Catherine's marriage.—"Petit Courrier des dames" for 1476.—Four years of prosperity.—Life in Rome in the fifteenth century.—A hunting party in the Campagna.—Guilty or not guilty?—Catherine and her husband leave Rome.

If the death of the Cardinal Riario had seemed, during a few anxious days, to throw a doubt on the succesful termination of the matrimonial schemes projected for Catherine, much greater was the danger to which they were exposed by the untimely death of the Duke. "Catherine herself," says Burriel, "considering the circumstances of her birth, thought that it was now all over with her fortune." And, in truth, it was hardly to be hoped that the Duchess Bona, now Regent, would consent to prejudice her own children by giving up Imola as the dower of a stranger to her blood, obtruded under such circumstances into her family. Meanwhile, the bridegroom Girolamo, and his august, "high-spirited" uncle, had, on their side, been struck by similar misgivings on receiving the news of Maria Galeazzo's death; and they were by no means disposed to relinquish the principality, whose title Girolamo had already assumed.

Sixtus, therefore, well aware, remarks Burriel, of the truth of the proverb which teaches that "this world is given to the active,"[69] lost no time in sending Cardinal Mellini to Milan, with orders to claim the prompt execution of the marriage contract, and to hurry on the performance of the ceremony by every possible means. This active churchman arrived while the Duchess and all Milan were still in the midst of the confusion, anxieties, and uncertainties resulting from the sudden demise of the Crown. The position of the Duchess as Regent and guardian of her son, still in his minority, was precarious and difficult. Subsequent events at Milan abundantly show how difficult a task it was to maintain her own and her son's rights against the pretensions and encroachments of his uncles. The friendship or hostility of the royal-minded and high-handed Servus servorum might be of infinite importance to her and to Milan. The good Bona, too, was inclined to make it a point of honour to carry out the intentions of her murdered husband. The Cardinal, acting up zealously to his instructions, urged unceasingly that "if 'twere done, 'twere well it were done quickly." And thus it was brought about that, without any alteration in the articles previously agreed upon, Catherine was married to Girolamo Riario acting by proxy, in the latter part of May, 1477.

As the mourning for the Duke was not yet over, the ceremony was performed in a comparatively private manner in the presence of the Cardinal and the Duchess. And as no festivities and rejoicings were under the circumstances permissible in Milan, it was determined that the bride should depart immediately for Rome, and that all such celebration should take place there under the auspices of the young couple's magnificent uncle. No record is found of the exact date of the marriage; but Catherine arrived in Rome about the end of May.

The "sensation" produced in Rome by the young bride's arrival is dwelt on by the historians, and may be readily believed. All the contemporary chroniclers agree in describing her as eminently beautiful.[70] A modern historian[71] of ForlÌ cites in proof of the truth of these assertions two likenesses of her still existing, when he wrote, in the church of St. Jerome in that city. And a ForlÌ coin and two medals, engraved for the work of Burriel, fully confirm the praises of the old writers. All three of these portraits appear to have been made after the death of Girolamo Riario. The face is hard and even stern, but full of vigour and intelligence. The features are somewhat large, but of beautiful outline and perfect regularity: a face to be admired rather than to be loved.

When at fifteen she rode through the Porta del Popolo into Rome, in the midst of the brilliant cavalcade composed of all that was noblest in the eternal city, those finely-cut features were doubtless softer in their expression, more delicate in their beauty, and more fitted to win all hearts in the manner we are assured they did. It was about a generation later that a jovial prelate,[72] writing to his friend from Rome, protested that nothing was wanting to the pleasures of a residence there save "a court with ladies." But no doubt the same want was a frequent one among the tonsured epicureans of a court in which every high office was held by a priestly incumbent. And now the lamentable deficiency was about to be supplied by the young and lovely bride of the most powerful, most magnificent, and wealthiest prince in Rome. For all this was Girolamo, the survivor of the two favoured brothers, who had divided between them all that Papal affection and munificence could bestow.

Doubtless nothing was left undone which could add brilliancy to the gay cavalcade amid which Girolamo brought his wife to her new home. The period was especially favourable to the display of personal splendour; and the fashion of dress, especially of female costume, had recently assumed an elegance and costly gorgeousness unknown to the previous generation. If we would figure to ourselves our fifteen-year-old heroine as she appeared on her richly-caparisoned "dappled palfrey" to the admiring eyes of the Roman citizens, we must picture her clad in one of those then recently-introduced dresses called "Cyprians," of which we hear so much in the records of the time, and which were the favourite mode of the young and beautiful towards the end of the fifteenth century.

Like other innovations in similar matters, this new costume, we are told, gave much offence to the more austere among those who never in their own day had enjoyed any such opportunity of displaying their charms, and who were now too old to profit by it.[73] For, instead of being made to fit close round the throat, the "Cyprian" was contrived to show the entire neck. These dresses were cut square on the bust, were extremely full around the feet, close-fitting from the waist upwards, and had very long and large sleeves. Some ladies would have even three of these celebrated robes: one of blue, one of crimson, and one of watered camblet—"zambellotto undato"—lined with silk or with mixed furs. Beautifully thin and fine veils of white cotton were worn; and the hair was drawn back over hair-cushions, and tied with strings of silk ornamented with gold or with pearls. A girdle of silver gilt or of pearls confined the dress at the waist.

We may be perfectly sure, that the daughter of Sforza and bride of Riario displayed whatever was most costly and most superb, as she passed from the Porta del Popolo to the princely residence of her husband on the Lungara, that long street which runs along the farther bank of the river from St. Peter's to the Porta Settimana. There the Riarii inhabited the spot now marked on the maps as the Palazzo Corsini. Two hundred and fifty years further down on the roll of pontiffs the latter name is met with;[74] the place of the magnificent Riarii knows them no more; and the change of masters, which those delicious terraces, looking down on the Farnese palaces and gardens,—the creations of another Papal[75] family intermediate in time between the Riarii and the Corsini—have undergone, is a quite normal illustration of the working of a system, which is the leading fact of Rome's modern history.

In this magnificent home on the banks of the Tiber, Catherine spent four happy, prosperous, and brilliant years;—probably the most happy, the most prosperous, and the most brilliant of her career. Never, perhaps, since the old times of a Marozia and a Theodora, whose boundless and shameless power in the eternal city had given rise to the fable of a female Pope, had a woman occupied a position of so much power and pre-eminence in Rome. She very shortly became an all-powerful favourite with her uncle (or father-in-law) Sixtus. All Rome was absolutely at her feet. Courtiers in search of favour, litigants in search of justice—(or injustice)—officials in search of promotion, brought their petitions and applications to her. The most important employments were often given according to the recommendations of this girl in her teens, as Burriel[76] assures us, without manifesting the shadow of an idea, that there was anything objectionable in such a mode of administering the Papal power. At this period of her life, writes another[77] chronicler, she was so great a favourite with the Pope, that most of the princes of Italy, who had any request to make of the Apostolic see, availed themselves of the intercession of Catherine for the attainment of their desires.

Though apparently totally unaware, that all this was in any way otherwise than it should have been, the old writers tell us much of Catherine's prudence, discretion and moderation in wielding and managing the great power so strangely entrusted to such hands. We have no recorded facts adducible in direct proof of the justice of this high praise. But we may find some evidence in support of it from the observation of our heroine under adversity; for which some later portions of her career will afford abundant opportunity. Assuredly there must have been materials of high and noble quality in a nature not wholly corrupted and spoiled by such an education and such environment in childhood and in youth, as that which fell to the lot of this young princess.

Dark days were not far distant; but all as yet in her life had been rose-colour:—or purple-tinted rather; for the more modest hue seems hardly gorgeous enough to typify the blaze of prosperous sunshine which had hitherto illumined her path. And now, during these years at Rome, though they had been sufficiently marked already as the minions of fortune, the star of the young couple was still ever rising.

On the 15th of December of the year in which Catherine arrived in Rome, her husband was with much ceremony and speechifying made a citizen of the eternal city.[78]

On the 4th of September 1480, the same fortunate youth received from the Pope investiture of the city and county of ForlÌ;[79] of which the Duke of Urbino, general of the forces of the Church, took possession in his name. This city, now the capital of a delegation, and one of the most important towns of Romagna, was conveniently situated with regard to the principality of Imola, already acquired by Girolamo in right of his wife. ForlÌ is some sixteen miles to the south-east of the latter town, in the same rich and highly productive alluvial district, which lies between the Apennines and the Adriatic. It had long been under the dominion of its native lords, of the family of the Ordelaffi. The story of their ousting, with its episodes of poisoning, fighting, love-making, and plotting, though curious enough, would lead us too far away from our more immediate subject. Suffice it that the upshot was the same, as it was in so many other similar cases. The Pope declared that the old family had forfeited their rights, that the fief had devolved to the Holy See; and, accordingly, handed it over to his nephew-son.

On the 8th of September in the same year Count Girolamo was solemnly made generalissimo of the Papal forces. The diarist Jacopo of Volterra[80] tells us how on that day, being the celebration of the nativity of the blessed Virgin, the Pope and all the College of Cardinals attended a solemn mass, in the course of which the Count in full armour knelt at the feet of the Pope, seated in front of the altar, and then and there received the staff of command, and the standard; and took the prescribed oaths, reading, says the historian, the whole formula at length himself;—truly the most arduous part of the matter in all probability to this "non literatus" preux chevalier. All Rome, both clerical and lay, was there, says gossiping Jacobus Volaterranus, as much to see the Count go through his part in the play, as to perform their devotions.

The picture of life in Rome at this period, obtainable from the inartistic matter-of-fact narrations of these diarists, the Jacopo just cited, Stefano Infessura, and one or two others of the same class, is a strange and striking one. Their ever-recurring accounts of solemnities, celebrations, and festivals, are chequered with notices almost equally frequent, and as calmly chronicled of such deeds and occurrences, as we are accustomed to hear reported from Sacramento, or San Francisco, and to consider as the product of a new and half-organised state of society. A noble patrician is stabbed to death, while sitting at the door of his own palace enjoying the evening air after supper. The name of the murderer and his motive are briefly told, and no further remark is made about the matter. A raid is made by one family against another and many men are killed; but none worth mentioning save one or two nobles. Of such matters nobody dreams of complaining. But when once on Ascension-day a great mass of people had assembled as usual in expectation of receiving the papal benediction, and Sixtus for some unassigned reason did not come forth to give it, there was great murmuring, and the multitude heaped bitter curses, we are told, on the Pontiff, who had defrauded them of his blessing.

The figures of the recently-married couple, however, with whose fortunes our story is more immediately concerned, appear most frequently, as might be expected, during those years of their prosperity on the bright squares of the chequered board. The Count, indeed, is found figuring in one strange and unpleasant scene a few days previous to his installation as commander-in-chief.

One of the Pope's nephews, Antonio Bassi, is lying grievously ill on his death-bed. His cousin Girolamo visits him the day before his death, and tries to comfort him "with fraternal words," and assurances that he will soon get well. But the dying man, either from the peevishness of suffering, says the chronicler,[81] or because he knew that he could now speak out with impunity what he had long felt, abused his powerful cousin in the most violent manner, "mentioning certain deeds of the Count universally condemned, and certain conduct of his reprobated by all men; on account of which, he said, the judgment of God, from which no human power could avail to protect him, would shortly fall on him. And in speaking of these things, he used a degree of vehemence which none of those who knew him best had ever heard him speak with when in health." The Count, it seems, took it very quietly; but "we all standing round the bed blushed for shame at the scene, and several of us slunk away out of hearing." It would have been satisfactory to have been told what these so universally reprobated deeds and conduct were. Perhaps nephew Bassi would have liked some of the good things that were heaped on nephew Riario. There was, indeed, one dark topic, of which we shall have to speak presently, the indiscreet handling of which might well make discreet courtiers slink out of hearing, lest their ears should become the unwilling depositories of truths so carefully concealed that history, after nearly four hundred years of investigation, has failed in obtaining satisfactory evidence of them. Could it have been that the dying man felt himself so safe from earthly vengeance, and so beyond all considerations of worldly prudence, as to have dared to speak aloud in such a tone of the black Pazzi tragedy? If so, we know how dangerous it might have been to hear him. If so, could Girolamo Riario have been so unmoved by his upbraiding? Be it as it may, the above few hints, so fortuitously, as it seems, floating on the surface of the vast, black, all-devouring pool of oblivion, are all that we have to speculate on in the matter. Antonio Bassi died, and no "judgment" followed—yet awhile.

On the contrary, all sorts of festivities, mingling themselves with the more serious business of prosperous ambition, seem to have made up the life of the young Count and Countess. One constantly recurring cause of pomp and festival at Rome in those days, was the arrival in the eternal city of strangers of note from almost every part of Europe. English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Greek ambassadors, cardinals, or prelates, arrived in the great capital of Christianity to ask favours of Heaven's vicegerent; to plead their international or ecclesiastical causes and quarrels before him; to bring him gifts and compliments from distant potentates; to beg for assistance in money or money's worth; to obtain absolution for national sins committed against the Papal interest; or to secure aid and connivance for such as could be shown to square with it.

On the occasion of such arrivals, cardinals, with their numerous retinues of attendants, lay and clerical, used to go out to meet the strangers at the gate, and bring them in pomp to the lodgings prepared for them. Then followed grand ceremonial services in the basilicas, in which modern Circenses the Roman populace shared with delight, and vast banquets, shared only by the privileged of the earth. Now and then occur descriptions of gay doings of a less exclusive character, in which all classes of that strangely-variegated society are seen mingled in a more pleasing and more picturesque fashion.

On Wednesday,[82] the 22nd of March, 1480, for instance, Ernest, Duke of Saxony, arrives at Rome for the performance of a vow. He is accompanied by the Duke of Brunswick and other German nobles. All are clothed in black, with a staff embroidered in white across the breast, as a symbol of pilgrimage. The Pope and all the Sacred College go out to the Porta del Popolo to meet him; and fortunately we have among us two cardinals who can talk German. These ride one on each side of his Serene Highness, and thus the cortÈge of some two hundred horses of the Duke's retinue, together with all the trains of Pope and cardinals, sweep on through the streets of Rome towards St. Peter's. Sovereign princes coming to Rome in discharge of vows of pilgrimage are worthy of every encouragement. So Sixtus treats the noble stranger with all possible honour—even to the extent of allowing him to sit at mass and vespers on the bench of the cardinals, and in the stall next below the junior of those dignitaries, an honour rarely granted. Then, as is the case with those whom Rome delighteth to honour, he was presented in St. Peter's with the consecrated golden rose. But on this occasion, strangely enough, the golden rose was not a rose, but a golden oak-bough,[83] which Sixtus, contrary to all custom and precedent, had chosen to consecrate instead of the immemorially accustomed emblem. The substitution of this golden bough, the well-known heraldic bearing of the Della Rovere family, is a curious manifestation of the family feeling, which was so intense in Sixtus, and was the ever-present motive of all his crimes.

But the most pleasing of the doings in honour of the Elector recorded by the old diarist, is a grand hunting party given him by our Count Girolamo. It took place on the 10th of April, 1480, a day remembered by the people of Rome long afterwards, says Jacopo of Volterra. For the hunting took place only eight miles from the city, in the neighbourhood of the Fonte Malliane, to the south-west of Rome, and all classes of the citizens made holiday. Even the boys were able to join and enjoy the sport. The foreign princes themselves, with their retinue, all mounted on splendid horses, holding the hounds in leash, and shining, says the diarist, with gold and jewels, were the most interesting part of the sight to the populace. A very great quantity of stags and deer were taken, "and some beasts were captured by the hands of the princes themselves, as if the creatures suffered themselves to be caught from the wish to contribute to the happiness of so great an occasion"—a somewhat left-handed compliment to a sportsman, friend Jacopo, and savouring more of the antechamber than the greenwood. A more joyous scene, adds the diarist, cannot be imagined than that afforded by those hill-sides and woods thronged with eager sportsmen, and resounding far and near with the notes of the horns, the halloes of the hunters, the barking of the dogs, and the voices of singing and rejoicing. Then at the Fonte Malliane a magnificent banquet was prepared under the ilex woods of a shady hill-side, not for the invited guests only, but for all present. The Roman dames, with Catherine mistress of the revel, mingling in their brilliant and gorgeous-coloured[84] costume among the carousing knights, amid the dark-green verdure that shaded the hill-side, give what was wanted in colour to make the gay scene perfect. At respectful distance amid the surrounding woods, the Roman citizens are making the most of the rare opportunity; not less loud in their mirth, or less jovial over the good things provided at the cost of taxes drawn by the good Count from faraway provinces, than their masters. Their stalwart forms, clad in russet jerkin or hempen frock, mingled with hounds in leash, and richly-caparisoned horses, group well as seen among the trunks of the trees against the dark background of the ilex woods. "It is not to be told," says Jacopo, thus winding up his unusually detailed description, "how much those German chiefs, rejoicing after their own fashion, enjoyed themselves on that memorable day!" Is it intended, good Jacopo, by those words of yours, "Germani illi proceres lÆtantes more suo," that we should catch a glimpse of our Teuton friends riding back the eight miles into Rome rather less steadily than they sat on those tall horses of theirs in the morning?

Four days afterwards, at any rate, the Elector and his company are ready to start on their homeward journey; and the Pope, as a parting gift, presents them with wax candles blessed by his own holy fingers: "so that, accompanied by such holy things, they might reach their own country in safety without any ill encounters by the way."

Thus, amid honours, pleasures, and the agreeable business arising out of her large share in the administion of Papal favour, passed four brilliant years of the heyday prime of Catherine's life. Was there no darker woof to chequer the bright web—no shading to so much sunlight? That terrible death-bed scene, when Girolamo's cousin, Antonio Bassi, lay a-dying, has led us already to the mention of the dark story of the Pazzi murders. This celebrated episode of Florentine history, which has been made again and again the novelist's and poet's as well as the historian's subject, is too well known for it to be necessary to do more here than briefly recapitulate the familiar facts, especially as the present story is only concerned with the question, how far the Riarii were implicated in them.

On Easter day, the 26th of April, 1478, Lorenzo de Medici, afterwards "the Magnificent," and his brother Giuliano were, while at worship before the high altar of the Cathedral, stabbed by the daggers of assassins—Lorenzo inefficiently, Giuliano mortally. Francesco de Pazzi and his adherents were the murderers. A Salviati, Archbishop of Pisa, was also one of the conspirators, to whom had been assigned the part of seizing the Palazzo Pubblico while the others did the murder. The daggers of the assassins, however, having done only half their work, and the populace of Florence showing themselves in no wise inclined to rise against the Medici, or make any demonstration in favour of the conspirators, the game was lost. Francesco and the numerous family of the Pazzi were almost wholly exterminated; and the stout republicans of Florence, having no fear of the Church before their eyes, hung the Archbishop Salviati out of a window of the Palazzo Pubblico in a very summary manner.

Now, that the great Florentine family of the Pazzi should hate, worry, and conspire against the great Florentine family of the Medici, was as intelligible, as much according to the habitudes of the place and time, and as natural, as that one butcher's mastiff should fly at the throat of another. And if the deed of that Easter Sunday had involved no other persons in its causes and consequences, than the Medici and the Pazzi, the destruction of the losing party would have been the natural ending and completion of the story. But, in the first place, an Archbishop had been publicly hung in Florence;—a deed more difficult to be wiped out, than the blood of scores of laymen, whether Medici or Pazzi. And, in the second place, the municipal and commercial rivalry and hatred of those two families had been exasperated and put into fatal action by being involved with the yet more culpable hatred of the Riarii for the rival parvenu princes of the Medicean race. Both Medici and Pazzi were bankers in Rome. The former had held the lucrative appointment of treasurers to the Apostolic chamber. Sixtus IV. took this from them, and gave it to the Pazzi. These were friends and allies of the Riarii. And there seems no reason to doubt the assertion of the Florentine writers, that Girolamo was one of the conspirators, if not the original contriver of the whole scheme.

The Pope launched his interdict against Florence, in punishment for the execution of the Archbishop; and followed up this spiritual attack by a less formidable secular one. The republicans were able to defend themselves against the latter; but were obliged by the former tremendous weapon to humiliate themselves before the Papal throne. It is clear enough, in short, that all the sympathies of the Pope after the deed were with the perpetrators of it. Was he a consenting and abetting party to it before the fact? This is a question, which has occupied the attention and investigations of historians, anxious to decide the matter according to their respective prepossessions, more perhaps than its importance deserves. One more crime, however dark, added to the list of those which history has heaped up at the door of the Servi servorum, can effect but little any of the vexed questions raised between the defenders and the accusers of Popes and Papacy. A synod of the Tuscan prelates, which met in July of the year 1478, solemnly accused Sixtus of having instigated the murder. The Florentine historians are nearly unanimous in making the same accusation. And most of the arguments on the point have been based on consideration of this testimony. But we have less suspected evidence to the same purpose in the direct assertion of Stefano Infessura, the Roman diarist. Having briefly told the circumstances and upshot of the attempt, he adds:[85] "These things were ordered by Pope Sixtus, together with the Count Girolamo, and others, to take away the dominion [of Florence] from Lorenzo de Medici, and give it to the Count Girolamo." A moment's consideration of the mode in which Sixtus and his son, or nephew, Girolamo, worked in concert and pulled together during the whole of his papacy for the founding and advancement of the family greatness, and a little reflection on the perfect confidence and community of aims and wishes existing between them, will add all the weight which extreme probability can give to the opinion that the Pope was one of the conspirators.

But then arises the question more nearly touching the subject of these pages; What guilty knowledge may Catherine have had of her husband's crime? Did the young bridegroom, within the first year of his married life, take counsel with his girl-wife, at that time within a few weeks of having become for the first time a mother at sixteen years of age, respecting this deed of blood to be done for the furthering of their mutual greatness? Did he seek to gratify her ambition,—certainly no less worldly, less gross in quality, or less a ruling passion than his own,—and obtain her admiring smiles by laying at the proud beauty's feet these high hopes to be realised at the price of a daring deed? Or, when returning from dark plottings with priests and desperate men in the most secret council closet of the Papal palace to the brilliant home of his young wife, did he mutter Macbeth-like, "Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck, till thou applaud the deed"? No written word survives to throw the least light on this question. And each reader must judge of the probabilities of the case according to his knowledge and theories of human character. It was certainly Riario's practice, as we shall see, to take counsel of his wife in state matters of less unlawful kind. And thoroughly does she seem to have been capable of seconding and aiding in all the rough business that might fall to the hand of a stirring and ambitious prince in those unquiet times;—truly a help-meet for one who had to hold his own by craft in the council-chamber, as well as by energy and valour in the field. Certainly, bearing in mind the character of the times, and the character of the women, there can be small doubt, that had Catherine found herself called to queen it in fair Florence, she would have "applauded the deed," that placed her there.... Yet ... at sixteen, and at this period of her life at all events, (however much we may at a later time find her wholly busied in virile struggles for power and supreme rule), occupied with the more womanly and more holy cares of wife and mother-hood, it may be fairly hoped that she was innocent of this black guilt, despite the nearness of her connection with Heaven's vicegerent!

During these four years in Rome, Catherine presented her husband with three children. The first was a disappointment to the ambitious pair. Bianca, a daughter, born in March, 1478, was greeted, we may be sure, with scant welcome. But on the 1st of September, 1479, the long-sighted—yet so short-seeing—hopes of the parents and of the Pontiff were gratified by the birth of a son, christened Ottaviano. And on the 24th of August, 1480, a second son, named Cesare, was born to them.

At length, in the summer of 1481, some brief pause in the business of sharing the Papal councils, making and breaking of leagues, persecuting the Colonnas, and entertaining ambassadors, made it possible for Girolamo and his wife to visit for the first time their dominions of ForlÌ and Imola. There were to be grand doings in Rome on the 30th of June, 1481. The Pope in grand gala, and with much ceremony and great rejoicings, was to bless the fleet, now coming up from Ostia to the city. There were to be feasts, candles, processions, and other such like "divine services," with "Florentine ambassador washing the Pope's hands at the beginning of the sacred rites; Venetian ambassadors washing them in the middle, and the Prefect of Rome at the end of the same;"[86] and drink and Papal blessings distributed to all comers.

But, despite all these attractions, Girolamo and Catherine with their retinue left Rome at daybreak on that day. It caused great surprise, says the chronicler, that they should not have chosen, at the cost of one day's delay, to be present at all these gay doings. But it was understood that that special day and hour had been indicated to him as fortunate for his journey, by the planets.