Poison at the Borgia court – part 5

XVIth Century Italian

The Borgias did not have a monopoly on perfidy, cruelty or violence.  You only have to read the chronicles of the time, the annals of Muratori, to see that at Milan, Florence, Sienna, Parma, Genova, Mantua, Venice, Ferrare, the same barbary engenders the same crimes.

In The Prince, Machiavelli resumes the true principles which guide the politics of his time.  His hero, a mixture of Caesar Borgia and Laurent Medicis, incarnates more generally the soul and the character of the Renaissance princes.

The prince must conserve the domain which he has acquired or inherited, by whatever means.  Morality does not exist in politics.  You don’t govern to do good, but to stay in place.

What a strange contrast!  Art and poetry shine with a singular eclat, encouraged by cruel, debauched princes, who remain sensitive to beauty.  Pagan Antiquity, condemned by austere Christianism because of its agreeable philosophy, comes back into fashion.

Plautus is the favourite author of the Vatican, and poets find their inspiration in the best Latin chefs-d’oeuvre.  The  artists, painters, sculptors, architects enrich Italy with their most gifted conceptions.  It is the time when Michelangelo arrives in Rome, called by Pope Alexander VI.

The Pope is a powerful person but he is not yet placed beyond temporal laws.  The idea of a spiritual authority inherent in the Pope, which would therefore place him above everybody, does not yet exist at the Renaissance.  The population is not globally more scandalised by the Pope’s misdeeds than by those of the other lords.

So, since the Middle Ages, the Pope is a sovereign like the others, often more occupied in defending his material possessions, continually menaced by his neighbours, than in intervening as God’s representative among kings and emperors.  The spiritual value of his charge does not spare him from suffering diverse plots against his person.

The presence in Rome of all of the cardinals of the Sacred College, intriguing, conspiring against their elected sovereign, is for him the occasion for continual hostilities, and anarchy often reigns supreme in the Church States.  Alexander VI must combat this anarchy, by uniting Italy to advantage the papacy, according to some, to advantage his son Caesar, according to others.

Therefore, no scrupules hold back the Borgias.  In Rome and in the peninsula, they make terror reign, multiplying crimes and cruelties.

A few rare spirits, conscious of the indignity into which the papacy is sinking, let out cries of alarm.  Nicolas Clemengis, Savanarola, Pic de la Mirandole, protest loudly against the abuses and excesses of pontifical power.

The innumerable debaucheries of the princes of the Church – the most famous being the banquet of the fifty naked prostitutes – the simoniacal exactions of the Pope and his cardinals making money from everything, selling indulgences and absolutions, the crimes, continual murders and poisonings, all of these turpitudes are described in the famous pamphlet Letter to Sacelli, in The Pope’s Perquisites, in the writings of Savonarola and of de la Mirandole.  They find a faithful echo in Burckard.

What exactly, therefore, is the role of poison at the time of the Borgias?  It well seems – as far as a precise judgement can be made on such a subject – that legend has exaggerated nothing, and that in fact, poison really is one of the favourite arms of the criminals of the Renaissance.  As frequent in political matters as in private life, poisonings are numerous.

The reason is that, at the time, this dangerous arm had never been so well known, and so perfectly able to be hidden.  The Borgias even have their own poison of arsenic, combined with the alkaloids of putrefaction.

For the Italian historian Paolo Jovio, “it was a very white powder, of a not disagreeable taste, which did not suddenly smother the vital spirits like today’s poisons, but which slipped little by little into the veins, leading tardily to death”.

According to Garelli, doctor to Emperor Charles VI, the preparation is very simple.  You sacrifice a pig, sprinkle its abdominal organs with arsenious acids and wait until the putrefaction, slowed by the arsenic, is complete.  There is nothing left to do but dry out the putrid mass and collect the liquids from it.

An excellent poison is obtained in this way.  Much more violent than the arsenious acid.  In the XVIIth Century, alchemists and matrons would renew this process.  It seems that the mixture of the female poisoner Brinvilliers was little different from that of the Borgias.

According to Flandin, a toxicologist, the slow poison of the Borgias is of not very soluble arsenious acid.  The most violent poison is one of these soluble preparations of arsenic, whose effects are rapid, almost instantaneous.

What seems certain is that the Borgia poison is a complex mixture, whose exact composition is still unknown today.

The musicographer, Blaze de Bury, recounted somewhere that he almost learned the terrible recipe, and that he deeply regretted having lost this opportunity.

He was once at the Italian Theatre, where Lucretia Borgia, by Donizetti, was playing.  His neighbour was a little old man with a Hoffmannesque face who, while dozing in his orchestra seat, seemed to be having a dream which, lulled by the music, made him smile in a rather singular, and rather frightening fashion.

It so happened that he abandoned himself a little too much onto his neighbour’s shoulder, and this brusque movement woke him.  With refined politeness, he apologised profusely.  He renewed his apology during the entr’acte.

“Ah!”  he says to Blaze de Bury.  “I was dreaming of a curious thing!…  I was dreaming about the Borgia poison, and that I am the only person today who knows its secret…”  And he gave a small, silent laugh, a little old wizard’s laugh.

A conversation which starts like that has to excite the curiosity of a writer who has devoted himself to historical studies.  Blaze de Bury was all ears.

We shall pursue the conversation tomorrow, in the sixth part.

Poison at the Borgia court – part 4

Voltaire was the first to cast serious doubt on the “biter bit” version of the death of Pope Alexander VI.  The drama appeared to be too romanesque to be true, and he takes delight in pointing out its contradictions.

After having reminded everyone that Alexander was too clever a politician to kill nine cardinals in one go, when he could space his crimes, and open these premature successions one after the other, he questions how Caesar managed to pillage the Pope’s palace, the day following the Pope’s death.  “Was he enclosed in his mule when he carried away the treasure?”

In fact, we know that he asked Michelotto Corella to go and recuperate the pontifical treasure, consisting of 200,000 ducats in gold and jewels.

Burckard, Alexander VI’s master of ceremonies, does not mention any poison in his diary.  We know that we are able to believe the authority of this German bishop who reports, without any commentary, neither praising nor blaming anyone, all of the most atrocious crimes which he had witnessed.

Michelet says:  “Burckard’s accounts have this grandiose character of truthful simplicity, which completely reassures.  I have read and seen a lot of liars.  Lying is not done like this.”  It is therefore reasonable to believe Burckard’s story.  Here is my English translation of the literal French translation of Burckard’s account.  I hope that we don’t lose too much of it in this multi-lingual process.

“On Saturday 12 August in the morning, the Pope felt ill;  the twenty-first or the twenty-second hour, the fever came and remained steady.  The 15 August, roughly thirteen ounces of blood were drawn from him, and the tertian fever came.  On Thursday 17, at midday, he took medicine.

“On Friday 18, around midday or one o’clock in the afternoon, he confessed to Peter, Bishop of Calmense, who then said Mass, and after having, himself, taken Communion, carried the sacrement of the Eucharist to the Pope, seated in his bed.  That done, he finished his Mass, in the presence also of five cardinals, …  the Pope told them that he felt very ill.  At the hour of Vespers, after he had received Extreme Unction from the Bishop of Calmense, he expired in the presence of the President of the pontifical tribunal, the abovementioned bishop, etc.”

A letter from Ambassador de Ferrare to the husband of Lucretia also confirms the thesis of a natural death.

What could have credited the poisoning version, is the appearance of Alexander VI’s body.  It “was so black, so deformed, so prodigiously swollen that it was almost unrecognizable;  a completely putrefied matter was running from his nose;  his mouth was open in such a frightful manner, that one was unable to look at it without horror, nor suffer the stink without being in danger of being infected”.

Philippe de Commines confirms the fact by saying that the body was “all blackened and fetid”.

Does this precocious putrefaction mean poison?  Popular opinion believes that the bodies of poisoned people decompose very rapidly, which is not confirmed by medical observation.  On the contrary, the bodies of those who have succumbed to arsenical intoxication decompose very slowly.

This rapid decomposition is therefore not an argument in favour of poisoning.  In addition, the death of the Pope took place on 18 August, but the first funeral Mass is said on 4 September.  In the middle of Summer, when the heat is extreme, it is not surprising that the body decomposed so rapidly.

A malaria epidemic, and several other guests also ill, credit the thesis that Alexander VI died of illness and not by poisoning.

Pontifical families usually die out through lack of descendants.  Apparently, the last Borgia died in London, at the beginning of the XXth Century.  He was a photographer.  Here is what Paul Ginisty says about it:

“Yes, the last descendant of this family, the man who still carried this redoubtable name, which remains the symbol of tyranny, of sacrilege, of murder, with demoniacal refinements, was a poor creature, who had washed up in London, where he lived with difficulty from his profession of photographer.  How very distant we are from the legend of his frightening ancestor, the atheist Pope Alexander VI, dying himself from the poison which he had so often used.  How very distant we are from these grandiose horrors, from these furious turmoils of ambition, from these fierce passions which stop at nothing, which nothing can control.

“The last of the Borgias took photos of sentimental servant girls wanting to send these images to their boyfriends, and the only order given by this fallen heir of a legion of tyrants was:  “Don’t move.”.  In the end, he whose ancestors had unscrupulously manipulated abominable philtres, was poisoned in vulgar fashion, the unfortunate bohemian, by the none-too-fresh and sophisticated food which the restaurants of big cities reserve for their modest customers. This poison of the doubtful mixtures of cheap restaurants is perhaps slower in its action, but it is no less sure than the famous poison of the Borgia family.”

No history has provoked more polemics that that of the XVIth Century papacy, particularly at the time of the Borgias.  The most violent pamphlets, the most severe condemnations, the most unbelievable panegyrics, have in turn stirred public opinion and deeply led it astray.

The Borgias are usually presented as monsters of cruelty and perfidy.  The innumerable crimes of Alexander VI caused him to be seen as an Antichrist.  There was no form of killing which they didn’t abuse.  Among the lot, poison was the most common and the most used.  But this way of sending undesirable people to another world is current in the Italian society of the XVIth Century.

Fifth part tomorrow.

Poison at the Borgia court – part 3

Rumour has it that Cardinal Giambattista Orsini had drunk poison.  To stop the rumour, Pope Alexander VI exhibits the body, so that everyone can see the absence of marks on the skin, the irrefutable proof of non-poisoning.

The Pope also convokes certain doctors to examine the body.  The doctors have no difficulty in recognizing that the Cardinal’s death was the consequence of a long and painful illness.

But public opinion is not fooled, and sees only that Cardinal Orsini was the pillar of the plot against Caesar Borgia.  His death is therefore an indispensable political act.

Under the Renaissance, doctors have a very particular conception of the exercise of their art.  If paid well, they have no scrupules in sending their patients into the other world, with the same zeal that they put into saving them, if that is their families’ wish.

There is the case of a doctor from the Latran Hospital who, in ambush on a street corner, kills morning worshippers with arrows, then steals their purses.  He also poisons his patients, after having dictated to them, a Will in his favour.

Using the pretext of the plot, the Orsini family is stripped of all its possessions.  Other great names fall, in turn, prey to the Borgias.

Alexander poisons the richest princes of the Church, one after the other.  He doesn’t even wait for Cardinal de Modena’s death, before making an inventory of his succession.  This time, the Pope finds an accomplice in the victim’s man of confidence:  his secretary.

Then, its the turn of Cardinal Mechiel, poisoned by his cook, and whose inheritance, which goes to the Pope, is over 100,000 ducats.

Alexander VI’s own nephew, Cardinal de Monreale, “was removed by the same method as the others, after having been particularly well-fattened.”

Poison became the most common arm.  It made so many victims at this time.

A Malatesta poisons his wife, the daughter of Nicolas d’Este, Duke of Ferrare, because he is convinced of her infidelity.  Laura Malatesta, known as Parasma, the mother of the husband, suffered the same end, and for the same reason.

Another time, a peasant, Marini, brought a phial of poison from Constantinople, to throw it into the fountain at the Viridaris Gate, near the Vatican.  It is there that the servants come to draw water for the services of the Pope, the court, and all the pontifical palace personnel.

The poison was supposed to work five days later, not before.  But, as it was always feared that this water might be contaminated, the fountain was surrounded by high walls.  A small, wooden window, locked, is the only possible opening.

How was the plot discovered?  The accounts are mute on this point, but we know how the guilty man died.  He was paraded on a cart, in the city, naked and covered in chains,  From time to time, he was hit with red hot irons, tongs, pincers.  He was led like this to the Capitol where, in front of the cross, he was knocked out with a club, then finished off with a knife.  The body was cut into four pieces which were hung on the Saint-Paul, Saint-John, the Castle and del Popolo Gates.

This wasn’t the only attempt against the life of Alexander VI.  Multiple plots were hatched against the tyranny of the Borgias.  They were always discovered by Caesar’s police or by the betrayal of a participant.

One time, among others, a musician was arrested.  He had come from Forli to hand poisoned letters to the Pope, enclosed in a reed flute.  The poison is so violent, according to Burckard, that no remedy is able to combat it.

The Pope learns of this assassination attempt.  The arrested musician has no illusions about his future.  He perishes bravely under torture.

All of these assassination attempts and the punishments which they provoke, as well as the murders for adultery, theft, vengeance, terrorise the Roman population.  The latest assassinations, Orsini’s in particular, have horrified the Sacred College.  Each cardinal is feeling menaced by the Borgias’ criminality when, suddenly, the Pope dies.

One week after a banquet in the vineyards of Adrien Castellesi de Corneto, Alexander and Caesar Borgia are taken with violent fevers and vomitting.  Caesar’s state seems to improve while that of the Pope becomes worse.  He dies on 18 August 1503.

Inevitably, rumours of poisoning spread.  It is said that Alexander VI had been victim of his own wheelings and dealings.  The English historian Gordon repeats this popular version, already accredited by Paolo Jovio, Guiccardini, Platina and Bembo.

On this evening, the Pope invites nine cardinals to supper on the Corneto estate.  A faithful servant receives the order to pour the poison, mixed with the wine, for all of the guests, during the course of the meal.  The Pope would therefore get rid of all of these annoying people in one go, and would be able to recuperate their fortunes.

Arriving at the vineyard shortly before the other guests, Alexander and Caesar, exhausted by the heat, – we are in the middle of a heatwave – ask for a drink.  A servant, who has no knowledge of the plot, serves them the poisoned wine.

Suspecting the terrible mistake, Caesar rushes to use a counter-poison.  He has the abdomen of a live mule opened and plunges into it as if it were a bath.  This singular antidote heats the person victim of a cold poison.  The animal’s heat is transmitted to the other’s body and efficiently combats the toxic effects.

That is basically the dramatic and romantic story from Gordon.  The historians of the time, all of them more or less hostile toward the Borgias, believe this version.

There is great morality in the death of Alexander VI, caught in his own trap, victim of the poison which he had prepared for others.  It seems a merited punishment for his monstrous crimes.

Fourth part, including more on the Pope’s death, tomorrow.

Poison at the Borgia court – part 2

Poisoning might be a sure and fast way of getting money, but it also allows Pope Alexander VI many political manoeuvres, such as getting rid of a dangerous hostage, like Djem, brother to the Sultan.

Djem, son of Mahomet II and former governor of Karamania, was captured by the Knights of Rhodes, who gave him to the Holy Father.  The Pope kept him hostage, in guarantee of the Sultan’s neutrality.

Djem, half-free and half-prisoner, leads an agreeable life in Rome, punctuated by feasts and pleasures in all of the city’s palaces.  One day, he even rides on horseback, wearing a turban and dressed in a tunic, at the head of a solemn procession, on its way to Saint-Jean of Latran.

This must have been a curious sight.  A religious procession led by Sultan Djem and the Supreme Commander of the Armies, Caesar Borgia, piously followed by the entire Vatican court, including Alexander VI.

Once at the church, Djem alights from his horse and penetrates the temple with the procession.  The people of Rome, although accustomed to mad extravangances, are highly indignant about such a profanation.  However, they quieten down fairly quickly, in fear of Caesar Borgia’s henchmen.

Meanwhile, the unlucky Djem – like a precious object to be exchanged – is given by the Pope to Charles VIII, some time later.  Charles hopes to use Djem to influence Turkey.

Upon the entrance of the French king into Capua, Djem comes down with a headache and a sore throat.  Over the following days, he feels violent pains in his chest.  Incapable of remaining on his horse, he is carried on a litter to Naples.  The doctors, unable to do anything for this mysterious illness, cannot heal him.

In such a strained political context between France and the Vatican – Charles VIII has pretensions on Naples and has launched his “expedition” on Italy – Djem’s death is immediately perceived as a poisoning organized by the Pope.  In any case, public opinion believes it to be a crime.

But, if Djem really was poisoned by Alexander VI, why did he do it?  This is where the political machiavellianism, which flourished just as well at the Vatican court as at the Sublime Porte, made an appearance.

Charles VIII, continuing his triumphal march towards Italy, becomes a dangerous enemy for the mediterranean nations.  Once in possession of Djem, why wouldn’t he try to put him on the Turkish throne?

The Pope shares his apprehensions with the Sultan, and asks for the support of his army.  Bajazet II agrees to help the Pope and, to remove the idea of using Djem from Charles VIII’s head, he advises Alexander to get rid of the prisoner. 

“For the repose and honour of the Holy Father and his own tranquillity, it was good to make Djem die, who is after all mortal and prisoner of His Holiness, and the sooner the better and in whatever way which would please His Holiness:  Djem would thereby leave the worries of this life and his soul would pass from this world into a happier world.”

At first glance, this crime does not appear to be profitable for the Pope.  Djem dead, he loses the annual income of 400,000 ducats that Bajazet II has to pay him.  But, in his letters addressed to the Pope, the Sultan offers him 300,000 ducats to have Djem assassinated.

No trace of such a money transfer exists, but the fact that the Pope tried to negotiate the sale of Djem’s body is troubling, and might confirm the poisoning thesis.  Djem’s death – bronchitis transformed into pneumonia, or poisoned food – marks the beginning of the Borgias’ relationship with poison, in people’s minds.

Supreme arbiter of the old rivalries between the Orsinis and the Colonnas, the Pope gets them to agree with each other, by attacking them alternatively.

Cardinal Giambattista Orsini conspired with other lords to debarrass Italy, not of the Holy Father, but of his son.  Very active, these lords tried to mount an army of seven hundred armed men and nine thousand foot soldiers.  They also undertook negotiations with Florence and Venice to get these two cities to oppose Caesar Borgia.

The Pope hears of the plot but remains affable toward Orsini.  He invites him to the end-of-year entertainments.

Reassured about his fate, the Cardinal goes to pay homage to the Pope, a few days later.  He is arrested and locked up in the Saint-Ange Castle.  Forseeing his destiny, he patiently awaits his death, but Alexander does not order it immediately.

It is a good occasion to fill his treasury, for the prelate is rich.  The Pope therefore has all of the riches contained in the Orsini Palace seized.  The family and the domestics are thrown out into the street, with no protection, no-one wanting to take the risk of lodging them.

To take care of her son’s food, Orsini’s mother offers  a large sum of money and a pearl to Alexander.  This is personally carried to the Pope by the Cardinal’s mistress, disguised as a man.  Faithful to his word, the Pope gives the prisoner’s mother free access to him, but several days later, on 22 February 1503, the Cardinal dies.

Third part, including more on the Cardinal’s death, tomorrow.

Poison at the Borgia court

Never, since the fall of the Roman Empire, which collapsed heavily onto the ruins of paganism, has the Eternal City been more troubled, nor more bloodied, than at the arrival of Pope Alexander VI, whose election caused unbelievable disorders.

Once installed on the throne of Saint Peter, he did not try to deliver Italy from this bloody folly.  Quite the contrary.  He favorised the tumult, thanks to which he won his fortune and increased his tyrannical authority.

In Rome, crimes succeeded crimes.  Not only traditional vengeances, Corsican vendettas, Capulets against Montaigus, family against family, but more often murders dictated by cowardly cupidity, and by ambition which was never satisfied.

The son kills his father to inherit straight away.  The Pope gets rid of the Roman cardinals, because he is their only heir, and he is tormented by pressing money needs.

Cardinal Ferdinand, not having been able to stop the marriage of his brother, Francesco de Medicis, with the adventuress Bianca Capello, poisons both of them during a hunting dinner, at Poggio.  A famous crime which tragically ends this extraordinary love story.

Bianca, a Florentine patrician, seduced by the clerk Buonaventuri, manages, through ruse and flirtation, to gain the love of Duke Francesco.  The Duke immediately flaunts his scandalous liaison, in spite of the presence of the legitimate Duchess, Joanna of Austria.

Proclaimed reigning mistress, Bianca Capello simulates pregnancy, buys a baby boy, and passes him off as her son.  Not wanting to be denounced, she has all of the participants in the substitution executed.

She is at the height of her power when she becomes, on the death of Joanna of Austria, the legitimate spouse of Francesco de Medicis and, at the same time, Grand Duchess of Toscany.  She dies a few hours after her husband, from Cardinal Ferdinand’s mysterious poison.

A common and banal adventure in this Renaissance, made of great highs and deep lows.

Under the reign of Pope Borgia, assassinations multiplied, unpunished.  Burckard reports that, in the course of one night, a fisherman saw more than one hundred bodies thrown into the Tiber, without anybody seeming to be bothered by it.

The most illustrious princes did not escape the carnage.  Caesar Borgia, the son of Alexander VI, crowned his numerous forfaits by fratricide.  He had the throat of his elder brother, the Duke of Gandia, slit for the unique reason that he wanted to exchange his cardinal’s robes, which condemned him to inaction, for the gonfalon armour, which would give him supreme commandment of the armies.

Caesar Borgia preferred the dagger to poison.

Caesar Borgia hardly ever uses poison.  Absolute master of everyone, he kills openly and cynically, with no recourse to this hypocritical subterfuge.  He even goes so far as to stab a young Spanish chamberlain, Pedro Calves, known as Perotto, in the arms of the Holy Father.

The Pope tries to protect him as best he can with his cloak, but the sword thrusts are skilful, and find their mark.  “The blood sprays the Pope’s face,” says Capello, Venitian Ambassador, and witness of the scene.

Perotto is not badly injured but, six days later, his body will be found in the Tiber.  He had made the mistake of getting Caesar Borgia’s sister pregnant, while Caesar was in the process of preparing for her marriage.

Another time, Caesar tries to assassinate his brother-in-law, the Duke of Aragon, Lucretia’s husband.  The same man whom he had, himself, chosen for her husband.

Alphonse of Aragon is attacked at the door of Saint Peter’s.  His attackers, believing him dead, abandon him.  Only wounded, by several dagger thrusts, he is then recuperated by his servants and taken back to his wife.

Lucretia and her sister-in-law nurse him devotedly, preparing his food themselves, afraid that Caesar might try to poison him.  However, one morning, deciding to finish the job, Caesar enters the sickroom.  With one gesture he chases away the women, and says cynically into the sick man’s ear:  “What is not done at breakfast, will be done at supper.”  Then he calls in Michelotto Corella, who throws himself on the bed and strangles the Duke, in Caesar’s presence.

The Pope is not much better than his son.  To extend his domination over the whole peninsula, and fill the coffers of his treasury, always empty, he hesitates before no expedient.  As the natural heir to the cardinals, the Pope lets them steal, pillage, and sell indulgences, favours and positions, up until the day when, sufficiently rich, poison prematurely opens their succession and allows the Pope to become rich.

On a daily basis, the Pope is content with little.  The upkeep of his palace only costs him 700 ducats per month, and his daily menus are composed of only one dish.  Luxury and splendour only appear when Alexander VI invites princes and ambassadors, and his reputation as a generous host is well-known.

Second part tomorrow.

(This is the second time that I have typed this.  As soon as I upload the photo, I lose the spacing in between paragraphs.  I apologise for the inconvenience.)