Portraits of the Borgias-CesareAuthor(s): Andre de HevesySource: The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Vol. 61, No. 353 (Aug., 1932), pp. 70+74-75Published by: Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/865213Accessed: 26-05-2017 14:28 UTC

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PORTRAITS OF THE BORGIAS--CESARE

BY ANDRE DE HEVESY ESARE BORGIA was the most feared man of his time. Murder

was his pastime and also his busi- ness. He decreed the assassination

of his own brother, the Duke of Gandia, and even threatened his own father with death. Alexander VI trembled before him, and yet loved him.

Cruelty seemed quite natural in those days. The condottieri did not value their own lives; still less the lives of others. And yet Cesare was a coward. He did not assassinate his victims

himself, but preferred to pay others to do so. Many of those rough Italian warriors had

good human qualities: capacity for love and friendship, taste for poetry, architecture and gardens. Cesare loved nothing but gold and rich clothing.

By a curious irony of fate, this barbarousi personage had for a whole year in his service an engineer named Leonardo da Vinci, a man indifferent to everything but the highest flights of thought and art. During this year he wrote to a friend: " Do not pity me; I am not poor; poor only is he who desires many things."

Cesare, on the contrary, was ever eager to accumulate more and more land, more and more gold. This avaricious noble was a past master of the art of advertising. His purpose was to become known and feared throughout Europe. And in fact, he attained a wide-spread notoriety; he was as popular as Charlie Chaplin in our days and he was at the same time despised like Herod. His fame spread as rapidly as that of a popular actor and died down just as quickly. Born on the steps of a papal throne, he enjoyed papal wealth and power, but was not able to maintain his position after the death of his father, Pope Alexander VI.

He was imprisoned in Rome, sent to Spain and remained there two years in captivity. He then escaped, but was killed in a night action in 1507 near Vienna.

A few years afterwards, by order of the Bishop of Pampeluna, who thought that such an evil man should not even receive burial, his bones were thrown out of his tomb. The body of the man, who filled so many coffins, lay unburied. The story of his life lived on in the minds of the people, vague and fantastic as a popular legend.

What was he like, this extraordinary man? The cavalier in the background of Pinturicchio's fresco in the Borgia apartments is not Cesare Borgia, as is generally supposed, but the truth is that the son of Alexander VI was subse-

quentl~y confused with one of his most famous victims.

About 1482, Djem, younger brother of the Emperor Bajareth, fled to Rhodes, came after- wards to France, and was sent to Rome in 1489. He was received there with honours. When-

ever he appeared in the train of the Pope, his remarkable face, his perfect horsemanship, and the magnificence of his oriental garments were much admired. Pinturicchio gave to this picturesque Oriental gentleman a prominent place in his picture St. Catherine disputing with the Doctors.

There is no doubt that the warrior on a white

horse is Prince Djem [PLATE A], as stated in a sketch book of the sixteenth century, entitled the " Recueil d'Arras,"' in which appears the same eagle-faced man with the inscription: " Le frdre du Turc, nomm6 Z lin " [PLATE B].

Djem introduced the fashion of eastern coats into Rome. Cesare was envious of his success

and imitated his style of dress. The citizens of Rome were scandalized when the son of the

Pope appeared in solemn processions arrayed in oriental garments and wearing a large white turban like a Turk.

In the eyes of Bajareth, this brother, living so far away in the midst of Christians, was an ever- present danger. In 1496, the Sultan offered three hundred thousand pieces of gold to Alexander VI, asking him by letter to send his brother " to a better land."

Soon afterwards, the army of Charles VIII conquered Rome. The King of France, Prince Djem and Cesare all rode together to Naples. On the way, Cesare escaped. A few days later, the Oriental nobleman died a mysterious death, and it subsequently transpired that Cesare was richer by a hundred thousand pieces of gold--the amount promised by Bajareth to the murderer of his brother. It comes as a surprise after this story to find in the Museo Civico in Venice the portrait of the victim over the name of his murderer. Is is the same face as that of the

" Recueil d'Arras," only the hair is dressed in Italian fashion, a fine net keeping it together, as in many portraits of that time [PLATE C].

As a matter of fact, there was a certain resemblance between the two men, Djem and Cesare. The difference consisted in the finer profile and aquiline nose of the Turk, while Cesare had quite a straight nose and the contours of his face were rather heavy and effeminate. The inscription round a medal,2 made after his

I In the Arras Library, these sketches were probably made after portraits in the picture gallery of the Dukes of Bur- gundy.

2 Hill, " A Corpus of Italian Medals of the Renaissance before Cellini," London, I93o, No. Io7x.

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A-St. Catherine disputing with the Doctors, by Pinturicchio. Fresco (Borgia App. Vatican)

B-The Brother of the Turk, called Zelin. Drawing, 27 by 21 cm. (Arras Library)

C-Portrait of a Man. Here identi- fied as Sultan Zelin, by an unknown artist (Museo Civico, Venice)

D-Ccesar Borgia, by an unknown Lombard artist. Copied from the original by Bartolomeo Veneto (Palazzo Venezia, Rome)

E-Ccesar Borgia. Medal F-A Pilgrim, by Bartolomeo Veneto. Panel, 69 by 54 cm. (Briinn Museum)

Some Portraits of the Borgias-Cesare

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Portraits of the Borgias-Cesare

downfall, runs as follows: Volgi. Gliochi. Piatosl. Amiie Lamenti. And on the reverse side, round the figure of Fortune with a sail riding on a dolphin, we read: Poche. Fortuna. Vole. Che. Cosi Tstenti (Turn thy compassion- ate eyes to my lamenting, since it is Fortune's will to be so niggardly) [PLATE E]. Here we see him as he really was, and this medal affords further proof that the original of the portrait by Bartolomeo Veneto was indeed the son of Alexander VI.

We find a copy made after the lost original of this painting in the Palazzo Venezia in Rome. It shows the Duke in profile, holding a roll of documents in his right hand [PLATE D]. The inscription is as follows: Caes. Borgia Valentinus .3

Bartolomeo Veneto was a portrait painter only in the latter part of his life. He painted some simple portraits in his tyouth when he worked in the studio of Giovanni Bellini. Such an

early work may be seen in a Munich private gallery." But, as mentioned above, his fame as a portrait painter came later. He became one of the most remarkable portraitists of Italy, with a wonderful capacity for catching a likeness. He was most careful in reproducing every detail of costume, and yet there was nothing finicky about his pictures. His models also are fascinat- ing: thoughtful young gentlemen clad in rich garments. In Brummel's epoch, a dandy had to appear indifferent and insolent; in the Renaissance, a dreamer. These magnificent young people, who had their portraits painted by Veneto, were students of the Padua Univer- sity. We are able to establish this fact by means of a recently acquired picture by Barto- lomeo Veneto in the Museum of Fine Arts in

Budapest, representing Hieronymus Dondi, a young patrician of Padua.

The sojourn of Bartolomeo in Padua had the greatest influence upon his development. Padua was at this time the Oxford of Christendom. The

education of a nobleman was not complete if he had not studied for some years at this university. The most eminent young humanists of every country met there. For some time, Bartolomeo Veneto made his home in Padua, probably after 1517, because from 1509 to 1517, the university was closed on account of the war between the

Emperor Maximilian and the Venetians. There Bartolomeo made the acquaintance of

several young noblemen, painted their portraits, and remained their friend. He was a welcome

guest in the chateaux of Northern Italy. He painted some of his friends in their first youth, and then again in later years.

It may be that one of his hosts asked him to paint some portraits of the Borgias for his picture gallery. But it is also possible that some member of the Court of Ferrara entrusted him with this work.

Unfortunately, the original of Bartolomeo's Cesare Borgia is lost. A genuine painting by the artist of the same period, and signed by him, is the Pilgrim in the Briinn Museum [PLATE F]. This makes us regret all the more that we no longer possess the original of his Cesare Borgia, which must have been a great work.

But how was it possible that Bartolomeo Veneto had the cruel condottiere as a model?

The painter came to Ferrara in 1505. The year before, Cesare left Italy for ever.

So Bartolomeo could never have seen Cesare

Borgia. Nevertheless, he stayed for a long time at the court of his sister. The only deep feel- ing of which that ambitious and superficial creature was capable was affection for her brother. When Lucrezia received the news that Cesare had been killed, she retired for a long time to a convent, profoundly affected. In her palace, Bartolomeo must certainly have seen portraits and medals of the Duke of Valentinois, and heard a great deal about him, so, with the sensitiveness of a real artist, was able to produce a true portrait of a man he never saw. Barto- lomeo painted Lucrezia long after he had left her house, and he became the painter of Cesare whom he never met.

3 Cesare was created Duke of Valentinois by Louis XII, King of France.

4 A. de Hevesy, "UUm Bartolomeo Veneto." Pantheon, Mfinchen, 1931, VI.

TRIMMING THE SHIP BY D. S. MACCOLL

HE Memories 1 of Sir William Rothenstein, now concluded or arrested, are secure of a permanent place on the shelf of books by painter-writers. Indeed, such is

their quality, alike in description and reflec-

tion, that in spite of his draughtsman's gallery of contemporaries and here and there a notable portrait or picture, it must be doubtful whether, as a friend put it, " the pen is not mightier than the brush." (But note how powerful a defence and antiseptic is drawing. Compare Du Croisset's nightmare of the Benares ghats with Rothenstein, absorbed and happy as a guru,

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1 ' Men and Memories: Recollections of William Rothen- stein (x9oo-1922).' Vol. I. xii + 382 pp. * 48 pl. (Faber and Faber.) 21s. net.

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