enemy troops massing on Monte Mario, just north of the palace, thankful that they, too, had taken the precaution of locking their treasures away in Castel Sant’Angelo and were ready for flight.
Meanwhile, as rumours spread of the atrocities that the French would inflict, Charles VIII attempted to appease the fears of the Romans. The French Cardinal Bertrand Perauld, who had been refused entry into the city on December 22, was heard to say that the troops ‘would not take a hen or an egg or the smallest item without paying for it in full.’ The next day he wrote to the German colony saying that the invasion would only happen if the king’s ‘enemies,’ by which he meant Alexander VI himself, ‘continue to remain in Rome and prevent an agreement.’ Moreover, he insisted, ‘His Majesty promises that his troops will do no harm to any prostitute in the city, nor to any other person, wherever they are from, unless they fight against the King and his followers.’
With the city almost surrounded by French troops, the celebrations for the Feast of the Nativity continued with surprising normality: Burchard recorded that the pope himself was present in the Sistine Chapel for Vespers on Christmas Eve. It had been expected that the cardinal of Monreale would celebrate High Mass in the Sistine Chapel on Christmas Day, but before dawn broke that morning, a courier had arrived with an urgent message for Alexander VI to say that Charles VIII desired a peaceful agreement with the pope prior to the king’s entry into the city. Having informed the cardinals assembled in the Sala del Pappagallo that he intended to allow Charles VIII to enter Rome, the pope dispatched the cardinal of Monreale to agree to terms with the king, who likewise sent his envoys to the Vatican for the same purpose. At Mass in the Sistine Chapel the next day, the Feast of St Stephen, Burchard faced an awkward situation, being obliged to organize seating not only for these French envoys but also for two ambassadors of the king of Naples who were in Rome:
The latter did not wish to dispute their seats with the new arrivals, and withdrew, claiming not to know who they were, but when on the Pope’s orders, I had explained to them that they were ambassadors from the King of France, the Neapolitans resumed their seats and gave the others precedence in position. A great many other Frenchman came in as well, and sat down quite indiscriminately next to the clerics on their benches. I moved them away and gave them more suitable places, but the Pope disliked what I was doing and summoned me angrily to say that I was destroying all his efforts and that I was to permit the French to stand wherever they wanted. I responded in a soothing manner, saying that God knew, he was not to become upset over the issue because I understood what he wanted and would speak not another word to the Frenchmen, wherever they sat in the chapel.
On December 31 Alexander VI sent his master of ceremonies to Charles VIII: ‘On the orders of His Holiness,’ Burchard wrote, ‘I rode out to find the King of France in order to acquaint him with the ceremonial that would accompany his reception in the city and to hear his own wishes and to do all His Majesty ordered me to do.’ Because of the pouring rain, the roads clogged with mud, ‘and the speed at which His Majesty was riding,’ Burchard was unable to greet the king as formally as he would have wished. In answer to Burchard’s questions, Charles VIII replied ‘that he wanted his entry into the city to be conducted without any pomp.’ He did, however, invite the master of ceremonies ‘to continue riding with him, and for about four miles or so he talked with me continually, asking me questions about the health of the Pope and the cardinals.’ Burchard noted the king’s particular interest in Alexander VI’s son Cesare, asking many questions about his situation and his status ‘and many other things, to all of which I was scarcely able to give appropriate answers.’
Meanwhile, the main body of King Charles’s army entered Rome at about three o’clock in the afternoon of the last day of December. Alexander VI and his family took shelter in Castel Sant’Angelo, while Giulia Farnese was spirited out of the city by her brother, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. These precautions proved unnecessary. ‘Twice our great guns were ready to fire on Castel Sant’Angelo,’ wrote Philippe de Commynes, ‘but on both occasions the King opposed it.’
It took six hours for the French army to file through the gate at Santa Maria del Popolo, and it was long after darkness had fallen that the last stragglers entered the city. By flickering torchlight and the gleam of lanterns, the men and horses marched though the narrow streets, muddy and wet in the pouring rain: Swiss and German infantry carrying broadswords and long lances, Gascon archers, French knights, Scots archers, artillerymen with bronze cannons and culverins. Escorted by cardinals Ascanio Sforza and Giuliano della Rovere, and surrounded by his bodyguard and his magnificently dressed courtiers, rode Charles VIII himself, a short, ugly young man with a huge hooked nose and thick fleshy lips, constantly open.
‘There were fires, torches and lights in every house,’ Burchard recorded, ‘and people were heard shouting “France! France!” and “Vincoli! Vincoli!”’ continually (San Pietro in Vincoli was the title of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere). At the Palazzo Venezia, the great palace built by Paul II at the foot of the Capitol Hill and now the residence of Cardinal Lorenzo Cibo, the king dismounted and was ushered inside by his host. He limped into the dining room and sat by the fire in his slippers, while a servant combed his hair and the wispy scattered strands of his reddish beard. Food was placed upon a table; a chamberlain tasted every dish before the king ate, and the remains were thrown into a silver ewer. Four physicians likewise tested the wine into which the chamberlain dangled a unicorn’s horn on a golden chain before His Majesty raised the cup to his lips.
Cardinal Cibo had prepared his best apartments ‘for housing the ambassadors and other Frenchmen,’ commented Burchard, adding that the dignitaries ‘were provided with plenty of straw beds, but I noticed that these sacks of straw were never cleaned; tallow candles hung from the doors and fireplaces, and, even though the walls were decorated with beautiful tapestries, the place resembled a pigsty.’
Despite Charles VIII’s protestations that his troops would respect the Romans and their property, they did cause a lot of trouble. Burchard reported that ‘on their way into the city the French troops forced an entrance into houses on either side of the road, throwing out their owners, horses and other goods, setting fire to wooden articles and eating and drinking whatever they found without paying anything.’ On Thursday, January 8, he recorded, ‘the house of Paolo Branco, a Roman citizen, was plundered and ransacked by the French who killed his two sons, whilst others, including Jews, were murdered and their houses pillaged; even the house of Donna Vannozza Catanei, the mother of Cardinal Cesare Borgia, did not escape.’
Even poor old Burchard himself was to suffer at the hands of the unruly soldiers: ‘When I returned to my house after mass, I found that the French had entered it against my will,’ he wailed. ‘They had taken out seven of the eight horses, mules and asses that I had in my stable and had billeted in their place seven of their own mounts which were busily eating my hay.’ His rooms, as well as those of his servants, had all been requisitioned by French nobles and their retinues. Eventually Charles VIII was forced to issue an order forbidding his troops from forcibly entering houses on pain of death.
While Alexander VI played a waiting game from the comfort and security of his apartments in Castel Sant’Angelo, where he was ensconced with Cesare and several of the Neapolitan cardinals, Charles VIII spent his time receiving visits from various cardinals and dealing with the deluge of complaints about his troops. One day, escorted by a company of soldiers, he was conducted on a tour of Rome to view the sights of the city: on another he rode out to the Basilica of San Sebastiano with his household.
It was not until January 16 that the two rulers finally came face-to-face. That day Charles VIII rode across Rome to St Peter’s, where he heard Mass in the French royal chapel, which had been restored by his father, Louis XI, and was dedicated to St Petronilla, the daughter of the first pope. ‘If my memory is correct,’ recorded Burchard, ‘the mass was not sung.’ The king was then escorted to the papal palace, where the lavish rooms of Alexander VI’s apartments had been prepared for him and his suite to dine. The pope, meanwhile, was on his way from Castel Sant’Angelo to the Vatican in his ceremonial litter. The ambitious twenty-four-year-old monarch, described by Guicciardini as ‘not particularly intelligent with regard to political affairs and carried away by his fervent wish to rule and his thirst for glory,’ was about to be outwitted by the wily pope.
‘On being told of His Holiness’s approach,’ wrote Burchard, the eager young king, not well versed in the subtleties of achieving diplomatic advantage, ‘hurried to the end of the second private garden to greet him.’ Catching sight of the pope, he approached him and twice genuflected before him: ‘At first His Holiness pretended not to see this gesture but when His Majesty came closer and was about to genuflect for a third time, the Pope removed his cap and, holding out his hand to restrain the King from kneeling, kissed him.’
Alexander VI’s informality was calculated, as was his apparent insistence on the equality that was seen to exist between the two rulers. ‘At this their first meeting,’ Burchard continued, ‘both men were bareheaded and the King kissed neither the Pope’s foot nor his hand. His Holiness refused to place his cap back on his head until the King had replaced his own hat, but eventually they both covered their heads simultaneously.’ Later that day Alexander VI displayed a similar deference when, having accompanied Charles VIII to the Sala del Pappagallo, he
