An eventful year in the history of the families of
Sforza and Borgia was that year of grace 1497.
Spring came, and ere it had quite grown to summer
we had news of the assassination of the Duke of Gandia,
and the tale that he was done to death by his elder
brother, Cesare Borgia; a tale which seemed to lack
for reasonable substantiation, and which, despite
the many voices that make bold to noise it broadcast,
may or may not be true.
In that same month of June messages passed between
Rome and Pesaro, and gradually the burden of the messages
leaked out in rumours that Pope Alexander and his
family were pressing the Lord Giovanni to consent to
a divorce. At last he left Pesaro again; this
time to journey to Milan and seek counsel with his
powerful cousin, Lodovico, whom they called “The
Moor.” When he returned he was more sulky
and downcast than ever, and at Gradara he lived in
an isolation that had been worthy of a hermit.
And thus that miserable year wore itself out, and,
at last, in December, we heard that the divorce was
announced, and that Lucrezia Borgia was the Tyrant
of Pesaro’s wife no more. The news of it
and the reasons that were put forward as having led
to it were roared across Italy in a great, derisive
burst of laughter, of which the Lord Giovanni was the
unfortunate and contemptible butt.
“Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin”
And now, lest I grow tedious and weary you with this
narrative of mine, it may be well that I but touch
with a fugitive pen upon the events of the next three
years of the history of Pesaro.
Early in 1498 the Lord Giovanni showed himself once
more abroad, and he seemed again the same weak, cruel,
pleasure-loving tyrant he had been before shame overtook
him and drove him for a season into hiding. Madonna
Paola and her brother, Filippo di Santafior, remained
in Pesaro, where they now appeared to have taken up
their permanent abode. Madonna Paola—
following her inclinations—withdrew to the
Convent of Santa Caterina, there to pursue in peace
the studies for which she had a taste, whilst her
splendid, profligate brother became the ornament—the
arbiter elegantiarum—of our court.
Thus were they left undisturbed; for in the cauldron
of Borgia politics a stew was simmering that demanded
all that family’s attention, and of whose import
we guessed something when we heard that Cesare Borgia
had flung aside his cardinalitial robes to put on
armour and give freer rein to the boundless ambition
that consumed him.
With me life moved as if that winter excursion and
adventure had never been. Even the memory of
it must have faded into a haze that scarce left discernible
any semblance of reality, for I was once again Boccadoro,
the golden-mouthed Fool, whose sayings were echoed
by every jester throughout Italy. My shame that
for a brief season had risen up in arms seemed to be
laid to rest once more, and I was content with the
burden that was mine. Money I had in plenty,
for when I pleased him the Lord Giovanni’s vails
were often handsome, and much of my earnings went to
my poor mother, who would sooner have died starving
than have bought herself bread with those ducats could
she have guessed at what manner of trade Lazzaro Biancomonte
had earned them.
