Pope Alexander VI: Encyclopedia II - Pope Alexander VI - The French in retreat

Pope Alexander VI - The French in retreat

But a reaction against Charles soon set in, for all the powers were alarmed at his success, and on the 31st of March a league between the pope, the emperor, Venice, Lodovico il Moro and Ferdinand of Spain was formed, ostensibly against the Turks, but in reality to expel the French from Italy. Charles had himself crowned king of Naples on the 12th of May, but a few days later began his retreat northward. He encountered the allies at the Battle of Fornovo, and after a drawn fight cut his way through them and was back in France by November; Ferdinand II was reinstated at Naples soon afterwards, though with Spanish help. The expedition, if it produced no material results, demonstrated the foolishness of the so called 'politics of equilibrium' (The Medicean doctrine of preventing one of the Italian principates to overwhelm and unite the rest under its hegemony); since it rendered the country unable to face the ingerences of the powerful 'Nation States' that forged themselves in the previous century (France, Spain). Alexander availed himself of the defeat of the French to break the power of the Orsini, following the general tendency of all the princes of the day to crush the great feudatories and establish a centralized despotism.

Virginio Orsini, who had been captured by the Spaniards, died a prisoner at Naples, and the pope confiscated his property. But the rest of the clan still held out, and the papal troops sent against them under Guidobaldo, duke of Urbino and the duke of Gandia, were defeated at Soriano (January 1497). Peace was made through Venetian mediation, the Orsini paying 50,000 ducats in exchange for their confiscated lands; the duke of Urbino, whom they had captured, was left by the pope to pay his own ransom. The Orsini still remained very powerful, and Alexander could count on none but his 3,000 Spaniards. His only success had been the capture of Ostia and the submission of the Francophile cardinals Colonna and Savelli. Now occurred the first of those ugly domestic tragedies for which the house of Borgia remained famous. On the 14th of June the duke of Gandia, lately created duke of Benevento, disappeared; the next day his corpse was found in the Tiber.

Alexander, overwhelmed with grief, shut himself up in Castel Sant'Angelo, and then declared that the reform of the Church would be the sole object of his life henceforth—a resolution that he did not keep. Every effort was made to discover the assassin, and suspicion fell on various highly placed people. Suddenly the rumour spread that Cesare, the pope's second son, was the author of the deed, and although the inquiries then ceased and no conclusive evidence has yet come to light, there is every probability that the charge was well founded. No doubt Cesare, who contemplated quitting the Church, was inspired by jealousy of Gandia's influence with the pope.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The French in retreat", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki