in a word, the Christendom of those times must be understood, ere we accompany Ignatius and his followers in their wondrous expedition, sailing forth from the Apostolic port to invade the universe, under the most favourable auspices. Ever memorable in the annals of art, science, and politics, the sixteenth century is equally remarkable for the position successively occupied by the popes Alexander of Rome. Alexander the Sixth began the century. He bought the popedom; and was fiercely ungrateful to the cardinals whose ambition and avarice he tempted. His whole pontificate exhibits an unequalled career of private vice and public atrocity. But Alexander was unquestionably a man of talent: his the Sixth. 1 Imago Primi Sæculi Soc. Jesu, p. 46. reign was prosperous. It is difficult to decide how far we are to hold the pope guilty of those public crimes in which his son, Cæsar Borgia, was most deeply concerned. The son was ambitious; the father was intent on the aggrandisement of his house-let them share the infamy of their crimes. Their aim was to put down the aristocratical factions of Italy. That was the age when monarchs became jealous of rival power, and were struggling to crush the worms of pettier tyrants who crawled within their precincts. Dreadful times for aristocrats were those of Pope Alexander! His terrible son, Cæsar Borgia, was one of those many historical characters to whom ambition and fierce desires make all things lawful-such characters as throng on the page of history which is condemned to narrate the glorious deeds of the sixteenth century. Cæsar Borgia could brook no rival. His own brother stood in his way; he had him murdered one night, and thrown into the Tiber, They had both just supped together at their mother's! Their father, the pope, entirely connived at the dreadful parricide-for he undoubtedly dreaded the same fate from his ferocious son.1 Cæsar Borgia killed his father's favourite Peroto-killed him beneath the very pontifical mantle; the victim clinging close to his patron the blood spurted on the pope's face. Cæsar Borgia triumphed in his crimes. Rome, and the States of the Church, bowed to his sway. Think not that he lacked what many did think, and many still may think, redeeming qualifications in his dread depravity. Of surpassing beauty, and wonderful strength of arm, was this blood-thirsty villain in the bull-fight, he would 1 "Connivente prorsus ad immane parricidii scelus patre pontifice, qui et ipse vim sibi afferri ab efferato filio procul dubio metuebat.”—Panvinius, Alex. VI. might not fear that strike off the brute's head at a single blow. And he was liberal-handed withal-not without traits of magnanimity,—as if to prove, for the shame of humanity, that the most venerable virtues, or what seem such to the world, are not necessarily estranged from the most detestable vices; for, as we have seen, he was bloody, and Rome trembled at his name. Cæsar needed gold, and had enemies: every night the corpses of murdered men were found in the streets. Every man held his breath; for there was none who his own turn would come next. Those whom violence could not reach were taken off by poison. There was but one spot where such deeds were possible; that spot alone where unlimited power, and the highest spiritual authority, were united in the same individual: this spot Cæsar occupied. Even monstrosity has its perfection. Many sons and nephews of the popes have attempted similar things; but none ever carried them to such a pitch: Cæsar was "a virtuoso in crime."1 The reader will be surprised, doubtless, to hear that this man was made archbishop of Valencia, and a cardinal, by his father. "He showed himself worthy of such a father," says the Jesuit Feller," by his guilty passion for his own sister Lucretia, and by the murder of his elder brother, who was his rival." 2 The same authority calls him "a monster of debauchery and cruelty; and every historian is of the same opinion as to facts, a few of which have been given. Respecting the indirect influence of the great, by position or genius, on the mass of men, experience attests that the mere rumour of their guilty lives is 1 Ranke's vigorous expression"Cesar ist ein virtuos des verbrechens." I. p. 52. 2 Biog. Univ. Alex. VI. The influ ence of example. sufficient, without actual proof, to supply those samples to which profligate hearts yearn to conform. Truly or falsely were the blackest crimes laid to the charge of Alexander the Sixth, it mattered little; the influence of those rumours, with the conduct of his hideous son (whom he idolised), before them, was necessarily disastrous to the morals of the age. Was it not believed that the pope had purchased the tiara? and did not opinion find in his subsequent conduct facts which tallied with that incipient simony? "He sells the keys, the altars, Christ himself: By right he sells what he has bought with pelf."1 Every crime was attributed to him-murder, assassination, poisoning, simony, and incest.2 "He played during his whole life a game of deception; and, notwithstanding his faithless conduct was extremely well known," says Machiavelli, "his artifices always proved successful," a proof that decided success proves not the decided integrity of schemes. Oaths and protestations cost him nothing, says the same authority; never did a prince so often break his word, or pay less regard to 1 "Vendit Alexander claves, altaria, Christum ; 2 An epitaph was written for Lucretia, his licentious daughter, as follows: "Here lies Lucrece, a Thaïs in her life Pope Sixtus' daughter, daughter-in-law, and wife." "Hic jacet in tumulo Lucretia nomine, sed re Thais, Alexandri filia, sponsa, nurus.” This epitaph has been attributed to Sannazarius, but I have been unable to find it among his works: the following epigram, on the same subject, is certainly his : "Ergo te semper cupiet, Lucretia, Sextus? O fatum diri nominis: hic pater est." Sannaz. Epigram. 1. ii. No. 4. his engagements. This was because he so well understood this chapter in the art of government, adds the political philosopher, with wonderful complacency.1 Possibly Alexander the Sixth was the model of Machiavelli's Prince the all-famous Principe-that gospelbook of the sixteenth century. The prime Alexander the Sixth has thus been universally denounced: Catholics and Protestants have united in blasting his memory: the Jesuit Reeve styles error of the him "the infamous Borgia."2 Some there church. are who speak and write of his vices and crimes with a sort of gusto, because they seem to reflect on the religion of Catholics. Cruel, unjust, absurdest of imputations! Who charges the religion of Protestants with the vices and crimes of Henry the Eighth? It is not the religion of Catholics that explains the impurity of an Alexander's guilt, but the position of the popedom in the sixteenth century. Such a character at the head of the faithful-such a striking deviation from moral rectitude, even assuming him to have been slandered in some points, was more to be lamented on the score of inconsistency. It was a sad position for "the successor of St. Peter," "the head of the church," "the vicar of Christ." But was it not, somehow, a natural position for an absolute monarch, as the error of the church permitted the father of the faithful to become, when the poverty (so beautiful and consistent) of the apostolic brotherhood first vouchsafed to humanity was no more? This was the prime error of 1 Il Principe, c. xviii. 2 Hist. of the Christian Church, p. 428. Why is the title S. J. (Societatis Jesu) omitted in the title-page of this Jesuit's book? See Dr. Oliver's Collections, p. 178. |