Free The Borgias by Christopher Hibbert Page B

replied ‘that he wanted his entry into the city to be conducted without any pomp.’ He did,however, invite the master of ceremonies ‘to continue riding with him, and for about four miles or so he talked with me continually, asking me questions about the health of the Pope and the cardinals.’ Burchard noted the king’s particular interest in Alexander VI’s son Cesare, asking many questions about his situation and his status ‘and many other things, to all of which I was scarcely able to give appropriate answers.’
    Meanwhile, the main body of King Charles’s army entered Rome at about three o’clock in the afternoon of the last day of December. Alexander VI and his family took shelter in Castel Sant’Angelo, while Giulia Farnese was spirited out of the city by her brother, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. These precautions proved unnecessary. ‘Twice our great guns were ready to fire on Castel Sant’Angelo,’ wrote Philippe de Commynes, ‘but on both occasions the King opposed it.’
    It took six hours for the French army to file through the gate at Santa Maria del Popolo, and it was long after darkness had fallen that the last stragglers entered the city. By flickering torchlight and the gleam of lanterns, the men and horses marched though the narrow streets, muddy and wet in the pouring rain: Swiss and German infantry carrying broadswords and long lances, Gascon archers, French knights, Scots archers, artillerymen with bronze cannons and culverins. Escorted by cardinals Ascanio Sforza and Giuliano della Rovere, and surrounded by his bodyguard and his magnificently dressed courtiers, rode Charles VIII himself, a short, ugly young man with a huge hooked nose and thick fleshy lips, constantly open.
    ‘There were fires, torches and lights in every house,’ Burchard recorded, ‘and people were heard shouting “France! France!” and“Vincoli! Vincoli!”’ continually (San Pietro in Vincoli was the title of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere). At the Palazzo Venezia, the great palace built by Paul II at the foot of the Capitol Hill and now the residence of Cardinal Lorenzo Cibò, the king dismounted and was ushered inside by his host. He limped into the dining room and sat by the fire in his slippers, while a servant combed his hair and the wispy scattered strands of his reddish beard. Food was placed upon a table; a chamberlain tasted every dish before the king ate, and the remains were thrown into a silver ewer. Four physicians likewise tested the wine into which the chamberlain dangled a unicorn’s horn on a golden chain before His Majesty raised the cup to his lips.
    Cardinal Cibò had prepared his best apartments ‘for housing the ambassadors and other Frenchmen,’ commented Burchard, adding that the dignitaries ‘were provided with plenty of straw beds, but I noticed that these sacks of straw were never cleaned; tallow candles hung from the doors and fireplaces, and, even though the walls were decorated with beautiful tapestries, the place resembled a pigsty.’
    Despite Charles VIII’s protestations that his troops would respect the Romans and their property, they did cause a lot of trouble. Burchard reported that ‘on their way into the city the French troops forced an entrance into houses on either side of the road, throwing out their owners, horses and other goods, setting fire to wooden articles and eating and drinking whatever they found without paying anything.’ On Thursday, January 8, he recorded, ‘the house of Paolo Branco, a Roman citizen, was plundered and ransacked by the French who killed his two sons, whilst others, including Jews, were murdered and their houses pillaged; even the house of DonnaVannozza Catanei, the mother of Cardinal Cesare Borgia, did not escape.’
    Even poor old Burchard himself was to suffer at the hands of the unruly soldiers: ‘When I returned to my house after mass, I found that the French had entered it against my will,’ he wailed. ‘They had taken out