BOOKS OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2156, 23 May 1914, Page 9

BOOKS OF THE DAY.

CESARE BORGIA-GUILTY OR NOT PROVEN? It is a pleasurable duty to draw attention to an excellent new series of books of biographical, historical, and 'scientific interest'which is being issued, under tho title of "Tho Essex Library," by Messrs. Stanley Paul and Co. The series will, it is claimed, include works of outstanding morit. The volumes are well printed, contain many admirable illustrations, and aro published the reasonable price of six shillings. Three volumes have already appeared. Thcso are Mr. J. A. Lloyd's fascinating "Life of tho Great Russian Realist, Fcodor Dcstovieft'sky," Mr. Rafael Sabatini's fine historical monograph, "Tho Life of Cesaro Borgia," and Miss Mary F. Sanders's biographical and critical study of tho greatest of all French noveljsts, Honoro do Balzac. Of these, perhaps the most is tho vividly picturesque and challenging study of the -most notorious of the Borgias, Cesare Borgia, son of Pope Alexander the Sixth, and ,brother of Lucrezia Borgia. Tho very name of Borgia has been inseparably connected in history, truly or falsely, with deeds of violence and crime, with unbridled lust and.abominations almost unspeakable. It is upon the tragedy of tho Borgias that Mr. Sabatini claims to throw much' new arid interesting light. Tho'author distinctly disclaimed any intention of whitewashing the Borgias. He aims at telling the truth, the. whole'truth, and nothing but the truth, which has, ho contends, been covered over with tho "foulness of inference, of surmise, of deliberate and cold-blooded malice, with which centuries of scribblers, idle, fantastic, sensational, or venal, have coated tho substance of known facts."

Mr. Sabatini is specially severe upon Victor Hugo's famous tragedy, "Lucrezia Borgia," which, so its author declared, was founded on Burchardt's Diary, and life of Cesaro Borgia, by one Tommaso' Tomassini, whoso place amongst'historians, is, says Mr. Sabatini, oil tho same piano as Alexandre Dure*s's. Burchard, whose Diary, extending over a period of twenty-three' years—l4S3 to 1506—largely constitutes tho groundwork of Mr. Sabatini's book, was Master of Ceremonies at the Vatican. Ho certainly draws no flattering portrait of C'esare Borgia, nor does he apologise for the many vilo deeds of Aloxander the Sixth. But, according to Mr. Sabatini, thero is nothing in Burchardt to justify tho charges brought against Cesaro Borgia of having caused tho murder of his brother, the Duke of Gandia, and of his brother-in-law, Alfonso of Aragon, and of having been, in fact, ono of the most inhuman and horrible villains that have ever lived. * •

Cesaro .Borgia's career was ono long romance. He was a son of Rodrigo do Borgia, who succeeded, as Alexander tho Sixth, to tho papacy, in 1492. His mother was a Roman girl, known as Yanozz'a. Cesare eoniraencod'hls career in the Church' and was created a Cardinal when only seventeen. But his, natural bent was towards a political' and military career, and in 1498, being then about twenty-six, ho received permission from tho Saiircd College to doff tho purple,, and tho .'Cardinal ofCValencia became tho Duke of Valence, or Valentinois nt France,' in Italy, Valentino. Ino next step in his career was his marriage with .Charlotte D'Albrct, a . daughter of tho Due de Guycnne, and , sister to tho King of Navarre. Contemporary chroniclers prniso his gallant bearing. Ho was, ono moro than ono authority, tho handsomest man of his day. His physical strength was exceptionally great, his desperate courage he was to prove on many a battlefield m Italy. Of his capacity for statecraft and Ins personal courago ho was soon to.gu-o quito remarkablo proof. ,Uno of his first achievements was tho defeat of, this feudal barons in the Komagna, and.the recovery of all tho hots along tho Adriatic Coast which had defied the overlordship of tho Holy See. He made a triumphant entry into Homo, and was-created 'Captain-General of the rontihcal I'orces. -Attended ever bv his hundred armed grooms' in blackhe. was tho hero of tho people, whoso favour he won bv his superb physical gifts, his strength mirage, and his matchless address. Air Sabatini tells us how, at a bull-' light held in Rome—the Spanish tauromaeuia haying been introduced from iNaplcs, where tho Aragon princes had acclimatised it—lie wont down into the arena, and on horseback, armed onlv with a light lance, he killed five wild bulls. But tho master-stroke ho reserved for the end. Dismounting, and taking a double-handed sword to the sixth bull that was loosed against him, ho beheaded tho groat beast at one single stroke, "a feat which all Rome considered great." .

Deference must now T>o made to tho murders of Ccsarc's brother, tho Duke of Gandia, and of his brother-in-law, Alfonso of Aragon. The former . took place in. 1498, prior to Ccsarc's campaign in the Romagna . Grogorovius, tho German historian of Rome, claims to have "proved" that Ccsarc was a fratricide. Mr. Sabatimi contends that tho evidence, scanty as it is, points to an affair of sordid gallantry, • and no wise • implicates Ccsarc. "With regard to Alfonso's murder the charge, against Ccsarc rests very largely upon a story told by Capello, the Venetian Ambassador at Naples. Alfonso was Lucrem Borgia's second husband. Her first husband was Giovanni Sforza, Lord of Pesaro. She was then only fourteen, and, like all the Borgiac, "of a rare personal beauty, - with blue eyoj and golden hair." Five years afterwards sho was divorced. A'few. months later, sho was married to Alfonso of Aragon, nephew of tho King of Naples. Alfonso was a handsome, youth of seventeen and on -every .side tho marriage was said to be a .lovo match. Alas, for this unfortunate prince. Exactly for what cause ho wis murderously assaulted and grievously wounded, on the steps of St. Peter's!—only three years after his marriage—is still a mystery. Six weeks afterwards he died. The Venetian envoy, writing from Rome, that the "Duke of Biselli (Alfonso), Madonna Lucrezia's husband, died today becauso ho was planning the death of tho Duke (of Valentinois) Cesare by means of an arbalest bolt when he walked in the gardens. _ The duke has had him cut to pieces in his room by hl3 archers." '

After exposing many glaring discrepancies in the various stories put forth by C'apello and others, the author says: "If we reject them all, then wo are loft utterly without information as to how Alfonso died. If wo accept * all, then wo, find that it was as a measure of retaliation that C'csaro compassed the death of his brother-in-law, which made it not a murder, but a private execution." As to that, it is only fair to both Lucrczia and Cesaro.to say there is _ not one atom of evidence.' Alfonso's widow soon married Alfonso d' Este, son of the Dnko Ercole of Fcrrara. A scandalous story was published in • Germany— the notorious "Lottcr to Silvia Savelli"—as to certain disgusting orgies which, it is

alleged, took place at the' Vatican, in tlio presence of, tlio -Pope, then a man of seventy, .Cesare, Lucresia Borgia and thoir intimato friends, at a supper given by Alexander the Sixth to colcbrato his daughter's marriage. Mr. Sabatini quotes enough, in English, from Burckhard's diary (wherein tho Sarclli letter is reproduced in full) to show the disgusting nature of tho affair, but certain of'.the worst passages, he says', ho must "leave discreetly veiled in tho decadent Latin" of Burckhard's chronicle. Mr. Sabatini completely discredits tho scandalous story, and quotes Gregorovius, thi.s time with approval, as having "put his fingers upon its obvious untruths." As for Lucrezia, the archives of Ferrara show her, says Mr. Sabatini, to havo been "devout, Godfearing, and beloved, deeply mourned in death by a sorrowing husband and a sorrowing people. Not a breath of .scandal touches her from tho moment that she quits thfc scandalous environment of the Papal Court."

'Cesare was about to leave Rome to invado Bologna, when he and his father attended a banquet given by the Cardinal of Corrcto. Father and son were taken ill, the result, it is said, of poisoning. A long-accepted version of tho affair was that both Alexander and Cesaro drank poisoned wine, which had been intended by Cesare for his father I This story Mr. Sabatini examines in detail, and dismisses as . a baseless calumny. The real cause'of the Pope's death wa,s, ho contends, a pestilential fever which struck ' down so many Romans in 'that particular summer. Cesare recovered, owing, it is said, to having himself "immersed to the neck in a huge jar of ice-cold water —a drastic treatment in consequence of which ho came to shed ail the skin from his body." Popular rumour invented a yet "more curious cure, it being declared that the "Young Bull—the Bull was prominent in the Borgian arms—was placed inside the body of a mule," which was ripped open in order that the feverstricken Cesaro might be packed into the pulsating entrails, "there to sweat the lover out of him I

Alexander the Sixth was succeeded'by Phis* the Third. Had the latter lived, Cesaro's rapidly-approaching fall might havb been postponed, but the new Pope only reigned a few months, his death providing for the promotion to tho Papal Chair of Cardinal Delia Rbvere, who loved not tho Borgias. Tho new Popo, Julius tho Second, soon stripped Cesare of his dignities, confiscated his properties, and finally exiled him to Spain. This was in August, 1504. Cesare was still only twenty-nine years of age. Ho was imprisoned in the fortress of Medina del Campo, escaped, readied Pampelunn, appealed in vain to the French King, and then, rebuffed by Louis the Twelfth, joined tho cause of Navarre, and, in the thirty-second year of his age, met his deatii, with heroic bravery, in a skirmish outside the walls of Vienna. Two hundred years later, at tho command of the Bishop of Calahorra, the tomb was ordered to bo removed,, and die ashes of Cesaro,Borgia were scattered and lost.' ■ Sic transit glorai mundi. Mr. Sabatini's pages aro crowded with stirring, incidents,, and a\\ ■though many niaff'.lind it d)B\(A\lt'Vi'l'(f-' ject the older stories of tho Borgias and their crimes, some beyond proof/' others, perhaps, as Mr. Sabatini would have us believe, .merely legendary, 'the author, must be credited with having written a book of profound and poignant interest. Tho volume contains several portraits, and other illustrations.