The Pope's Daughter: The Extraordinary Life of Felice Della Rovere (33 page)

The implication here is that Napoleone was not above forging a permission slip from Felice in order to take what he wanted. Although not greatly interested himself in estate administration, Napoleone was angered by his stepmother’s interference. He became known as
l’Abate
(‘the Abbot’) but he had the genes and the instincts of a
condottiere
. By the age of seventeen, Napoleone had begun to live as a kind of brigand, accompanied by a band of vassals picked up from the Orsini estates, staying at whichever castle Felice was not occupying at the time. On one occasion, when Felice was away from Vicovaro with her younger son, Napoleone turned up at the castle with his mistress. Her servant Benedetto di San Miniato wrote to assure her that he had turned them away. Napoleone also became convinced that Felice was removing things from Bracciano to which she had no right.

Her servant Christoforo wrote to her from Bracciano in May
1521
that ‘the Abbot has insisted on making an inventory of everything that is in the room where we keep the best things’.
²
But it was Felice’s decision to help her prospective son-in-law’s family acquire a cardinal’s hat that really ignited Napoleone’s resentment. He made no secret of his fury, as he felt that any cardinal’s hat she was able to negotiate should be his. It was not in Felice’s interests to make her stepson a cardinal. At that period, there was only one Orsini cardinal, Franciotto, and he tended to be conciliatory towards Felice because he did not want to lose his alliances with the other College of Cardinals’ members who were her supporters. A second Orsini cardinal might make him less amenable towards her. Felice had no intention of tipping the balance of power at the College too far towards the Orsini, making it easier for the family to unite against her. And she would have made no personal profit as she had from the Bisignano negotiation. Baldessar Castiglione reported back to Mantua, informing the Gonzaga court that ‘the Abbot presumed that it would be him. Now he has gone to Bracciano and he is being terribly threatening.’
3

At that time, Napoleone could do little more than threaten, because Felice was assured of Leo’s love and support. But on
1
December
1521
Leo died suddenly of pneumonia, having caught a cold watching bullfights at La Magliana. The following month, the College of Cardinals elected a Dutch pope, Hadrian of Utrecht, who had been the boyhood tutor of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. Hadrian chose to keep his given name and became Pope Hadrian VI. It was a winter election and Hadrian’s reign cast a wintry chill over the life of Rome. He had no ties to Rome and no love for the city. He was instinctively thrifty. He put the building of New St Peter’s on hold. Construction work was halted, weeds began to grow through the stones, and the church came to appear as great a ruin as any of the ancient basilicas in the Roman forum. Raphael had died the previous year, and instead of supporting his school of talented students and associates, the new Pope favoured northern artists, such as Jan van Scorel, from Hadrian’s home town of Utrecht. Scorel was deemed as no more than mediocre by the Roman cognoscenti. But no one felt the chill of the northern Pope’s reign more than Felice della Rovere.

chapter 17

The Taking of Palo

Unlike his predecessor, the new Pope had no ties to Felice and no interest in developing any. For Hadrian, Felice was no treasured memento of Rome’s golden age. She was, rather, a symbol of papal corruption, a reminder of the carnality of one predecessor and the greed of another who had conspired with her to sell offices. Consequently Hadrian had no intention of supporting her. Conscious that Felice was now without a papal protector, Napoleone, supported by his greatest ally, Renzo da Ceri, wasted no time in flexing his muscles and trying to frighten her into granting him concessions.

Renzo da Ceri had been Leo’s military commander and he advised Napoleone how to attack Felice. It was a delicate matter, as they could not do anything to jeopardize the safety of her young sons, who were Orsini heirs after all, and damaging Orsini property would be the equivalent of attacking themselves. But they did identify a point of vulnerability in Felice’s castle of Palo, which, following Leo’s demise, was currently unoccupied. As Orsini men, it was an outrage that the castle, which had once been Orsini property, should now be in her sole possession. It was a point of honour for them to reclaim it, on the grounds that it was not hers by right.

On
13
January
1522
, the Urbino ambassador in Rome, Gian Maria della Porta, wrote to his master, Felice’s cousin, Francesco Maria della Rovere, ‘Madonna Felice has received news that the Abbot has gone to take Palo with the complicity of Signor Renzo. She is very unhappy and afflicted more than ever...She bought Palo with money given to her by Pope Julius.’
¹
Felice had confided her fears to Gian Maria as a friend. She mentioned nothing of what had occurred in the letters she wrote simultaneously to Francesco Maria herself, knowing that she must not appear to have lost control in any way. Instead, she discussed with him some of the final details of the restitution of his estates, for if Leo had been a good friend to her, he had not been a good friend to Francesco Maria. As general of the papal troops, Renzo da Ceri had led an attack on Urbino to oust Francesco Maria and place Leo’s nephew Lorenzo in his place. Francesco Maria had only just returned to the Duchy of Urbino. Attempts to reach an accord between the Medici and the della Rovere were now made. One suggestion was to betroth Lorenzo’s infant daughter, Catherine de’ Medici, to Francesco’s infant son, Guidobaldo. Catherine was by then an orphan and in fact, in January
1522
, she was placed in Felice’s care, until the betrothal fell through. As Felice wrote to Francesco Maria, ‘Maestro Ridolfi came to see me last Monday on behalf of the Cardinal of Cortona, and demanded that I give back the baby girl.’ A rueful second letter remarks, ‘These things are being managed by persons of much higher rank and respect than myself.’
2
Despite her attention to other matters, Felice did take certain precautions. For example, she left her most valuable possessions in the care of the Abbot of the church of San Salvatore in Laura, adjacent to Monte Giordano in Rome, in case Napoleone should attempt an attack in Rome. Napoleone continued his campaign.

On
22
February
1522
, when Felice was absent from Bracciano, Napoleone paid a visit to the castle. Gian Maria reported, ‘The Lady Felice is very unhappy, troubled because one of her dearest servants at Bracciano has been imprisoned in Rome, and he has taken the castle, and she is worried because all the most important accounts and documents are there. Recently the Abbot has made threats around the estates in the cruellest manner possible, saying he will bring death to all of those who are her servants.’ If Felice worried in private, she did not express her anxiety publicly; this was important for her public persona, her
bella figura
. She was aware that Napoleone did not have the manpower, nor, as yet, the experience to prolong such an offensive indefinitely. She was proved right. After a couple of months, Napoleone’s forces weakened and fragmented. Palo was returned to Felice’s possession, and he was forced to abandon Bracciano. If Napoleone expected such tactics to have an effect on his stepmother, he was to be proved wrong. Felice had been standing up to the Orsini for over a decade now, and she was not about to change her ways. She continued writing to him in the same firm tone, demanding to see records of the accounts at Farfa and receive any revenue she felt rightfully belonged to the Orsini estate and not to him personally. After one request in June
1522
that Napoleone evidently found too much to bear, he exploded, sending her in return a letter full of invective and righteous self-pity:

Illustrious Mistress, my Honourable Mother. I received your letter and response to me. Truthfully, ever since the death of my father, I do not seem to be a brother of the sons of Signor Gian Giordano, but a true bastard. Everyone can see that you have enjoyed and taken not only my paternal patrimony but the ecclesiastical one as well. For the two years that I have held my abbey I have seen you take the fruit of it. When you came into the house of Orsini you received many benefits, and were elevated and exalted, that you cannot deny. But other women who came benefited and exalted our house, such as my mother, who exalted and benefited the house in a way I do not need to tell you. She brought with her
33
,
000
ducats, and the favour of such a king as was her father who raised our house to the heavens. I mention this dowry and other things, because it is well known that you can take pleasure in the possession of your dowry and other things. I have been deprived of my paternal state and my mother’s dowry, and these are my displeasures and bad tidings, which injure me. And what brings me sadness is that I have been forbidden to live with my brothers. They are alienated from me and I from them, instead of feeling the charity and love there should be among three brothers.

And then you accuse me of absorbing all of the estate, when in fact it is to the contrary, that I have only
30
ducats a month, which reduces me to eating the snails in the valley, whereas you are assigned the usufruct of your dowry, and you hold Palo apart and with it its produce...I have always thought there is more hate than love in you to me, and Signor Renzo concurs. You know how he has worked on our behalf and has borne the love of a father towards me and my brothers. Leaving him aside, you have said that you have been a good mother to me. I have been a good son to you and patiently I have tolerated all these injustices.

As for the Abbey, the holy memory of Pope Julius may have given this benefice to the house of Bracciano, but he gave a lot more to the other barons’ houses, benefices and bishoprics and cardinals’ hats, and other things that make this estate look like nothing...’
³

Other members of the Orsini family privately shared Napoleone’s opinion of Felice, that she was a mere prelate’s daughter who had brought no illustrious bloodline with her and who had exploited the house of Orsini for her own ends. But to put such thoughts in writing was a dangerous breach of decorum. Felice now had documentary evidence of the depth of her stepson’s resentment of and hatred for her, proof of the extent of his fury, which was now approaching madness.

Over the summer of
1522
, Napoleone continued to cause trouble for Felice. She had taken into her care Francesco Maria’s niece, Bartolomea Varana, who had just lost her brother, Sigismondo. ‘I believe that poor Madonna Bartolomea will consume herself with endless tears and affliction,’ wrote Felice to Francesco Maria. ‘I am full of maternal love and compassion for her.’
⁴
But she also feared for Bartolomea’s safety. With Napoleone on the loose, none of the Orsini properties was secure. Gian Maria della Porta wrote to Francesco Maria on
3
September
1522
, ‘Madonna Felice has sent me word that Madonna Bartolomea must leave, as she is afraid that the Abbot will attempt to come and ravish her, and she does not want to run this risk.’
⁵
There was a sufficient vestige of feudal attitudes in sixteenth-century Italy that were such a rape to take place, Napoleone would have the right to claim Bartolomea as his own. So Bartolomea was removed from Felice’s care. Despite the turbulent times, she clearly remembered the months she had spent with her cousin with great affection. A few years later, she wrote her a charming letter, excited about the young husband chosen for her, Gas-pare Pallavicino, who was, Bartolomea told Felice, ‘of no small importance, and intelligent, literate and musical, and he seems handsome to me. I think you would be pleased for me.’
⁶
She also wanted Felice to send her the same kind of white and gold embroidered slippers Felice had given her own daughter Julia when she got married.

The following year, Napoleone changed his tactics. He had travelled to Venice, from where, he wrote to his stepmother on
4
May
1523
, ‘Because my father, God rest his soul, destined me to become a priest, and recognizing that it is not useful for the house that I do not have the literary principles, and neither does it honour me, I have decided to remain for a few years in Padua [the seat of a university].’
⁷
Felice wrote Francesco Maria, who was Captain of the Venetian Army, ‘My son the Abbot has written me in the past few days about being in Padua, with the desire to pursue a course of study, and finds himself there with little family. He has ordered four of his servants to go there, and they are setting out on horseback. I ask your lordship to allow them safe passage. Nothing else occurs to me at this time.Felice’s letter is mild and neutral, seemingly solicitous for’
8
Napoleone. But Francesco Maria was now apprised of her stepson’s movements, and could keep an eye on him, in case, as was more than likely, her stepson the Abbot was up to no good.