The Borgias Read Free

unobjectionable, although both were unfortunately Spaniards and, therefore, not likely to prove a popular choice with the Roman people, notoriously hostile to the Catalans, as Spaniards were generally known. Of these two, the less objectionable was the modest and scholarly bishop of Valencia, and it was he who was eventually chosen to succeed Nicholas V.
    Again the trumpets in the piazza of St Peter’s sounded; a cloud of smoke rose into the sky as a signal that the conclave had come to a conclusion, and it was greeted with shouts by the large crowd gathered there; the recently erected brickwork was knocked down. The doors opened and the dean of the college of cardinals appeared to announce the conclave’s decision: ‘I proclaim to you great joy,’ he said, ‘we have a new pope, Lord Alfonso de Borja, Bishop of Valencia; he desires to be known as Calixtus the Third.’
    The Borjas, or Borgias as they were known in Italy, were a family of some consequence in Spain, descended, as they claimed, from the ancient royal House of Aragon. Alfonso, born in 1378, was the son of the owner of an estate at Játiva near Valencia; he had studied and then taught law at Lérida and, at the age of thirty-eight, had been appointed to the prestigious post of private secretary to King Alfonso V of Aragon, in whose service he was to remain for forty-two years. He helped to arrange the abdication of the anti-pope Clement VIII, thus paving the way for the ending of the Great Schism, and was given the bishopric of Valencia as a reward for his services. In 1442 he moved to Naples, still in the service of his king, who had conquered the city to become Alfonso I of Naples.
    As the king’s private secretary, he was closely involved in the negotiations to reconcile his master with Pope Eugenius IV, who rewarded Alfonso Borgia with a cardinal’s hat and the splendid titular Church of Santi Quattro Coronati. By the time of the conclave of April 1455, he was living in Rome, an austere, modest, and increasingly gouty old man in his late seventies, in such poor health that it was doubted that he would survive the arduous ceremonies of his coronation. These involved a long service in St Peter’s during which he would receive from the cardinal archdeacon the Triple Crown and Cross, the Keys, and the Mantle of Jurisdiction. This coronation would be followed by a long procession to the Church of San Giovanni in Laterano, where, in another lengthy ceremony, the new pope would be enthroned as bishop of Rome.
    The procession from St Peter’s to the Lateran, known as the possesso , was one of the most colourful and, to the Roman populace, exciting sights that the city had to offer. Vatican guards and choristers, preceded by falconers with their hawks and rat catchers withdogs to clear the vermin from the low-lying land by the Tiber, marched along the streets, followed by the bearers of sweet-smelling herbs. Then came the officials of the government of Rome, the bishops and cardinals, and, finally, Pope Calixtus III himself, riding a saddle horse beneath a canopy of gold supported by dignitaries and escorted by lancers and foot soldiers, to keep at a distance the importunate crowds of sightseers.
    Waiting as the procession approached Monte Giordano stood a rabbi together with a crowd of his fellow Jews, who, as custom dictated, offered the pope a bejewelled copy of the Torah, the book of the Jewish laws. Calixtus III accepted it, then threw it to the ground with the traditional words, ‘This is the law we know; but we do not accept your interpretation of it.’ As he spoke, a number of onlookers scrambled to take possession of the book beneath the palfrey and the horses of the guards.
    By the steps of the Church of San Giovanni in Laterano, Calixtus III knelt down submissively, as his white-and-gold vestments were removed to be replaced by a black soutane. He raised his hands in a gesture of benediction as a fight broke out, as it so often did, between the