Alexander VI, Pope

ALEXANDER VI, Pope. - Rodrigo Borgia (Borja), b. in 1430 or '31 at Xativa, in the province of Valencia, to Jofré and Isabella, sister of Alfonso, the future Pope Callixtus III, held the pontificate from 1492 to 1503. We know very little of his early youth, except that his uncle procured for him a canonry at Valencia and then had him come to Italy to take his doctorate in law at the University of Bologna. The rise of Cardinal Alfonso Borgia to the papal dignity (1455) marked the beginning of his astonishing fortune. In fact, in 1455 he received the cardinal's hat with the title of St. Nicholas in Carcere, which in 1471 he left for the suburbicarian see of Albano and in 1478 for that of Porto. Vice-Chancellor of Holy Roman Church from 1456, he became two years later administrator of the diocese of Valencia (where his family was represented in that turn of the century by no fewer than five bishops), and then entered into possession of the bishoprics of Cartagena and Majorca (Spain), and of Erlau or Eger (Hungary), with the addition of rich abbeys and other opulent benefices. He was thus able to give himself over to a very lavish life and had several illicit relations, among others with Vannozza de' Cataneis, by whom he also had Cesare, Jofré, Giovanni duke of Gandia, and Lucrezia. Although the excellent Pius II severely reproved him, he did not change his ways. Moreover, intelligent and a fine speaker, he knew how to deftly assert his ambition and activity in affairs under Paul II, Sixtus IV and Innocent VIII, and enjoyed the favors of many reigning princes, certainly no more chaste than he, discharging with happy success at their courts various legations on behalf of the Holy See.

A first attempt to obtain the tiara in the conclave of 1484 came to nothing, but in that of 1492, which followed the death of Innocent VIII, he was able, by dint of splendid offers to the cardinals, to obtain the fifteen votes sufficient for election. He was thus proclaimed Pope on 11 August, with the name of A. VI, amid the universal applause of the Romans, who were to detest him so greatly, and the congratulations of almost all the powers, a clear sign of the political and moral situation of the time. His first acts of government were truly praiseworthy, but very soon nepotism and corruption prevailed.

In the eleven years that the pontificate of A. counted, two periods can be distinguished, but both always revolve around the same pivot, the exaggerated protection of his sons and nephews. During the first, the papal league with the Aragonese of Naples against the claims of Charles VIII of France to that kingdom dominates. The second, conversely, begins after the latter's death in 1498, and is characterized by A.'s alliance with King Louis XII. At first there was no lack of friction between the Pope and King Ferrante, the shrewd natural son of the great Alfonso; friction arising in part from the manifest preference that, in clear opposition to the Borgia candidacy, the Aragonese had shown toward the proud and pugnacious Cardinal Giulio della Rovere, who was later Julius II. Fearing, however, subsequently that through the intrigues of Ludovico il Moro duke of Milan, the investiture of the kingdom of Naples might not be granted to Charles VIII, and realizing, on the other hand, A. that the Catholic king, the most powerful of all that Europe then counted, had taken up the defense of the interests of his house, and considering chiefly that a close friendship with the latter would have been of great utility to his sons, it was relatively easy to lay the foundations of a solid agreement, by which Jofré Borgia became prince of Squillace and husband of Sancia, natural daughter of Alfonso II, successor of Ferrante, and Giovanni, second duke of Gandia, took as his wife a relative of the sovereigns of Spain. This inclination of the Pontiff for the Aragonese of Naples naturally produced a violent clash with France, whose king determined to take by arms the disputed crown, alleging the rights of the Angevins, and seeking to frighten A. with the threat of the pragmatic sanction and of a council, which, according to the suggestions of Cardinal della Rovere, was to depose him, should he confer the investiture of the Neapolitan kingdom on the new king Alfonso II. But A. was by now definitively committed, and so, when in May 1494 Cardinal Giovanni Borgia crowned Alfonso in the capital of the kingdom, he strove in vain to placate Charles VIII by sending him the blessed golden rose.

The storm, in fact, broke out immediately. Charles, sure of the favor of the duke of Milan, who very soon, however, failed him, and trusting in the numerous enemies of the Borgias, among whom figured Colonna and Orsini, descended into Italy with a strong army. Florence received him triumphantly, and Girolamo Savonarola greeted and blessed him, waiting in vain from him, a "new Cyrus," for that ecclesiastical reform which the sovereign did not know how and could not give. The pressure on the Pope became so strong that A., fearing greatly for himself and for his own, was forced to humble himself before the "royal pilgrim," and to conclude with the king agreements of little honor, receiving in exchange an empty homage of reverence, and thus opening to him the gates of the Mezzogiorno, which in a short time was almost totally subdued. But the star of Charles VIII rapidly went into eclipse, also because, a French predominance in those lands weighing heavily on the Italian powers and on some foreign ones, there was concluded in 1495 the holy alliance signed by Maximilian I of Austria, by Spain, by Venice, by Milan and by the Pontiff, which, beyond the officially proclaimed aim of fighting the Turks, aimed chiefly at safeguarding the Papal State and at opposing to the encroachment of France the mutual support of all.

Charles VIII was, therefore, forced to retreat precipitously from the kingdom of Naples, which again fell into the hands of the Aragonese, while A., to escape the king's vengeance, took refuge in the strongly fortified Orvieto and Perugia, and did not re-enter Rome until Charles came out battered from the battle of Fornovo. Having thus reached the height of political prestige, A. was preparing to enjoy it fully, when in June 1497 his son Giovanni, duke of Gandia, who had recently received the investiture of the duchy of Benevento and of the cities of Pontecorvo and Terracina, while riding by night in Rome, was riddled with sword blows, and thrown into the Tiber.

Under the weight of such misfortune A. wished to change his life and make himself the promoter of a true and proper ecclesiastical reform, appointing for that purpose a special cardinalitial congregation and planning to issue a bull against the disorders of the Roman Curia. But it was a fire of brief duration, for, once the good intentions vanished, A. returned to his former life. And while Savonarola multiplied his invectives against the Curia and the Pontiff himself, the latter was preparing, after a hardly edifying trial, to dissolve the marriage of his daughter Lucrezia with Giovanni Sforza in order to marry her to Alfonso of Bisceglie, illegitimate son of Alfonso of Naples, and Cesare Borgia was preparing to renounce the cardinalate with which he had been invested by his father in 1493, in order to become the husband of a French princess.

The year 1498, which saw, on 23 May, in Florence, the execution of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, already excommunicated in 1497 by the Pontiff for his irreconcilable opposition to his person and his policy, marks the beginning of the second period of Alexander's pontificate. On the death of Charles VIII, the last of the Valois Capetians, he was succeeded by Louis XII, founder of the Orléans line, who did not fail to proclaim himself also King of Naples and Duke of Milan. To divert him from the temptation to seize Lombardy, the Pope entered into relations with him, leading him to hope for an improvement in the tangled Neapolitan affair. A further easing of relations came with the papal declaration of the nullity of Louis's marriage to the blessed Joan of 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 at the same time married a princess of royal blood, Charlotte d'Albret, instead of Charlotte, firstborn of the new King of Naples Frederick II, as Alexander had dreamed in the mirage of a royal crown. Louis XII, having formed a close alliance with the Pontiff and with the Venetians, entered Milan, accompanied by Cesare and by other Italian lords. The military and political power of Alexander had thus reached its apex, and offered him the opportunity to reconquer the Romagna in favor of that beloved son, while Ludovico il Moro was defeated and taken prisoner in the decisive battle of Novara (Apr. 1500). Cesare received from his father the golden rose and the office of gonfalonier of the Church, while a great part of the latter's territories fell into the hands of the Borgias, and the Romagna experienced days of terror and blood. The partition of the southern fief of the Holy See, approved by the Pontiff, between Louis XII and Ferdinand the Catholic, soon fell through the action of the captain Gonzalo de Córdoba, who definitively gave Sicily and the Kingdom of Naples over to the full dominion of Spain.

But the sudden death of the Pope (18 Aug. 1503) brought about the collapse of the policy and aspirations of the Borgias, precisely when the annihilation of the power of the lordships swarming in the lands of the Church was by now an accomplished fact, which was singularly to favor the program of Julius II, aimed at creating a strong and well-organized Papal State. Cesare, suddenly deprived of all support, fled from Italy and, after suffering imprisonment in the castles of Chinchilla and Medina del Campo, took refuge in Navarre with his brother-in-law King John d'Albret, in whose service he perished in 1507 fighting at Viana.

The pontificate of Alexander witnessed events of the greatest importance not only political, but also religious and cultural; above all it witnessed the discovery of America, which occurred two months after his elevation to the throne, amid the immense emotion of all Europe. The three caravels of the Genoese navigator, setting out toward the New World under the banners of Spain, entered into competition with the Portuguese ships, which, simultaneously with the voyages along the coasts of Africa, scoured the Atlantic in search of unknown lands to occupy and evangelize in the name of the King of Portugal on the basis of a concession granted to him by Callixtus III. Since the geographical position and the limits of the discovered regions were not well known, the danger of a conflict between the two powerful crowns appeared most grave. To avoid it, recourse was had to the arbitration of Alexander, who very shrewdly traced a line of demarcation running vertically from the North Pole to the South Pole, one hundred leagues west of the Azores. To Spain, therefore, were assigned the lands to the left of the line, keeping one's eye to the North, to Portugal those to the right. Shortly afterward, by the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), Spain consented to move the demarcation 270 leagues further west, to the great benefit of Portugal, which was thus able to annex Brazil.

The ever vaster discoveries and the support of the sovereigns of the two countries greatly prospered the missions, which took on a truly magnificent development also through the valuable contribution of the Pope, who did not fail to grant great privileges to the missionaries of the new Christianities. Entirely characteristic of Alexander, too, was the commitment he placed in defending the purity of Catholic doctrine against the raging of heresies, and in effectively protecting the religious Orders, and especially the recent one of St. Francis of Paola. As the year 1500 approached, he announced to the whole world the solemnity of the jubilee, taking part in many functions, and enjoying the spectacle of the great multitudes of pilgrims who had come from every quarter. Via Alessandrina, Borgo Nuovo, today vanished, as well as many building works, demonstrate his deep concern for the urbanistic problems of Rome, while the Borgia Apartment in the Vatican and the rooms of Castel Sant'Angelo with the admirable paintings of Pinturicchio, as well as the protection granted to artists and men of letters, bear witness to his patronage.

The judgment on Alexander cannot but be justly severe. His pontificate was in many respects the opposite of those of a Nicholas V and a Pius II. The attempt of some moderns to present him as worthy of the task entrusted to him has miserably failed, just as the exaggerated accusations diluted in so many writings that appeared between the 17th century and our own days do not stand up to the examination of sound criticism.