The Tigress of Forli (40 page)

Ludovico the Moor had returned to Milan in January and had reconquered the city by February. Caterina's uncle Ascanio Sforza, the wealthy vice chancellor of the church, had joined him, forming a potent alliance between church and state. Faced with this formidable pair, it behooved the Borgia pope, in the interests of self-preservation, to keep Caterina healthy and comfortable in confinement, so that the Milanese would not be spurred to free her or avenge any action taken against her.

But on April 30, betrayal led Ludovico into the hands of the king of France. By early May, the mighty Sforza duke, who had turned Milan into a glittering magnet for artists like Donato Bramante and Leonardo da Vinci, was languishing in the tower of Loches in France, where he would die after ten years of imprisonment. Shortly thereafter, the Venetians claimed the captured Cardinal Ascanio for their prize, and Alexander VI rejoiced. During a celebration in the papal apartments, Alexander boasted that his triple alliance had yielded the Sforza duke in the hands of the French, the Sforza cardinal in those of the Venetians, and the Sforza countess in the Borgia prison. With her powerful uncles removed from the arena of Italian politics, Caterina had no protection left except the Borgia's vague fear of the French. It was time to take matters into her own hands.

Caterina had a long-standing friend in Milan, Abbot Lauro Bossi. He was closely tied to the Milanese court and related to the same Gian Luigi Bossi who had accompanied Caterina on her very first trip to Rome as the young bride of Girolamo Riario. Although the hows and whys of Bossi's sudden arrival in Rome remain unclear, it appears that before his fall, Duke Ludovico had sent the priest to Rome to assist Caterina in her spiritual needs and any other requirements. As the superior of a monastery, he would be respected among the prelates in Rome and move easily among the Curia. Together, Caterina and the abbot laid the plans for a daring escape.

Although it must have heartened Caterina to find an ally, the messages from her children could only be upsetting. Ottaviano's next letter carried a dull tone of finality. "If His Holiness does not grant our latest petition," it opens brusquely, "then don't expect any more from us. We have impoverished ourselves."
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Her two eldest scions saw only shame in their mother's stubborn refusals; as they were indifferent to the fate of their cities, they found Caterina's attachment to Imola and Forlì embarrassing and inexplicable. Through their newly acquired Medici relatives they tried to deal directly with Alexander, offering to release all claims for a couple of titles and a little spare cash.

By late May, Caterina was poised for action, preparing to scale the walls of the Belvedere and ride off into the night and freedom. Alexander Bramio, the Florentine agent for the Riarios, went to the Belvedere palace on May 26 to deliver a letter from Ottaviano and Cesare. Instead of ushering him swiftly up to Caterina's rooms, the ashen-faced captain of the guards detained him on the lawn, denying his request to visit the countess, saying she had "not yet got up since she was feeling unwell."
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Bramio realized immediately that something had happened but knew better than to interrogate a flustered guard. Returning to the papal palaces, he found one of Alexander VI's secretaries, Messer Adrian, who appeared even more reluctant to talk to him than the prison guard. Bramio followed the discomfited secretary into the papal palace, now asking for an audience with the pope to inform him of developments in the Riario case. Messer Adrian, desperate to get away from Bramio, suggested that it wasn't worth the long wait and elaborate protocol and offered to relay any message Bramio might have; if Bramio was looking for an update on the state of the Riarios' request, everything seemed to be going well. The distressed papal secretary guaranteed him that Ottaviano's requests would soon be fulfilled and that Alexander was delighted to help the Riario family out of his fond memory of Pope Sixtus IV. Amid a steady stream of reassuring phrases, Messer Adrian ushered Bramio to the door, with promises of a meeting the next morning.

Justifiably skeptical, Bramio sent one of his servants the next day to deliver the letter to the Belvedere palace and gauge the atmosphere around the papal court. The prison guard relayed the same tale of Caterina's indisposition, this time with more confidence. As Bramio's envoy crossed the river to return home, however, he was accosted by two men frantically looking for Abbot Lauro. They begged the baffled servant to warn the abbot that Rome was no longer a safe place for him. The two men were employed by a certain Corvarano and his boon companion Giovanbattista da Imola. Corvarano and Giovanbattista, the pair confided, had been with Caterina two nights before and had just been arrested. Racing to the palace where Abbot Lauro was lodged, they discovered that the prelate had been seized from his bed at dawn.

Bramio's loyal servant raced back to the Belvedere, demanding to know what had happened to the countess, but the exasperated custodian yelled for him to "go away, because the devilish affairs of the countess have wrought a huge disgrace."
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The guard did, however, confirm that Corvarano and Giovanbattista had been arrested.

Shocked by his servant's report, Bramio returned to Messer Adrian for clarification. The recalcitrant secretary would admit only that there had been some tumult and that the countess had been crying all day and had refused to eat. But as the Florentine agent left the Belvedere, he looked up toward the vineyard, where he saw two figures in the garden. Duke Cesare Borgia was speaking intently to Caterina Sforza.

Bramio slowly gleaned the whole story from the Corvarano family. Abbot Lauro had given a letter to Caterina, which she in turn had handed to Corvarano, who had somehow misplaced the compromising missive, which found its way into the hands of Duke Cesare. Although the letter is not preserved, it certainly contained plans for an escape. Once again, Caterina's little window of freedom had opened briefly and then slammed shut.

Caterina was becoming a liability to the Borgia family. Although not overly reverent about preserving human life (during these same days Cesare was plotting to murder his brother-in-law), Cesare knew that killing Caterina would have several potentially disastrous ramifications. She was a Florentine citizen, related to the powerful Medici family. The republic kept informed of her whereabouts and her well-being. Furthermore, the French army admired her and would be swift to avenge any harm done to her. She had become an international icon, with devotees who continued to seek to liberate her. What was worse, they could not break Caterina's spirit. Despite defeat, rape, the callousness of her children, and the overthrow of her family in Milan, Caterina refused to give in. As long as she remained in the Belvedere, she would be a threat. The Borgias knew she had to be kept alive, but with the minimum expense, trouble, and risk. Caterina's attempted escape gave them the perfect excuse to cast her into the papal dungeon, the Castel Sant'Angelo.

Sixteen years earlier, Caterina had commandeered this same fortress and had held it against the College of Cardinals in 1484, after the death of Sixtus IV. The imposing stone cylinder of Hadrian's mausoleum that formed the castle's core was familiar to her, but little else. The Borgia family had completely transformed the huge mound of masonry into one of the most sophisticated defensive structures in Europe. Similar to that of Ravaldino, a huge moat surrounded the fortress, while a sole drawbridge brought visitors to the heart of the castle. The many circular access slopes of Hadrian's time were closed up, and only one great ramp allowed entrance or exit. Ingeniously, the ramp had gently graded steps to allow horses to climb to the highest part of the fort. The innermost burial chamber, where the ashes of Hadrian had once rested, became the deepest and most frightening cell of the castle, known as the
sammalÒ,
similar to the French
oubliette.
Borgia enemies were thrown into its depths to await death. The knowledge that they were inside a tomb undoubtedly added an element of psychological torture that made the very mention of the infamous chamber a powerful weapon. The center of the building was crammed with prisons, and the atmosphere was dank with stagnant water from the moat. Grain stores and oil barrels filled some rooms, while other chambers were piled high with ammunition. The fetid halls of interrogation, replete with iron instruments of torture, were feared by all Romans. Atop this harrowing space, the Borgia had built airy papal apartments with vaulted ceilings and windows with panoramic views. Alexander VI had hired Pinturicchio, a talented Umbrian painter, to decorate the rooms; he employed the very latest technique in wall decor, called grotesques, a fanciful type of painting rediscovered in Nero's Golden House, currently all the rage in Rome. Ironically, Alexander, who would be dubbed the "the Christian Nero," chose the mad emperor's favorite type of decoration to adorn his own house of torture. Pinturicchio's masterpiece in the fortress (now lost) was a fresco depicting the encounter between the French king Charles VIII and Pope Alexander. It commemorated the alliance which had brought about the ruin of Milan and Forlì amid portraits of all the Borgia friends, family, and paramours. Ever alert to safety, Alexander's new apartment also contained a secret entrance. Known as the
passetto,
it led to a passageway built into ninth-century Vatican walls to allow the pope to travel from his apartments at the apostolic palace next to Saint Peter's Basilica to the castle, without ever having to step into the street or pass through the gloomy dungeons. The pope organized parties, dinners, and dances in his castle; as prisoners suffered and died below, the Borgia family was literally dancing on their graves. And as of June 1500, Caterina was one of the unfortunate captives.

Caterina had spent most of her life within the walls of a fortress, which probably helped her withstand her imprisonment. Though she was spared the horror of the
sammalÒ,
Caterina's cell was small and uncomfortable and she was allowed only two serving women to assist her. The cramped quarters and the unpleasant surroundings were less oppressive than the constant fear the Borgias forced her to live in. She ate little, afraid that every meal served to her would be laced with poison. Every night she wondered if she would be quietly smothered in her sleep.

Caterina had one small triumph during the first month of her confinement. The Borgias thrived on elaborate spectacles, and the trial planned for Caterina for the attempted poisoning of Alexander was to be a masterpiece of their style of exhibitionism. Clad in the long white robe of the penitent, with a heavy rope around her neck, Caterina was to kneel before Alexander as he held forth about her crimes. The Borgias had primed "witnesses" for the prosecution, and the two would-be poisoners from November 1499, their bodies contorted by torture, would be on hand to plead for mercy. To set the stage, the papal throne was placed under a fresco of a winged figure cloaked in light, holding a flaming sword and an orb; there Alexander was to appear as the personification of Michael the archangel, dispenser of justice. But Caterina shattered these plans by outlining her defense to the master of ceremonies, should she be dragged into this farce.
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For every false charge the Borgias might lay at her door, she had a litany of accusations of her own. Her knowledge of Cesare's crimes against her person and others was so extensive that the pope and his son annulled the plans for the great trial without further comment. Caterina and Abbot Lauro were left to die of despair and neglect in the Castel Sant'Angelo.

To add a psychological dimension to their physical agony, Cesare played sadistic pranks on his prisoners. One day at dawn, Caterina was roughly awakened and marched out to the courtyard, where a gallows had been erected. Cesare coolly informed her that this was the day of her execution. As Caterina reeled, the two men accused of poisoning Pope Alexander were brought out and hanged before her eyes. She was returned to her cell and told that her life had been bought by theirs ... for that day.

Cesare employed Caterina's own children against her by ensuring that their callous letters reached their destination. Having read the contents, he knew that they would inflict more pain than any of his own tortures. The day after her foiled escape, Ottaviano, albeit unaware of the attempt, wrote to plead for a placement as an archbishop if he could not get a cardinal's hat. Essentially washing their hands of their mother's case, the two boys told her she was on her own. Cesare hoped that Caterina, damned to the papal dungeon and abandoned by her children, would be driven to despair.

Don Fortunati, Caterina's loyal Florentine retainer, rallied to Caterina's defense. "The devil must have taken your feelings and your memory,"
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Caterina's indignant friend fired off to Ottaviano and Cesare. Shocked by the absence of filial piety in Caterina's two eldest, he did not mince words, calling them "petty children," "ignorant fools," and "madmen." The priest's forthright accusations of betrayal and ingratitude had an effect on the two young men. On July 4, Ottaviano assumed a completely different tone as he penned an update on his efforts to free her. They had renounced all claims on Imola and Forlì, having asked for nothing in return. The letter gives off more than a light scent of self-pity as Ottaviano recounts the money and benefices in Romagna that he has sacrificed for her emancipation, but Caterina must have been moved by the transformation of her normally self-seeking son. While Ottaviano still hoped to shirk the responsibility of little Ludovico, in the lengthy conclusion, the Riario sons adopted language more appropriate to the prelates they proposed to be. In homiletic tones, they cautioned her to "not let the devil lead her into despair," reminding her that no matter how bleak things looked, God would always be by her side; her trust in him could not be poorly placed. Let her present suffering "be offered up in expiation of the suffering that she has caused others," they advised, "for one drop of Christ's blood [is] enough to purchase all her sins from Hell."
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Any renewed motherly affection that Caterina may have felt as she read those words must have been slightly dampened by the closing request: they had included some facsimiles of promissory notes to Lorenzo de' Medici, Caterina's brother-in-law; could she fill them out and send them so the young men could get some money?