The Borgia Myth [pp. 1-16]

TIIE BORGIA ML YTH.
avad of Pierotto; Caesar has ruined the Romagna, from whichi he
has driven the lawful sovereignis. All fear him, the fratricide,
"wvho wvas a cardinal and has become an assassin."
This letter is a summary of all the charges ever made by
angry Italian writers in Milan, Venice, Naples, and Rome against
the strong-willed Spanish intruders. Burchard's Diariuin tells
us that the pope asked to see the famous letter. He was accustomed for years to the style of the Roman satirists, the most violent in Europe, reading daily, for the amusement of his courtiers,
all that MIarforio and Pasquino could say against himself. But
Caesar was angered by it, and, a short time after its publication,
caused a Venetian who had written calumnies against the Borgias to be put to death; and a Neapolitan rhetorician, Jeronimo
Miancioni-most probably the author of the Savelli letter-who
had previously slandered them, to be mutilated. The stocks, and
sometimes death, were then the punishments for the calumniator,
as they were long after in our own New England.*
Is the famous "ball," then, a calumny, or did it actually take
place? Must we admit that Kaulbach'st obscene picture of it
has as little foundation in truth as Donizetti's opera or Victor
Hugo's tragedy? Certainly, if the ball be genuine, Mr. Astor
would have to take up his pen again in defence of his heroine, for
she is said to have been present at it. Or is the text of Burchard
interpolated by Eccard, the enemy of the popes? The original
Vatican manuscript alone, when it comes to light, will solve
the doubt. Alvisi insinuates that the Burchard story is taken
from the Savelli libel. The diarist does not say that he was at
the ball. He is giving only a report of what he heard. What
is meant by fifty meretrices izonestw, anyway-" fifty respectable
prostitutes "? Was it not easy for the copyist to mistake Burchard's word-granting for the moment the authenticity of the
text and to assume it to be meretrices? Certainly Burchard's
penmanship was not easy to read. He was a German, accustomed to use peculiar characters in his writings, and his calligraphy sadly puzzled the Italians who tried to read it. Even his
associates could not make out what he wrote. Paris de Grassis,
his fellow-master of ceremonies and afterwards his successor,
says:" The books which he wrote no one can understand except the devil, his aider, or the sibyl; for such crooks, most ob
' Even pontifical briefs and bulls were forged in those days. Floridus, Archbishop of Cosenza, was put to death by Caesar for such forgeries.
t Kaulbach is an instance of the tendency of certain artists to assume that the indecent is
true art. Lucretia Borgia's dance is not the worst sin of a Kaulbach against decency.
[Oct.,
I 2