have been very unlucky’ and ‘she left in a rage.’ She was, however, to have little say in the matter.
The pope carefully considered the merits of alliances with various Italian families before deciding on Alfonso d’Este, the eldest son of Ercole I, Duke of Ferrara. The twenty-four-year-old prince was a widower, his wife having died in childbirth three years earlier. The lineage of the Este family was honourable, their possessions enviable. One of the oldest noble dynasties in Italy and undisputed masters of Ferrara and its surrounding territory since 1240, their state was not so large as either Venice or Milan, but it benefited from the lush soils of the Po plain, was well and profitably administered, and Ferrara itself was a lively centre of the arts. It was, moreover, just to the north of Cesare’s duchy of the Romagna, and the alliance, so the pope thought, would benefit both of his beloved children.
The proposal, however, was not at all welcome in Ferrara, where the Borgias were considered socially inferior and morally corrupt. The Este family may have had many skeletons in their own cupboard, and Alfonso was far from being a model of propriety himself. He was said to have but two interests in life; one was the casting of cannons in his own foundry; the other was walking the streets of Ferrara at night, a drawn sword in one hand, his erect penis in the other. His dead wife had also been the subject of scandalous talk; neglected by her husband, she had shared her bed with a young Negro girl with whom she took male parts in the theatricals for which the Ferrarese court was renowned.
Nevertheless, when the offer was made in the spring of 1501, Duke Ercole and his family were horrified, not least at the prospect of an alliance between themselves and the man currently under suspicion of abducting and raping the pretty young bride Dorotea Malatesta. That Cesare was guilty of the crime, despite his protestations of innocence, no one in Ferrara doubted. And Alfonso’s sister, Isabella d’Este, wife of the Marquis of Mantua, had a special interest in the case; the unfortunate Dorotea had been a protegee of her sister-in-law the Duchess of Urbino.
Moreover, Duke Ercole I was currently pursuing the prospect of royal connections, hoping for the niece of Louis XII as a bride for his son. When the pope’s envoy Cardinal Gianbattista Ferrari proposed a union between the Borgias and the Estes, he was haughtily informed by the duke that it would be ‘impossible to countermand the plans already in process of settlement with His Majesty of France: one does not snatch from the consideration of a king plans which it pleases him to consider, as a wilful child might tease a cat by hiding its bowl of milk.’
Undeterred, indeed provoked, by this rebuff, the pope hinted at the consequences that might ensue upon Duke Ercole’s continued refusal of a Borgia marriage, going so far as to suggest through his envoy that the ‘advantage’ of such a marriage would be that Duke Cesare would ‘no longer be a threat to the south of his Excellency’s dominions’ and that Lucrezia would bring to Ferrara a dowry of no less than 200,000 ducats: ‘I strongly urge you,’ the pope’s envoy was instructed to say, ‘to make a bond with His Holiness.’ Alexander VI also made direct overtures to Louis XII, who responded by informing him that nothing would induce him to ‘unravel the skeins of love’ that linked his niece with Alfonso d’Este, who would soon become her husband.
The king, however, needed the help of the Borgias to further his own ambitions in Italy and, somewhat reluctantly, agreed to call a halt to the negotiations for the proposed marriage between Alfonso and his niece, and to press Duke Ercole instead to accept Lucrezia as his new daughter-in-law. And so it was to be.
In a letter to his son-in-law Francesco Gonzaga, the Marquis of Mantua, Duke Ercole explained his change of plan:
We have recently decided, owing to practical considerations, to consent to an alliance between our house and that of his Holiness — in short to the marriage of our eldest son, Alfonso, and the illustrious lady Lucrezia, sister of the illustrious Duke of Romagna and Valence, mainly because we were urged to do so by his Most Christian Majesty [the king of France] and on condition that His Holiness would agree to everything stipulated in the marriage contract. Subsequently His Holiness and ourselves came to an agreement and the Most Christian King persistently urged us to approve the contract.
The duke, however, declined to give way without a struggle; he demanded an increase in the dowry with another 20,000 ducats worth of precious stones; he demanded that the 4,500 ducats he was obliged to pay each year to the Vatican be rescinded. He also demanded, without much hope of being granted them, the territories of Cento, Pieve, and Cesenatico, as well as various benefices for his younger son, Ippolito, who had been made a cardinal by Alexander VI in 1493. Unwilling to commit himself to the proposed marriage of his son into a family he considered upstarts, he had raised objection after objection, stipulated condition after condition, asked for guarantees that the dowry would be paid, until Alexander VI had complained that the man was behaving ‘like a shopkeeper.’
Ercole I had also heard the distasteful rumours claiming that Lucrezia had indulged in incestuous relationships with both her father and brother — indeed there were few in Italy who had not heard them — and before agreeing to the match, he sent two diplomatic officials to Rome to make enquiries about the Borgia girl and her suitability for admittance into the distinguished House of Este.
When the envoys arrived in Rome, they were admitted immediately to Lucrezia’s presence. Later that day they reported to their ‘most illustrious and excellent prince’ that ‘we entered the palace where the illustrious Lucrezia lives, and where, tired with riding and thinking we were going to rest, we were immediately conducted into the said Lucrezia’s presence, where we were graciously received. We expressed the infinite pleasure and contentment of your Excellency, and the great love which your Excellency bears her,’ emphasizing, as they had been ordered to do, ‘how perfectly disposed your Excellency is to treat her well.’ The two envoys did their work conscientiously, taking almost four months over it and finally deciding that Lucrezia was an acceptable bride.
There were several problems concerning Lucrezia’s past that needed careful consideration. Her son Rodrigo was one such issue. He was living with his mother in Rome; but it was decided that it would not do for him to accompany her to Ferrara. The Ferrarese ambassador in Rome went to see Lucrezia about this to ask her ‘what was to be done with him; she replied, “He will remain in Rome and will have an allowance of 15,000 ducats.”’ The fact that Lucrezia had already borne a son was, of course, an advantage to a duke in need of grandsons to secure his family line.
There was also the issue of Lucrezia’s divorced husband, Giovanni Sforza, who was living in Ferrara, to be settled. The pope wrote about this to the two envoys who had been sent by Ercole I to make enquiries concerning Lucrezia. They, in turn, passed his request on to the duke; the pope ‘has asked us to write to Your Excellency to request that you see to it that the Lord Giovanni of Pesaro shall not be in Ferrara at the time of the marriage celebrations, for, although his divorce from the illustrious lady was absolutely legal,’ they insisted, ‘himself fully consenting to it, he may, nevertheless still feel some resentment.’
Meanwhile, negotiations about the dowry had reached their conclusion, and it was clear that Ercole I had extracted a high price. It was agreed that Lucrezia should bring 100,000 ducats and that she should also take to Ferrara jewellery, carpets, linen, tapestries, furniture, silver, and
At last, on August 26, 1501, the marriage contract was signed, and Lucrezia, just twenty-one years old, was to be a bride for the third time. For her own part, having been sent a portrait of her future husband and heard reports of his taste for low life and low company, she decided that, once she had given him children, Alfonso would let her go her own way. Moreover, the proposed marriage into the Este family would allow her to escape from Rome, a place associated with unhappy episodes in her young life.
And the old duke was soon to be grateful to his prospective daughter-in-law for more than mere money. In 1499 Ercole I had heard of a nun at the Dominican convent at Viterbo, Sister Lucia da Narni, who had been developing stigmata on her hands every Friday. A man much intrigued by such miracles, the duke decided to bring the nun to Ferrara. The mother superior, however, was reluctant to part with so potentially valuable an asset, though Sister Lucia herself was quite willing to go. So the duke arranged for her to be spirited out of the convent in a basket and taken to Ferrara, where, unfortunately, she felt dreadfully homesick, missing the nuns whom she had left behind in Viterbo. Very well then, the duke decided, the other nuns should also come to Ferrara, where a
