The Borgias Read Free Page A

rival supporters of the constantly feuding Orsini and Colonna families.
    No sooner had he been elected, the new pope now set his heart upon the organization of a crusade that would free Constantinople from the grip of the Turks, who had captured the city in May 1453. ‘He vowed to focus all his efforts against the heretic Turks,’ wrote Enea Silvio Piccolomini, whom Calixtus III created the cardinal of Siena, ‘giving absolution for the sins of all who enlisted.’ The pope’s determination surprised many; it was well known that he was suffering increasingly from painful attacks of gout, and it had beenexpected that he would continue to live a quiet and pious life in the Vatican, rather than embark on such an ambitious venture.
    Money was raised by the imposition of taxes and by the selling of works of art, including the precious book bindings that had been bought at such expense by Nicholas V; Calixtus III went so far as to pawn his own mitre and sent numerous preachers armed with indulgences all over Europe; he also put a stop to various works of restoration and rebuilding in Rome, which had been initiated by his predecessor.
    Self-willed, parsimonious, and obstinate, Calixtus III would tolerate no opposition from those cardinals who were opposed to his bellicose ambitions, and in the end he raised enough funds to finance the building of galleys and to muster troops for the conduct of a holy war. Yet while his soldiers and sailors enjoyed some minor successes, including the defeat of a Turkish army outside Belgrade in July 1456 and the partial destruction of a Turkish fleet off Lesbos in August the following year, his ambitions were not shared by all the European powers, many of whom failed to contribute either money or men to the scheme. Moreover, the favours he bestowed upon his relations and his fellow Spaniards, the hated Catalans, had begun to cause widespread resentment in Rome.
    Three of his nephews received special favour. Two were created cardinals before they were thirty years old, and Calixtus III appointed one of them, Rodrigo Borgia, to the post of vice-chancellor of the Holy See, the most influential office in the papal government. The third, Pedro Luis Borgia, elder brother of Rodrigo, was given the title Duke of Spoleto and appointed captain general of the church, prefect of Rome, and governor of Rome’s great fortress, Castel Sant’Angelo.
    Calixtus III’s death on August 6, 1458 – just three years after his elevation, in the small, dark bedchamber where ill health had obliged him to spend so much of his time – was greeted by riots in Rome, in protest against the detested Catalans whom he had so provocatively indulged. Once again the cardinals converged on Rome to play their part in a conclave at which, so it was hoped, a pope would be elected in whom the papacy and Rome, by now indissolubly interwoven, could take pride.
    At this conclave the divisions within the college were greater than they had been three years earlier: ‘The richer and more important cardinals,’ as Enea Silvio Piccolomini, the cardinal of Siena, recalled, ‘made promises and threats, and some, shamelessly abandoning all vestiges of decency, pleaded their own cases for election.’ Guillaume d’Estouteville, the wealthy cardinal of Rouen, offered tempting prizes: ‘Not a few were won over by Rouen’s grandiose promises, caught like flies by their greed,’ and they schemed all night in the communal lavatories, ‘being a secluded and private place.’
    Early the next morning, the cardinal of Siena went to visit the young Spaniard Rodrigo Borgia, the vice-chancellor, to ask him if he, too, was promised to Rouen. ‘What would you have me do?’ responded Borgia, who had been assured by d’Estouteville that he would keep the lucrative post of vice-chancellor in return for his vote: ‘The election is certain.’ Piccolomini cautioned the twenty-seven-year-old Rodrigo: ‘You young fool, will you put faith in a man who is