The Criminal History of Mankind by Colin Wilson

When the much-hated King Ferrante of Naples died in 1494, his son Alfonso came to the throne, and the pope decided to confirm his friendship by marrying his twelve-year-old son Joffre to Alfonso’s pretty illegitimate daughter Sanchia. At sixteen, Sanchia already had a reputation for promiscuity; she seemed a suitable addition to the Borgia clan. Besides, the pope liked young girls. But his bargain caused another menace to loom on the horizon. The French King Charles VIII – successor to Louis XI – felt he had a claim on Naples. In 1494, the worst happened, and Charles invaded Italy to claim his throne. It was to be the beginning of four centuries of foreign invasions and foreign domination.

For the Medicis in Florence, the invasion was disastrous. The new ruler of Florence was Lorenzo’s son Piero; but he was not half the man his father was. He had inherited the chief of his father’s troubles – a fiery monk called Savonarola, a kind of mad puritan who seethed with rage at the carnivals organised by the Medicis, and who had refused to give Lorenzo absolution on his deathbed. As the French army marched into Italy – defeating Alfonso at Rapallo -Savonarola went to meet the king at Pisa and announced that he was God’s agent who had come to restore the Church to its old virtues. As Charles drew near to Florence, Piero began to suffer convulsions of guilt and bad conscience; he had been partly responsible for the invasion by supporting Alfonso. Charles was not interested in Florence, but he was glad to accept the gold that Piero offered him, and the use of Florentine fortresses. The people of Florence were enraged at this pusillanimous conduct; they stoned Piero in the streets and chased the Medicis out of Florence. Then Florence declared itself a republic. In fact, Savonarola was its ruler. He encouraged the destruction of all ‘vanities’, including books and art treasures. The Medici palaces were attacked and priceless books, paintings and sculptures destroyed. During the carnival in 1497, a great bonfire was built in the square outside the Signoria palace, piled high with all of the usual carnival apparel – false beards and wigs, masquerade dresses – as well as books, paintings and other vanities; as the bonfire blazed, the people sang a Te Deum. But they soon grew tired of wearing sober clothes and singing hymns. Savonarola had gained his influence by telling them that the old times were the best, that the men of the past had all the virtues of decency; the Florentines were always susceptible to sentimental nostalgia. Now they had a chance to make a realistic assessment of the ‘old ways’ and their response was to have Savonarola arrested. The man who was really behind this was the pope, Rodrigo Borgia; he was growing nervous as Savonarola denounced the corruption of the Church. He ordered Savonarola to be tortured continually until he confessed something that would allow them to sentence him to death: on one single day, the monk was placed on the rack fourteen times. On the morning of 23 May 1498, Savonarola was taken to a scaffold that stood on the exact spot where the ‘bonfire of vanities’ had been held the year before and hanged with two companions; then his body was burned in front of the crowd. Rodrigo Borgia had once again silenced the opposition.

The pope himself had been humiliated by the invasion of Charles VIII. His mistress Giulia and her sister had been captured by the French, and had to be ransomed for a huge sum; fortunately their captor was a man who held high ideals of chivalry, so they were not violated. But the women of Rome were less fortunate when the French army arrived in January 1495 on its way to Naples. The pope took refuge in the Castel Sant Angelo, and the French plundered and raped for several days. The king issued orders that all looters were to be hanged, but this did not prevent them from breaking into the house of Cesare’s mother a few days later. (Cesare later managed to lay his hands on these looters – Swiss mercenaries – and tortured them horribly.) The pope was forced to sue for peace. He even agreed to hand over Cesare as a hostage. So when Charles rode out of Rome towards Naples, Cesare Borgia accompanied him. He was dressed in his cardinal’s robes and had seventeen velvet-covered wagons behind him – he said these were his travelling clothes. Cesare managed to compel the respect of the French officers with his skill in wrestling; but at the first opportunity he slipped away and returned to Rome. His seventeen wagons were found to be empty. For the first time, Rome laughed with approval at one of Cesare’s exploits.

The foreign invasion had served to unite various warring factions against the French, and Charles had to retreat back across the Alps. Alfonso of Naples had been forced to abdicate; but when Charles was driven out he returned. The pope thereupon invited Alfonso and his beautiful daughter Sanchia to Rome. He was anxious to take another look at this dazzling teenager. In fact, Sanchia found she could twist the pope around her finger. Cesare, who was totally unable to resist any attractive girl (or youth, for that matter, for he was bisexual) lost no time in luring her to his apartment. Sanchia had heard of his reputation as the most dangerous man in Italy; therefore it was only a matter of prudence to submit. They were both sensualists, and neither felt any pangs of conscience about becoming lovers. The pope showed no jealousy; it seems fairly certain that he was also enjoying her favours.

Rodrigo was wondering how he could use the war to further his own schemes of expanding the papal territories. When Charles VIII returned to France, he decided to attack Charles’s ally, the Orsini family. His son Juan – the one who was supposed to be the soldier – was in Spain, where he had inherited the title of Duke of Gandia. His father sent for him to come back to Italy, and placed him in charge of the army. But he proved to be a poor general. When the papal troops were defeated near Bassano in January 1497, the pope had to sue for peace, and Juan – to his brother’s unconcealed delight – returned to Rome in disgrace.

Lucrezia’s husband, Giovanni Sforza, seemed to realise that his days would be numbered if he stayed within reach of Cesare; so he was now a permanent absentee and the pope decided that Lucrezia should be divorced. It was scandalous, but it seemed to be the only way. The grounds chosen were non-consummation of the marriage on account of her husband’s impotence. Sforza was enraged by this slur on his virility, but when he was told that in order to legally disprove it he would have to perform the sexual act with a courtesan in front of a panel of churchmen, he reluctantly decided to allow himself to be divorced.

Lucrezia was placed in a convent, to silence rumour. But no one objected when her brother Cesare went to see her there. Six months later, to the pope’s deep embarrassment, Lucrezia was found to be pregnant – six months pregnant. Cesare was not the kind of man who could resist possessing his sister under the nose of a mother superior. In the event, the skill of Lucrezia’s dressmaker concealed her condition, and she behaved so demurely in front of the judges that no one doubted she was a virgin. In due course, Lucrezia gave birth to a son. Three years later, a three-year-old child was brought to the Vatican, given the name of Giovanni Borgia, and made an heir to the Borgia fortune. Roman gossip declared that he was not merely the pope’s grandson but also his son – for Rodrigo was as sexually experimental as Cesare and enjoyed sharing his son’s mistresses. Meanwhile, the pope decided that if Lucrezia was to be prevented from causing further embarrassment, she urgently needed another husband. With his policy of keeping these things in the family, he decided that Sanchia’s brother Alfonso would be an ideal candidate.

Meanwhile, Rome had a baffling mystery to gossip about. It was a murder mystery, and the victim was Juan Borgia, the pope’s eldest son. On Wednesday 14 June 1497, Juan and Cesare went to supper with their mother. They left before dark, accompanied only by two footmen, and by a mysterious masked man who had joined them during supper. Juan had been seen in public with this masked man on a number of occasions recently, and seemed fond of him – Juan, like Cesare, was bisexual. Now they rode off, with the masked man sharing the saddle of Juan’s horse. At a certain point, Juan announced that he was going off on his own; Cesare apparently warned him that it was dangerous at this time of night. But the pope’s guards had made the streets of Rome safer than for many years, and Juan shrugged off the objections and rode into the night with his masked friend. He was never seen alive again. A boatman on the Tiber reported seeing a man leading a horse, with what appeared to be a body across the saddle, and heard someone address the horseman as ‘My lord’. Then there was a splash.