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It is amazing that the veil which Infessura drew with those words should have been pierced not indeed by the cold light of fact, but by the hot eye of prurient imagination; amazing that he should be quoted at all he who was not present considering that we have the testimony of what did take place from the pen of an eye-witness, in a letter from Gianandrea Boccaccio, the ambassador of Ferrara, to his master.
Ercole had maintained friendly relations with Alexander VI when he was only a cardinal; Rodrigo Borgia had even been godfather to his son Alfonso when he was baptized. For his other son, Ippolito, the duke, through his ambassador in Rome, Gianandrea Boccaccio, endeavored to secure a cardinal's cap.
February 25, 1493, Gianandrea Boccaccio wrote to Ferrara regarding the legitimating of Cæsar, ironically saying, "They wish to remove the blot of being a natural son, and very rightly; because he is legitimate, having been born in the house while the woman's husband was living.
Lucretia was still sometimes designated as the Pope's niece. Gianandrea Boccaccio to Duke Ercole, Rome, February 25, 1493. Ms. Memoirs of Pesaro, by Pietro Marzetti and Ludovico Zacconi, in the Bibl. Oliveriana of Pesaro.
The first letters quoted by Gregorovius are from the ambassador Gianandrea Boccaccio to his master, the Duke of Ferrara, in 1493. In these he mentions Cesare Borgia as being sixteen to seventeen years of age at the time. But the very manner of writing "sixteen to seventeen years" is a common way of vaguely suggesting age rather than positively stating it.
Published by Reumont in Archiv. Stor. Ital. Serie 3, T. xvii, 1873. 3 Dispensa. Era venuto il primo marito de la dicta nepote, qual fu rimesso a Napoli, non visto da niuno.... Despatch of Gianandrea Boccaccio, Bishop of Modena, Rome, November 2, 1492, and November 5 and 9. Archives of Modena. Despatch of that date in the archives of Mantua.
The Vatican was filled with Spaniards, kinsmen, or friends of the now all-powerful house, who had eagerly hurried thither in quest of fortune and honors. "Ten papacies would not be sufficient to satisfy this swarm of relatives," wrote Gianandrea Boccaccio in November, 1492, to the Duke of Ferrara.
In this regard, and still apropos the Borgias, I draw once again on Rafael Sabatini for an example of what I mean. Touching the festivities celebrating Lucretia's wedding in the Vatican, the one eyewitness whose writing remains, Gianandrea Boccaccio, Ferrarese ambassador, in a letter to his master says that amid singing and dancing, as an interlude, a ``worthy'' comedy was performed.
He chooses to relate the incident from the point of view of Infessura, whom, by the way, he translates with an amazing freedom, and he makes bold to add regarding Gianandrea Boccaccio that: "It must also be said that the ambassador of Ferrara, either because he did not see everything, or because he was less austere than Infessura, was not shocked by the comedies, etc."
Although it is known that Cesare came to Rome in the early part of 1493 for his presence there is reported by Gianandrea Boccaccio in March of that year there is no mention of him at this time in connection with his sister's wedding. Apparently, then, he was not present, although it is impossible to suggest where he might have been at the time.
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