Alexander availed himself of the defeat of the French to break the power of the Orsini, following the general tendency of all the princes of the day to crush the great feudatories and establish a centralized despotism. Virginio Orsini, who had been captured by the Spaniards, died a prisoner at Naples, and the pope confiscated his property. But the rest of the clan still held out, and the papal troops sent against them under Guidobaldo duke of Urbino and the duke of Gandia were defeated at Soriano (January 1497). Peace was made through Venetian mediation, the Orsini paying 50,000 ducats in exchange for their confiscated lands; the duke of Urbino, whom they had captured, was left by the pope to pay his own ransom. The Orsini still remained very powerful, and Alexander could count on none but his 3000 Spaniards. His only success had been the capture of Ostia and the submission of the Francophile cardinals Colonna and Savelli.
Now occurred the first of those ugly domestic tragedies for which the house of Borgia remained famous. On the 14th of June the duke of Gandia, lately created duke of Benevento, disappeared; the next day his corpse was found in the Tiber. Alexander, overwhelmed with grief, shut himself up in Castle St Angelo, and then declared that the reform of the church would be the sole object of his life henceforth--a resolution which he did not keep. Every effort was made to discover the assassin, and suspicion fell on various highly placed personages. Suddenly the rumour spread about that Cesare, the pope's second son, was the author of the deed, and although the inquiries then ceased and no conclusive evidence has yet come to light, there is every probability that the charge was well founded. No doubt Cesare, who contemplated quitting the church, was inspired by jealousy of Gandia's influence with the pope. Violent and revengeful, he now became the most powerful man in Rome, and even his father quailed before him. As he needed funds to carry out his various schemes, the pope began a series of confiscations, of which one of the victims was his own secretary, in order to enrich him. The process was a simple one: any cardinal, nobleman or official who was known to be rich would be accused of some offence; imprisonment and perhaps murder followed at once, and then the confiscation of his property. The disorganization of the Curia was appalling, the sale of offices became a veritable scandal, the least opposition to the Borgia was punished with death, and even in that corrupt age the state of things shocked public opinion. The story of Alexander's relations with Savonarola is narrated under the latter heading; it is sufficient to say here that the pope's hostility was due to the friar's outspoken invectives against papal corruption and to his appeals for a General Council. Alexander, although he could not get Savonarola into his own hands, browbeat the Florentine government into condemning the reformer to death (May 23, 1498). The pope was unable to maintain order in his own dominions; the houses of Colonna and Orsini were at open war with each other, but after much fighting they made peace on a basis of alliance against the pope. Thus further weakened, he felt more than ever that he had only his own kin to rely upon, and his thoughts were ever turned on family aggrandizement. He had annulled Lucrezia's marriage with Sforza in 1497, and, unable to arrange a union between Cesare and the daughter of Frederick, king of Naples (who had succeeded Ferdinand II. the previous year), he induced the latter by threats to agree to a marriage between the duke of Bisceglie, a natural son of Alphonso II., and Lucrezia. Cesare, who renounced his cardinalate, was sent on a mission to France at the end of the year, bearing a bull of divorce for the new king Louis XII., in exchange for which he obtained the duchy of Valentinois (hence his title of Duca Valentino) and a promise of material assistance in his schemes to subjugate the feudal princelings of Romagna; he married a princess of Navarre. Alexander hoped that Louis's help would be more profitable to his house than that of Charles had been and, in spite of the remonstrances of Spain and of the Sforza, he allied himself with France in January 1499 and was joined by Venice. By the autumn Louis was in Italy and expelled Lodovico Sforza from the Milanese. In order to consolidate his possessions still further, now that French success seemed assured, the pope determined to deal drastically with Romagna, which although nominally under papal rule was divided up into a number of practically independent lordships on which Venice, Milan and Florence cast hungry eyes. Cesare, nominated gonfaloniere of the Church, and strong in French favour, proceeded to attack the turbulent cities one by one (for detail see BORGIA CESARE.)
Continued on page four.
