ALESSANDRO VI, POPE. - Rodrigo Borgia (Borgia), born in 1430 or '31 at Xàtiva, in the province of Valencia, to Jofré and Isabella, sister of Alfonso, the future Pope CALLISTUS III, held the papacy from 1492 to 1503. Little is known of his early youth, except that his uncle secured for him a canonry in Valencia and then brought him to Italy to earn a doctorate in law at the University of Bologna. The elevation of Cardinal Alfonso Borgia to the papal dignity (1455) marked the beginning of his remarkable fortune. Indeed, in 1455 he received the cardinal’s hat with the title of S. Nicola in Carcere, which he relinquished in 1471 for the suburbicarian see of Albano and in 1478 for that of Porto. Vice-Chancellor of the Holy Roman Church from 1456, he became two years later administrator of the diocese of Valencia (where his family was represented at that time by no fewer than five bishops), and then took possession of the bishoprics of Cartagena and Majorca (Spain), and of Erlau or Eger (Hungary), in addition to rich abbeys and other lucrative benefices. Thus enabled to live in great splendor, he had several illicit relationships, among them one with Vannozza de’ Catanesi, by whom he had Cesare, Jofré, Giovanni Duke of Gandia, and Lucrezia. Although the excellent Pius II rebuked him severely, he did not change his ways. Moreover, being intelligent and an eloquent speaker, he skillfully exploited his ambition and energy in affairs under Paul II, Sixtus IV, and Innocent VIII, and enjoyed the favor of many ruling princes, no more restrained than he, discharging with happy results various legations on behalf of the Holy See at their courts.
A first attempt to obtain the tiara in the 1484 conclave came to nothing, but in that of 1492, following the death of Innocent VIII, he was able, by means of splendid offers to the cardinals, to secure the fifteen votes necessary for his election. Thus he was proclaimed Pope on 11 Aug., amid the universal applause of the Romans, who had so much reason to detest him, and the congratulations of almost all the powers—a clear sign of the political and moral state of the times. His first acts of government were truly laudable, but soon nepotism and corruption gained the upper hand.
In the eleven years of Alexander’s pontificate two periods may be distinguished, but both revolve around the same central theme: the exaggerated protection of his sons and nephews. During the first, the papal league with the Aragonese of Naples against the pretensions of Charles VIII of France to that kingdom predominates. The second, on the other hand, begins after the latter’s death in 1498 and is marked by Alexander’s alliance with King Louis XII. At first there were frictions between the Pope and King Ferrante, the shrewd natural son of the great Alfonso; these arose in part from the manifest preference which, in clear opposition to the Borgia candidacy, the Aragonese had shown for the fierce and pugnacious Cardinal Giulio della Rovere, who was later to become Julius II. Fearing, however, that through the intrigues of Lodovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, the investiture of the kingdom of Naples might be denied to Charles VIII, and realizing on the other hand that the Catholic King, the most powerful ruler in Europe at the time, had taken up the cause of his house and considering above all that a close friendship with him would be of great advantage to his sons, it was relatively easy to lay the foundations of a solid agreement, whereby Jofré Borgia became Prince of Squillace and married Sancia, natural daughter of Alfonso II, successor of Ferrante, and Giovanni, second Duke of Gandia, wed a relative of the Spanish sovereigns. This inclination of the Pope toward the Aragonese of Naples naturally produced a violent clash with France, whose king determined to take by force the disputed crown, alleging the rights of the Angevins and seeking to intimidate Alexander with the threat of the Pragmatic Sanction and a council, which, at the suggestion of Cardinal della Rovere, was to depose him if he invested Alfonso II with the Neapolitan crown. But Alexander was by now definitively committed, and thus when in May 1494 Cardinal Giovanni Borgia crowned Alfonso in the capital of the kingdom, it was in vain that he tried to placate Charles VIII by restoring to him the golden rose.
The storm broke immediately. Charles, confident of the support of the Duke of Milan, who soon, however, failed him, and relying on the numerous enemies of the Borgias, among whom were the Colonnas and Orsinis, descended upon Italy with a strong army. Florence received him triumphantly, and Girolamo Savonarola hailed and blessed him, vainly awaiting from him, “a new Cyrus,” that ecclesiastical reform which the sovereign neither knew nor could give. The pressure on the Pope became so strong that Alexander, greatly fearing for himself and his own, was forced to humble himself before the “royal pilgrim” and conclude with the king agreements little to his credit, receiving in exchange only a hollow tribute of respect and opening the way for him to the Mezzogiorno, which was soon almost entirely subjugated. But the star of Charles VIII quickly waned, also because the Italian and some foreign powers, alarmed by the prospect of French predominance in those lands, formed in 1495 the Holy League, signed by Maximilian I of Austria, Spain, Venice, Milan, and the Pope, which, besides the officially proclaimed aim of combating the Turks, chiefly sought to safeguard the Papal States and to oppose by mutual support the encroachments of France.
Charles VIII was thus compelled to retreat precipitately from the kingdom of Naples, which again fell into Aragonese hands, while Alexander, to escape the king’s vengeance, took refuge in the strongly fortified Orvieto and Perugia and did not return to Rome until Charles had emerged battered from the battle of Fornovo. Having thus reached the zenith of his political prestige, Alexander was preparing to enjoy it fully when in June 1497 his son Giovanni, Duke of Gandia, who had recently been invested with the duchy of Benevento and the cities of Pontecorvo and Terracina, was stabbed while riding through Rome at night and thrown into the Tiber.
Under the weight of so great a sorrow Alexander resolved to change his life and promote a genuine ecclesiastical reform, appointing for this purpose a special college of cardinals and planning to issue a bull against the disorders of the Roman Curia. But it was a fire that burned briefly, for once his good intentions faded, he reverted to his former way of life. And while Savonarola redoubled his invectives against the Curia and the Pope himself, Alexander was preparing, after a scarcely edifying trial, to dissolve the marriage of his daughter Lucrezia to Giovanni Sforza in order to marry her to Alfonso of Bisceglie, illegitimate son of Alfonso of Naples, and Cesare Borgia prepared to renounce the cardinalate, which his father had bestowed upon him in 1493, in order to become the husband of a French princess.
On 14 May 1498, Florence witnessed the execution of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, already excommunicated in 1497 by the Pope for his irreconcilable opposition to the person and policies of the Pontiff. This event marked the beginning of the second period of the pontificate of Alexander VI.
After the death of Charles VIII, the last Valois Capetian, Louis XII of the Orléans line succeeded him. He promptly proclaimed himself King of Naples and Duke of Milan. To divert him from the temptation of seizing Lombardy, the Pope entered into relations with him, offering hope of a resolution to the tangled Neapolitan affair. A further easing of relations occurred with the papal declaration of nullity of Louis’s marriage to the Blessed Jeanne de Valois, daughter of Louis XI, after which the monarch was able to marry the widow of Charles VIII, heiress of Brittany.
Meanwhile, Cesare Borgia obtained the French duchy of Valentinois and married a princess of royal blood, Charlotte d’Albret, instead of the eldest daughter of the new King of Naples, Federico II, as Alexander VI had hoped would secure a royal crown for himself. Louis XII, allied with the Pope and the Venetians, entered Milan accompanied by Cesare and other Italian lords. Thus Alexander’s military and political power reached its zenith, affording him the opportunity to reconquer the Romagna for his favourite son, while Ludovico il Moro was defeated and taken prisoner in the decisive Battle of Novara (April 1500). Cesare received from his father the Golden Rose and the office of Gonfalonier of the Church, while a large part of the Papal States fell into the hands of the Borgias, and the Romagna lived through days of terror and bloodshed. The partition of the southern fief of the Holy See, approved by the Pope, between Louis XII and Ferdinand the Catholic soon collapsed through the actions of the Spanish captain Gonzalo de Córdoba, who definitively brought Sicily and the Kingdom of Naples under full Spanish dominion.
Alexander VI, Pope – Gold coins (above) and silver coins (below).
The ever-expanding geographical discoveries and the support of the sovereigns of the two Iberian powers greatly favoured the missions, which flourished magnificently, also thanks to the substantial contribution of the Pope, who did not fail to grant extensive privileges to the missionaries of the new Christian communities. It was also characteristic of Alexander to defend the purity of Catholic doctrine against the spread of heresies and to provide strong protection to religious orders, especially the recent one of St Francis of Paola. As the year 1500 approached, he announced the Jubilee to the whole world, taking part in many ceremonies and rejoicing in the spectacle of the great multitudes of pilgrims who came from every quarter. The Via Alessandrina, the Borgo Nuovo (now vanished), as well as many building projects, bear witness to his keen interest in the urban problems of Rome, while the Borgia apartment in the Vatican and the rooms of Castel Sant’Angelo, adorned with the splendid frescoes of Pinturicchio, along with the patronage he accorded to artists and men of letters, testify to his cultural and artistic patronage.
The judgment on Alexander VI cannot but be justly severe. His pontificate stood in many respects in contrast to those of a Nicholas V and a Pius II. The attempt by some modern writers to present him as worthy of the office entrusted to him has miserably failed, just as the exaggerated accusations scattered through numerous writings from the 17th century to our own day do not withstand the scrutiny of sound criticism.