The Borgia Bride

Lucrezia noticed my sadness-and to my surprise, did her best to relieve it. She invited me to luncheons, with dishes designed to tempt my faltering appetite; she invited me for rides and picnics in the countryside. I was touched by her efforts. When we two were alone, she attempted to be my confidante, to learn the source of my sorrow.

But my silence was steadfast; Cesare had impressed well upon me the connection between survival and holding one’s tongue when it came to the Borgias. So I smiled and accepted Lucrezia’s friendship, but explained nothing.

One day, Lucrezia and a pair of her ladies came to my chambers. ‘Come!’ she announced. ‘We are going to give alms to the poor!’

I had been ensconced in my bed, listless and bored. ‘It is too cold,’ I complained. In fact, the sky was cloudless, brilliant with sun.

‘Bah!’ Lucrezia said. She walked over to my bed, took the book from my hands, and pulled me up. ‘It is glorious outside! Let us find you a proper gown!’

We went to my armoire, and just as if she were Donna Esmeralda preparing me for a ball, she chose one of my finest gowns, a creation of forest green velvet and gossamer sea-green silk; the sleeves were laced with gilt ribbon. When we both were properly bedecked-she in sapphire blue-she said:

‘Ah, Sancha! You are far too beautiful to be so sad! Look at you-the loveliest woman in Rome. When the people see you, they will think themselves in the company of a goddess!’

I could only smile at her kindness. It was difficult to believe that this was the same woman who had eyed me with such suspicion and hatred when I first came to Rome-but her concern for me seemed genuine. Perhaps, once her trust was gained, it was whole-hearted; perhaps I had misjudged her, and she secretly yearned for a life that was good and simple.

So we rode into the city, in a fine open carriage, its lacquered door emblazoned with the Borgia crest: a fiery red bull.

We had not gone far when the people spotted us, and began to run toward the carriage, shouting blessings. Lucrezia leaned towards me and, from a velvet bag, poured into my lap the ‘alms’ I was to throw.

I stared down at the glistening heap. ‘Lucrezia-these are gold ducats!’ A single ducat could purchase a peasant a farm, a house…This was unthinkable generosity.

She grinned extravagantly. ‘All the more reason for them to love us.’ She stood, and hurled a palmful of coins into the waiting crowds.

Vigorous cheers soon followed.

I looked at her, her face flushed pink from the sun, her eyes bright with the joy of making others happy.

How could I deny her? I smiled, took a handful of ducats, and pelted them into the midst of the throng.

Giovanni Sforza, Lucrezia’s long-absent husband, arrived that previous January. Apparently he could no longer ignore the Pope’s increasingly insistent messages that he return and be a proper husband to Lucrezia.

And so Sforza was welcomed back to Rome-without the fanfare reserved for the Pope’s children, and certainly without the celebration. Giovanni, Count of Pesaro, cut an altogether unimpressive figure. He was lanky and graceless, with an oversized Adam’s apple and large eyes that bulged, so that he appeared perpetually startled. His personality was likewise grating: he was effusive at the wrong moments, cowering at others; I suspected Alexander had chosen him for his malleability. Lucrezia should have been able to handle him easily.

But no one had counted on the depth of Giovanni’s fear: and he wisely feared the Borgias-especially since his native state of Milan, which his powerful family ruled, had been unwise enough to support the French King, Charles, during the invasion. At least, his unease was officially attributed to this.

For three months, Sforza played the role of Lucrezia’s husband-rather skittishly, for, according to his servants, His Holiness had given him the choice between coming to his bride…or an uncertain and unspecified fate. The married couple were polite to each other in public, and were seen together only as often as circumstance demanded. But if any affection existed between them, I did not see it. Lucrezia played her role as wife with great dignity, though Giovanni’s obvious desire to be elsewhere must have shamed her greatly. I did my best to distract Lucrezia from this pain with small adventures, just as she had done for me.

But no harm ever came to Giovanni. If anything, the Pope and his children did everything to make Sforza feel welcome and honoured; in all ceremonies, his rank was just below that of Juan and Cesare. In fact, on Palm Sunday, Giovanni was one of those very few allowed to receive the sacred palm blessed by His Holiness.

But on the morning of Good Friday, Sforza set out at dawn on horseback, and fled back to his native Pesaro, from whence he could not be coaxed.

Rumours abounded. One said that Sforza’s servant had overheard Lucrezia and Cesare plotting his murder by poison; this was the most persistent.

But the cruellest words came not from the whispers of talebearers, but from Giovanni himself-charges he dared make only from the safety of his fortress in Pesaro. His wife had been ‘immodest’, he said, in rambling public letters explaining his situation. There were hints that this lack of modesty was barbarous in the extreme, something that no normal husband could ever be persuaded to tolerate.

I understood at once: Sforza had seen what I had seen between the Pope and Lucrezia. He knew what I knew-apparently had known about their illicit affair very soon after his marriage to the Pope’s daughter. And his nerves had never permitted him to live under such a strain.

I could not fault the man. But my heart ached for Lucrezia. She had seemed relieved to have him back-and now, the act of his fleeing caused a swirl of gossip to envelop her. No one dared speak ill of His Holiness, or accuse him of initiating incest; but Lucrezia was not spared. Whore, they called her, the Pope’s wife and daughter.

In Florence, Savonarola railed with uncommon fervour against the sins of Rome, going so far as to call for violence against the Pope and his Church. The reformer-priest wrote to the rulers of nations, urging them to seize Alexander’s tiara; he called on the French King, Charles, to swoop down upon Italy and once again ‘render judgment’.

The Pope immediately set to work on an annulment for Lucrezia…and excommunicated Savonarola in May.

Lucrezia bore it all as long as she could; and then, in June, without the knowledge or consent of His Holiness, she gathered up a select few ladies and retreated to the nearby Dominican convent of San Sisto. She would, she told her father, become a nun. She had finished with marriage, and men.

Alexander was furious. A marriageable daughter was a useful political tool, one he would not surrender. Days after Lucrezia’s arrival at the convent, he sent an armed contingent of men, demanding that the nuns turn Lucrezia over, ‘as it was best she be in the care of her father’.

This set Roman tongues wagging even faster. See? He cannot bear to be without her for a day.

The prioress of the convent, one Sister Girolama, confronted the men alone. No doubt, she was a brave and consummately eloquent woman, for the soldiers left San Sisto without their prize, much to Alexander’s outrage.

Lucrezia would not return. I began to believe that she had been coerced into the incestuous relationship with her father. I felt deep, honest pity for the woman.

In time, Alexander cooled, and let Lucrezia remain at San Sisto. He thought that she would grow bored with monastic life, and yearn for her parties once more.

But there was one thing he did not know, which I was soon to learn.

I went incognita to visit Lucrezia at San Sisto, and was escorted silently to her suite by one of the white-robed sisters. Lucrezia’s quarters were hardly spartan; they were lavishly-appointed, large chambers which had been constructed especially for visiting nobility, and Lucrezia had arranged for much of her own furniture to be brought, that she might be less homesick.

But she was not in; I was greeted by Pantsilea, who was scarcely older than Lucrezia herself, but had the air of a much more mature woman. Pantsilea was pretty, a warm, indulgent creature, slender and beautiful. Her black hair was smoothed back from her face revealing a severe, attractive widow’s peak; and on this day, her normally- unlined brow was furrowed with worry over her charge.