The manner in which
Cesare isolated his father, murdering brother, brother-in-law, and
other relations or courtiers, whenever their favour with the Pope or
their position in any other respect became inconvenient to him, is
literally appalling. Alexander was forced to acquiesce in the murder of
his best-loved son, the Duke of Gandia, since he himself lived in
hourly dread of Cesare.
What were the final aims of the latter? Even in the last months of his
tyranny, when he had murdered the Condottieri at Sinigaglia, and was to
all intents and purposes master of the ecclesiastical State (1503),
those who stood near him gave the modest reply that the Duke merely
wished to put down the factions and the despots, and all for the good
of the Church only; that for himself he desired nothing more than the
lordship of the Romagna, and that he had earned the gratitude of all
the following Popes by ridding them of the Orsini and Colonna. But no
one will accept this as his ultimate design. The Pope Alexander
himself, in his discussions with the Venetian ambassador, went further
than this, when committing his son to the protection of Venice: 'I will
see to it,' he said, that one day the Papacy shall belong either to him
or to you.' Cesare indeed added that no one could become Pope without
the consent of Venice, and for this end the Venetian cardinals had only
to keep well together.
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