Lucrezia Borgia: Life, Love and Death in Renaissance Italy (39 page)

The situation was complicated for Lucrezia by the undercurrents of hostility of which she was well aware between Francesco Gonzaga and Alfonso. That September of 1507 in the official correspondence with Gonzaga which she had resumed in the absence of Alfonso she had felt it necessary to stress that Alfonso’s letters and actions showed ‘his excellent disposition towards Your Lordship’.
⁶

Knowing that she was pregnant, Lucrezia had made preparations for the carnival of the new year of 1508 to be particularly joyful. The Sala Grande was hung with the most splendid of the Este tapestries. Everyone focused on the pleasures of going about masked: Lucrezia, her ladies and courtiers watched from the great window of the Sala Grande. A ‘very gallant’ ball was held in the Sala Grande. There was tilting at the quintain (‘
Quintana
’), more feasts and more balls. Angela Borgia, who was rumoured to be pregnant, ‘found it necessary to dance’ but Lucrezia, wiser this time and without the stimulating presence of Francesco Gonzaga, did not. The carnival festivities went on unhindered despite the thunderings of a hellfire preacher. The young men of the court began practising for a great joust on the feast of St Matthew, and on 13 February an eclogue commissioned by Ippolito was performed in the Sala Grande where Alfonso and Ippolito, ‘both masked’, and Lucrezia with a good company of gentlewomen, sat on a tribune hung with tapestries. The eclogue was composed by Ercole Pio, brother of Emilia, one of the heroines of Castiglione’s
The Courtier
, a dialogue of amorous shepherds praising the great ladies of Old Testament, Greek and Roman times and of three contemporary
grandes dames
, Lucrezia, Isabella d’Este and Elisabetta, Duchess of Urbino. This was followed by Ippolito’s Slav acrobats executing prodigious leaps, a girl tightrope walker and the cardinal’s lute players and singers singing the praises of the ‘diva Borgia’. Incense was thrown on a sacrificial fire and the whole thing ended in a dance. The eclogues, separately commissioned by Alfonso and Lucrezia (from Tebaldeo) and performed on 8 March, were generally considered inferior, but the first performance of Ariosto’s comedy,
La Cassaria
, ordered by Ippolito, was praised by di Prosperi as ‘as elegant and delightful as any other I have ever seen played’. Described by Gardner as ‘a rollicking piece of work’, it was greatly appreciated by the court, as were the music and the scenery painted by the Duke’s court painter, Pellegrino da San Daniele.
⁷
The joint presentation of the eclogues and comedy by the three symbolized the new unity of the Este family after the upheavals of the
Congiura
, but in the bowels of the Torre dei Leoni, Ferrante and Giulio lived their lives in isolation and silence.

For the moment, however, the Este were determined to enjoy carnival. There were jousts, and Ippolito and a companion were seen going about disguised in Turkish costumes of gold brocade ornamented with applique flowers of black silk, estimated to cost 200 ducats each. It was hardly a disguise, di Prosperi commented, since the pair stood out among the others for the richness of their clothes. Ippolito reacted with his usual violence to the impertinence of his chamberlain, one Alfonso Cestatello, whom he had ordered not to take part in the last evening’s carnival celebration, for failing to provide some things necessary for the cardinal’s masking. Cestatello had replied impertinently and gone there all the same whereupon he was seized by the hair by Masino del Forno, confined to prison and afterwards exiled to Capua for six months.

It was noticed that Lucrezia had not taken part in the dancing during the last days of carnival; she was reported to be seven months gone and to have engaged a beautiful young wet nurse. Both she and Angela Borgia were nearing their term, and both had ordered sumptuous cradles and preparations for their lyingin. On 25 March, di Prosperi estimated the birth to be imminent; people were storing away books and documents from the Palazzo della Ragione and public offices for fear of their being burned in an outbreak of rowdy celebrations at the birth of an heir. By the 29th, Angela Borgia had already given birth to a son while Lucrezia’s delivery was daily awaited. Alfonso, who had had some misunderstanding with Venice, went there on 3 April with a fleet of boats to make his peace and he was there when, on 4 April, Lucrezia gave birth to a son, named Ercole in honour of his grandfather. The baby was fair-skinned, handsome and lively, with, according to di Prosperi, who saw him when he was three weeks old, ‘a most beautiful mouth but a little snub nose and eyes [which were] not very dark nor very large’.

On 27 April, di Prosperi went to visit Lucrezia in her
camerini
and found her reposing on her bed in conversation with Ippolito. ‘Her Ladyship is very well and from what I understand for these holy feast days she has gone to the loggia of the Chapel to hear divine service. I also saw her son who seemed to me even handsomer and more vivacious than before . . .’ He described Lucrezia’s apartments:

Yesterday I visited the Duchess’s rooms . . . the decoration of the apartment is as follows. In the Salotto there is only a great carpet over the table, with a bench and a backrest; in the large Antechamber the upholstery of the bed is of mulberry satin which belonged to your mother [the Duchess Eleonora], embroidered with bunches of everlasting flowers, with very fine hanging [tapestries] of silk and wool around this room from the ceiling to the floor, among them the scene of the Judgement of Solomon. In the Camera de la Stufa Grande, the back hangings are fashioned in pavilion style [tent shaped], attached to the gilded cornice which surrounds this room.

In the first Camerino the hangings ordered by the Duchess Eleonora include a pavilion with curtains of crimson satin with the arms of the Este. In the Duchess Lucrezia’s room, where she is now, there is a pavilion of cloth of silver with a deep fringe of gold thread, decorated with sheets of striped cambric . . . and round this Camerino are curtains of crimson mulberry velvet and cloth of gold, with the arms of the house of Este. In the Camera dorata next to these rooms the baby lies in a camp bed [
de bachete
], with a satin cover striped
alla morescha
in white, crimson and other colours; the room is hung round with satin cloth. Then there is the cradle placed in front of the bed in this room which is of such a splendour that I do not know how to describe it: it is made in a square six feet long and five feet wide with a mounting step covered with white cloth, and at each corner there is a square block in the antique fashion, above which rise four columns which sustain a most beautiful architrave with its cornice, and above the architrave is a carved garland which goes from corner to corner – all in gold without any colour, and it is hung with curtains of white satin, as is the canopy. In the centre of this square is a cradle . . . on a pedestal, all of it gilded. The cradle cover is of cloth of gold and its sheets of cambric and turnings of most beautiful embroidered linen.

In the outer rooms, Beatrice de’Contrari and the Comatre Frassina were in attendance, while il Barone sat on the floor with other court jesters.

Ercole Strozzi’s ostensible role in corresponding with Francesco Gonzaga was to compose differences between Alfonso and Ippolito on the one side and Francesco on the other, petty but continuing disputes to which di Prosperi also referred. An optimistic letter of 2 January 1508 from Strozzi to Gonzaga was counteracted by an angry letter of 14 January from Francesco complaining that fugitive servants of his had been welcomed at Ferrara and another on 13 March, asserting that his brothers-in-law, under the cover of amicable protestations, continued in their intent to find new cause for controversy.
⁸
The efforts of Benedetto Brugi and Bernardino di Prosperi were equally optimistic and equally unavailing. According to Luzio, Alfonso’s feelings against Francesco were such that when he had left for Venice just before Lucrezia’s delivery of their son, he had ordered that Lucrezia was not to send news of the event to the Marquis of Mantua.

It was just before Alfonso’s prohibition concerning the communication of the birth that the first surviving letter of the ‘Zilio’ correspondence of this year began. Naturally, pseudonyms were used: Alfonso was ‘Camillo’ and Ippolito ‘Tigrino’ (‘little tiger’), an apt reference to his fierce nature. According to this letter, dated 23 March 1508, Francesco (‘Guido’) had obviously sent back the incriminating letters: Strozzi had handed Lucrezia her letter and burned the rest. Some of the letter is devoted to the cause of reconciliation between Gonzaga and the Este brothers; there had been a suggestion that Gonzaga should have come to Ferrara to effect it. From the text it is apparent that it was Lucrezia who made the running; Gonzaga hung back on the excuse that he was ill. Although he suffered from syphilis, this was a pretext which he frequently deployed to keep himself out of trouble and Lucrezia, it seems, saw through it: ‘She regrets that you have been unwell, all the more that that sickness has prevented you from writing and even more from coming here. If you come here it will be as dear to you as 25,000 ducats and more: I cannot express to you the anger that has taken her because she was [so] willing to see you and because you have never answered her, which has made her anxious to know the cause.’ Strozzi advised him to ‘dissimulate’ with Alfonso and Ippolito even if they had taken his servant (a page who had apparently fled Mantua and been received and protected in Ferrara by Ippolito).
⁹
If Francesco did not do this, ‘they will seek every day to offend you in one way or another’. ‘Madonna Barbara’ had commissioned him to write on her behalf that he (Francesco) should follow Strozzi’s advice: ‘It cannot injure you and could profit you, and if it does not profit you in one way in another it will profit you with Madonna Barbara who I certify to you loves you: she is displeased by your lack of warmth but she is pleased that you are discreet, as well as many qualities she praises in you.’ Nonetheless he repeated Lucrezia’s surprise that Francesco had not written to her: ‘if you agree, as my brother-in-law is coming here, it would be good to write to her and if you wish it she can send the letters back to you’.

Ercole Strozzi repeated Lucrezia’s desire to see Francesco: ‘she says you should do everything so that she can see you’. The next letter had been written on the eve of Lucrezia’s giving birth to her son, a fact which greatly shocked Luzio, a committed partisan of Isabella. Gonzaga had sent a message to ‘Madonna Barbara’ that he had fever: she prayed him to let Strozzi know how he was and not to be so unfriendly. ‘Every day we talk of you,’ Strozzi wrote, ‘and urge you to do everything you can to reconcile yourself with Camillo because from every point of view it is better to make peace.’ Alfonso had gone to Venice the day before, he reported, although he did not mention ‘Camillo’s’ instructions to his wife not to send Gonzaga news of her delivery. Lucrezia conveyed this in a message asking Francesco to forgive her if she did not advise him of her delivery and to believe in her ‘goodwill’.
¹⁰
Accordingly, Bernardino di Prosperi was sent officially by Lucrezia to Mantua to announce the birth of Ercole to Isabella, but to Isabella only. Alfonso wrote to Gonzaga from Venice to make the formal announcement the next day. Even di Prosperi thought it more than odd that he had not been commissioned to take a letter to Francesco: ‘From what I hear everyone is sorry that I was not given a similar letter to the Most Illustrious Marchese . . .’

Lucrezia, reckless and passionate, dictated a letter on 9 April to Strozzi for transmission to ‘Guido’, complaining that both Alfonso and Ippolito had indicated that they did not wish her to announce the birth to him. She denounced them almost hysterically and wanted Francesco to let it be known that he was surprised at the omission so that she could officially send someone to him. She wanted to send Strozzi, who, according to his letter to Gonzaga, had told her firmly:

It would not be good that I should go at present because it would appear that I was going expressly for this purpose. You cannot believe how she is displeased by such an error and perfidy on the part of Camillo and wants you to understand that she is yours and not given to flightiness and that you command her and she would see you very willingly were it possible. She says that Camillo is going away tomorrow, posting to France, and recommends herself to you infinitely. This is worthy of an answer concerning a visit [here] as I wrote to you in my last letter and in this.

Alfonso had little time to enjoy his firstborn before he was off again on another of his state missions, this time to the King of France to reassure him of his loyalty, given that the award to him of the Golden Rose by the Pope in April and his reconciliation with Venice might have aroused Louis’ suspicions. Gonzaga failed to rise to the opportunity proffered by Alfonso’s absence. He did not visit Lucrezia; instead he hastened to use the occasion of little Ercole’s birth to make things up with Alfonso. The Gonzaga secretary Benedetto Capilupo was sent expressly to Alfonso to congratulate him, with protestations of cordial and fraternal friendship which the goodhearted Alfonso told Capilupo he readily accepted. Proudly he took Capilupo to see his son and had him changed so that he could see that the naked baby ‘was fine and well equipped in everything’.
¹¹
Strozzi transmitted renewed vows of passion from Lucrezia and demands that Francesco Gonzaga should go to her. Instead, Gonzaga sent by one of his household a letter in his secretary’s hand saying that his illness continued. He still did not wish to commit himself to writing in his own hand which in those days was considered a proof of intimacy, instead dictating to a secretary which would make it appear more formal to any spying eye in Ferrara. Even this innocuous document has disappeared, although there are numerous letters by Lucrezia to Francesco in the Gonzaga archives at Mantua. (Francesco’s letters to her in the Este archives are limited to the years 1518-19.) ‘I cannot tell you how great is Madonna Barbara’s affection for you which could not be greater . . .,’ Strozzi told him: ‘she loves you to a considerable extent and considerably more than perhaps you think, because if you believed that she loved you as much as I have always told you, you would be warmer than you are in writing to her and coming to her wherever she might be . . .’ Strozzi urged Francesco to make every effort to put a visit to Lucrezia in train: ‘so that you will see how much she will caress you and then you will understand . . .’