An unprotected Princess.—Match-making, and its penalties.—A ladies man for a Castellano.—A woman's weakness.—And a woman's political economy.—Wanted, by the city of ForlÌ, a Jew; any Israelite, possessing sufficient capital, will find this, &c. &c.—The new Pope, Alexander VI.—The value of a Jubilee.—Troublous times in ForlÌ.—Alliances made, and broken.—Catherine once more a widow.

Our Catherine now found herself in exactly that position, which in her age and country had led to so many historical tragedies, and brought about the ruin of so many similarly situated princesses, and the misery of the hapless people subjected to them. A beautiful widow of six-and-twenty, holding one rich principality in her own right, and a second still more valuable, as regent for a son only nine years of age, was infallibly a mark for all the princely fortune-hunters, and ambitious intriguers throughout Italy. Every degree and mode of interference from marriage to murder was likely to be brought to bear by greedy nobles and unprincipled brother sovereigns against one of the weaker sex so circumstanced. But Catherine hardly deserves to be described by such a phrase. If her sex marked her place among the feebler portion of mankind, the virility of her character claimed a high standing for her among the strongest of the masters of creation. And she felt, and showed herself perfectly capable of standing alone, and holding her own and her son's inheritance by her sole unaided prudence and energy.

In the early days of her widowhood a report arose that a marriage[121] was in contemplation between the Countess of ForlÌ and Antonio Ordelaffi, pretender to that principality. His brother, Francesco, was dead, and he was now the sole representative of the old dynasty, which had ruled ForlÌ for so many centuries. The report of the probability of such a marriage arose, doubtless, from the manifest advantages derivable from such an arrangement. It has been seen how sure a thorn in the sides of the Riarii was the existence of this exiled but unforgotten family; how insecure and uneasy it rendered their hold of the principality, and how the never-ceasing intrigues and incitements of the pretenders continually kept party jealousies and hatred alive, and ever and anon burst into insurrectionary attempts, necessitating constant vigilance and severe punishments, themselves the cause of further disaffection.

All this unhappy state of things might be remedied, the unfortunate heir of a long line of princes restored to his inheritance, and a beautiful young widow very satisfactorily mated with a noble and not undistinguished cavalier (for such Antonio Ordelaffi had become as a Condottiere in the service of Venice), and everything made pleasant to all parties by this match. So thought the gossips, patrician and plebeian, in the cities of Romagna; and, accordingly, settled the matter to their own satisfaction, as gossips are wont to do in similar cases.

So much appearance of authenticity had the report assumed, and so completely had the good folk of ForlÌ taken for granted the truth of it, that in order not to be found behind-hand in their preparations for the festivities to ensue, when the great event should be announced, many families had prepared liveries and streamers, with the united colours of the Ordelaffi and Riarii, and staves in great numbers, similarly painted, for carrying in processions. And it was the chance discovery of some of these well-intended preparations, that first revealed to the Countess the plans which her lieges of ForlÌ had taken on themselves to make in her behalf.

Catherine was furious! Who had dared to speak, or to believe when spoken, so gratuitous and detestable a calumny? What had the world, and especially her own subjects, ever seen in her conduct to make them think it possible that she should sacrifice the prospects of her son to any considerations of her own tranquillity? What! she a Sforza, unite herself to an Ordelaffi, and for fear of him! She need to seek a protector, and find him in the vagabond heir of a house, whose weakness and misconduct had deservedly lost them their dominion! She would show them that her own hand was strong enough to hold the rein, ay, and the whip as well, in her City of ForlÌ. And now, what fool had been guilty of the insolent absurdity of painting these sticks with colours so offensively chosen?

Whereupon, cringes into the presence-chamber of the angry dame, shaking in his shoes, and with many a profound obeisance, an old acquaintance of our own—no other than gossiping Messer Leon Cobelli, musician, painter, ballet master, and historian! He, in his capacity of painter, while dreaming of festivals to be arranged, enjoyed, and afterwards chronicled by himself, had mingled those tints in so detestable mesalliance.

Off to the gate-house prison with him, there to meditate on the difference between scribbling his history, when his lords had enacted it, and presuming to arrange it for them beforehand.

So poor Cobelli is forthwith marched off in high dudgeon, and had awful thoughts,[122] in his anger, of condemning his liege lady to sudden and irreparable forfeiture of an immortality of glory by burning his chronicle of her deeds; but the reflection, that in that case he, Leon Cobelli, ballet-master to the court, would himself share in the condemnation, happily arrested his hand before the sacrifice was consummated.

So thoroughly did the high and haughty dame impress on the frightened ForlÌvesi the expediency of holding their tongues and not opening too wide their eyes in respect to matters of such delicate nature, and so much above them, that when, not long afterwards, there really was somewhat of the sort to talk about, such a discreet silence was observed, as almost to have defeated the detective investigations of Mnemosyne herself.

Tommaso Feo was, as has been seen, governor of the citadel of ForlÌ for Catherine, having been placed there by herself on a very critical occasion. It has been seen, also, how well and zealously he acquitted himself of his trust in the difficult circumstances following upon the assassination of the Count. He came from Savona, Girolamo's birthplace, and had been for many years a faithful follower of the fortunes of the Riarii. Now, this Tommaso Feo had a brother, Giacomo, not yet twenty years old, a remarkably handsome youth, "very tall, excellently well-made, of a beautiful pink complexion, courteous and pleasant with all, both high and low, and well skilled in all manly and knightly exercises."[123] This well-favoured youth had been looked on with a very approving eye by the high and puissant dame, his sovereign lady. And the circumstance of her having, a short time previously, given a lady, who was a relative of her own, in marriage to Tommaso Feo, his brother, made it seem natural that both the young men should be admitted more freely into the society of the Countess than might otherwise have been expected.

Before long, however, the young and beautiful widow determined on taking a step, which,—as is frequently the case with the steps taken by young and beautiful widows,—caused no little raising of the eyebrows, and some very cautiously whispered talk among the citizens of ForlÌ. This was nothing less startling than the substitution of the young and handsome bachelor brother, for the tried and trusty elder brother, in the high and important post of Castellano of Ravaldino.

But high-handed and strong as Catherine was, we have already seen enough of the ways of these governors of strong fortresses in general, and of stout Tommaso Feo in particular, to make it very intelligible that the lady did not see fit to proceed to her intent by simply ordering Tommaso to walk out, and Giacomo to walk in to Ravaldino. A good Castellano's duty was to hold his castle, as a good terrier's duty is to hold the throat of the creature he has been bidden to attack; and it often happens that the master of the staunch beast cannot induce him to relinquish his gripe. The question was, before a word had transpired of the proposed change, how to get staunch Tommaso out of his place of strength.

With this view, the crafty lady gave a fÊte in her gardens outside the city, to which the Governor was courteously invited. In this little excursion outside the walls, there was little to excite the Castellano's suspicions. He could leave the communication between the fortress and the city safely closed behind him, come out from the citadel into the open country, and return to it at pleasure by the same road. But what is man's wit worth against a woman's wiles! In the gardens, no arm would serve Catherine to lean on save that of her trusty Castellano. They spent a charming day; "tasted together various fruits;" and when his beautiful sovereign declared herself at the end of the day's pleasure so tired that he must give her his arm as far as the palace, what mortal Castellano could do otherwise than fall into the trap so cleverly baited.

If such there were, good Tommaso Feo was not the man. Pleased and flattered, he led the fair traitress through the little city to her palace, and was no sooner within its walls than he was tapped on his shoulder, and bade to deliver up his sword, and consider himself a prisoner! This having been satisfactorily done, Madama,—as the chroniclers from the period of her first husband's death almost invariably call her,—summoned the conscious Giacomo to her presence, and stated, that though nothing had occurred to diminish her high esteem for his brother, circumstances made it desirable that she should change her Castellano—that Tommaso would for the present return to his native Savona, quitting the city with a guard of honour as a mark of her high consideration; and that she wished him to accept the vacated post.

Giacomo, we are told, accepted his preferment with well-acted modesty and surprise, and Tommaso appears to have become easily reconciled to the arrangement, as he is not long after found back again in ForlÌ, in the service of the Countess.

These events took place in the summer of 1490; and there is reason[124] to suppose that the new Castellano had then been his liege lady's husband for several months. The marriage, though a perfectly legitimate one in the eyes of the Church, was, and remained a rigidly guarded secret; not only because it was a wholly unavowable mesalliance, but because according the public law of the Holy Roman Empire, Catherine's second marriage would have entailed deprivation of the guardianship of her children.

It was, as may be supposed, by no means a prudent thing even to allude to a secret of such importance. A poor ignorant artisan, who had been overheard saying, that somebody had told him, that somebody else had said that their lady had married her Castellano, was forthwith summoned to the presence of the Countess, who, after a few words spoken with a severity which half frightened him out of his senses, ordered him at once to be put on the rack: from which torture, says the historian, he barely escaped with his life. We may be very sure, that few words were ever whispered even in ForlÌ on so dangerous a subject. And the reverend biographer, who relates the above incident, seems as if he hardly felt safe two hundred years afterwards in meddling with such state secrets, remarking apologetically, that he merely notifies the fact, that his readers may not think any ill when they at a later period meet with mention of a son of Catherine's named Giacomo, born somewhere about this time.

In truth, the ForlÌ public had little cause to pay any attention to this portion of the private life of their sovereign. For in all respects as far as regarded them, and as far as the world could see, Catherine was still sovereign Countess, and Giacomo Feo still Castellano of Ravaldino, and nothing more. All that could be done for her young husband without lifting him from the rank of a subject, Catherine delighted in accomplishing. Thus, we find her obtaining for him from her brother at Milan some order of chivalry, all the insignia of which were duly sent by the hands of proper heraldic personages from that splendid court. The noblest knights of the most conspicuous families in ForlÌ invested the young man, one with cloak, another with collar, and another with spurs; and there were grand festivities, and Catherine was, it is written, in the highest spirits.

Her new marriage, we are especially told, in no wise made her neglectful of her duties towards her children, and especially that of constantly attending to their education, and superintending it in a great measure personally. She took infinite pains in seeking for the best masters, and in ascertaining for what career each of her sons was by nature most adapted. We learn further, without surprise, that she was a careful and prudent, rather than an indulgent mother; and find her acquiring the praise of contemporary writers by "never caressing her children," and never allowing them to come into her presence, save in full state costume, and requiring them to maintain a grave and decorous demeanor to match![125]

For the rest, public affairs go on much the same as during the lifetime of Girolamo. The conspiracies are hatched and detected much as usual. That troublesome Ordelaffi knows no middle course between love and murder. As Catherine would not listen to him on the former topic, he is continually plotting to compass the latter. Now in Imola, now in ForlÌ, and now in some one of the outlying fortresses of the small state, some little conspiracy is continually being discovered and crushed by the lady's prudence and vigilance. A few traitors, found guilty of being in correspondence with the pretender, are hung, a few others banished,—and then things are quiet for a few months.

As usual, the finance question is found to be the most difficult and abstruse part of the whole science of governing. The court of ForlÌ is maintained, we hear, on as magnificent a scale as that of many larger states. And money must be had. But Madama is a good manager; and strives much to find some means of making a full treasury not absolutely incompatible with a fair show of prosperity among the tax-payers; not, unhappily, with much success.

Once Madama thought she had found the Aladdin's lamp at last. The great Via Emilia, high road from Milan, Bologna, Venice, and all Germany, to Rome, runs through our towns of Imola and ForlÌ. Suppose we put up, as we have a clear right to do, a turnpike-gate,—say two toll-bars,—one at either end of our territory, and so fleece travellers to the most needful replenishing of our own coffers, and every way desirable lightening of the burdens of our faithful subjects. How strange never to have thought of it before!

So the new toll-bars are forthwith erected; but to the great surprise of Madama and her counsellors with very much less result than had been anticipated; with little other result indeed than a few broken heads and bloody noses, arising from the scuffles of the toll-bar keepers with violent travellers who decline paying the new imposition. This was all natural enough; but the strange thing is, that the traffic most notably falls off. Travellers won't come to be taxed. Ducky won't come to be killed. With a perverse cunning, most provoking, men go round another way; some stay at home and don't go at all; and the toll-bars barely pay the expense of their keepers. Then the Pesaro folk, whose communications with the neighbouring towns are much interrupted by the Lady Catherine's new toll-bars, take it into their heads to retaliate, by seizing every ForlÌ man who ventures to show his face within their jurisdiction, weighing him publicly on a steel yard by the road-side, and taxing him so much a pound, as if he were hogsflesh or mutton, to the great amusement and scoffing of the cities round about, and the infinite scandal and discomfiture of the men of ForlÌ.

But Catherine was a wise princess, and in a very short time got a lesson in finance from her new scheme, which some other princes have failed to learn from the experience of centuries; and the unsuccessful toll-bars were quietly removed.

Another somewhat curious matter, in which we find Madama engaged about this time, was the providing ForlÌ, both on her own behalf and that of her subjects, with one of the most necessary conveniences of civilised life, of which the city had been destitute since the riots at the time of the Count's death. The banks and pawnshops of two wealthy Jews had been then broken into and pillaged, and their owners frightened into abandoning the city. And now if a Christian had need of a little ready cash, where was he to look for it? Money absolutely needed, and not a Jew within hail! Madama felt that this was a state of things calling for immediate remedy. So special overtures were made to a wealthy Israelite of Bologna to come and settle in ForlÌ. The Jew admitted the urgent necessity of the case, but bearing in mind recent events, deemed it no more than common prudence to stipulate, that an instrument should be drawn up and executed in due legal form, by which the sovereign, state, and municipality, of ForlÌ, should be bound to indemnify him for any loss to his capital or property that might occur from revolution or other violence. This was promptly acceded to; the Jew was installed in ForlÌ, to the great joy of its ever-orthodox, but often out-at-elbows, Christian population; and, by Madama's wise provision, her lieges could once again get their little bills done as heretofore.

Meantime, Innocent VIII. died; and in August of the same year, 1492, the Sacred College announced "Urbi et Orbi" that they had been inspired by the Holy Spirit to elect as Heaven's Vicegerent on earth, the Cardinal Roderigo Borgia; one, who may be safely assumed, without any careful scanning of the members of the college, to have been the worst of those offered to their choice, inasmuch as history has assigned to him the portentous pre-eminence of being the worst of the successors of St. Peter. English readers have no idea what this Pope, Alexander VI., was; and no English page can dare to tell them. Studious men, who feel, that, inasmuch as despite all change of time and circumstance, similar causes will, in the moral world as certainly as in the physical world, produce similar effects, it is therefore fitting that such cesspools of abominations should be sounded by those who for the sake of the general health ought to be conversant with every form of disease,—these may in the cynical unblushing dead Latin of Burckhardt the diarist, look on the loathsome picture of life in the Vatican under this Father of Christendom. For others let it suffice, that this man, chosen by the Church by infallible inspiration, for the infallible guidance of Christian souls, was such, that no human soul could be in communication with his without deep injury and degradation.

This man, as Cardinal under Sixtus IV., had been his vice-chancellor, and a steady adherent of the Riarii. He was the sponsor chosen by the young Count and Countess to hold at the font their first-born son. And the friendship which existed, and was thus specially marked, between them and such a man as the Cardinal Borgia, cannot but be felt to have the force of unfavourable evidence in our estimate of them.

Catherine, however, considered the news of Borgia's elevation to be most important to her interests, and highly satisfactory. Two envoys on behalf of ForlÌ, and two on behalf of Imola, were despatched to Rome to compliment the new Pope on his election, and offer the homage of the Countess and her son. Being very well received by his Holiness, they begged that he would grant that a Jubilee, with plenary absolution, might be held for three successive years in two churches of the Franciscans in ForlÌ, which was graciously accorded, with the condition however that a fresh bull should be applied for each year; which was only laying a small tax on the profits of the Jubilee. Such a grant was not uncommon. But the result of the three years' speculation, as recorded by the ForlÌ historians, is curious. The first year brought 2500 lire, with which the monks of one church built a cloister, and the nuns of the other put a new roof to their chapel, and newly fitted out a miraculous Virgin. The second year's produce was almost nothing, because the brief enabling the convents to absolve from homicide did not arrive in time. And the third year, they got only 184 lire, because the Apostolic Court, having then more important matters in hand, again neglected to send the necessary brief in due time.

Up to this period the life of Catherine has been passed altogether in that good time,—those halcyon days for Italy described by Guicciardini in the opening of his great work, and marked by him as coming to an end in the fatal year, 1494. To readers more conversant with the regular well-ordered course of life in the nineteenth century than with that of the fifteenth, it may seem, that the little magic-lanthorn-like peeps at the men and things of that old time, offered to them in the foregoing pages, can hardly be deemed samples of that happy condition so regretfully commemorated by the great historian. Murders of princes, and awards of torture and death to their conspiring subjects, recurring in oscillations of pendulum-like regularity,—civil war in the streets of Rome, and monstrous corruption in her palaces,—lawless violence of the law-making classes, met by continually successful evasion of the law by those for whose oppression rather than protection it was intended: all this does not represent to our ideas a happy state of society.

But Guicciardini looks back to these days from amid the misfortunes of a far more disastrous period. The good old days,—when Italian throats were throttled only by Italian hands; when the tyrants were Italian tyrants not too strong to be occasionally knocked on the head by Italian rebels; when the wealth extorted from the people by splendid princes was at least scattered among them again by their splendour; when, in a word, Italy, manage it as they might, was for the Italians,—were sighed for as a golden age in that iron period, when the barbarian from beyond the Alps had come down upon them.

Charles VIII., of France, was the second Attila, who headed an inroad of barbarians, from whose gripe on some part of her body, soft Italy has never since been able to shake herself free. That ambitious Prince undertook to make good certain old standing genealogical claims to the sovereignty of Naples, long since advanced by France; and marched into Italy with an army for that purpose in the summer of 1494. It would lead us too far away into the great high-road of the history of that time, if we were to attempt to trace an intelligible picture of the dissensions and jealousies among the princes of Italy, which made that moment appear peculiarly opportune for the prosecution of his claims. We have only to deal with the immediate result of the great calamity to ForlÌ and its Countess.

Those rich alluvial flats of Romagna were capital fighting ground, and lay besides just on the high road of the French troops southwards. And on the 18th of August the main body of the Neapolitan troops were at Cesena, about twelve miles to the south; and five days later the French troops were at Bologna, some thirty miles to the north of ForlÌ. The little state found itself in a sufficiently dangerous position under any circumstances. But the situation was rendered yet more difficult by the necessity of taking one or the other side, when there were strong reasons for taking neither. The Duke of Milan, Catherine's brother, and her uncle "Ludovico il Moro," who, in fact, held the power of Milan in his hands, were allies of the French king. On the other hand, the Pope had allied himself with the King of Naples; and ForlÌ was held as a fief of the Church; and all Catherine's sympathies, and her Riario connections,—among whom were two cardinals high in the confidence of the Pontiff,—drew her towards the party taken by the court of Rome.

The decision was difficult; and Catherine was long in deciding. Repeated embassies were seen in those days arriving from the hostile camps, and departing without having obtained the promise they wished.

Meantime, Madama was busily engaged in preparing, as best she might, for the storm which was sure to burst over ForlÌ, whichever side she might decide on supporting. Men were sent throughout the whole territory warning the peasants of the plains to leave their homes, and betake themselves[126] with such property as was moveable to places of safety. The time of vintage was close at hand, and it was hard to leave the fruit of the year's labour to be gathered by others. But to have remained would only have been to lose all that might have been moved, and probably life itself, as well as that which they were compelled to leave behind them. So, throughout the length and breadth of the plains around ForlÌ, long trains of the cultivators of the soil, with their families and cattle, might be seen moving into the shelter of the over-crowded cities, or towards the comparatively safe recesses of the Apennine.

At length, after much vacillation and long bargaining, Madama declared herself the ally of the King of Naples. The principal conditions were, that both Naples and Rome should guarantee the defence of her states; and that Octavian, her eldest son, then seventeen years old, should receive the rank of General in the allied army with a large stipend.[127]

The historians of ForlÌ, and especially Burriel, Catherine's biographer, insist much on the pause in the movements of the two armies, while encamped respectively at Bologna and at Cesena, while either party strove by repeated efforts to obtain her alliance. It would not be credible, Burriel remarks, that the generals of two armies, each of about 16,000 men, should have lost so much time, and taken so much trouble to secure the friendship of so small a principality, if all the chroniclers did not accord in their clear statements, that such was the case. And they point out, with much municipal pride, the high position and authority which these circumstances indicate Catherine to have attained among her contemporaries. The observation is a fair one. And the evident importance attached by both the contending parties to the friendship of a state so entirely unimportant on the score of its power, is very remarkable.

The alliance with Naples, which Madama had been so slow to form, she was very quick to break. A few successes on the part of the French seem to have caused a greater degree of discouragement among their enemies than was reasonable. The Pope recalled his troops from Romagna, and the Duke of Calabria began to draw off his forces southwards. In these circumstances, which would seem to have left ForlÌ exposed to certain destruction, and to have been totally at variance with the conditions that had been stipulated for its protection, Catherine sought to secure the safety of her little state by suddenly changing sides and becoming at the shortest possible notice the friend of the winning party. The measure was not wholly successful: for the Duke of Calabria in retiring southwards, angry as he might well be with the Countess, ravaged the country as he passed to the utmost of his power.

The French troops remained in the neighbourhood of ForlÌ as friends till the 23rd of November, at which time they proceeded to cross the Apennine to join King Charles, who had arrived at Florence on the 18th of that month. They were friends, but friends whose departure was seen with no small satisfaction; for the difficulty and cost of feeding them, and inducing them to abstain from helping themselves had been extreme.

During this time of trouble and continual anxiety, Giacomo Feo had been governor-general of Catherine's states. He seems to have efficiently seconded the dexterous management, by which Catherine succeeded in bringing her little state through this critical time in an only half-ruined condition; and Madama, determined, says Burriel, not to let such an opportunity as having these French generals at ForlÌ slip away without making something out of it, obtained by their means the rank and title of baron for her General and husband from the King of France.

The young General was, we are told, beyond measure elated at the possession of this coveted preferment; and Madama was as pleased to have gratified him with it. But, it would seem, that the gift was a fatal one.

On the 27th of August, 1495, Catherine and her sons and Feo had gone out of ForlÌ on a hunting excursion. The party were returning to the city in the evening; Madama, and some of her sons, were in a carriage, Feo was riding behind them on horseback. Now, seven[128] citizens of Imola and ForlÌ, some nobles, some priests, and some peasants, had sworn together that they would that day kill the favourite. So they posted themselves at a spot within the city walls, by which the Court party were sure to pass on their return; and there, letting the carriage with Catherine and her sons pass on unmolested, they stabbed the unfortunate young husband with a pike through the body, so that with one cry he fell dead.

It is of no interest to chronicle the obscure names of these assassins. But it is worth remarking that most, if not all of them, were personally known to their victim. And this is a circumstance, that in almost every case characterises these medieval assassinations of Italian princes. The murderers are not politically fanatical regicides, who for the working out of some theory or hope, salve their consciences with the plea of necessity for the removal of a man whom they have perhaps never seen, and certainly never known. They are men in the habit of daily intercourse with him, and strike with all the virulence of personal hate. The victim apostrophises them by their Christian names, not unconscious in all probability of the items in the score thus finally settled.

In the case of this unfortunate young Feo, as far as can be judged[129] from the scanty notices of the provincial historians, his death seems to have been due to the jealousy occasioned by the reiterated honours showered upon him. This obscure young man, a stranger from Savona, some place, they say, away beyond Genoa, is brought here, raised above all the ancient nobility of the country, made Cavaliere, Conte, Castellano, Governor-General; and now not content with all that, must needs be a French Baron too! This last preferment seems from some feeling to have been the most irksome and most odious of all to the ForlÌvesi. Come what might, they would not be lorded over by a French Baron!

And thus, at the age of thirty-three, Catherine was for the second time after five years of marriage, the widow of a murdered husband.