”Cesare the Ambitious Robot™"
Loool, oh yes, that consensus 😴😴😴
This is an interesting thought, anon! And no, it doesn't get talked about, at least I have never encountered in my readings about the Borgia family, and I think it might be precisely because of the idea of Cesare as a cold, cynic man who was so ambitious and power-hungry, he was incapable of having genuine emotions or emotional bonds with people. Then I think many scholars still hold on tight to the dramatic narrative of Cesare hating and being envious of Juan, or of both of them hating each other. In the past it was a narrative used by biographers who had a passionate antipathy for Cesare (hi Bellonci, hi Gregorovius dsjjssjds) as a basis, a kind of prelude if you will, to insert the Fratricide tale as a truth in their books, even if, as you say, their letters to each other, historical documents, shows there was a brotherly affection between them, and an absence of rivalry, too. With all that going on, there is never a pause to consider some things, or any reflections on how Cesare might have felt about the murder of his brother, and then of being accused himself as the perpetrator. He is always either being treated as the guilty one, or it is just assumed it didn't affected him at all, because well, nothing ever did, and he never liked Juan in the first place.
I think these ideas are severely misguided, for starters, I actually think the usual presentation of Juan is a bit extreme and unfair, given the little material there is about him. The few historical records about his character should be taken with as much grain of salt as the ones about his father and his brother, and even if we follow the idea he was insufferable, maybe he was only so with strangers and enemies, with his family it seems he had a different behavior, and qualities that made him dear to them. Then the fratricide accusation, which it's one of the most nonsensical ones attached to Cesare's name, the more you are familiar with the Borgia family and Cesare's historical material, the more ridiculous it becomes, in order to insist on it, one of the particular traits about their family has to be overlooked or misunderstood, that one being: Borgias did not attack other Borgias. In all of their history, from Borja to Borgia, there isn't one mention of them ever attacking each other, that was not their way, it seems. They had a strong sense of loyalty and utter commitment to themselves and the advancement of their house. Rodrigo was brought up in this way, and there's a lot indicating he later raised his own children like that, it was something well ingrained in them,
So even if we follow the narrative Cesare hated Juan, it is reasonable to say it would still not have been to the point of him acting against his own blood, no matter Juan’s flaws, he was still a Borgia, and he had an important role within the family’s plans. He was his family’s link to their ancestral home in Spain, to perpetuate their legacy there, maintaining what had already been gained and possibly try to gain more. In a nutshell: he fulfilled the role of Pedro Luis de Borja, his older half-brother, and when he himself died, this role was left empty, which was a considerable loss for the Borgias at the time, and they had to rethink their strategy. Another thing that has to be overlooked, it's the political context of both the murder and when the fratricide rumour came forward.
The Murder: It happened as Rodrigo was investing many titles upon Juan, the most important one that of duchy of Benevento, and making him Gonfalonier of the Church. It was also known at this time he was determined to subdue the Roman barons, to diminish their power in the city (it was plausibly a source of trouble for almost all popes, and therefore it was one of their goals to get rid of them, Rodrigo remained passionately committed to this until the end of his life, in fact, it seems it was the only point where he and Cesare openly disagreed on), he also wanted to have full control over the Papal States, and restore papal authority, which clashed with the noble families who held power in these city-States. Moreover, the significance of attacking a kin of the pope is not stressed enough imo. The pope was regarded as both an ecclesiastic leader and a secular one, like a prince or a monarch, to attack one of his kin was to attack his own person, and that was a serious affront. It was the equivalent of spitting in the pope's face in public, God's vicar on earth. It was a bold and open declaration of war against Alexander's papacy and papal authority, the message was crystal clear: You may be pope, but you and your family are not safe. Back down from your policies. A threat meant to hurt and intimidate the Borgia family, to make them look weak and to make them feel scared.
The Fratricide Rumour: Also happened when Rodrigo, instead of giving in to threats, which was not like him at all, he gave his enemies another checkmate by his decision to release Cesare from his cardinalate, which of course meant Cesare, as a layman, would then act as the enforcer of his father's policies. That took them all by surprise, they thought they had neutralized the biggest threat to their power by murdering Juan, and ironically they only made things worst for themselves, not only that, but since the plan to intimidate Rodrigo had failed, and although some of the Orsinis in Venice apparently were boasting about having murdered Juan, they all tried hard to remove any trace of guilt from them, directing at someone else, landing it on Cesare once the news of him leaving his cardinalate was known. The rumour started in Venice, reached the ears of an orator at Ferrara, and made its way to Rome, and eventually the rest of Italy. It was one year after the murder, you're right, and it was exactly as things look positive for the Borgias again, and bad for their enemies, right at the moment where Cesare begun being regarded as a potential political threat.
When these things are fully and properly recognized, and that's not including other factors, too, such as Cesare's own religious and moral beliefs**, that he did had and seems to have followed, alongside the complete lack of evidence, the guilt and suspicion directed at him defies logic, and I am baffled wherever I occasionally still find this in academic works today, using the exact same lines of argumentation as scholars in the 18th century, and of which other scholars since then have already re-visited and pointed out the obvious flaws in them.
Closing this slight detour, and focusing now on how Cesare must have felt about this imputation of guilt to his name, how upset he was, well...it's hard to say because the Borgia family was so private about their family affairs and lives, but in my view, there are hints suggesting Juan's murder was already a difficult, stressful** moment for him, and it did affected him in some ways**, so hearing this rumor a year after the whole thing happened, like I said above, just as things were looking more positive for them, it had to be hard. I don't suppose he was surprised at the low level his enemies could sink to, in order to attack him and his family,(the gross inc*st rumour was already a thing by then), but I do think he felt a strong indignation about it, but there are no mentions of any retaliations on his part to those who were behind this defamatory rumour, and he surely knew who they were, and here's a thing I find curious: Cesare is described, even by his father, as a man who couldn't take insults, and who was hard on vengeance, but there's an incongruity with this description, because since he was a teenager Cesare received plenty of insults, some pretty vile ones regarding his birth, legitimacy and his origins, and serious accusations: Inc*st with his sister, the murder of his brother, the murder of his cousin, Giovanni, to whom he seemed genuinely attached to, r*pe, more baseless murders, the abduction of noblewomen lol, I mean, are you kidding?
No person who's sensitive to insults and has a vengeful nature would ever have let this go without some violent retaliations, even if they were true, (and there's no evidence to support it,) blood was spilled for less tbqh, yet there's a demonstrably lack of bodycount when it comes to Cesare, his material shows a remarkable self-restraint, and an almost peculiar lack of bloodthristness, lack of vengefulness towards his enemies and defamators. Indeed to a foolish, unwise degree, given the position he occupied and the type of enemies he had, but that was his behavior through most of his life, and then the one time he decided he had had enough, and he took action against the men responsible for spreading the Savelli Letter** as well as other slanderous pamphlets about him and his family, which was within the laws and norms of his times, this event is then used as proof he was a cruel tyrant who couldn’t take insults djsdjsds, that’s extraordinary.
And regarding the cruelty component to the accusations, yeah, I agree. There is this pattern I keep noticing it in which the cruelty of the accusations and the insults levered at the Borgia family, more specifically the Borgia men, are not often, if at all, mentioned as they should. However, the one time one of them took action against it, that action never fails to be remarked upon as a clear illustration of cruelty. That's an interesting double standard to explore imo, but to be fair, one of the reasons why the cruelty in the accusations may not be mentioned very much could be because the accusations themselves were pretty common within the political stage, and the way of doing politics, of the past. The inc*st accusation, for example, had been a thing every since ancient Rome, it really was the darling of accusations political rivals threw at each other. Same with the accusations of fratricide, murders and sexual crimes, these were popular during the Renaissance among political rivals, some of the accusations do have credible grounds (although they were used for political purposes, not morals) but more often these accusations are either incorrect, or exaggerated and distorted. It was simply nobles prefered way of smearing the reputations of men they disliked (for different kind of reasons, politics being at the heart of it, though), and therefore their families, it wasn't just the honor of women that was tied to their families, but also the reputation of the men, if a man had a dishonorable reputation, it followed his whole family did, too. And these types of crimes were the best ones to do that, because it stuck easily to a man's name.
So, there's nothing novel in the accusations in connection to the Borgia family, the novelty lies more in the ways and in how methodically they were imputed at Rodrigo and his family, at a pope and his family. I still haven't encountered something quite the same, esp. not with the so-called Renaissance popes, sure, they were accused of simony, nepotism, sodomy and such, but inc*st with their own daughter? which then resulted in her pregnancy? or inc*st between the pope’s daughter and her siblings, which also resulted in her pregnancy? Fratricide? Nightly org*es in the Vatican? Poison being freely administered every day for whatever reason? The insinuations of Rodrigo being the devil, or of having a pact with the devil, and of Cesare being the son of the antichrist? yeah, no, that's a very specific characteristic of the propaganda created about the Borgia family, during their times and afterwards. The words of their detractors contains a high level of anti-Spaniard, anti-papal feelings. It also expresses pretty eloquently the general hostility aristocrats felt towards the parvenus in their circles, it carries a constant malice and a heavy sexual, depraved element to them.
This wasn't limited to noble Italians, but it extended to the French, Spanish sides. There's quite a few malicious, slanderous remarks about Cesare and his father. One quick example is the remark made by one Spaniard ambassador, who quite tactlessly is recorded as saying to Rodrigo's face, the pope's face, that Juan's murder had been God's punishment to him. That's just so low and needlessly cruel, and it wasn't a remark made by religious sentiment, (not that it would have been an acceptable thing to say to a parent who had just lost their child in such a brutal way), but one made out of Rodrigo's decision to make Cesare a layman and marry him to France, which of course went against the interests of Spain and their monarchs, who seemed to have been under the notion that Rodrigo's papacy had to follow their interests first and foremost, even at his and his family's own expense lol, a notion Rodrigo was quick to correct, and one they didn't seem to have taken well, to say the least. So the political struggle was fierce and vicious between the Borgias and other families, italians or not, Rodrigo and Cesare made such a powerful duo, it seems they were seen as a real threat to those around them, a terrible block to their ambitions. They try to hide that behind moral/religious outrage, but the outrage at the papacy of Alexander and the actions of Cesare, were entirely political. They tried to kill them, more than once, and failed, so they opted to use words instead of daggers and poison, to hurt them, yes, but most of all, to kill their reputation, and if we can't know for sure how successful the first one was, we can for sure say the second one was incredibly successful.
**It's often forgotten or ignored, but Cesare was raised and lived in a religious environment, and as such I don't believe he was a stranger, or indifferent to the severity of killing one's brother, and the condemnation it brought to a man's soul. Like his father, his sister, and most people of his time, Cesare had his own piety, he was by no means the proto-atheist guy, nor a man who was above morality or of having religious beliefs, these ideas about him came later, prompted by his black Legend than by anything substancial in his historical material.
** It fell to Cesare, who was about 21, 22-years-old then, to keep everything together during those days and weeks. There is one anecdote saying he tried to console Rodrigo, who had collapsed with grief, while keeping a careful watch so that their situation didn't deteriorate further, with the many enemies they had in Rome, who would have took this opportunity to attack them. Another one says Cesare and his retinue were all dressed in black when they left Rome for Naples, a trip that couldn't be cancelled because many of the Borgias interests had to be secured and settled. Unlike the rest of his family, Cesare seems to have been conscious that no matter how he felt, he couldn't give in to it, and he had to be the strong one at that time, otherwise who would look after their interests and safety? It was a completely different kind of crisis than the previous ones he had encountered, this one was more personal, and he didn't had Rodrigo in sound mind to share the responsibilities, the crisis was put entirely into his hands, and he showed he was capable of handling it of course, he did a great job, but still it couldn't have been an easy situation for him.
** Apart from the stress, the grief that seems to have affected him, another aspect of this, that never gets discussed, is how this event must have changed, shook his sense of security. As far as it is known, Cesare had never really come face to face with the common reality of the bloodfeuds between noble families. Rodrigo was able to shelter his children from these cycles of violence, Cesare and his siblings by all means had a pretty stable, safe and comfortable childhood and adolescence. He must have heard stories of acquaintances or friends of friends being murdered here or there, by this or that faction of this or that family, but it had never reached him personally, until Juan’s murder. His brother, someone close to him, was brutally murdered and had his body throw at the Tiber, and the men who did that were out there, and they would come after him too, eventually, as he became a political threat to them. If he wasn’t careful, he would end up exactly like Juan, and I think that was a constant reminder on the back of his mind, and you can notice his cautioness or fear when dealing with certain men at certain events. It's also no wonder he is recorded as having said to some of his friends he knew he would have a premature and violent death, like his brother it can be implied, it was what his astrologer, Beheim had predicted. But given the position he occupied, the enemies he had, and the events that had thus far happened in his life, it’s not exactly something hard to predict and be right about, or something hard to believe in, as it seems he did.
**The Savelli Letter was far from being just harmless gossip material to entertain the people, it was the culmination of the years of the slanderous campaign the enemies of the Borgia family had dedicated their efforts to. This letter deserves to be more studied because it is really a crafty, creative piece of political propaganda. Rodrigo doesn’t seem to have understood that, but it is possible Cesare did, hence the real reason behind his action against those men and the others who were circulating other equally slanderous and politically dangerous pamphlets.
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