Mounting her horse, she rode out of the Vatican, flanked by Cesare and Cardinal Ippolito and escorted by a huge procession; ‘she was not wearing valuable clothes because it was snowing,’ reported Burchard. The pope was clearly deeply moved as he watched her leave, hurrying from window to window of the palace to catch a glimpse of the cavalcade until it was finally out of sight. He would never see his daughter again.
— CHAPTER 21 — The New Bride
‘LOOK AT THE GREAT LADY!’
THE BRIDAL CAVALCADE travelled slowly up the Via Flaminia in the gently falling snow. A few miles north of Rome, Lucrezia bid farewell to Cardinal Ippolito d’Este and her beloved brother Cesare, who returned to the city and the warmth of their own fireplaces, leaving Lucrezia to continue her long journey through the Apennines north to Ferrara with her own retinue, which numbered some seven hundred people, escorted by the five hundred men of the Ferrarese party that had travelled to Rome the previous December.
‘There was no bishop, nor protonotary, nor abbot,’ recorded a shocked Burchard, but Lucrezia was accompanied by her cousin Cardinal Francisco Borgia, whom Alexander VI had appointed legate to the Papal States. And to augment the party of Roman nobles travelling with her, Cesare had provided her not only with two hundred gentlemen from his own household, but had also ordered a number of musicians and clowns to entertain her on her way. As well as some 10,000 ducats for her expenses on the journey, the pope had provided her with a sedan chair, which she was to share with the Duchess of Urbino, from Gubbio to Ferrara. Lucrezia’s retinue was also impressive, including numerous squires and cooks, stable boys and dressmakers, and, of course, her own ladies-in-waiting, among whom, according to the reports Isabella d’Este received from her informant, were several beauties, one with syphilis, and ‘one Moor, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.’
Providing mounts for all these attendants had proved a problem for the pope, who was temporarily short of funds after the spectacular expenses he had incurred in entertaining the Este party in Rome, and he had obliged all cardinals in the city to loan either two horses or two mules for Lucrezia’s journey — ‘none of these animals was returned,’ commented Burchard.
The long string of baggage animals winding its way through the snowbound passes of the Apennines was heavily laden. Strapped to the backs of several mules were the heavy padlocked chests containing Lucrezia’s dowry. Over one hundred mules were needed to carry her jewels, linen, and clothes; she took with her no fewer than two hundred expensive shifts and almost as many hats, one of which, according to Isabella d’Este’s informant, was valued at 10,000 ducats.
Despite being shielded from the worst of the weather behind the curtains of her litter, Lucrezia found the journey exhausting. At Spoleto she insisted on stopping for two nights, much to the exasperation of the Ferrarese party, who were keen to get home. Duke Ercole was also informed that she needed to wash her hair with tiresome frequency, and he was forewarned that it would be advisable for him to postpone the date of the bride’s official reception at Ferrara.
The pope also received regular reports on the progress of his daughter’s journey and wrote to her to say that he hoped to hear from her when she reached Ferrara and that he also hoped she was ‘in good health and spirits and, above all, that her face and body were wrapped up against the tempestuous and snowy weather.’ She also heard from Cardinal Ippolito d’Este, who wrote to reassure her about her little two-year-old son, Rodrigo, whom she had been so distressed to leave behind in Rome: ‘Having sent someone this morning to visit the most illustrious lord, Don Rodrigo your son, the messenger reported that His Lordship was sleeping very quietly and contentedly; and thanks be to God he is as handsome and as healthy as anyone could wish.’
On January 16, ten days after bidding farewell to her father, the cavalcade turned off the Via Flaminia onto the steep road leading to the hilltop town of Gubbio, where the redoubtable Duchess of Urbino, Elisabetta Gonzaga, sister-in-law to Isabella d’Este, dressed in her habitual black, waited unsmilingly to meet the horsemen and rumbling carriages. The following day Lucrezia, accompanied by the thirty-year-old duchess, continued the journey in the gilded sedan chair, behind the curtains of which the two women conducted an evidently stilted conversation, their friendship hampered not least by the fact that the duchess believed Cesare guilty of abducting her protégée, Dorotea Malatesta, a year earlier.
At Urbino the duke, Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, was awaiting their arrival on the road leading to his capital, the streets of which were decorated with flags and streamers and garlands of dried flowers. Beneath these the brightly painted and heavily laden carts, drawn by bullocks, rattled and screeched into the courtyard of the ducal palace, where Lucrezia was to stay.
For two nights Lucrezia remained in Urbino, staying in the imposing castle and enjoying not only the comforts of aristocratic life but also its lavish balls, banquets, and theatrical entertainments. She appeared at one ball in a dress of black velvet with a huge diamond on her forehead, while the Spanish dwarfs, who formed an ill-disciplined and noisy addition to her suite, hopped and romped around her, crying, ‘Look at the great lady!’
Lucrezia was aware that reports about her appearance and behaviour, even details of her personal hygiene, were being sent to the jealous and formidable Isabella d’Este by her secret informant, a man known as Il Prete (the priest) but whose identity remains mysterious. When his inquisitive behaviour came to Lucrezia’s notice, she sent for the man, questioned him at length, and managed to elicit more information about her new sister-in-law than he had intended to divulge. ‘She is a lady of keen intelligence and perspicacity,’ he afterward reported of Lucrezia; ‘one had to have one’s wits about one when speaking to her.’
The luxuries of the ducal palace, however, were not to be enjoyed for long, and once again the slow and exhausting journey was resumed, now toward Pesaro, still in the stilted company of the Duchess of Urbino, who would stay with her until they reached their destination. The two women arrived at Pesaro on January 21, thankful at least that the stony snowy mountains were, at last, behind them.
At Pesaro — the city that had once belonged to her first husband, Giovanni Sforza, and was now the possession of her brother — it was Cesare’s Spanish governor, Ramiro de Lorqua, who was waiting to welcome her and escort her past the expectant populace crowding the streets. When the cavalcade finally halted that evening, Lucrezia pleaded fatigue as an excuse for not joining a ball that had been arranged in her honour but that would be attended by many of her ex-husband’s subjects; and she retired with her ladies to the quarters assigned to her, where one of her maids performed what was almost a daily ritual by washing her mistress’s long blond hair.
Riding through Cesare’s duchy, the journey along the Via Emilia pleasantly smooth after the rough jolting over the hill roads, Lucrezia reached Cesena, her brother’s capital, on January 24. Here, however, an unsettling rumour of trouble ahead brought an end to such carefree gaiety; it was said that Dorotea Malatesta’s fiancé, the mercenary commander Giambattista Caracciolo, had sworn to take revenge for the kidnapping and was now awaiting to fall upon the Borgia bride somewhere nearby.