Christopher Hibbert - The Borgias

He spent Christmas that year at Cesena, establishing the administration of his new state and ordering the strengthening of the fortifications of the conquered territories. He also gained the support of the people of the Romagna by such gestures as contributing generously to the peasants in the countryside so as to compensate them for the damage done to their fields and woods during the recent campaigns.

At first he was in such seclusion that he was rarely seen outside the palace in which he had established his headquarters, issuing the orders calculated to gain him the good opinion of the people, hanging looters and men who stole or refused to pay a fair price for provisions. He then gained a reputation as a prankster, going about masked, sword in hand, spattering pedestrians with mud or demonstrating his strength in wrestling contests, his ability to outpace all comers in running races, or his skill at the quintana , a jousting game in which horsemen galloped at a figure of a Turk, gaining points depending upon the part of the dummy they struck. He also excelled at the giostra all’anello (the ring game), in which riders armed with lances charged at a ring stuck on a pole in an attempt to remove it.

In the middle of February 1501, Cesare indulged in another of his pleasures, the pursuit and conquest of a beautiful young lady, the pleasure no doubt heightened by the considerable risks involved. The lady in question was Dorotea Malatesta, the twenty-three-year-old sister of Pandolfo Malatesta and bride of Giambattista Caracciolo, a captain in the Venetian army. She was on her way from Urbino to Venice, where she was to join her husband, and Cesare had been asked by the Venetian government to provide an escort for her party while it was travelling up the Via Emilia. Soon after the escort had seen her safely into Venetian territory, she was waylaid, late in the afternoon, by a gang of ten horsemen armed with crossbows, who carried her off, after wounding several of the men in her entourage. The mayor of Ravenna, who had been told to keep an eye on Dorotea, gave a colourful account of what happened to her and her female companion after they were carried off.

The two women, ‘protesting and lamenting greatly, their hair dishevelled,’ were taken back across the border to a village near Cesena, where the men ordered Dorotea to dismount and led her into a cottage, where they ‘demanded the fire to be lit and the supper prepared.’ When Dorotea asked where she was being taken, they answered, ‘Do not seek to know; you are in good hands and you will be going to better ones, where you are awaited with high desire.’ When she tried to find out the identity of her kidnapper, they replied: ‘Enough, my lady, do not seek to know more.’ The mayor continued: ‘And they set her, weeping and groaning, down to eat. She did not want food, so they threatened her, and she was forced to take an egg; then she was put to sleep with her companion and the peasant’s wife, and she was not molested that night.’ Her destination, according to the mayor, was Forlì.

Cesare was immediately suspected of the kidnapping. The Venetian authorities protested loudly to the papal legate and to the French ambassador in Venice about the duke’s supposed involvement in the affair; the abduction of ‘one of the most beautiful and notable ladies in Italy’ was a horrible crime, to be ‘abominated and detested.’

The government also sent a representative to Cesare to complain of the crime and to demand Dorotea’s release. Cesare denied all knowledge of the abduction, and when the Venetian agent — who had been instructed to make no salutation to him — was received by Cesare, he was arrogantly rebuffed. Cesare assured the man that he had ‘no lack of women’ and did not need to abduct them. He declared, moreover, that the crime had been committed by one of his Spanish officers, Diego Ramires, and that it was he and Dorotea who had been lovers. Indeed, claimed Cesare, Diego Ramires had shown him some shirts that Dorotea had given him.

The Venetian government was not alone in protesting at Cesare’s guilt. The king of France also complained; so did Francesco Gonzaga, the Marquis of Mantua, on behalf of his sister, the Duchess of Urbino, in whose care Dorotea had been before her marriage. But Cesare brushed aside all such protests, and as the days and weeks passed, while there were rumours that Dorotea was being kept in captivity against her will, perhaps in the castle of Forlì, nothing reliable was heard of her for the moment. She reappeared, however, in February 1504, at Faenza after a long sojourn in a convent.

It was certainly the case that Ramires was suspected by many in Italy of being guilty of the crime. Indeed, one contemporary chronicler, Giuliano Fantaguzzi, wrote unequivocally that Dorotea was ‘attacked and abducted by Messer Diego Ramiro, soldier of Duke Valentino and formerly courtier of the Duke of Urbino.’

Others, however, were certain Cesare was guilty. Even the pope believed that his son might well have committed the ‘horrid and detestable crime.’ He informed the Venetian ambassador in Rome: ‘I do not know what punishment whoever did it deserves,’ adding that ‘if the Duke has done it, he has lost his mind.’ He showed the envoy a letter written to Cesare demanding that the culprit be severely punished; and he maintained that when the abduction took place, his son had been in Imola, not Forlì. Despite his ‘bold words,’ however, the pope showed how deeply the affair ‘had upset him.’

Meanwhile, Faenza was holding out against the siege of Cesare’s armies, ‘supplied,’ as the Ferrarese chronicler explained, ‘with victuals thanks to the covert assistance of Florence, Bologna and other Italian powers.’ Cesare had resumed his attack on the city at the end of January: ‘Yves d’Alègre with 1,000 horses,’ reported the chronicler, ‘passed through Reggio Emilia to help Duke Valentino who has decided to take Faenza by force.’ The chronicler also noted large quantities, ‘10,000 they say’ of French cavalry, foot soldiers, lancers, and artillery moving through the duchy of Ferrara in March and early April.

Cesare finally took Faenza during the week following Easter, which fell on April 11 that year. As many as two thousand were killed; many more were wounded. Cesare lost seven hundred of his own men and several of his captains, on the first day of the battle. In Rome Alexander VI failed to attend Mass in the Sistine Chapel on Easter Saturday — ‘it was said,’ reported Burchard, ‘that the Pope had not come because of a rumour that many of the Duke’s soldiers have been killed outside Faenza.’ But a few days later, his worries eased when news arrived that the city had finally fallen, that Astorre Manfredi, the young Lord of Faenza, had surrendered, and that Faenza had paid 40,000 ducats to Cesare to avoid being sacked.

The news, which had arrived in Rome on April 26, was greeted with great excitement. While the cannons of Castel Sant’Angelo roared from eight o’clock that evening until light dawned the next day, Jofrè rode through the streets celebrating his brother’s victory, accompanied by Carlo Orsini and a large group of revellers, shouting, ‘The Duke! The Duke! Orsini! Orsini!’

Cesare, meanwhile, had wasted little time on celebrations. Just days after his victory at Faenza, he had seized the opportunity to consolidate his hold on the area by marching some ten miles up the Via Emilia to take Castel Bolognese. This strategic outpost belonged to Bologna, and Cesare’s move had caught Giovanni Bentivoglio, the ruler of the city, by surprise. In order to avoid a direct attack, he was forced into an alliance with Cesare, recognizing his possession of Castel Bolognese and agreeing to provide him with a hundred soldiers, which were to be maintained at Bologna’s expense, in return for the guarantee of his security.