, for he repeatedly mentions this same Giovanni, and also on the occasion of this investiture, as one who, though called a son of the Duke's, is believed to be a child of the Pope's, thus testifying very pointedly in support of the view held by Gregorovius, that he was a son of Alexander, by Giulia Farnese. On this occasion, Alexander proceeded himself to Camerino, and this is the mention made by the Ambassador of his doings there, in passing explanation of the Pope's rather pro- tracted stay. "It is the opinion that the fine weather induces. him to continue his holiday where he is, according to what is here publicly reported, not without his customary diversion, for every day he makes girls dance before him, and has other entertainments in which young women always take part." There was, however, another and darker side to the transactions inseparably associated with the Borgia genius,—the side deriving its complexion from the element of poison. It is appalling, in these reports, how often and with what nakedness, as if he referred to it as as natural an agency of death as sickness, poison is, in plain speech, mentioned by the Ambassador as the cause of demise. It may be that there was error in attributing particular cases to the effects of poison, but the fact that its application should have come to be so generally accredited is of itself a fearful testimony to the prevalence of crime. Amongst Alexander's most confidential agents was Cardinal Ferrari, hated by those of the opposite faction, and possessed of vast wealth. Unexpectedly he is taken ill and dies, and these are notices sent by Giustiniani during the course of sickness :—
"The Cardinal is lying ill, with slight hope of recovery. There is ground for apprehending poison." "To-day he is a little better . . . . still, in the opinion of the physicians, in great danger Were God to listen to the universal prayers of all here, he would never leave his bed except to be carried to his tomb." "Our lord has been to visit him, and has ordered that the funeral be honoured with full Cardin- * Dispacei di Antonio Giustiniani, Ambascialore Trend° in Roma, dal PPM al 1505 Per la prime volts publicist', da Pasquale Watt t', voL Firenze: Lemonnier. 38711.. (*titian ' Obremonial. He would not depart, however, without having commanded an inventory of everything in the house, and he is much occupied with the benefit he expects from the Cardinal's death, who is believed to have a good amount of cash. . . . The longing for the im- 'Mediate gain makes him put up easily with the future loss of the *Ordinal, though he Is a most apt instrument for the obtainment of _moneys." "This morning emisit spiritum, to the delight of the whole
Court, and happy he who just now has nothing worse to say As soon as ever he was dead, there was a meeting in the Consistory,
and his preferments were disposed of The biggest share is Sebastian Pinzon's, of Cremona, his secretary ; and he is the one who was the Cardinal's delight, and it is the public saying that he has them in pretium sanguinis, it being firmly held, from many manifest symp- toms, the Cardinal died ex veneno, and that this Sebastian was the
executioner. . . . . Of the money found I believe the truth is, it amounts to 14,000 ducats, besides the furniture, which amounts to much, all which is gone into the Pope's hands."
While Caesar was pursuing his operations against the great Orsini Barons in the field, the Cardinal of that name was bold enough to stay in Rome. At last, it was deemed advis- able to cage him. " This morning," writes Giustiniani, " Car- dinal Orsini went to the Palace, being called in great haste
by the Pope As soon as he was inside, the gates were closed, and he was arrested, along with the Archbishop of Florence and Giacomo di Sante Croce." Next day, he writes, " As to what is to happen to the prisoners there is some difference of opinion, but pro majore parte it is believed that they will be put to death." Then comes this notice, " This night the Cardinal's house has been completely emptied, and everything, down to the straw, carried into the Vatican." Finally, we read that the Cardinal had unexpectedly died in his prison, and that the day after his burial, " the Pope called together the physicians who had care of the Cardinal, to certify that his death was natural, and not from violence or poison." Is this not strikingly like the inquest held on the late Sultan's body ? An even more characteristic incident is described in connection with the death of Cardinal Michiel. Early one morning, the nephew of this prelate (who was also a Venetian) came in tears to Giustiniani with the tidings that all of a sudden his uncle had died in the night, after a violent attack of vomiting. The Envoy subsequently gives it as his opinion that he was poisoned, adding that evident reasons for suspicion presented themselves. In immediate continuation, he then proceeds to narrate the Pope's doings :—" As soon as ever he heard the event, he despatched the governor to the house, and before daybreak it was completely rifled. The death of this Cardinal gives him upwards of 150,000 ducats. . . . . . In current coin, 50,000 to 60,000 ducats have been found, as I have been told by Messer Francesco Candi, his secretary." As the Cardinal held some preferments in the Venetian States, the Ambassador had cause to go to the Vatican :—" I found the gates closed, and our lord engaged in counting moneys." Two days later, Giustiniani had a curious interview with the Pope :— " The Pope summoned me into his room this morning, before he went to chapel, and with the view of making me think (as if I was likely to believe it from him) that he had had no more money from the late flardinal Michiel, he led me into a chamber, where the money was counted, which was not more than 23,882 ducats. 'Look you here, Ambassador,' said he, ' the whole place is full of it that we have 80,000 to 100;000 ducats from the Cardinal, and tamen all we have found is this;' and then he demanded the testimony of those present, as if it would have been for those people a matter of consequence to have had to serve him with a lie."
In this instance, the suspicion as to poison was no passing idea. Under Julius II., we have record that a certain Asquino de Colloredo was taken up as the Cardinal's poisoner, and on the flight from Rome, some days after the arrest, of the Cardinals of Sorrento and Borgia, Giustiniani men- tions that it was ascribed to the fact " that they had been privy to the murder of the late Cardinal di Sant' Angelo." Caesar's great fratricidal crime was before Giustiniani's mis- sion, but in an incidental allusion, under date May 80, 1504, the Ambassador unmistakably expresses himself as holding Caesar to have been, beyond the shadow of doubt, his brother's murderer. From these deeds of darkness let us turn to the closing scene of Alexander's life, which has been so largely attributed to poison. Even Gregorovius, after balancing the evidence, inclines to consider the intervention of poison as the more probable. Undoubtedly the scene of the plotted death- feast, and of the accidental exchange of the drugged cup, to the destruction of the would-be assassins, in lieu of their prey, is sin- gularly melodramatic. Sober criticism should, however, recognise that serious evidence is all against the story, and that evidence becomes decidedly strengthened by what is recorded in the daily —yea, the hourly—reports sent by Giustiniani with every de- tail, as to the Pope's seizure and illness. In the first place, it is established beyond question that at the time of Alexander's death Rome was under the visitation of an almost pestilential epidemic. The feverswhich in the' summer season are always prevalent raged that year with fatal intensity. So serious were the sanitary condi- tions, that many allusions occur in Giustiniani's and other despatches.
On August 7, the Pope accosted Giustiniani Domino Orator, these many sick now in Rome, and who die every day, cause us so much dread, that we are disposed to take somewhat more care of our person than we have been used." Six days later, the Envoy wrote that the Pope the day before had been taken ill with violent vomitings, and that his son Caesar was also in bed with fever, adding, " The cause of illness with each seems to have been that just eight days ago they went to sup in Cardinal Adrian's vineyard, and stopped till into the night, on which occa- sion others also were present, all of whom have felt the con- sequences; the first being the Cardinal himself, who in the afternoon of Friday got a tremendous fit of fever." These words, in our opinion, wholly demolish the story about poison. Notoriously, in August to be sitting out at nightfall in a garden is the most dan- gerous thing that can be donein Rome. Moreover, here we see that instead of sudden seizure immediately after supper, according to the popular version, the Pope and Caesar were taken ill after the ordinary period for incubation of the fever miasma. Nor does there occur in the Ambassador's reports, from first to last, a single expression indicative of the slightest suspicion on his part that there was at work that criminal agency the presence of -which, on other occasions, he was so ready to consider probable. The course of the attack was similarly in harmony with what is usual in acute Roman fevers. The Pope did not succumb till the seventh day ; nor were there any subsequent symptoms on the corpse which would justify the assertion of foul play. It is true that Alexander was buried with a haste that, to say the least, seems indecorous. The very day after demise the body "was carried at noon de more into St. Peter's, to be shown to the people; gamma, as it was the most hideous, monstrous, horrible corpse ever seen, without the shape or figure of a human body, for very shame they covered it, and then before sunset buried it, adstantibus duobus diaconis cardinalibus of his house- hold." That the corpse rapidly passed into offensive decomposi- tion is attested by many witnesses, but this is not unusual in that climate, especially at that season, and there is no indication of the promptness with which the body was buried having been considered due to a desire to hide away the evidence of a crime. Still that veteran master of historical criticism, Professor Ranke, in his latest edition, has not hesitated to declare that he cannot reject as mythical the story of the intended poisoning of Cardinal Adrian, and of Alexander's death through his having himself drunk the beverage meant for the other. In coming to this conclusion, he admits that the entries in Burckard's Diary regarding the Pope's illness do not harmonise with it, as he also recognises that in the popular accounts—for instance, the one given by Giucciardini—there are manifest inaccuracies. It is, therefore, a very important piece of evidence in this inquiry to find that there is complete accordance between the statements made by both Burckard and Giustiniani regarding the date when the Pope fell sick, and the duration of his illness. It appears to us incredible that Professor Ranke should still abide by his opinion, in the face of this very forcible concurrence of independent testimonies.
Here we must take leave of our Venetian diplomatist. Ms despatches contain much else which will prove of high interest to the student of Italian history. His detailed reports during two Conclaves, and the opening years of Julius II.'s reign, abound in valuable matter. The detail of narrative and precision in regard to dates, must render these volumes most precious guides in fix- ing the events of a singularly intricate period. We will only add that Professor Villari has done his editorial work with the excel- lence that is natural to so consummate a master of Italian history, and we can but look with increased eagerness to the completion of the work he has been understood to have in hand, and to his studies for which the present publication is due.
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