The Pope's Daughter: The Extraordinary Life of Felice Della Rovere (16 page)

When Felice wrote this letter, she was still only twenty three years old and had been Orsini
Signora
for little more than six months. But its firm tone indicates she had wasted no time in developing her persona as the
chatelaine
of Savona. Behaving as a meek and timid bride was not in her nature. Nor would it help the Orsini family comprehend that she was a force in her own right who demanded respect and obedience. Felice’s attitude towards Dianora Orsini is also typical of her personality. Dianora was not a powerful member of the clan and Felice had nothing to gain personally by extending her help to her. Felice, however, seems always to have been compelled to give aid to those who were weaker than herself. She was guided by her innate sense of justice. At the same time, protecting the less fortunate also provided her with a need for personal validation that circumstances had yet to supply.

chapter 3

Felice and Gian Giordano

In the months following her wedding, Felice della Rovere Orsini spent more time getting to know her servants and negotiating with family members than she did with her new husband, for Gian Giordano was often absent from the Orsini lands. Not very long after they were married, he set out for Spain, returning to Italy in late November. In fact, the only surviving letter from Gian Giordano to Felice is written after he disembarked at Naples. Barely decipherable, the letter gives Felice a brief account of the highlights of his trip: the King of Spain gave a concert in his honour, and he met up with a relative, Bartolomeo Alviano, an ‘exceptionally good man’, who had given Gian Giordano several gifts, ‘as token of the love he bears me’.
¹
Among these were a jerkin and eight
carrone
(yards) of black velvet.

The Spanish held a monopoly on this opulent fabric, as the dye came from the log berry tree, which was plentiful in the New World they now controlled, so it was easier to acquire in Naples, which belonged to Spain. Gian Giordano’s acquisition of expensive black velvet was something he felt would especially interest Felice. As an adult, Felice wore a great deal of black, interspersed with crimson, as if she were a cardinal. She wore black during her first widowhood and then throughout her second marriage, because her husband, who was an honorary member of the Aragonese family, decreed that they should dress as if they were Spaniards. This sartorial code struck Italian observers as decidedly unusual. An ambassador to the d’Este court commented on her dress when she made a grand entrance into Rome in
1507
. He describes her wearing black, with a white hat, adding, ‘in accordance with Spanish custom’.
²

The sparseness of their surviving correspondence and lack of commentary on their relationship make it difficult to ascertain exactly how Felice felt about Gian Giordano, or he about her. Theirs was an arranged marriage. It was not predicated on modern ideas of affection or sexual attraction, even if its consummation was an immediate imperative in order to ensure its validation. On the day of the wedding, Gian Giordano had taken pains to appear disengaged from the event. His actions, however, were directed more towards the Roman curia than as a deliberate attempt to humiliate his bride. Gian Giordano might well have warmed to Felice when they arrived at Bracciano, a stage on which he was the principal actor. Yet whether Gian Giordano was passionately in love with Felice or not, he certainly came to respect her burgeoning managerial qualities and diplomatic skills. Felice profited from his regard for her in these capacities, and was probably little concerned about anything else. Gian Giordano provided Felice with a status that allowed her to acquire a meaningful position in the Roman world, which she exploited to full advantage. In return, Felice allowed Gian Giordano to gain a papal alliance that protected him from Colonna family aggression. If he kept mistresses, as he undoubtedly did, he was evidently discreet. There was no potential for the type of humiliation Felice was sure she would have suffered had she married the Prince of Salerno, who openly paraded his current mistress. Best of all, perhaps, was that Gian Giordano was apparently content to let Felice concentrate on the things she wanted to achieve, and did not hold her back from her ambitions.

At the very least, Felice and Gian Giordano grew to understand each other. When he was absent, she sent him updates on political events. A servant wrote to him at the end of December of
1506
, when he was still in Naples, to expect a letter ‘with a postscript written by your lady consort about His Holiness’s victory at Bologna’.
³
They performed an intricate act together on the Roman political stage, one in which they could be seen as both independent and united. A description of their meeting with the Duke of Ferrara, on
6
July
1512
, outside the Palazzo Ferrari, as they were leaving the Vatican one evening and riding along the Via Alessandrina, best embodies the relationship between them. An emissary reported to the Marquis of Mantua: ‘The Duke by chance ran into Signor Gian Giordano and Madonna Felice near the palace. They dismounted from their horses, and so did the Duke and they honoured each other with many caresses, and after a great deal of ceremony, at length Madonna Felice remounted, and went on her way, while Gian Giordano chose to accompany the Duke into his home...’
⁴
These brief lines present Felice and Gian Giordano engaged together in a formal display of diplomatic courtesy, and then demonstrate Felice’s independence from him, as she continued on her way, riding her horse alone along the papal route.

Together, Gian Giordano and Felice visited Julius at the Vatican, their entrances and exits recorded and described by emissaries. They hosted events outside Rome and Julius visited them at Bracciano and other Orsini castles, such as Formello.

Felice also made sure that Gian Giordano rewarded those servants who had served her well. In January
1508
he ratified the donation of a piece of land known as ‘La Pietra del Diavolo’, to Oliverio di Bordella, which was to serve as the dowry of Chiara di Parma, described as Felice’s chamberlady.
⁵
On another occasion, Gian Giordano had arranged for a sizeable pension,
100
ducats a year, for Pasqualino da Piombino, who had faithfully served him ‘in times of peace and war’. However, Pasqualino died soon after the pension was awarded and, at Felice’s urging, Gian Giordano agreed to transfer it, ‘in consideration of the service and loyalty given to Felice Ruvere de Ursinis, my beloved wife, to Antonietta de Canneto de Proventia’.
⁶
A yearly
100
ducats was a handsome sum for a woman of this time to receive, and a further indication of Felice’s desire to take care of her own.

There was one more thing that Felice required of Gian Giordano: she needed to give birth to a son. As was the case with the aborted Piombino marriage, if Felice could produce a boy, then Gian Giordano’s son from his first marriage, Napoleone, would be excluded from inheriting the Orsini lordship. This title would instead pass to Felice’s son, ensuring that Felice had a substantial stake in the future of the Orsini family; at the very least, subsequent Orsini heirs would be descended from her. More significantly for Felice, should Gian Giordano die while such a son was still a minor, she could become regent of the family. Even in
1506
, such a thought would not have been too far from her ambitious mind. Without such a safeguard, the passing of Gian Giordano, twenty years her senior, from this world to the next, would mean the passing of Felice as a childless widow from the Orsini family. Any potential wealth and power to be derived from the Orsini would fall from her grasp.

Felice’s first child, born in
1507
, was a girl, Julia, named for her maternal grandfather. A year later, in August, Sanuto reported that, ‘a son is born to the daughter of the Pope’.
⁷
Felice also named the child after Giulio. It is not known how long little Julio lived, but it appears not to have been long.
⁸
Without a son to safeguard her future with the Orsini, Felice’s anxieties returned. What would become of her should she be unable to bear Gian Giordano a son? Many women of Felice’s time suffered similar fears, Henry VIII’s wives perhaps being the best known. But these women were fearful of the anger of their husbands if no son and heir was forthcoming. Felice’s desire for a son was entirely personal. Short of faking a pregnancy and bringing in a baby boy in a warming pan, a deceit certain duchesses and queens are believed to have employed, there was very little that could be done to ensure the arrival of a son. So Felice created a contingency plan to protect her future. And she had her father to thank that she was able to do so.

chapter 4

Father and Daughter Reunion

After Felice married Gian Giordano, she was able to reach an accord with her father. As wife of an influential Roman lord, she had a position in her own right in Rome and her new status appears to have eased the tension and ambiguities between the Pope and his illegitimate daughter. Julius had taken his revenge on his daughter for her stubbornness by removing himself from her wedding ceremony. After the marriage had taken place he felt they could begin anew and that he could give her greater public recognition. On
15
June
1506
, Julius II invited the newlyweds to the Vatican where in his very apartments, as an emissary wrote to Mantua, ‘he held a great banquet for them, which they attended, along with several Roman lords, the Prefect of Rome, and four cardinals. There was singing and dancing.’ Moreover, ‘eight days previously, the Pope had sent the Lady Felice a cross which the Republic of Venice had just sent to him’.
¹
This cross, made of diamonds, became a particularly treasured possession in Felice’s life, not least because it marked her father’s new recognition amidst those at court who mattered most.

In May
1507
, the Ferrarese ambassador gave another account of Felice’s newly honoured status:

Yesterday, Madonna Felice, the daughter of His Holiness, entered Rome, accompanied by Gian Giordano, her husband, Lord Antonio de Cordova, Signor Julio Orsini and several other gentlemen. There were around forty horsemen. The lady was dressed in black velvet, and on her head was a white velvet hat, in accordance with Spanish custom. Before her rode the bride of Lord Antonio, who is very young, around twelve years old. She was also dressed in dark damask, and rode a mule which had a saddle fashioned like a chair. They went by way of the Via de Banchi to the Belvedere where they found His Holiness. The party went back to Monte Giordano around midnight. This evening His Holiness went on horseback to the Prati [the fields backing on to the Vatican complex] and took dinner in the gardens of Monsignor Ascanio Sforza, where the lady Felice and these other gentlemen were also to be found. Accompanying His Holiness were the Cardinals of Pavia, Volterra and Urbino.
²

Felice’s status in Rome was due in part to her husband’s rank. However, the Vatican’s ambassadors found her to be of greater significance than Gian Giordano, who is emphatically a secondary subject in their accounts. In the years when Julius was attempting to arrange Felice’s second marriage, she was kept away from the spotlight. Now she made triumphal entrances into Rome and attended parties hosted by cardinals where she was the female guest of honour – if not the only woman present. Such events played a major part in Felice’s positioning of herself within Vatican court politics. It became increasingly evident that she was more important to her father than she had initially appeared.

There were other ways in which Julius acknowledged Felice beyond the confines of the Vatican. On
25
March
1508
, Julius embarked on one of the year’s traditional state processions. The feast day he was celebrating was the Annunciation, when the pope travelled from the Vatican to the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in the heart of Rome, not far from the Pantheon. There he enacted a ceremony initiated during Sixtus IV’s reign, handing out bags of money as dowries to worthy poor girls of that neighbourhood. The route he chose took him by Monte Giordano as, according to Paris de Grassis, ‘he wished to see the repairs to buildings around Monte Jordanus’.
³
For Julius, ceremonial marches were a good opportunity to observe the progress of ongoing urban renewal. The beautification of the Via Papalis, the street on which Monte Giordano was situated, was of particular importance. This ‘papal’ street was the chief parade route through the city. Restoring it, after all the troubles of the fourteenth century, clearing away rubble and cleaning the façades of damaged buildings, enhanced the prestige of the papacy. However, the crowd of onlookers all recognized that Monte Giordano was his daughter’s new home and percieve the symbolism of Julius, on his way to serve as emblematic father to the girls of the parish of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, electing to pass by the Roman home of his real daughter.

Attention, public and private, was not the only way Julius rewarded Felice. He had given his daughter a relatively meagre dowry, but that money was not the last Felice would receive from him. Usually, the dowry was a woman’s only share in her family estate. Although law dictated that Felice’s dowry would be returned to her on her husband’s death, Gian Giordano had spent the money buying back confiscated Orsini land. Extracting it would prove difficult. However, in addition to the dowry handed over to her husband, Julius subsequently gave money directly, if discreetly, to Felice. This cash gift did not pass through Gian Giordano, who could potentially siphon it away from her, to spend as he chose. Late in
1508
, Felice received
9000
ducats from her father. Given to her secretly, without legal transaction, the money was more than half of her original
15
,
000
-ducat dowry. It was hers to spend as she wished.