Lucrezia Borgia: Life, Love and Death in Renaissance Italy (24 page)

Isabella described
La Cassina
as ‘lascivious and immoral’ although she enjoyed the sight of Alfonso and Giulio taking part in almost all the
intermezzi
. But she remained bored and distant from the festivities, as she told Francesco: ‘I am more than certain that you will have derived more pleasure from my letters than I have from these festivities because I have never been in any place with more tedium than I have here . . .’
^II
On Saturday without fail she would leave for Mantua accompanied by Elisabetta. All the ambassadors were leaving the following day, except the Roman ladies who had come with Lucrezia, because the Pope had written telling them that they should stay for the present – perhaps, she thought, so that they could be sent to France to fetch Cesare’s wife, Charlotte d’Albret. (Charlotte never arrived, but her brother, Cardinal d’Albret, did, and ‘being young’ amused himself greatly taking part in the dancing.) ‘How much this pleases my father your lordship can imagine,’ she added sarcastically. The Gonzaga secretary, Benedetto Capilupo, was deliberately malicious when he compared the style and grace with which Isabella and Elisabetta responded to the formal farewells of the Venetian ambassadors with Lucrezia’s performance: Isabella replied to the ambassadors’ speeches ‘with such great eloquence and prudence that it would have sufficed for every consummate orator’, he wrote to Francesco, but as for Lucrezia, ‘although she has had more experience of men than either your wife or your sister, she got nowhere near their prudent replies . . .’
¹²

Now that it was Lent and the festivities were over, there was little to do. Inseparable, Isabella and Elisabetta wandered the streets of Ferrara looking for amusement before going to dine with Lucrezia in the late Duchess Eleonora’s apartment in the Castello which she and Alfonso now occupied. As usual, there were complaints about her tardiness: it was the twenty-third hour and she had only just finished dressing. On 11 February, Ercole paid Lucrezia the great compliment of taking her and Isabella to see his cherished Sister Lucia: ‘She was in bed in a trance,’ Isabella reported, ‘because of the passion she had suffered the previous night and did not recognize anyone, even her relatives from Viterbo, a stupendous thing.’
¹³

A few days later Ercole, who was truly charmed by his daughter-in-law and their shared interest in nuns, went personally to fetch Lucrezia from the castle and again took her to visit Sister Lucia, with the additional treat of seeing a nun who had been brought from St Peter’s in Rome after being walled up there.
¹⁴
Whatever his daughter and her courtiers might have thought, he was pleased with his daughter-in-law, as he wrote to Alexander:

Before the most illustrious Duchess, our common daughter, arrived here, my firm intention was to caress her and honour her, as is fitting, and not to fail in anything pertaining to singular affection. Now that Her Ladyship has come here, she has so satisfied me, by the virtues and worthy qualities that I find in her, that not only am I confirmed in this good disposition, but the desire and intention to do so have greatly increased in me; and so much the more as I see your Holiness, by a brief in your own hand, lovingly suggests this to me. Let Your Holiness be of good cheer, because I shall treat the said Duchess in such a wise that your Beatitude may know that I hold her Ladyship for the dearest thing that I have in the world.
¹⁵

Lucrezia, whose ‘remote and solitary nature’ had already been remarked upon by the envoys who had accompanied her to Ferrara, kept herself to herself in her apartments in the Castello. She was aware of being watched, spied upon and judged in comparison with the Este women, not so much Isabella as her royal predecessor, the Duchess Eleonora. Ugly, clever and an excellent administrator, Eleonora had been popular and admired for her abilities and her piety. Even after death she would be the yardstick against which Lucrezia would now be measured. Accustomed as she was to the labyrinthine life of the Borgia court at Rome, where hostile outsiders spied on their every move, Lucrezia knew she had to tread warily and trust no one. Similarly, she was regarded with suspicion and hostility by many of the court who knew her and her family only too well by reputation. Di Prosperi noted that the wife of the Venetian
visdomino
and some other gentlewomen had visited her—‘but few in number, however’. ‘Madonna Leonora, Countess of La Mirandola’, had called but not been received and had returned affronted and annoyed, according to reports. Di Prosperi had, however, spoken to Lucrezia for the first time on 18 February and his impression was, he said, that she was of great goodness and prudence, far more than had been reported. And according to Madonna Theodora, a leading lady at court, she was most kind and very patient with those who served her. ‘And I believe,’ he added, ‘that she will make herself more at home the more she understands our ways.’

It was a difficult time for Lucrezia, whose household was being dismissed by Ercole and replaced by Ferrarese of his choice. Di Prosperi struggled to find out for Isabella exactly what was going on but largely in vain. He believed that they were awaiting final instructions from Alexander but it seemed that many had left and certain others were preparing to leave. Lucrezia had been visited in the
camerino dal pozzolo,
the room with the balcony, by several noble ladies but very few men, he said.
¹⁶
A week later he was able to tell her that Geronima Borgia and the beautiful Catherina had left with two women singers ‘and therefore the greater part of those Spaniards of her household’. Adriana de Mila and Angela Borgia were still there, as well as the two Neapolitan sisters and their mother.

As if to compensate for the difficulties she was experiencing, Lucrezia’s relationship with Alfonso and Ercole was serene. Alfonso took her to watch him hunting in the Barco, the huge hunting ground and lake developed by Ercole behind the castle: falcons were flown, a hare was chased down and killed by
‘pardi’
(leopards, possibly cheetahs) and a wolf by dogs, something di Prosperi concluded, probably incorrectly since Lucrezia’s father and brother were such keen huntsmen, she had never seen. On her return, Ercole himself went to the gate of the Barco and accompanied her back into the castle, while the next day he took her in a carriage to see the nuns of the Estes’ favoured convent, Corpus Domini, and again the following day to mass at San Vido. ‘His affection and honour for her with such demonstrations is a great thing,’ di Prosperi commented. Moreover Alfonso never failed to sleep with her at night and to do everything to make her happy. ‘Yesterday he had decorated the
Zardino del bagno
where she could eat and wash her hair and [his favourite] il Barone, who is always with His Lordship and eats with him at table, accompanied her to the Castle.’
¹⁷

This is a reference to the rooms and garden formerly occupied by Eleonora and later by Alfonso. Giovanni Sabadino degli Arienti, the Bolognese writer and scholar who had presented Ercole with a beautiful manuscript celebrating the marriage of Alfonso and Lucrezia, has left an enchanting description of this garden by the Castello where Lucrezia enjoyed a suite of bathrooms, with warming rooms and a necessarium furnished with marble benches on which to sit and marble steps leading down into a bath which would be lined with linen cloth for greater comfort. Bathing was a social occupation as well as a beauty treatment. Lucrezia and her ladies could spend long hours either bathing or sitting chatting in the warm room heated by a stove. Apart from the water drawn from the earth beneath the city, barrels of mud and water from spas near Padua at Abano and San Bartolommeo were brought in for health treatments. The garden itself enclosed an orchard, shrubs surrounded by box hedges, and a central pavilion surmounted by a gilded statue of Hercules, its lead roof resting on sixteen white marble columns, and a floor of inlaid coloured marble. Gilded bronze lions’ heads issued water into a marble basin surrounding the pavilion; four paths leading from it were paved in terracotta and shaded by roses growing on frames of crossed willow. Outside in the garden there were ornamental fruit trees, tall cypresses and jasmine; the walls were lined with vines growing out of borders of rosemary. There was a potager for vegetables and herbs, a flower garden planted with lilies, violas, carnations and white privet and a fishpond. Under a white marble loggia in summer tables would be placed for dining, decorated with flowers and herbs.
¹⁸
That winter, however, Lucrezia occupied rooms which had been specially redecorated for her in the Torre Marchesana of the Castello, while one of Alfonso’s rooms in the Torre San Paolo had been designed to make her feel at home with roundels containing the arms of the Pope, Cesare and the King of France; a ceiling featured the devices of Alfonso and Lucrezia on an azure ground.
¹⁹

Even in these delightful surroundings Maria Bellonci has nonetheless represented Lucrezia as resentful and rebellious over the replacement of many of her former household. This seems unlikely for it was normal practice at the time for local servants and courtiers to replace the large contingent of‘foreigners’ accompanying the bride. A core of her household, and, more importantly for her, her ladies, remained with her, including her cousin Angela Borgia, her favourite Nicola, the much-loved Catherinella negra, Elisabetta senese, and others who accompanied her from Rome. They were, according to her wardrobe accounts, still with her in 1507,
²⁰
while Zambotti lists no fewer than twelve of the women – ladies and servants – who accompanied her from Rome and remained with her in Ferrara.
²¹
Of the male members of her staff from Rome, no fewer than twenty remained with her. These included such important people as her secretary, Messer Cristoforo; her chaplain, the Bishop of Orta; Vincenzo Giordano, the master of her wardrobe; Sancho, her steward, the master of ceremonies at her table; and such officials as her
credenciero
; stable master;
il bacilliere;
her tailor and her cook, while Navarrico also remained. The men allotted to her by Ercole included two gentlemen in waiting,
compagni,
and the distinguished Jacobo Bendedei who acted as her seneschal, cooks, doctors and table officials, a financial controller, doorkeepers, pages, serving men and others.
²²
Six Ferrarese women were recruited to her household and twelve
‘donzelle’,
or damsels, aged under eighteen, who included the daughters of local aristocrats, merchants and craftsmen. The list names ‘the daughter of Ercole, goldsmith, formerly a Jew’, and La Violante also ‘formerly a Jew’. Lucrezia’s court was to be a finishing school for these girls, where they were taught embroidery, dancing, courtly skills and Christian principles. Lucrezia looked out for husbands for them, often pursuing recalcitrant fiances beyond the city limits. Her household in total comprised 120 persons, or
‘boche’.
²³

Di Prosperi, who was certainly not prejudiced in Lucrezia’s favour although he was gradually won round to her, specifically denied that she made any fuss about the changes imposed on her. Talking of the new household arrangements he told Isabella: ‘And as far as I understand, Her Ladyship speaks as modestly as it is possible to describe [concerning this] nor has she ever shown any discontent or dislike and has even said that she is pleased that some of her own people remain and as far as the rest is concerned she has always wished for no more than what should please the Duke and her husband, in a manner that she has, they say, demonstrated goodness and prudence, and that her kind way of speaking has ensured the retention of her people.’
²⁴
Subtle and intelligent as she was, Lucrezia knew perfectly how to achieve her purposes by the use of charm rather than confrontation.

Angry confrontations, however, did take place between Alexander and Ercole over the amount of Lucrezia’s annual allowance. As was her wont in difficult times, Lucrezia retreated to the convent of Corpus Domini, ostensibly for Holy Week preceding Easter, while Alfonso went to the Certosa. From Rome, Alexander showered Lucrezia with papal indulgences for her and her household, while exchanging furious letters with Ercole over her income. Di Prosperi reported that Lucrezia’s allowance would probably be established at 10,000 ducats a year to cover the expenses of clothes, subsistence and salaries for her household. Alexander demanded 12,000 ducats while Ercole, typically, started the bidding at 8,000, arguing that that had been the sum allotted to his daughter Isabella.

By the end of March there were rumours that Lucrezia was pregnant, evidenced by her poor appetite: ‘She eats almost nothing and for this reason she rarely eats in public and rarely goes out, although the members of the family and the men and women of good family visit her,’ di Prosperi reported to Isabella on 2 April. She found the antics of the clown La Fertella, who ate at her table, extremely diverting and went out on occasion to dine with the rich Rizo del Tartufo and with Ferrante d’Este, one of her favourite brothers-in-law. She also gave a dinner for Ercole at which she exhibited the splendours of her
credenza,
a dresser displaying silver, and was well enough to watch the Corpus Christi procession, which was diverted to pass by her windows, and later the traditional races for St George’s Day. She continued, however, to be unwell, and the cautious Ercole did not inform the Pope of her pregnancy until 21 April.