Adding substantially to the papal coffers was the death on July 20, 1502, of Cardinal Gianbattista Ferrari, Alexander VI’s erstwhile datary, who had paid 22,000 ducats for his red hat in September 1500, as part of the pope’s efforts to raise funds for Cesare’s campaign against Faenza, Rimini, and Pesaro. The cardinal had fallen ill in early June, Burchard reported, and ‘declined all medical treatment, refusing stubbornly to be given enemas, to be bled, to take syrups or pills or any other medicines.’ After a few days in bed, he had been well enough to dine on ‘bread soup and a pint of excellent Corsican wine,’ but soon suffered a relapse, severe enough to be given the last rites; however, he rallied again and lasted for another month, still refusing medicines of any kind.
The morning of his death, somewhat delirious, he complained that he had been robbed of 10 ducats in a transaction relating to a petition. Two monks who were present told him ‘Most Reverend Lord, do not trouble yourself about these transactions. You must recommend yourself to Him who will deliver you from all fraud and deceit.’ He kissed the crucifix and made the sign of the cross by striking his mouth with his right hand. Shortly afterwards he yielded up his spirit.
The cardinal’s interment in Santa Maria della Febbre was not a dignified ceremony; a member of the dead man’s household hurried toward the coffin to retrieve a pair of gloves that, he claimed, belonged to him, as well as a ring that, so he maintained, was also his property. Then it was found that the lid of the coffin would not close upon the corpse, so a carpenter was called to kneel on it to force it down.
Although a rich man who was reported to have accumulated a large fortune in ducats and in gold and silver, by extremely questionable means, Gianbattista Ferrari had been notoriously parsimonious; and Burchard recorded the joke that was being told of him at that time in Rome, that, on presenting himself at the gates of heaven, St Peter had asked him for an entrance fee of 1,000 ducats. He protested that he could not possibly pay such a sum. Well, said St Peter, he would settle for 500 ducats. That, too, was quite impossible; the price was eventually dropped to one ducat, but even this was too much for the miserly cardinal. ‘If you cannot pay a single ducat,’ St Peter then exclaimed, ‘go to the Devil, and remain a pauper with him for all eternity.’
So the death of the cardinal was not widely mourned; his stinginess and disregard for the plight of the poor had earned him an evil reputation; and while his last illness seems to have been caused by a fever endemic in Rome, there were many who believed that he had been poisoned in the manner in which he himself was supposed to have arranged the deaths of several of those who crossed his path. Certainly, much of the cardinal’s fortune, which Burchard estimated at 80,000 ducats, not counting his clothes and jewels, passed into the hands of the pope, and thence into Cesare’s battle chest.
Having taken Urbino and Camerino, Cesare was now ready for the next step in his ruthless campaign. For this he needed the cooperation of Louis XII, who was, conveniently for Cesare, on his way from France in person to visit Milan, where he was expected on July 28. So, just four days after the surrender of Camerino, Cesare galloped out of his camp at Fermignano, together with three companions, ‘disguised as a Knight of St John of Jerusalem, with a cross on his coat,’ reported Burchard, and availing himself of the order’s chain-of-post horses along the road.
At Borgo San Donnino, Cesare and his companions feasted on a huge quantity of chickens and pigeons, so many indeed that ‘they shocked the locals,’ claimed Burchard, ‘covering themselves with shame.’ They stopped briefly in Ferrara, where Cesare visited his beloved Lucrezia, who was seriously ill, and rode on to Milan, where they arrived on August 5.
A witness reported to Isabella d’Este the manner of Cesare’s reception by Louis XII:
The King publicly embraced and welcomed him with great joy and led him into the castle where he had him installed in the chamber nearest his own, and the King himself ordered his supper, choosing diverse dishes… and he ordered that his guest should dress in the King’s own shirt and tunic, since Duke Valentino had brought no baggage animals with him, only horses. In short — he could not have done more for a son or a brother.
The pope was displeased by his son’s actions — about which he had been increasingly often kept in the dark — and, always inclined to be wary of France, was ‘highly troubled by this journey of his son’s to Milan,’ Giustinian had reported, ‘because I hear from a completely reliable source that he undertook the journey without any consultation or even informing His Holiness.’
For Cesare, however, the journey was to prove highly profitable; not only did he cement his friendship and understanding with Louis XII, but he also succeeded in intimidating his enemies who had clustered around the French court. Cesare’s reception by the king must have been galling for many of the other guests, notably for Giovanni Sforza and Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, both of whom had been usurped by Cesare and were hoping for French aid to regain their dominions.
Among the most outspoken of Cesare’s enemies gathered at the French court was Isabella d’Este’s husband, Francesco Gonzaga, who had sworn that he would fight a duel with Cesare, ‘that bastard son of a priest’s,’ but now felt obliged to recant, and reported to a friend that he and Cesare had ‘embraced each other as good brothers,’ adding, ‘We have spent all this day dancing and feasting with His Majesty.’
Despite his anger at the arrogance with which Cesare flaunted his military strength, and especially with his encroachment into the territory of Florence, which remained an important ally of France, the king needed the support of Alexander VI, and of the pope’s son’s army, to defend his authority in Naples, where the relations between France and Spain, unusually cordial in recent years, had begun to return to their customary hostility. And so, Louis XII and Cesare came to an agreement whereby the king agreed to give the duke a free hand in Bologna while Cesare was to lend support to French ambitions in Naples.
Cesare spent nearly a month with the French court, travelling with the king first to Pavia, where they were entertained with a ritual duel between two feuding members of the Gonzaga family, who were then seated opposite each other at the lavish banquet that followed. They then rode on to Genoa, where a spectacular reception had been planned to welcome Louis XII, at a cost to the city of 12,000 ducats.
On September 2 Cesare left Genoa and five days later was in Ferrara to cheer the ailing Lucrezia, who was suffering from puerperal fever. He then rode south to Camerino to confer with his father, who was in the city to install as the new Duke of Camerino the four-and-a-half-year-old Juan, the boy widely supposed to have been the result of Lucrezia’s infamous affair with the papal valet Pedro Calderon. The pope and Cesare had much to discuss, not least the plan for seizing Bologna.
In fulfilment of his agreement with Cesare, Louis XII had sent an envoy to Giovanni Bentivoglio at Bologna, informing him that he would not oppose the wishes of Alexander VI, who now called Bentivoglio to Rome to answer charges of misgovernment.
Cesare’s captains, however, had become increasingly suspicious of their master’s intentions. If Giovanni Bentivoglio was about to lose his state, how safe were their own territories, which all lay on the edges of Cesare’s duchy, their security guaranteed, so they thought, by their service in the duke’s armies. Accordingly, Cardinal Orsini called a meeting at the castle of Magione, a short distance from Lake Trasimeno, which was attended by all the threatened rulers: Gianpaolo Baglioni of Perugia; Francesco Orsini, Duke of Gravina; Paolo Orsini of Palombara; Oliverotto Euffreducci of Fermo; even Vitellozzo Vitelli, Lord of Città di Castello, who was suffering from an acutely painful attack of syphilis and had to be carried there on a stretcher. And those who could not come in person to Magione were represented: Giovanni Bentivoglio of Bologna sent his son, Ermes; Pandolfo Petrucci of Siena sent two courtiers; Guidobaldo da Montefeltro sent another; and so on.