The Pope's Daughter: The Extraordinary Life of Felice Della Rovere (37 page)

Francesco Maria’s and Eleonora’s frequent absences from Urbino meant that the Fossombrone residence was also not in regular use. The Urbino court chamberlain, Raphael Hieronimo, spent the month of August making ready apartments at the Corte Alta for Felice. He supplied Fossombrone with ample quantities of straw mattresses, wood and wine, as well as ‘molti tappetti’ – tapestries to cover the walls and provide insulation, for the hill town was cold in the autumn and winter months.
³
Three months had passed since the Sack of Rome when Felice moved to Fossombrone at the beginning of September. Her main goal was to construct a semblance of normality and stability for her children. When she was younger than they were, Felice had experienced at first hand the fear of arriving in a strange and hostile-seeming environment, when she had moved from Rome to Savona. So she attempted to search for a tutor in Latin and Greek for them, and wrote to associates to see if they could help. However, as Aloysio da Lode, whom she had enlisted in her quest, wrote to her in October
1527
, ‘The confusion of everything is such that I can find no one.’
⁴
Even the humanists were in hiding.

Girolamo, her
condottiere
in the making, wanted to ride, and Felice took pains to find a good saddler to repair an old saddle to her son’s exacting instructions. She received a letter from one Hieronimo da Cerbo in Monte del Cio, who wrote that a saddle had been refurbished in accordance with Girolamo’s wishes. The leather had been retooled and it now had a seat lined with white musk fur; the cost would be
2
scudi
. ‘Your ladyship’s saddle,’ the saddler concluded, ‘with the additions you wanted for the pommels and girth, costs
3
scudi
.’
⁵

Clothing for the children, especially for Clarice, was another priority. When Felice arrived at Fossombrone, she wrote with gratitude to Eleonora, acknowledging receipt of ‘your ladyship’s letter and along with it the undergown, white damask and sarcenet taffeta that you, in your immense goodness and kindness, have deigned to send Clarice my daughter, and your most devoted servant’.
⁶
Felice also took advantage of Cardinal Gian Domenico’s residence in Venice, the textile capital of Italy, to acquire other supplies. The minute details of a letter he sent her with regard to this matter belie the fact that only a few months previously both had been fleeing for their lives and were now, technically, refugees. ‘The other day,’ wrote Gian Domenico, ‘you wrote to me to send you the material for two silk hooded cloaks. I wrote back to you asking what colours you wanted, and you told me to pick whatever I thought was best. So I am sending you two cloaks of purple lined silk, two serge jerkins, and some pink silk, because you also asked for something for Madonna Clarice, and I thought it best to send her a piece of pink.’
7

Felice skilfully contrived to create her own establishment on the della Rovere estate. Conscious that she was still a guest of her cousins, staying at Fossombrone at their expense, she was shrewd enough to ensure that her presence continued to be welcomed. Her management of the Orsini estates had taught her useful lessons in thrift and parsimony, and she was to behave no differently on borrowed land. In November
1527
, Eleonora Gonzaga, anxious about the expense of so many refugees, wrote to Raphael di Hieronimo to ask him to supply her with a list of ‘le boche’, the ‘mouths’ for which the Urbino court was currently responsible. ‘Mouths’ implied not only the cost of food but also the cost of clothing, the expense of servants and the stabling of horses. Raphael wrote to Eleonora that there were many – over two hundred – and more besides, because two further ‘courts’ had been established. In addition to Felice’s at Fossombrone, there was another at Pesaro under the governorship of another compatriot from Savona, Marco Vigerio, now Bishop of Senigallia. But the style and habits of these two courts, Raphael reported, were very different. As he explained,

The aforesaid Signora [Felice] is very well measured in her choice of dishes, but the Governor insists on a lavish table, and demands no fewer than twelve or fourteen young chickens a day, whereas the Signora only eight, and they are dear. When it comes to meat, she takes the usual meat that we serve at table at our court, but the Governor wants white bread for everybody, and veal and castrated animals. If he does not get that he starts threatening our officials with prison, or the rack...soon we shall not find a single servant who wants to stay there.
⁸

By contrast, the Urbino officials liked staying at Felice’s economic yet evidently pleasurable court at Fossombrone. Felice had always treated the high-ranking Orsini staff well. She respected their abilities, and had no reason to behave any differently towards her cousins’ staff, especially when she was more dependent on their good will. Raphael di Hieronimo also seemed to prefer Fossombrone to the Urbino palace itself, as he frequently wrote letters to his mistress addressed from there. The Urbino
nuncio
, Gian Maria della Porta, who had escaped the Sack in Felice’s company, also spent time at Felice’s court. The pair were long-standing friends. Felice had confided her fears to him about Napoleone when her stepson had taken Palo, feelings she would not acknowledge to his master, Francesco Maria.

The atmosphere generated by Felice at Fossombrone evidently appealed to Eleonora Gonzaga when she came to visit her cousin in the autumn of
1527
. This was perhaps the first time when the Urbino Duchess could visit a palace in which a woman was completely in charge. Even Eleonora’s headstrong mother, Isabella d’Este, had always had to act in relationship to a man, first as the wife and then as the widowed mother of a duke. Felice’s table might have been relatively humble, but the court Felice created at the Corte Alta had an alluring grace and simplicity, in keeping with the tranquillity for which Fossombrone was famous. It attracted Eleonora, perhaps particularly so after the more ostentatious courts at Mantua or Venice, where she had spent much time, and seems to have inspired her to develop her own establishment at Fossombrone. Early in January
1528
she charged Gian Maria della Porta with seeking out a property in the town that could be developed into a fitting residence. He advised Eleonora to purchase the three adjoining houses now known as the Corte Rossa, a name derived from their red-painted window frames. The Urbino court architect, Girolamo Ghenga, subsequently set to work renovating the houses.
⁹
Much of the spring of
1528
was spent readying the Corte Rossa for Eleonora, and it seems appropriate that it was Felice, as Fossombrone
châtelaine
, with her experience in supervising building renovations, who was on site to oversee and advise on the project.

chapter 6

The Exiled

Fossombrone clearly proved a haven for Felice after the horrors of Rome. Yet however delightful the refuge may have been, there were many reminders of the attendant anxieties of the outside world. Even in times of plenty Felice had invariably been addressed in letters as ‘patron and benefactress’ from those anticipating her help. Now that title came to have even more resonance. There was a constant stream of correspondence from those asking for her assistance. Giuliano Leno, the man who had once controlled almost every monopoly in Rome, who had cavalierly disregarded the need to fortify the walls of Rome as the Imperial troops approached, was now in reduced circumstances in Perugia. Leno, who had negotiated transactions with Felice worth thousand of ducats, now asked if she could send him fifty.
¹

Felice did what she could and if there was nothing she could do herself, she tried to put those in need in touch with others who could help them. Her efforts were not always successful. Her servant Giovanni Egitio de Vicovaro wrote to her, ‘I went with your credentials to the Reverend Orsini and I told him of the great necessity that has finally reduced me to beg from his Reverence. He replied to me that he himself is in great need and necessity, for his estate has been totally ruined. He has not even a sack of grain left.’
2

Felice received many tales of the hardships suffered in Rome. One such letter, from December
1527
, came from the Bishop of the Ligurian town of Monterosso, who flatly told her that ‘it is impossible to live in Rome; there is no bread of any sort, and nothing for the people to eat’.
³
Other communications arrived regarding property stolen in the Sack and now recovered, although often with a hefty ransom attached to it. The Bishop of Mugnano wrote to her from the island of Ischia, where he was benefiting from the extended hospitality of the poetess Vittoria Colonna. The Bishop was pleased to inform Felice that he had been able to recover a jewel belonging to Nicolò Orsini, Lord of Monterotondo and Mugnano. This jewel, worth
50
ducats, had been a baptismal gift from Felice to one of Nicolò’s children, and it had been cherished by its owner not for its monetary worth but because the donor had been Felice.
⁴

Many of Felice’s correspondents had lost everything, but one to inspire little sympathy was Isabella d’Este. Felice had barely arrived in Urbino when Isabella wrote to her, lamenting that a boat containing many of the artefacts she had acquired in Rome had gone missing. Isabella was sure that Andrea Doria, the Genoese naval captain in command of the harbour and fleets at Civitavecchia, had ordered the boat commandeered at sea so he could steal her treasures. Felice was upset by Isabella’s smear on her countryman and responded, ‘Prior to my departure from Civitavecchia, Maestro Andrea Doria came to find me in the rooms where I was, and he told me about your belongings, the same truth that he wrote to you, that they, along with some servants, had been taken at sea by the Moors. Your illustrious ladyship can be most certain that if I knew otherwise, and if he was my son, I would tell you the truth.’
⁵
Felice’s words to Isabella have a rather reproachful tone. Many had died in the Sack and Isabella’s fretting over what amounted to little more than a weekend shopping trip for the Marchesa seems at best frivolous and at worst distinctly hard-hearted.

A year later, Isabella wrote again to Felice in a manner that suggests she was anxious to win her over:

My dearest sister, I feel that the troubles we experienced together in Rome forged a new bond of friendship between us, and I greatly desire news of you as we are good sisters. And it is many days since I have heard from you. As I do not have a great deal else to write to you, let me tell you that, thanks to God, I have recovered the belongings of myself and my family, the ones I believed had been lost at sea at the hands of the Moors. They were discovered in a ship sailing to Venice under the command of a Venetian gentleman Cazadiavolo. This Cazadiavolo had also found the beautiful tapestries of the Pope [those in the Sistine Chapel made from cartoons by Raphael for Leo X], which my son Don Ferrante rescued from the Spanish by paying
500
scudi
for them .. .
6

Isabella took some pains in her letter to extol Ferrante as a saviour of papal patrimony. Ferrante’s greed, sanctioned by Isabella, in taking ransom money from Roman nobles had had a direct effect on Felice. Isabella knew what Ferrante had done and had indeed been complicit in it. At the palace of Dodici Apostoli, Felice had put up
2000
ducats as surety for her nephew Christofano del Bufalo and the del Bufalo family had yet to produce this sum. Ferrante wrote to both Felice and Gian Domenico de Cupis to remind them of this debt, but gave the letters to his mother to send on. Isabella wrote to him remarking that she ‘cannot believe that Maestro Angelo [Christofano’s father] would not pay his debt; even though he is reputed to be a gentlemen, we are obliged to find him the world’s vilest man. Your letters have been sent to Signora Felice and the Cardinal of Trani.’
⁷

Isabella also went to work on Ferrante’s behalf to extract the money from Felice’s extended family. Perhaps the ‘bonds of friendship’ prevented her from writing directly to Felice, but she did write several times to Gian Domenico. In one letter she reminded him of the ‘services my son has done to you and to Signora Felice’ and in another that she hoped he would resolve the issue as she did not wish for her son ‘to have any reason to resort to any terms with yourself and Signora Felice’.
⁸
Gian Domenico did pay the debt, and Isabella was then nothing but charm, writing to him that she hoped he would excuse Ferrante for the manner in which he had approached someone ‘of your grade and dignity’, and that it was being obliged to negotiate in such a way with the Spanish that had pushed him to such extremes.
⁹