Lucrezia Borgia: Life, Love and Death in Renaissance Italy (41 page)

By this time relations between Francesco and Isabella were tense and contentious. For some years, more or less from the time that Lucrezia and Francesco had begun their relationship, the marriage had lacked affection. The letters between the couple evinced a ‘restrained formality’ and were mostly narrowly concerned with domestic matters.
¹⁷
On 1 October 1506 Francesco, in a letter to a friend who was about to marry, complained discouragingly that his own marriage seemed to have lasted twenty-five rather than seventeen years,
¹⁸
while, a few days after he wrote this, in a letter to him of 5 October Isabella complained pathetically that ‘he had loved her little for some time past’. By now, on almost every subject, however petty, Lucrezia and Francesco, abetted by Lorenzo Strozzi, lined up against Isabella, who was supported by Alfonso and Ippolito.The first row developed from Isabella’s visit to Ferrara when she persuaded her brothers that Lucrezia should take into her service a girl whom Francesco (probably from unworthy motives) wanted to remain in Mantua. At the behest of the three Este, Lucrezia was made to write to Mantua sending for the girl. She could not oppose Alfonso’s wishes, however much she would have liked to please Francesco, as she wrote in an apologetic note, joking that the girl represented a pledge which would bring Francesco to Ferrara: ‘Seriously my Lord, I could not have done more to serve you than I have done, but it has never been possible, for reasons which Count Lorenzo will write to you . . .’
¹⁹
Strozzi backed her up, saying that Alfonso and Ippolito had insisted she take the girl and made her send the horseman to Isabella for this purpose ‘which on no account whatsoever Her Ladyship wished to do . . .’ Indeed, in order to avoid having to write the letter, Lucrezia had had recourse to the convent of Corpus Domini for four days, but to no avail.

The second
casus belli
was the tempestuous widow Barbara Torelli, who had been in Venice and whom Isabella had taken under her wing. When Lorenzo Strozzi had asked her help to reconcile him with Galeazzo Sforza so that they could unite against Barbara over their wives’ dowries, Isabella had rudely refused him. Now Torelli wished to return to Ferrara, her family home, to which Strozzi was strenuously opposed. Both he and Lucrezia believed that Isabella had supported the move and ‘to such effect that she had persuaded the Duke and the Cardinal to protect and comfort her’. Gonzaga had apparently sided with Strozzi over this but the combined weight of the three Este had prevented Lucrezia from interfering. ‘The Lady Duchess would do more for you than for anyone in the world,’ Strozzi wrote, ‘but in this case she has had to lay down her arms . . .’
²⁰

14. The Years of War, 1509 – 12

‘The love, faith and trust she [Lucrezia] has in Your Lordship is of such an order that she has more hope in Your Lordship than in any other person in the world, and with all her heart she begs you not to abandon her in these times . . . [she] said to me: “Lorenzo, if it were not for the hope that I have in the Lord Marchese that in my every need he will aid and protect me, I would die of grief . . .”’

– Lorenzo Strozzi to Francesco Gonzaga, nominally leader of the papal forces against Ferrara, expressing Lucrezia’s real feelings at a time of extreme danger and stress, 21 August 1510

Over the next three years Lucrezia was
de facto
ruler of Ferrara, as her city and state faced the threat of the Italian wars in general and the hostile ambitions of Pope Julius II in particular. With Alfonso almost continuously away fighting and with enemies on every side, she showed the administrative abilities and awareness of military affairs which her Borgia upbringing had taught her. She was also the head of a court and the mother of the heir with responsibility for his education and safety. As an added complication, for much of the time Alfonso and Francesco Gonzaga were fighting on opposing sides with Gonzaga heading the Pope’s campaign against Ferrara; it took all Lucrezia’s skills to keep him secretly on side.

On 10 December 1508 the treaty known as the League of Cambrai was signed. As with most such treaties, the public agreements were like the tip of the iceberg of proliferating understandings with numerous powers, including both Alfonso d’Este and Francesco Gonzaga. Ostensibly Cambrai was a treaty of peace between Louis XII of France and the Emperor, or ‘Emperor Elect’, Maximilian, impoverished and impotent but still the feudal lord of many Italian cities. This agreement established Milan as a hereditary fief of the French King and was ostensibly directed towards a crusade against the Turks, often mooted but never executed. In reality it was directed against the overweening power of Venice on the Italian mainland. The power vacuum created by the crumbling of Cesare’s dukedom of the Romagna had been filled by Venice, arrogant, opportunist and full of an unwarranted belief in its irreversible good fortune.

Haughty and greedy, the Venetians had offended everyone, bringing together an unprecedented coalition of major and minor powers against them. A second and secret treaty, to which the Pope and the King of Spain might be parties if they chose, was drawn up, binding the contracting powers to oblige Venice to restore all the cities of the Romagna to the Pope; the Apulian coast to the King of Spain; Roveredo, Verona, Padua, Vicenza, Treviso and Friuli to the emperor; Brescia, Bergamo, Crema, Cremona, Ghiara d’Adda and all the former fiefs of Milan to the King of France. The King of Hungary, should he join, was to get back all his former possessions in Dalmatia and Croatia, the Duke of Savoy to recover Cyprus while Ferrara and Mantua would be rewarded with all the lands taken from them by the Venetians. In essence it represented the dismemberment of the Venetian empire on the Italian mainland.

Alfonso had attempted to make an approach to Venice and been rebuffed, lashed by the tail of the Lion of St Mark for his temerity in scouting their dominions without permission. He had placated the Pope by acting against the attempt by the Bentivoglio to regain Bologna and he had renewed the family policy of close relations with France. On 20 April 1509 – to the disgust of Francesco Gonzaga – he was appointed Gonfalonier of the Church by the Pope,Venice was placed under interdict and the war began. On 14 May in the decisive battle of Agnadello the huge Venetian army of 50,000 mercenaries was defeated by French and papal troops. Although perhaps not fully realized in Venice at the time, it was the end of Venice’s pretensions to power in Italy. Machiavelli condemned the Venetians for ‘arrogance in prosperity and cowardice in adversity’. ‘They imagined,’ he wrote:

that they owed their prosperity to qualities which, in fact, they did not possess, and were so puffed up that they treated the King of France as a son, underrated the power of the Church, thought the whole of Italy too small a field for their ambition, and aimed at creating a worldwide empire like that of Rome. Then when fortune turned her back on them, and they were beaten by the French . . . they not only lost the greater part of their territory by the defection of their people, but, of their own accord, out of sheer cowardice and faint-heartedness, they gave back most of their conquests to the Pope and the King of Spain . . .
¹

War was the making of Alfonso: he showed courage, tenacity and political agility in the defence of his state, ably assisted by Ippolito, the warrior cardinal. Firstly, he removed the hated symbol of Venetian domination, the
visdomino
, a thorn in Ferrara’s side since the last Venetian war. He politely withdrew his ambassador from Venice, upon which the Venetians confiscated his palace. More importantly for the economy of Ferrara, he recovered lands the Venetians had seized from Ferrara, including Este, from which his family had taken its name, and he restored the salt pans at Comacchio, abandoned since the Venetian prohibition of the making of salt there, and increased the tolls on goods passing through the Ferrarese from Bologna and the Romagna. The Venetians, enraged at his presumption, sent a fleet against him up the Po in December that year which Alfonso humiliatingly defeated. Alfonso’s strength and defiance rested on his close alliance with Louis (not, however, the most dependable of allies), which Julius greatly resented. Increasingly the Pope’s anger, xenophobia and aggression focused on the Duke of Ferrara.

The fortunes of war had not favoured Francesco Gonzaga and on 9 August 1509 the Venetians captured and imprisoned their former Captain General. While Lucrezia was distraught, the Este could not have cared less, particularly Isabella who felt free to give rein to her talent for government and political intrigue, untrammelled by the presence of her increasingly hostile husband and his clique. The Pope later alleged that Alfonso and Ippolito had schemed to keep him captive. According to Gonzaga’s later testimony, only Lucrezia (whose letters to him of this period have all disappeared) wrote to him and was concerned about his fate while he was in his Venetian prison.

In the absence of their husbands, Lucrezia and Isabella exchanged war news. Little Ercole was very ill at the beginning of June and his doctor, Francesco Castello, was extremely concerned for him, while his anxious father sent twice daily for news. Lucrezia was pregnant again and indulging in another round of redecoration and reconstruction, this time of the set of rooms which had formerly been occupied by Isabella.

Throughout May, Lucrezia wrote frequently to Alfonso on military matters, sending him the latest news and asking his opinion on various matters. These were dangerous times of frequent troop movements; on one day alone she wrote to him three times, once to report that a force of some 1,500 troops was nearing Ferrara and had sent to ask her for free passage, allegedly to go and fight for the King of France; secondly, to report on the capture of Venetian infantry by the
podestà
of Porto, and the last asking his advice as to whether she should restore their arms to a body of troops to whom she had given free passage on the grounds that they disarmed. On May 31 she had letters from the
podestà
of Codigoro reporting on the presence of armed Venetian ships which they had followed for eight miles. They wanted artillery from Alfonso but Lucrezia advised that they should think only of their own defence and not begin skirmishes which could result in the Venetians reinforcing their fleet in greater numbers. Later that day, the news came to Ferrara of victory for Alfonso, who had recovered his former possession of the Polesine di Rovigo from Venice; Lucrezia wrote an enthusiastic letter of congratulations. The ambassadors of France and the Empire had arrived in Ferrara; she had arranged an honourable reception for them and had given them audience. Would Alfonso please let her know whether he would come to Ferrara to meet them or whether they should go to him because they were most anxious to talk to him. On 1 June she acknowledged Alfonso’s letter saying the ambassadors should go to meet him at La Abbatia where he was about to besiege two towers; in wifely fashion she was sending ‘a little tapestry and silver to entertain them’. On 4 June she had received news from the Governor of Ravenna, brother of Julius’s legate at Bologna, complaining that the men of Codigoro had attacked his men and taken their goods. She had immediately written to order their restitution and had also tactfully smoothed things over in a letter to the Governor, assuring him of Alfonso’s displeasure at such acts and that he intended to live on good terms with all his neighbours and especially the Pope’s officers.

On 10 June, to the sound of gunfire and trumpets, Alfonso returned triumphant; mass was sung in the piazza, watched by the couple from their separate windows. Little Ercole had recovered and was seen by di Prosperi playing in his mother’s room where Lucrezia was resting despite the turmoil in other parts of the apartment. That month a fire in the Palazzo del Corte destroyed the Sala dei Paladini and several other rooms with their curtains and hangings
(pavaglioni).
Alfonso was away again in July: the Venetians, intent on recovering the lands they had disgorged after Agnadello, retook Padua and then Este which, Lucrezia wrote to him, ‘grieves me to my heart’. She had received appeals for help from the
podestà
of Lendinara and had sent telling him not to fear; she had also sent out reinforcements to various fortresses. She was by now accustomed to dealing with such matters and, she said, she would continue to do so until he returned to Ferrara ‘which I hope can be soon: [meanwhile] in every occurrence I shall not for my part fail in every diligence and vigilance for the good and conservation of your affairs’.
²

At the end of July, di Prosperi reported that Lucrezia had engaged a wet nurse and must be approaching the end of her term. He was premature: it was a difficult pregnancy, and early in August she was still heavily pregnant and felt pains. Angela Borgia arrived to keep her company. A few weeks later, on 18 August, desperate to get out of her apartments and possibly to pray for Gonzaga, news of whose capture by the Venetians she had received the previous day, she went to Corpus Domini in a carriage which almost precipitated the birth at the convent. She returned to Isabella’s former rooms to await her delivery where, finally, on 25 August she gave birth to another son, named Ippolito in honour of his uncle, the cardinal; ‘he is white and well-formed and resembles his father’, di Prosperi reported.

That autumn Venice increased the pressure on Ferrara, and both the Este brothers were constantly in the field. At the end of November a Venetian force overwhelmed the Bastion of Lendinara; di Prosperi’s dispatches took on a note of foreboding, almost a sense of siege. The Venetians were attempting to build a bridge over the Po and there was a skirmish when the Ferrarese tried to prevent them. ‘I fear for our situation if the French and the Emperor do not divert the war from this direction,’ he wrote, asking Isabella to persuade them to help her brothers. The fear in Ferrara was such that, on Alfonso’s advice, Lucrezia had cancelled her intended journey to Modena to greet Elisabetta, now the widowed Duchess of Urbino, and her niece and daughter-in-law, Leonora Gonzaga, married to the present Duke of Urbino, Francesco Maria della Rovere, in case her departure would be misinterpreted as flight. ‘The Duke’s decision is most prudent,’ approved di Prosperi, ‘because of the terror I have seen here.’ Ariosto was sent to Rome to ask for help and encountered such a furious welcome from Julius at Ostia that he fled, fearing to be thrown into the sea. At Ferrara, Lucrezia continued with her normal administration. On her orders the Guardaroba handed over a string of huge pearls which had belonged to the Duchess Eleonora and several fine pieces of her own jewellery to be pawned to raise money. Much of her silver had already gone the same way.
³

The Venetians crossed the river by a bridge of boats, seized Comacchio and flooded through the Polesine di San Giorgio towards Ferrara. Ferrarese lives were lost, including that of the Este ally Count Lodovico Pico della Mirandola, decapitated by a cannonball, a misfortune which greatly shocked the Italians, as yet unused to artillery casualties. A large Venetian fleet lay in readiness at Polesella and a message was sent by them to Ippolito promising a good fight if he was willing, a challenge he accepted. The Venetian ships floated high on the Po, swollen by recent rains, presenting, Ippolito recognized, an easy target for the Ferrarese artillery. At dawn on 22 December he made a surprise attack, bombarding and sinking many of the ships; others were captured and only two of the galleys escaped. The Venetians were massacred by the Ferrarese as soon as they reached land and thirteen of their galleys taken back in triumph to Ferrara. On 27 December, Alfonso and Ippolito made a formal triumphal entry into Ferrara on board the biggest of their prizes, armed and with the standards of the Duke and of the Gonfalonier proudly raised, the Venetian flags pointing downwards. Trumpets, small clarinets, tabors, kettle drums played, and gunshots resounded on land and water as they landed at San Paolo where Lucrezia waited to greet them with fifty carriages of ladies. The procession with Alfonso, wearing an armoured breastplate and a tunic of rich, curled brocade, riding on a courser alongside Ippolito – for once in his cardinal’s robes – on a mule on his right hand, proceeded triumphantly and noisily to the cathedral where the
Te Deum
was sung and prayers offered to the Virgin and the two patron saints of Ferrara, San Maurelio and San Giorgio. To complete the triumph of the Este family, their holy ancestor, the blessed Beatrice da Este, was heard over several days beating on the walls of her tomb in Santo Antonio, presumably in celebration of the great victory.