Blood & Beauty The Borgias

Chapter 7



‘All I am saying, Father, is that we could do better with this union. This Sforza bridegroom is a puppet of Milan. The city of Pesaro is hardly worth the cannonballs we would use on its walls. Why waste a good marriage to get us in there?’

‘I must say it is a pleasure to have you home, Cesare.’ Alexander leans his head back against the gilded wooden frame of the papal throne where he has settled himself, and where, after only a few days, he feels most comfortable when in the presence of his eldest son. ‘I don’t know how the government of Christendom has managed to limp on without you. Since you excelled in logic as well as in rhetoric, perhaps you can answer the question yourself.’

Cesare’s new archbishop’s robes sweep the flagstone floor as he paces the room. The echoing state chambers of the Vatican are new to him and, though he would never admit it, along with the thrill of the inner sanctum there is also a certain jangling of nerves. The sarcasm in his father’s voice is not unnoticed. While Cesare has been waiting in Spoleto, he knows that Juan has been the intimate son; he needs to prove his worth quickly.

‘Because we owe the Sforzas for your election and because we need them as allies to give us muscle against the Roman families,’ he says, making it a statement rather than a question. ‘Yet we must balance Milan against Naples. And if we appoint enough of our own cardinals to the Sacred College, surely we can control the families that way.’

‘Excellent! Your professors should have awarded you your laude even earlier.’ No trace of sarcasm now. ‘Certainly the College of Cardinals will help, yes. Though not on its own. And there is the question of timing. Too many of our own men elevated too soon and our enemies will howl corruption. It’s already started. “Ten papacies would not satisfy this horde of relatives.” Ah! What exaggeration!’

‘Who dares to say that?’

‘The ambassador of Ferrara, no less! In a private letter home to the Duke d’Este.’

Alexander beams. There is nothing he enjoys more than poking around in other people’s intelligence services. No man gets to where he is today without having a better spy network than any who oppose him. ‘Still, the man has a point. You should be in my receiving-room some mornings: Spaniards coming out like frogs in the rain, each and every one claiming he is married to the daughter of a cousin of some aunt I never knew. Valencia must be half empty by now.’ He chuckles at the thought. ‘Well, we will nose out the best and let the others fall. As for Ferrara – the duke will be licking our hands in gratitude as soon as he gets a cardinal’s hat for his son’s head.’

‘We can buy half of them off the same way, Father. The rest were always going to complain. But the fact is, it is done.’ Cesare waves his hand around the room. ‘We are here and they can’t take it away from us. And when it comes to Lucrezia’s marriage—’

‘When it comes to Lucrezia’s marriage no man would be good enough for you, Cesare. And we will discuss this further when you are seated somewhere. I am suffering old man’s dizziness watching you cavort around the chamber as if it was a dance floor.’

‘I thought it was forbidden to sit in the Pope’s presence without permission,’ he shoots back mischievously.

‘So it is. But you have a way of seeming as tall as your pope, even when he is higher off the ground. So – sit,’ he says, making it sound like a command to a dog.

Cesare throws himself into a wooden chair, its intricately carved arms and slatted seat too delicate for this athletic young body. The Holy Father’s furniture, it seems, was designed with frailer clerics in mind.

‘So. Tell me what you have against the Sforzas.’

The questions are getting easier. ‘We have paid our dues to them already. Six chests of silver and a vice-chancellorship was a generous price, given that Ascanio Sforza could never have won the election anyway.’

‘True. But it is not Ascanio we are keeping sweet. It is his brother in Milan.’

‘He won’t thank us for it. Ludovico Sforza is a thug, Father.’

‘Absolutely,’ the Pope laughs. ‘It is a compliment that has been paid to me many times. A thug, yes, but an impressive one. Any man willing to seize power from his own nephew is a dog with a rabid bite.’

‘All the more reason to keep him at arm’s length.’ Cesare pauses, affecting a certain nonchalance. ‘Is it true what they say about France?’

‘What do they say?’ Alexander says sharply.

‘That Ludovico Sforza will invite the French King to forward his claim on the throne of Naples?’

‘Ah! Rancid gossip. He would be a fool to let it happen. A foreign army would unleash Milan’s destruction alongside the rest of Italy’s. Where do you hear that?’

And now it is Cesare’s turn to smile. ‘You were the one who taught me how to lay a table, remember, Father?’

It is true enough. Like the best aspiring politicians, Cesare Borgia had learned many of his skills at his father’s knee. They had always been the best of visits: those evenings when, after dinner, Rodrigo would dismiss the women and servants and call him and Juan to sit up around the table where he would then rearrange the chaos of the leftovers to set up a map of his beloved Italy across the great wooden surface. ‘See – this land is four times as long as it is wide. And each part has different textures.’ Fish skeletons for Venice at the top right, chicken and steak bones for Milan and Naples at either end, with a smattering of leftover soft fruits for Florence, Siena and the smaller states. And across the centre a sprawling set of interlocking spoons to show the land that belonged to the papacy, with Rome itself marked by a knife. Juan always went for the knife and took out the soft fruit. But its edge was not so sharp that it could cut through the bones. Cesare, in contrast, spent as much time looking and thinking as acting. To this day, for him chess is a poor substitute for the power play of the dinner table and in his mind the great boot-shaped land that makes up Italy has tougher leather at the top and the bottom than the middle.

‘I still think Ludovico Sforza might do it,’ he says carefully. ‘He is turned inside-out with ambition.’

‘What are you saying, Cesare? That we should cultivate Naples and King Ferrante instead? A man who likes to hang his captives in cages around his court so he can watch them die slowly?’

‘Oh, you don’t care about such things, Father. You are just displeased with him because Naples supported the sale of Pope Innocent’s castles.’

‘Yes, you could say I am “displeased”,’ Alexander growls, though his pleasure at his son’s acuity is obvious. For months he has had advisers coming out of every fold of his papal garments, but few of them cut to the marrow like Cesare. Well, he had sent him to Pisa to get his mind sharpened. He cannot complain if now he uses it to draw blood.

‘Those castles were fiefdoms that belonged to the Church, not for selling on for profit by his poxy son. And certainly not into the hands of the Orsini. The devil take them. It is a crime against the papacy. Look at the routes in and out of Rome that the Orsini family control now.’

‘The map is in my head, Father. You forget, I came in riding those very roads.’

He had slipped out of Spoleto ten days before, incognito, with only Michelotto for company, the route back into the city chosen deliberately so that he could study the placing of these Orsini castles.

Once inside the main gates, he had gone first to Vannozza’s house. Mother and son had not seen each other for almost two years and her delight at this fiercely handsome son of hers was infectious. She had plied him with her latest wines (after the children had been taken from her she had turned to nurturing vines) and fussed over him in a way he would allow no other woman ever to do. Even Michelotto had relaxed that night.

Next day, as they made their way to the Vatican, anonymity allowed him to see Rome through sharper eyes. The gaudy coronation arches – revealed now as painted wood – had long since flaked and cracked and the streets were as filthy as ever. On the way to the river they passed the remains of the Colosseum and the Forum, under grey winter skies, their appearance more ragged than he remembers. No doubt a few more ancient treasures had been dug out of the ground since he left; the fashion for new learning has sparked a rising market for old Rome, though Cesare himself has little time for such artistic snobbery.

At the western edge of the Forum gangs of men were hauling fallen masonry on to carts. What isn’t worth saving is ripe for reuse. Except that, thanks to his father’s new decree, every stone dug up and used for building will now yield a separate tithe to the Church: a pope who has been a vice-chancellor half his life still has a few new revenue tricks up his sleeve. No – there is not a lot going on in Rome that Cesare has missed in his months of exile. Except perhaps the chance to show his father how much he knows.

‘But it wasn’t only Naples who defied you over those castles, Father. You said in your letters that della Rovere negotiated the deal.’

‘Negotiated it and witnessed the signatures on the contracts in his own house, the Judas prick.’ Alexander snarls. ‘Still, since our enemy’s aim is to make us angry…’ he takes a long theatrical breath, ‘we will be sanguine instead. To hold the balance, we will bind Milan fast with the thread of Lucrezia’s marriage and Naples a little looser with another alliance. I thank the Blessed Virgin that I have been gifted with not one but three fine children ready for wedlock.’

‘Take me out of the Church and you can have a fourth.’ The words spill out so fast that it seems Cesare might not have given them permission.

‘This is an old conversation, my son,’ Alexander counters carefully. ‘You know it cannot be done. We need a Borgia in the Church.’

Juan. The name hangs, unspoken, in the air. God damn it, the worse his brother behaves, it seems, the more his father’s favourite he becomes. Well, there is no point in revisiting it now. ‘So let it be Jofré instead.’

‘Ah! Your brother still sleeps with his thumb in his mouth.’

‘Yet you say you are ready to marry him off.’

The doubt slides in again, but Alexander pushes it away. ‘The betrothal will last for years. And the organ he needs for that job will mature faster than his mind. Enough now. You are like a dog that will not let go of the bone on this. It is already decided. Lucrezia will marry Giovanni Sforza who, while he may be a puppet, will become our puppet, and bring with him the city of Pesaro and, if we handle him right, an insight into whatever Milan does before she does it. And then, after we have clawed back some recompense for the castles, Jofré will take a wife from Naples.’

‘And Juan?’

‘Ah! There are also talks in hand with Juan. I will discuss them with you both when he comes. First, I want you to see the new apartments.’

‘What talks? Is it Spain, Father? Will he marry into Spain?’

‘I said enough, Cesare!’ And now his tone says it too. Cesare bows his obedience. He has pushed too hard too quickly and he knows it. He offers a hand to help his father down the steps from the great chair, but it is brushed away impatiently.

‘I am not so old I need your help yet. Come. I have things to show you. I know painting is of little interest to you, but a modern pope must impress with art as well as politics or we will be damned as philistines as well as foreigners. You will use some charm in place of muscle now, please.’

It is true that Cesare, like his father, is not much moved by art. For him the greatest excitement in Rome now is the work being done on Castel Sant’ Angelo, the great fortress on the river with an imperial mausoleum deep in its bowels where the architect and engineer Giuliano da Sangallo is carving out new rooms, reinforcing the outer fortifications and repairing the upper-storey walkway between the castle and the Vatican palace.

Cesare has a lot of time for men like da Sangallo. He identifies with the way they look at the world: seeing what could be, rather than what is. The way they build first in their minds, higher, stronger, greater, the power in the challenge as much as the achievement. Like the best generals, the vision is theirs alone. Yet they too need an army of muscle to make it happen. One of the things that he holds against Ludovico Sforza is how he squanders the talents of such warrior artists. Even now he has a man at court in Milan who claims to be able to build bridges indestructible to any army, yet what does Sforza have him doing, this da Vinci, but making clay models for a giant bronze horse commissioned to bolster the family’s monstrous pride? The wasted energy of vanity. When he, Cesare Borgia, rides out of Rome at the head of an army (and he knows, as only a young man can, that it will happen), he will have such an engineer at his side, so that for every castle or fortress that confronts him, there will be a mind cleverer than his own working on its destruction.

Father and son make their way through the downstairs salon and along the corridors of the old Vatican palace. Alexander’s considerable bulk does not prevent them from walking faster than most around them. Those they encounter stop and bow low as he passes, though their heads snap up fast enough to catch a glimpse of Cesare. His arrival has been long anticipated and he does not disappoint: this handsome young man in full ecclesiastical robes, hair still as thick and long as that of Our Lord – a reminder that though he has a clutch of benefices to his name he has yet to take final holy orders. When he gets to his new home in Trastevere, he will find a dozen invitations to dine at the houses of lovely if disreputable women. Why not? With his elevation to archbishop he is worth over sixteen thousand ducats a year, and as long as the Holy Mother Church demands celibacy, but does not impose chastity, the entrepreneurial spirit will always rise to fill the gap.

The apartments which Alexander has taken for himself are made up of a string of first-floor chambers at the corner of the existing palace, alongside a blunt, workmanlike new tower, mostly built, save for its crenellated battlements. When finished there will be both intimate and public spaces. Like much of the Borgia papacy, it is an accelerated process. For now the race is on to decorate the chambers in time for whatever wedding celebrations will be held there. The ceilings are already throbbing with embossed gold, picking out the Borgia crest, but the wall frescos will take longer and Pinturicchio, the Pope’s chosen artist, is working under strain. Not a state that brings out the best in him.

‘One chamber will be dedicated to the saints.’ As Alexander and Cesare sweep in, the clutch of apprentices busy over the worktables in the middle bow clumsily, then scatter to the edges. The Pope beams at them, the slanting sunlight through the open windows catching the white-gold trim of his cap. When they are given leave to visit their families they will talk of how His Holiness brings his own halo with him. ‘The centrepiece will be the disputation of Santa Caterina at the court of Alexandria, with our own Lucrezia as Caterina herself. Such a sweet saint she will make – Pinturicchio has already done the sketches. Now you are back he’ll want your likeness soon for someone or other, I am sure.

‘Meanwhile, this will be the room of the mysteries! And I will be up there. See?’ he says, his voice much louder now, as he points to covered scaffolding to the top of the generous lunette above the door, where the figure of Christ is already rising up against a bed of golden flame, cherub heads on sprouted wings dancing around him. Further down, the rest of the lunette is marked out in sinopia with the design of Christ’s tomb and figures of sleeping soldiers nearby. ‘There. To the left. See? I will be kneeling in my papal robes, bearing personal witness to the divine resurrection.’

‘Not unless you take time to sit for your portrait, you won’t.’ From behind the covered scaffolding a booming male voice calls out.

‘Ah, Pinturicchio. I wondered where you were,’ he bellows back. ‘Come, come down here. I have brought another peerlessly handsome face for your walls.’

The cloth bulges as a figure starts clambering down the ladder. They watch as he emerges: a singularly ugly, misshapen little man with a head too big for his body and a knot of bone high on his right shoulder that makes one wonder how he is able to look up to appreciate, or more importantly assess, the power of his creations.

‘I had to pay a sack of money to get him. He left a della Rovere chapel half finished on the way,’ Alexander says in a theatrical whisper. ‘That hunch comes from spending half his life down the sewers, excavating old Rome, studying the ancients’ paintings. Smells like he’s still there.’ Alexander wrinkles his nose and raises a finger to one ear. ‘Deaf as a post too. His wife screams at him. Though no one knows if that is a cause or a symptom.’

He beams at the man now standing before them. ‘How is your wife, Pinturicchio?’ he booms.

‘She never sees me,’ the man grumbles amiably, rubbing his hands on a piece of cloth. It is impossible to age him. He could be forty, he could be sixty.

‘My son, the Archbishop of Valencia.’

‘Pleasure, my lord,’ he says, though there is no sign of him feeling any. He sniffs loudly, cocking his head to one side in search of Cesare’s profile: fine nose, cheekbones sharp as slate, lips full, almost like a girl’s; square, clean chin. It’s the eyes that do it though: dark stones shining as if under water, but opaque, no hint of what is behind. A fighter? Or a judge maybe? But with an edge of cruelty. If he had the time… Well, family portraits are the burden he must bear in order to people the worlds he seeks to create.

‘You are still saying you need me to sit up there?’ Alexander points to the platform constructed halfway up.

‘If you want your image finished fast, yes. Your Holiness,’ he adds, the last two words something of an afterthought.

‘Well, we shall speak to Burchard. He will find you a suitable time.’ He smiles at Cesare. ‘See how a pope must rise towards heaven even while he is here on earth.’

There is a cough from the vicinity of the open doorway behind them.

‘Johannes. How is it that whenever I speak of you, you are always there, as if you were outside listening?’

The Pope’s Master of Ceremonies says nothing, simply slides softly across the floor. Cesare stares at him. Johannes Burchard. The only man in Rome whose face remains the same be it perfume or shit under his nose. Whose gossip was that? Cesare himself has a memory of him from years ago: a tall man like a thin bird, a heron or a cormorant, beady eyes, still, oh so still, until suddenly he starts pecking at the world around him. Now what he sees is more like a lizard, heavy-lidded and slow, the telltale folds of gizzard skin forming around his neck. Here is another one it is impossible to age correctly. Like the painter he seems shrivelled, as if neither of them had ever been young. Some men are born dry, he thinks. While others – like his father – have too much juice.

‘Your Holiness. Your Excellency, archbishop.’ Burchard is bowing so low it seems a miracle he does not fall over. ‘I bring a message from the Spanish ambassador. He is delayed with urgent dispatches from home and craves your indulgence. And… the Duke of Gandia is arrived.’

The Pope claps his hands like a delighted child. ‘Ah. Good. Show him in.’

But the Duke of Gandia, otherwise known as Juan Borgia, is already showing himself in.

Cesare has not seen his brother since before the conclave, and while he has heard rumours of eccentricity via the loyal Pedro, he is not prepared for the sight that now greets his eye.

The young man striding into the chamber is in full oriental dress. His hair is caught up in a pale silk turban so fat and high that it looks like a tiered sugar sculpture upon his head, and necessitates him walking with an exaggerated swagger to make sure he does not dislodge it. The outer garment is purple, embroidered silk, down to his knees, with billowing green trousers underneath and two curling embossed-leather slippers peeking out from underneath. At his belted waist hangs a shining curved scimitar.

Cesare throws a glance at his father, but Alexander seems to have overlooked the absurdity of his son’s costume in the pleasure at having him again in his presence.

Pinturicchio, who has taken a step back to allow the family reunion, can feel his fingers itching for paper and chalk. In his mind, the court of Alexandria is filling up beautifully with the eccentric spectators.

‘Cesare!’ The young man shouts the name like a war cry and the two of them meet and embrace, Cesare careful to tuck his body around the curve of the sword. As they draw back the fearsome warrior is revealed as a smooth-cheeked boy with a straggle of hair on his upper lip striving for the status of a moustache.

Cesare’s distaste registers as a sour pinch in his gut. He has forgotten quite how much he dislikes his younger brother. His smile, however, is fulsome. It is one of the many things he has learned from his father.

‘Look at you! Your sense of style is common gossip in Spoleto, but we have yet to hear that you had left the Holy Mother Church for the infidel faith. What? Should I raise an army against you or shall it be hand-to-hand combat?’

Juan laughs, evidently pleased at the impact he has had.

‘Combat, definitely.’ He gives a turn on the spot and pulls the scimitar from his waist in a well-practised gesture. It slices through the air, the tip coming to rest not so lightly on Cesare’s robes. ‘But be careful, brother. You are in the company of a master swordsman now.’

The edge glints in the sun. Cesare moves the tip gently to one side. Johannes stands still as a lump of wood, but in the recesses of the chamber the apprentices’ mouths are opening and shutting like hungry fish.

‘Your brother has taken a fondness for the style of Prince Djem,’ says the Pope, his voice warm with pleasure at the high spirits on show.

Juan lifts the scimitar and then, twirling it in the air, brings it to land smoothly back its sheath. It is not nothing, the skill in this display, and it speaks of time taken, if not wasted, in its perfecting. ‘Oh, yes indeed. He is a wild and fascinating man. You know, Cesare, he has fought in almost every country of the East and escaped death a thousand times.’

‘Only a thousand?’

‘Ah… you are jealous. He is a man of history already. He has killed more people than you ever will.’

‘Yes. I have heard rumours how many died laughing.’

The Pope himself laughs at this, for his bantering sons are so clever and handsome and vital. And now everyone finds it funny. Across the room the apprentices are giggling openly, Pinturicchio is grinning, even Burchard’s face has cracked painfully into an obedient smile, and it is all suddenly a charming family scene. Cesare picks up his father’s cue, hugging Juan again and slapping him on the shoulder. ‘Ah, but it is good to see you again, brother.’

‘You too. We have missed your sour face at court, haven’t we, Father?’ Juan punches him on the chest. ‘Still, I think you would not mock Djem to his face. He is a tiger of a man. When I walk out with him in the city people get out of our way.’

Cesare holds his smile as he glances again at his father. ‘You walk the streets like this?’

‘Oh, your brother exaggerates as always. The two of them have been in procession during certain ceremonies. They cause quite a stir. But come. No more on infidels and tigers. If we don’t let Pinturicchio get on with his work there will be nothing to dazzle your sister’s wedding guests. And Burchard? Perhaps you would join us to discuss the protocol of all these celebrations. Without your expertise I fear we will make all manner of mistakes.’

Over his brother’s head, Cesare watches Burchard’s face. The smile has gone as fast as it arrived. There is a rumour around the Vatican that he keeps a secret diary into which he writes every detail pertaining to matters of papal ceremony. The orchestration of the marriage of a pope’s daughter, attended by his teenage mistress, three sons, a clutch of cardinals and half of Italy’s great families, will be a challenge even for him. You should be grateful to us, he thinks. There have been none like us before. And there will be none afterwards. Be careful what you write.