The record-union., 1897-07-31
THE DOOR OF BORGIAS.
HISTORIC VATICAN APART
MENTS THROWN OPEN.
The Creation of Pope Alexander
VI, the Father of Caesar
Borgia.

In 1884 Leo XIII. announced to the
world his Intention Of throwing open
70 the public the famous Borgia apart
ments in the Vatican, which had re-
mained closed for nearly four hundred
years. In the world Of fine arts this
announcement created a great ffutter
OF expectation, for in this suite OF
rooms was to be found the finest speci-
mems Of Pinturicchio's art, that mar
vellous painter of the Fifteenth Centu-
ry, by some said to be a pupil of Pc
rugius, who, if he were such, far sur
passed his master, and was by many
considered the peer of Raphael. This
promise has now become an accom-
plished fact, and the apartments and
their wonderful paintings are now
shown to visitors to the Vatican.
This act of Leo XIII has caused a
vast controversy, and nothing seems to
show the liberal tendencies Of the day
more clearly than the sides taken in
the argument between the bigots and
the more liberal minded Catholics of
all countries. The fact that these
apartments We're the conception of a
Pope-Alexander VI, a BOrgia, a name
which has gone down through history
as synonymous with poison and all the
abominable and unmentionable crimes
10 which perverted humanity some
times yields-giVes a basis to the big
OTIS denuncfation of Leo's act. On the
other side, theI< are many who con-
tend that Alexander VI. was but the
victim of a sons crimes and the stig-
ma attached to his family name.
IA looking through the annals Of
those days handed down to us by his
tories, some written by men in favor
of him, others by men opposed to him,
we turn from the task of trying to
discover the truth amid this labyrinth
of calumnies and batteries, and we de-
termine to reserve our judgment on
Alexander VI. until the secret archives
locked up for four hundred years in
the Borgia apartments are given to
the public to judge for themselves, as
Leo has promised, and which promise,
from present indications, has been
faithfully fulfilled in spite of great op-
position.
These documents, which are Intended
TO show the exact condition of the Vat
lean and the fortune of the Popes at
the advent of Rodrigo Borgia, are being
prepared by r. 2. Ehrle, Prefect of the
Vatican Library, and the scholar Stew
enson, from the inventories of the State
archives of the fifteenth century. The
first proof sheets of this forthcoming
work go to prove that that part of the
Vatican which the Borgia Pope after
ward rebuilt so magnificently, between
1892 and 1903, was, at the time of his
accession to the chair Of St. Peter, but
an unsightly edifice, constructed by
Martin V, on his return from Avignon,
having the walls Of a fortress and
suitable to the needs of that warlike
period.
According to Burchard, who was
master of ceremonies to Alexander, and
who left a journal which was after
ward published in 1896 in part, and
has recently been published in full, the
following account of Alexanders life
from his youth to his accession to the
Papacy is an interesting one. Bur-
chard says: ''His youth was a very
dissolute one. The daughter of a Ro-
man lady living in Spain, Rosa Vanoz-
"a, became his lifelong mistress By
her he had five children, two of whom
Caesar and Lucretia Borgia, surpassed
their father, if possible, in abominable
crimes.
In 1455, while Rodrigo was living in
Spain, his uncle became Pope. This
opened to him a new career of ambi-
tion. He went to Rome on a promise
from the Pope of an office worth II 900
crowns year, and at the same time
Rosa Vanozza and her children went
10 Venice. The Pope was charmed with
the pleasing manners and apparent
piety of his nephew, and made him
Cardinal and Vice Chancellor in .1456.
Rodrigo affected great piety, visited the
prisons and the poor, was diligent in
keeping church services, and soon be-
guiled the Romans into confidence in
his purity. During the pontificate of
Plus H., Paul H., and Sixtus ", sue
cessors of Calixtus, he remained quiet
In the pontificate of Innocent VIII,
which began in 1854, he brought Rosa
Vanozza to Rome and put her in a
house near st. Peters.
In the meantime he was very busy
buying up votes for the papal chair,
and when Innocent died Q492) he had
purchased a sufficient number of car
dinals to secure his election
According to the other authorities,
Rosa Vanozza was in reality Rodrigo's s
wife, and her decease is said to have
preceded his ordination; Caesar and
Lucretia We're. in that case, legitimate
The Able Oliver goes a step further
and dispose of two scandals at one
stroke by identifying Rose Vanozza
with Giulia Farmese, whose charms
during AleXander's pontifcate, forty
years afterward, notoriously procured
her brothers elevation to the caSdina-
late. The date of Caesars birth is
fixed to an hour by the horoscope pre-
served at Junctinius, at September
is, 1475.
Alexander has become a myth, and
his acts are in some respects almost
as legendary as those of the primitive
saints and martyrs. The peculiar obi
UNI attached to his memory rests part
ly on charges of secret poisoning, which
are at least not established, and partly
on the confusion between his actions
and those of Caesar Borgia~
THE FATAL SUPPER TO THE CAR
DINALS.
The Venetian Ambassador writes:
"All Rome trembles before the Duke
Caesar Borgia). The worst times of