On July 25, 1492, occurred the event to which the Borgias had long eagerly looked forward, the death of Innocent VIII. Above all the other candidates for the Papacy were four cardinals: Rafael Riario and Giuliano della Rovere—both powerful nephews of Sixtus IV—Ascanio Sforza, and Rodrigo Borgia.

Before the election was decided there were days of feverish expectation for the cardinal's family. Of his children only Lucretia and GiuffrÈ were in Rome at the time, and both were living with Madonna Adriana. Vannozza was occupying her own house with her husband, Canale, who for some time had held the office of secretary of the penitentiary court. She was now fifty years old, and there was but one event to which she looked forward, and upon it depended the gratification of her greatest wish; namely, to see her children's father ascend the papal throne. What prayers and vows she and Madonna Adriana, Lucretia, and Giulia Farnese must have made to the saints for the fulfilment of that wish!

Early on the morning of August 11th breathless messengers brought these women the news from the Vatican—Rodrigo Borgia had won the great prize. To him, the highest bidder, the papacy had been sold. In the election, Cardinal Ascanio Sforza had turned the scale, and for his reward he received the city of Nepi; the office of vice-chancellor, and the Borgia palace, which ever since has borne the name Sforza-Cesarini.

On the morning of this momentous day, when Alexander VI was carried from the conclave hall to S. Peter's there to receive the first expressions of homage, his joyful glance discovered many of his kinsmen in the dense crowd, for thither they had hastened to celebrate his great triumph. It was a long time since Rome had beheld a pope of such majesty, of such beauty of person. His conduct was notorious throughout the city, and no one knew him better in that hour than that woman, Vannozza Catanei, who was kneeling in S. Peter's during the mass, her soul filled with the memories of a sinful past.

Borgia's election did not cause all the Powers anxiety. In Milan, Ludovico il Moro celebrated the event with public festivals; he now hoped to become, through the influence of his brother Ascanio, a "half pope." While the Medici expected much from Alexander, the Aragonese of Naples looked for little. Bitterly did Venice express herself. Her ambassador in Milan publicly declared in August that the papacy had been sold by simony and a thousand deceptions, and that the signory of Venice was convinced that France and Spain would refuse to obey the Pope when they learned of these enormities.[17]

In the meantime, Alexander VI had received the professions of loyalty of all the Italian States, together with their profuse expressions of homage. The festival of his coronation was celebrated with unparalleled pomp, August 26th. The Borgia arms, a grazing steer, was displayed so generally in the decorations, and was the subject of so many epigrams, that a satirist remarked that Rome was celebrating the discovery of the Sacred Apis. Subsequently the Borgia bull was frequently the object of the keenest satire; but at the beginning of Alexander's reign it was, naÏvely enough, the pictorial embodiment of the Pope's magnificence. To-day such symbolism would excite only derision and mirth, but the plastic taste of the Italian of that day was not offended by it.

When Alexander, on his triumphal journey to the Lateran, passed the palace of his fanatical adherents, the Porcari, one of the boys of the family declaimed with much pathos some stanzas which concluded with the verses:

Vive diu bos, vive diu celebrande per annos,
Inter Pontificum gloria prima choros.[18]

The statements of Michele Ferno and of Hieronymus Porcius regarding the coronation festivities and the professions of loyalty of the ambassadors from the various Italian Powers must be read to see to what extremes flattery was carried in those days. It is difficult for us to imagine how imposing was the entrance of this brilliant pope upon the spectacular stage of Rome at the time when the papacy was at the zenith of its power—a height it had attained, not through love of the Church, nor by devotion to religion, which had long been debased, but by dazzling the luxury-loving people of the age and by modern politics; in addition to this, the Church had preserved since the Middle Ages a traditional and mystic character which held the respect of the faithful.

Ferno remarks that the history of the world offered nothing to compare with the grandeur of the Pope's appearance and the charm of his person,—and this author was not a bigoted papist, but a diligent student of Pomponius Laetus. Like all the romanticists of the classic revival, however, he was highly susceptible to theatrical effects. Words failed him when he tried to describe the passage of Alexander to S. Maria del Popolo: "These holiday swarms of richly clad people, the seven hundred priests and cardinals with their retinues, these knights and grandees of Rome in dazzling cavalcades, these troops of archers and Turkish horsemen, the palace guards with long lances and glittering shields, the twelve riderless white horses with golden bridles, which were led along, and all the other pomp and parade!" Weeks would be required for arranging a pageant like this at the present time; but the Pope could improvise it in the twinkling of an eye, for the actors and their costumes were always ready. He set it in motion for the sole purpose of showing himself to the Romans, and in order that his majesty might lend additional brilliancy to a popular holiday.

Ferno depicted the Pope himself as a demi-god coming forth to his people. "Upon a snow-white horse he sat, serene of countenance and of surpassing dignity; thus he showed himself to the people, and blessed them; thus he was seen of all. His glance fell upon them and filled every heart with joy. And so his appearance was of good augury for everyone. How wonderful is his tranquil bearing! And how noble his faultless face! His glance, how frank! How greatly does the honor which we feel for him increase when we behold his beauty and vigor of body!" Alexander the Great would have been described in just such terms by Ferno. This was the idolatry which was always accorded the papacy, and no one asked what was the inner and personal life of the glittering idol.

On the occasion of his coronation Alexander appointed his son CÆsar, a youth of sixteen, Bishop of Valencia. This he did without being sure of the sanction of Ferdinand the Catholic, who, in fact, for a long time did endeavor to withhold it; but he finally yielded, and the Borgias consequently got the first bishopric in Spain into their hereditary possession. CÆsar was not in Rome at the time his father received the tiara. On the twenty-second of August, eleven days after Alexander's election, Manfredi, ambassador from Ferrara to Florence, wrote the Duchess Eleonora d'Este: "The Pope's son, the Bishop of Pamplona, who has been attending the University of Pisa, left there by the Pope's orders yesterday morning, and has gone to the castle of Spoleto."

The fifth of October CÆsar was still there, for on that date he wrote a letter to Piero de' Medici from that place. This epistle to Lorenzo's son, the brother of Cardinal Giovanni, shows that the greatest confidence existed between him and CÆsar, who says in it that, on account of his sudden departure from Pisa, he had been unable to communicate orally with him, and that his preceptor, Juan Vera, would have to represent him. He recommended his trusted familiar, Francesco Romolini, to Piero for appointment as professor of canon law in Pisa. The letter is signed, "Your brother, Cesar de Borja, Elector of Valencia."[19]

By not allowing his son to come to Rome immediately, Alexander wished to give public proof of what he had declared at the time of his election; namely, that he would hold himself above all nepotism. Perhaps there was a moment when the warning afforded by the examples of Calixtus, Sixtus, and Innocent caused him to hesitate, and to resolve to moderate his love for his offspring. However, the nomination of his son to a bishopric on the day of his coronation shows that his resolution was not very earnest. In October CÆsar appeared in the Vatican, where the Borgias now occupied the place which the pitiable CibÒs had left.

On September 1st the Pope made the elder Giovanni Borgia, who was Bishop of Monreale, a cardinal; he was the son of Alexander's sister Giovanna. The Vatican was filled with Spaniards, kinsmen, or friends of the now all-powerful house, who had eagerly hurried thither in quest of fortune and honors. "Ten papacies would not be sufficient to satisfy this swarm of relatives," wrote Gianandrea Boccaccio in November, 1492, to the Duke of Ferrara. Of the close friends of Alexander, Juan Lopez was made his chancellor; Pedro Caranza and Juan Marades his privy chamberlains; Rodrigo Borgia, a nephew of the Pope, was made captain of the palace guard, which hitherto had been commanded by a Doria.

Alexander immediately began to lay the plans for a more brilliant future for his daughter. He would no longer listen to her marrying a Spanish nobleman; nothing less than a prince should receive her hand. Ludovico and Ascanio suggested their kinsman, Giovanni Sforza. The Pope accepted him as son-in-law, for, although he was only Count of Cotognola and vicar of Pesaro, he was an independent sovereign, and he belonged to the illustrious house of Sforza. Alexander had entered early into such close relations with the Sforza that Cardinal Ascanio became all-powerful in Rome. Giovanni, an illegitimate son of Costanzo of Pesaro, and only by the indulgence of Sixtus IV and Innocent VIII his hereditary heir, was a man of twenty-six, well formed and carefully educated, like most of the lesser Italian despots. He had married Maddalena, the beautiful sister of Elisabetta Gonzaga, in 1489, on the very day upon which the latter was joined in wedlock to Duke Guidobaldo of Urbino. He had, however, been a widower since August 8, 1490, on which date his wife died in childbirth.

Sforza hastened to accept the offered hand of the young Lucretia before any of her other numerous suitors could win it. On leaving Pesaro he first went to the castle of Nepi, which Alexander VI had given to Cardinal Ascanio. There he remained a few days and then came quietly to Rome, October 31, 1492. Here he took up his residence in the cardinal's palace of S. Clement, erected by Domenico della Rovere in the Borgo. It is still standing, and in good preservation, opposite the Palazzo Giraud. The Ferrarese ambassador announced Sforza's arrival to his master, remarking, "He will be a great man as long as this pope rules." He explained the retirement in which Sforza lived by stating that the man to whom Lucretia had been legally betrothed was also in Rome.[20]

The young Count Gasparo had come to Rome with his father to make good his claim to Lucretia, through whom he hoped to obtain great favor. Here he found another suitor of whom he had hitherto heard nothing, but whose presence had become known, and he fell into a rage when the Pope demanded from him a formal renunciation. Lucretia, at that time a child of only twelve and a half years, thus became the innocent cause of a contest between two suitors, and likewise the subject of public gossip for the first time. November 5th the plenipotentiary of Ferrara wrote his master, "There is much gossip about Pesaro's marriage; the first bridegroom is still here, raising a great hue and cry, as a Catalan, saying he will protest to all the princes and potentates of Christendom; but will he, will he, he will have to submit." On the ninth of November the same ambassador wrote, "Heaven prevent this marriage of Pesaro from bringing calamities. It seems that the King (of Naples) is angry on account of it, judging by what Giacomo, Pontano's nephew told the Pope the day before yesterday. The matter is still undecided. Both the suitors are given fair words; both are here. However, it is believed that Pesaro will carry the day, especially as Cardinal Ascanio, who is powerful in deeds as well as in words, is looking after his interests."

In the meantime, November 8th, the marriage contract between Don Gasparo and Lucretia was formally dissolved. The groom and his father merely expressed the hope that the new alliance would reach a favorable consummation, and Gasparo bound himself not to marry within one year. Giovanni Sforza, however, was not yet certain of his victory; December 9th the Mantuan agent Fioravante Brognolo, wrote the Marchese Gonzaga, "The affairs of the illustrious nobleman, Giovanni of Pesaro, are still undecided; it looks to me as if the Spanish nobleman to whom his Highness's niece was promised would not give her up. He has a great following in Spain, consequently the Pope is inclined to let things take their own course for a time, and not force them to a conclusion."[21] Even as late as February, 1493, there was talk of a marriage of Lucretia with the Spanish Conde de Prada, and not until this project was relinquished was she betrothed to Giovanni Sforza.[22]

In the meantime Sforza had returned to Pesaro, whence he sent his proxy, Nicolo de Savano, to Rome to conclude the marriage contract. The Count of Aversa surrendered his advantage and suffered his grief to be assuaged by the payment to him of three thousand ducats. Thereupon, February 2, 1493, the betrothal of Sforza and Lucretia was formally ratified in the Vatican, in the presence of the Milanese ambassador and the intimate friends and servants of Alexander, Juan Lopez, Juan Casanova, Pedro Caranza, and Juan Marades. The Pope's daughter, who was to be taken home by her husband within one year, received a dowry of thirty-one thousand ducats.

When the news of this event reached Pesaro, the fortunate Sforza gave a grand celebration in his palace. "They danced in the great hall, and the couples, hand in hand, issued from the castle, led by Monsignor Scaltes, the Pope's plenipotentiary, and the people in their joy joined in and danced away the hours in the streets of the city."[23]