The Pope's Daughter: The Extraordinary Life of Felice Della Rovere (44 page)

The Pope had confiscated the territory but no fixed terms had been set out by which Felice could procure its return. Such ambiguity on Clement’s part was deliberate. It was designed to allow his disgruntled papal
nipote
, Cardinal Ippolito de’ Medici, who felt he had been denied a role in papal politics, the opportunity to broker the terms of its return to Felice’s sons. The first step in the protocol for
la restitutione
, as it was called, was for Felice to go to the Vatican Palace. There, as Lorenzo Bencivenni, Felice’s aide in this affair, wrote to Girolamo, she ‘kissed the feet of his Holiness and the hand of the Illustrious Cardinal de’ Medici and thanked his Holiness and His Illustriousness for the favour they have shown’.
⁴
All meetings to petition for the restitution had then to take place with Ippolito, who was to serve as Clement’s only representative in the matter. Thus, when Clement eventually agreed to restore the estates to Felice’s sons, it could appear to the larger world as if this was due to Ippolito’s skilful handling of the situation. All concerned were aware of this masquerade, but appearances had to be maintained at all times to appeal to Ippolito’s vanity. This event is not without irony: Ippolito de’ Medici was no stranger to familial enmity and the following year,
1535
, was to become a victim himself when he was poisoned by an emissary of his own hated cousin, Duke Alessandro de’ Medici.

It was not simply a question of Clement waiting for the right moment to hand back the territory. A considerable sum of money would have to change hands for this to happen, and the raising of such a sum posed a major problem for Felice. The Orsini coffers were practically empty and Felice’s personal resources depleted. The last few years had seen the expense of repairing three large palaces in Rome, the payment of Clarice’s dowry and the cost of her wedding. Added to that were payments to the mercenary soldiers sent to rescue Girolamo from Vicovaro, and the fine paid to spare Girolamo’s life. There was little grain to sell that could be exchanged for money as heavy floods the previous year had all but destroyed the new crops. To make matters worse, all these negotiations, both diplomatic and financial, were taking place as the sands of time were running out. By the summer of
1534
, Clement’s health was in rapid decline. Felice knew that if the agreement to return the Orsini lands was not concluded before he died, a new pope could declare the current negotiations null and void.

Both Felice and the papal party recognized that any petition on her part would be pointless unless she had the funds to support her request. Her first priority was the raising of cash. The papacy indicated to Felice that the sum of
10
,
000
ducats would be one sufficient for her to bring to the bargaining table. This was a large sum of money – Baldassare Peruzzi’s yearly salary as architect of St Peter’s, for instance, had been
250
ducats. The proposed restitution was perhaps the equivalent of about
2
million pounds in today’s money. However, it was not unrealizable. The challenge, though, was to find those willing to lend to Felice. Other members of the Orsini family were unlikely to help. Many were equally cash poor, their wealth tied up in land. Or, if they could have helped her, they had no desire to, either because of personal animosity or because they anticipated that if Felice could not buy back the estates the land might eventually be ceded to another branch of the family.

However, there were members of Felice’s extended family who did come to her aid. On
10
July
1534
, Felice wrote to Francesco to tell him that ‘for the affair of Bracciano I have found
8000
ducats, which the Archbishop of Benevento will give us. With this agreement we will pay
10
per cent interest, and as security he will take Vicovaro and Castelvecchio, but he will take possession in your name.’
⁵
The rest of the principal was provided by Felice’s new son-in-law, the Prince of Stigliano, Don Luigi Carafa. He supplied her with
4000
ducats. Felice retreated for a few days to her palace at Trinità dei Monti, close enough for her to be informed of anything that might occur and private enough to give her some respite.

Felice could now enter into the negotiating process with Cardinal Ippolito de’ Medici. Late at night she would send Francesco reports of the day’s events, which had usually exhausted her. On
23
July she wrote, ‘At this moment I am suffering from great mental fatigue in finding a way to recover our things. May it please God to grant me inspiration when I talk tomorrow with the Reverend de’ Medici.’ Each day, Felice would arrive at Ippolito de’ Medici’s Vatican apartments. Much of the time would be spent in rhetorical, largely meaningless, exchanges. She had to assure him over and over again that her sons would be unswervingly loyal subjects to the Pope, that the Orsini would never again cause strife in the city of Rome but would be faithful papal servants.

On
25
July, news of the Pope’s poor health reached Felice: ‘I have the good fortune to understand the way the wind blows hour by hour, by means of Cardinal Ridolfi and Lucrezia and Lorenzo Salviati [Medici relatives]. Last night His Holiness passed a fairly peaceful night, he did not have a fever, although he did vomit.’
⁶
But on
30
July, Felice was panic-stricken: ‘I told you that the Pope has taken a turn for the worse, and so this morning I went on horseback to go to speak with Cardinal de’ Medici about Bracciano. Out on the street leaving Monte Giordano I heard a great noise and saw a great crowd rushing towards Banchi [the banking district within the bend of the Tiber]. I believed the Pope must be dead, so I turned back, and returned home.’
⁷
Later that day she learned the commotion had been a false alarm: the Pope was still alive. So she set out again.

The next day, when Felice went again to meet with Ippolito, he gave her good news. The Pope’s condition had improved somewhat, and he had devoted himself to thinking about the affairs of the Orsini. As yet, there was no official papal ordinance but, as she reported to Francesco, the Pope had promised, ‘as a gentleman, that Bracciano would be rendered unto no others than my sons, and this promise I can hold firm’. ‘I did not want to lose any time in notifying you,’ Felice continued, ‘and I want you to let Girolamo know that there will be no more accusations, and everyone will know the virtues of the men I have made.’
⁸

It was, even so, a slow process. Vicovaro was released at the beginning of August. Felice wrote to Girolamo to tell him the good news, and that she hoped that they would also have Bracciano back. She instructed him to ‘write warmly and often to Cardinal de’ Medici, offering him infinite praise, and tell him everything you have you owe to him’.
⁹
Word came that Clement’s main interest was that the Orsini boys should show their appreciation to Ippolito. Letters were duly sent to Ippolito de’ Medici in Girolamo’s name, even if they were not actually composed by him. One told the Cardinal, ‘I have heard from my mother and brother of all the benefits that our house receives every day from your Reverence and lately the restitution of Vicovaro, which we recognize came only from you, and I, along with all the others, remain in perpetual obligation to you.’
¹⁰

Fearful that her son might get over-excited and attempt to return too soon from exile, Felice instructed Girolamo that he should ‘not move for anything’ and that he should ‘show the Prince of Bisignano all your usual obedience’.
¹¹
She continued her practice of visiting Cardinal Ippolito every day until finally the news came that Bracciano was also to be returned. ‘Today,’ Felice wrote to Girolamo, ‘I went to kiss the feet of His Holiness.

You can now rest with a quiet soul for His Holiness was more loving than I can say. God be praised for everything.’
¹²
From Stigliano, Clarice wrote joyfully ‘that there is no way in which I can properly express my happiness at the wonderful and longed-for news of the recovery of Bracciano’.
¹³
On
25
September, two months after agreeing to return Bracciano, Clement VII died.

Felice della Rovere’s work was almost done. She had, single-handedly, raised the restitution money and negotiated tirelessly at the Vatican to save her sons’ patrimony. Yet she took no credit for what she had done. Felice knew that she now belonged to the past. For the Orsini family to have a future, she needed her sons to be respected. Ever mindful that appearance was more important than reality, she created the illusion that the rescue of Bracciano had been the work of Francesco, when in fact, the idle Abbot of Farfa had done nothing. Felice wrote to Francesco’s brother-in-law, the Prince of Bisignano, that ‘if it was not for the prudence and care of the Abbot your brother, our affairs would be completely in ruin’.
¹⁴
Whether or not the Prince of Bisignano, who had witnessed his mother-in-law negotiate with a pope to buy his uncle a cardinal’s hat, believed her is open to debate.

There was also some subtext to this message. After two decades as Orsini
gubernatrix
, Felice della Rovere knew the time was approaching when, reluctantly or willingly, she had to hand over the reins of power to her sons. She was almost ready to step down. But not quite. Before she could relinquish her role, she needed the outside world to perceive ‘the men she had made’, who had the blood of Julius the Warrior Pope running through their veins, as worthy and virtuous heirs to the Orsini family. She knew she still had a lot of work to do to establish her sons’ positions within the Italian political and social arena. Reliable and trustworthy agents had to be found to work on behalf of Girolamo and Francesco, who could be feckless, reckless and unpredictable. She had to secure a bride for Girolamo, whose reputation was now somewhat tarnished, in order for the dynasty she had created to live on. So Felice della Rovere’s final goal was to seal her maternal legacy. It was to this cause that she was now to devote her life.

part vi

The Most Loving Mother in the World

Final Reckoning

On
10
February
1535
, Felice della Rovere wrote to her son Girolamo, who had now taken possession of his titular castle at Bracciano. She told him, ‘Being the most loving mother in the world that it is possible to be, I have experienced many things that have been for your benefit and honour, to inflate your greatness, without which my life would be estimated at nothing. So now this loving mother is writing to ask you to send her the profits from the sale of the hay, as there are a lot of debts to pay.’
1
Felice’s words summarize her life as the Orsini regent, keeping the estate in trust for her sons. From the moment her position within the family was established she had battled through an extraordinary variety of encounters and challenges. Everything she had done was with the goal of securing her sons’ inheritance. She had pursued that above all else. Felice’s life had had many epic moments, and she knew it, but she was also aware of some of its ironies. Everything she had done, she had done for the ultimate benefit of others – her children. And despite the grandiose language associated with such achievement, campaigning for the ‘honour’ and ‘greatness’ of Girolamo, finally she was still occupied with mundane practical considerations. She needed money from the sale of Orsini produce in order to pay the family debts that had accrued during those last turbulent years. Now, more than ever, she needed to keep her business in profit, especially in a difficult Roman economy, which was still suffering the aftershocks of the Sack. A servant in Rome wrote to Girolamo in March of
1535
, lamenting the depressed price of grain in the city due to an influx of cheap grain from the north, which was ‘less than
2
scudi
a
rubbio
’. However, ‘in the last few days’, wrote the servant admiringly, ‘Signora Felice has managed to secure a higher price than that’.
²
Orsini finances depended heavily on the sale of grain; low prices were not good news. In such circumstances, Felice was more than prepared to haggle, something deemed unseemly for well-to-do women in the marketplace.

The restitution of the Orsini titular castles had put Felice in a somewhat ambiguous position. The guarantee that the property now belonged to her sons alone allowed Girolamo and Francesco to embark officially on their adult lives. Girolamo would reign as Orsini Lord, while Francesco would continue as Abbot of Farfa and also play his part in the affairs of the Orsini. Their mother’s role was due to change from
gubernatrix
to dowager. Sidelined from family affairs, the widowed dowager was expected to be a quiet creature, giving herself over to contemplation and spiritual matters. It was not to be that simple a transition for Felice. Girolamo had interests quite separate from governing his inheritance. He was anxious to establish a career for himself as a
condottiere
, to claim his Orsini birthright, and to prove he was as much a man, if not more so, than his half-brother Napoleone, whose soldierly skills had been beyond question. With the sanguine passivity of privileged youth, Girolamo did not seem fully aware of just how close he had come to losing his birthright, and how much had had to be done to restore it. Not the least of this was the need to pay back the loans his mother had raised. A great deal of responsibility still fell to Felice. That such a position should still be hers did not necessarily displease her. For twenty years she had been at the centre of the house of Orsini and she had never much cared for a marginalized status.