Free The Pope's Daughter: The Extraordinary Life of Felice Della Rovere by Caroline P. Murphy Page B

villa was close to the Vatican Palace proper, yet was not actually part of it. Julius could host dinners and dances that his female relations could attend, and not fear comparison with Alexander VI, who had no compunction about staging parties in the palace itself with Lucrezia or mistresses and courtesans present. Julius had Bramante design the Cortile del Belvedere, defined by two corridors extending from the palace across a deep valley to the villa. The villa was three hundred metres away from the palace, across difficult terrain, a challenge the ageing Pope and his architect would overcome. This was only one phase of Julius’s plans for the Cortile del Belvedere. Bramante also added a courtyard and garden for the Pope’s growing collection of antique sculpture, which included the famous Laocoön , the Belvedere Torso , and Apollo Belvedere . 6
    It was at an event at the Villa Belvedere that indications of Felice’s discomfort among her female della Rovere relatives became apparent. While Felice had established herself as a figure of sufficient substance to mollify the people of Savona, her relationship with these women was more complex. Throughout her life, she contrived to have little to do with them. Her lack of ease when with them was described in a letter written on 11 July 1504 by Emilia Pia. Emilia Pia was lady-in-waiting to Elizabetta Gonzaga, Duchess of Urbino, and she was writing to Elizabetta’s sister-in-law, Isabella d’Este, the Marchesa of Mantua. Emilia is reporting a meal given by Julius in honour of his female relatives at the Villa Belvedere:
    And then Madame the Prefectress [Felice’s aunt Giovanna da Montefeltro della Rovere] entered with Madonna Costanza her daughter and the two married nieces of His Holiness. The first, Madonna Sista, married to the nephew of the Cardinal of San Giorgio, Signor Galeazzo Riario...she wore a dress of gold brocade covered with slashed crimson silk and a mantle of gold taffeta. The second niece, called Madonna Lucretia, married to a nephew of the Cardinal of Naples, who is the son of the Duke of Ariano, wore a dress of black and gold silk with pearls at her neck and jewels on her head of not much worth; and these two are the nieces of the Pope, the daughters of a sister of His Holiness, called Madonna Luchina. And Madonna Costanza preceded all, with a yellow dress covered in slashed white pendant trimmings and a headdress of diamonds of some worth, believed to have been given her by the Pope. Madonna Felice did not appear at all, as she was feeling ill. 7
    At such significant events as this dinner at the Villa Belvedere, one that the Pope was giving in honour of his female relatives, one of those relatives would have to be on the brink of death to fail to attend. The obviousness of Felice’s absence was noticed, and remarked on by the sharp-eyed and sharp-tongued Emilia Pia. The inference is that she deliberately chose to stay away. Although Felice was the Pope’s daughter, and Rome was her city, precedence on this occasion went to his niece Costanza, causing Felice irritation, if not downright humiliation. Felice was already a known quantity at Italy’s courts. Emilia Pia did not have to describe who she was to Isabella. She did, however, have to explain the identity of Felice’s Savonese aunt and cousins, suggesting that they had lived in obscurity until the time of Julius’s election as pope. Felice could not countenance the possibility of being thought of only as their equal, or even their inferior, when she was quite certain that she ranked above them.
    Another reason Felice preferred not to attend this event is quite understandable for a young woman. She would have been made to feel underdressed. It is clear from Emilia Pia’s description that the women were arrayed in their finest gowns of lavishly slashed and decorated silks of golds, scarlets and yellows, adorned with jewels. Felice was a widow, so she would wear black widow’s weeds. Such garments