Evil Psychopaths, page 3
The Borgias dominated large parts of Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries. From this one – admittedly very wealthy – family came three popes, eleven cardinals, a saint and a Queen of England. They dominated the politics of Europe, especially during the fifty years of the Renaissance, by murder and intrigue, driven by the greed for wealth and power. Many of them were unrelentingly wicked in their pursuit of power, but they are remembered principally for four members of the family – the two Popes, Callixtus III (Alfonso Borgia) and Alexander VI; Cesare Borgia, a byword for evil, a sometime Cardinal, given that position by his father, Pope Alexander, and later
a corrupt and ruthless nobleman. Last but by no means least, was Lucrezia, wickedness in woman’s clothing.
The Borgias were like the Mafia – a crime family that killed for political gain and for personal wealth. They also killed, however, for pleasure.
Their origins can be found in two Spanish cousins – Domingo and Rodrigo de Borya whose respective children, Isabella and Jofre, married each other. Isabella’s brother, Alfonso, meanwhile, became pope as Callixtus III in 1455, the first Spaniard to occupy this position, but not the first ruthless, greedy individual to do so. He was not first choice, however, emerging as a compromise candidate between two rival factions. He was old and gout-ridden, was considered a stop-gap choice and sat on the throne of St. Peter for only three years. That was enough time, however, for him to elevate two of his nephews to the rank of Cardinal. One of these was Rodrigo, who would become Alexander VI.
In those days, popes were very keen on crusades and Callixtus proclaimed such a venture to liberate Constantinople from the Turks who had captured it in 1453. A crusade was not an inexpensive initiative and to fund it, Callixtus sold works of art, valuable books and offered indulgences for a price, including marriage annulments, church positions and grants of papal territories. He also imposed heavy taxes. Of course, none of this was guaranteed to make him popular and when he died, the Spaniards he had brought in to run the papal empire were summarily chased from office and from Rome.
One member of the family who escaped the wrath of the populace was Rodrigo Borgia, as the de Boryas were called in Italy. He remained in Rome and became pope thirty-four years and four popes after his uncle, Callixtus. It was with him that the reputation of the Borgias for nepotism, greed, ruthlessness and murder really began and he is considered the most notorious pope in history. He was elected to the pontificate – seventeen of the twenty-two cardinals voting for him – but those votes had been bought.
Born near Valencia in Spain, Rodrigo de Borya became a cardinal at the age of twenty-five in a flagrant act of nepotism by Callixtus and Vice-Chancellor of the Holy See a year later. In this role, he became extremely wealthy and was openly promiscuous – he would eventually father seven children in spite of his religious status. At one point, Pius II, who had succeeded Callixtus, had to have a word in the young cardinal’s ear to advise him to cut back on his participation in orgies as it was ‘unseemly’.
Nonetheless, he took a mistress, Vannozza de Catanei, with whom he had four children, including Lucrezia and Cesare, to add to a couple he already had. He then left her and lived with Giulia Faranese with whom he had another two or three children.
When Pope Innocent VIII died in 1492, Rodrigo was elected pope, having won the election with the purchase of the vote of a ninety-year-old cardinal who was lacking all his faculties. Like his predecessors, he embraced the role and the wealth it would bring to him and his family. Innocent had unashamedly openly acknowledged his illegitimate offspring and had lavished riches and titles on them. Alexander VI saw no reason why he should not follow this precedent. Along the way, he would, of course, also use his position to indulge his other passion – women.
He appointed as cardinals his son Cesare, still only eighteen years of age, and the even younger Alessandro Farnese, son of his mistress. He arranged three marriages for his daughter, Lucrezia, annulling the first and having Cesare murder the second when he, too, became inconvenient. When Alexander was away from Rome, she effectively ran the Vatican and church affairs.
Italy in those days was run by powerful families and Alexander made efforts to link the Borgias with one of those. Lucrezia was married, therefore, to Giovanni Sforza, bastard scion of the family that ran the city of Milan. Jofre was married to Sancia of Aragon, linking him with not only Aragon in Spain but also Naples in Italy where the kings of Aragon also held power. Sancia was no angel – she would have adulterous relationships with both Cesare and Giovanni Borgia, Jofre’s older brothers.
By 1500, murder was a commonplace part of the lives of the Borgias with Cesare as the chief executioner. However, the tables were turned on Alexander when he dined with Cardinal Adrian Corneto, a man that he planned to kill. At the dinner Corneto, suspecting that they were trying to poison him, surreptitiously switched drinks with Alexander and the pope and Cesare both drank from it. Cesare recovered, but Alexander died, after lingering for a few days. He was seventy-seven.
While his father lay dying, Cesare wasted no time. He ordered his men into the Vatican to steal whatever they could lay their hands on. Meanwhile, Alexander’s body had to be guarded to prevent it being taken and desecrated by the populace of Rome who were ecstatic at the news of his death. When Vatican officials came to prepare him for burial, the corpse had become so swollen in the heat of the August Roman sun that they had to remove his mitre – the headgear worn by popes – before they could stuff him into his coffin.
As for the family, it was devastated by his death, but not because they missed him. Rather, they missed the power and wealth his position brought them. Cesare suffered especially in the aftermath.
Alexander was a nasty piece of work but could not hold a candle to the evil wrought by his children. Cesare was the oldest and like his father populated the world with illegitimate children, the oldest of whom was Pedro Luis, the first Duke of Gandia, born in 1462.
Cesare had a stroke of luck in 1480 when Pope Sixtus IV issued a papal bull that allowed him to dispense with the fact that he was illegitimate. He was, therefore, free to enjoy benefices from the various positions to which Sixtus appointed him, under the influence of the future Pope Alexander. As early as seven years old, he received his first appointment, prebend of the cathedral chapter of Valencia. Other offices that he held also provided stipends, or wages. By nine, he was rector of Gandia, provost of Albar and Jativa and then treasurer of Cartagena. Each of these roles brought money flowing into his coffers.
In the meantime, Cesare was being closely groomed for a career in the church, his education in Rome carefully planned by his father. At the age of twelve he was sent to Perugia to be taught by a Valencian tutor who was appointed a cardinal as a reward. He studied law and humanities at Perugia University and then at Pisa he studied theology. On the completion of his studies, aged eighteen, he was made cardinal by his father.
Cesare was said to be very jealous of the success of his brother, the Duke of Gandia and coveted his secular honours and titles. One night in 1493, the Duke attended a dinner at which his mother, Vannozza and Cesare were present. At the end of the dinner, he rode off with his brother and friends and servants. Some way off, he bade farewell to Cesare and his group, leaving with a groom and an unknown man who was wearing a festive mask. He was never seen alive again. His body was found in the River Tiber a few days later with his throat cut.
Alexander was beside himself with grief and, taking it as a sign from God, declared that he would renounce nepotism and all the abuses he had perpetrated in the Church. His promises were, of course, short-lived and before long he had returned to his old ways.
The convenient death of his brother brought change to the life of Cesare, however. He gave up his positions in the Church and resolved to make his way in secular life. One of the main reasons for his renunciation of his holy orders was the fact that Alexander had arranged for him to marry the daughter of the King of Naples, bringing with her a lucrative dowry of the city of Tarento. Leaving the Church Cesare was proclaimed Duke of Valentois. Alexander was angered, however, by the fact that the Neapolitan king had other plans for his daughter that did not involve a liaison with the Borgias, powerful though they may have been. He would live to regret his decision to turn down Alexander’s offer because the Pope simply entered into an alliance with the French who claimed the kingdoms of both Naples and Milan. The French king, Louis XII had a particularly irritating marriage that he wanted to get out of and Alexander obliged by annulling it. By way of thanks, Cesare was given a French princess to marry, Charlotte d’Albert, daughter of the Duke of Guyenne. Following the wedding, Cesare wrote to his father that he had consummated the marriage eight times on his wedding night.
Cesare was now given the position of general in the French army, winning some important victories. In February 1500, he entered Rome, dragging behind him in golden chains Caterina Sforza, ruler of the two cities he had captured, Imola and Forli. He threw her into prison and only the intervention of the French saved her from dying there.
In the Jubilee year of 1500, there were a great many celebrations into which Alexander and Cesare threw themselves with characteristic gusto. Cesare killed five bulls in St. Peter’s Square, amusing the crowds. It was also at this time that he shot the unarmed prisoners in the square. On another occasion, Alexander, Cesare and Lucrezia watched as fifty Roman prostitutes had sex with fifty palace servants, prizes being awarded for the best performance. During this entertainment, one drunk man enjoying himself too much had his tongue and hand cut off for mocking Cesare. Another man who had the audacity to criticise him in a pamphlet was sentenced to drown in the Tiber.
Money continued to flood in, especially when nine new cardinals were created, but the bloodlust also continued. Cesare strangled the already dying second husband of Lucrezia, the Duke of Bisceglie. He was no longer of any use to the family as he was from Naples and the French had taken that city.
The game was up, however, when Alexander died and Cesare was forced to flee back to Spain where he died three years later, in 1506, while giving a good account of himself as a mercenary. He lives on, however, in Niccolo Macchiavelli’s book, The Prince, a treatise on leadership, featuring the leader who gets on through strength of will. Macchiavelli was undoubtedly thinking of Cesare when he wrote it.
Cesare’s sister, Lucrezia married Giovanni Sforza at a young age but was not short of help on the day – she was attended by 500 ladies-in-waiting. Soon, however, Sforza had outlived his usefulness and Cesare announced to Lucrezia that he was to be murdered. She warned her husband, however – one of the rare kind acts for which she was responsible – and he fled. He was stupid enough, however, to refuse to grant her a divorce. Alexander used non-consummation of the marriage as grounds for an annulment so that Lucrezia could be free to marry again.
First, however, while the negotiations over the annulment were going on, she retired to a convent. Unfortunately, however, she became pregnant following a liaison with the young chamberlain who brought messages from her father, a youth named Perotto. When she was brought before Vatican judges a short while later, obviously pregnant, she was solemnly judged by them to be a virgin. Incredibly the divorce was finalised.
Cesare was not best pleased and attacked the young chamberlain as he knelt before the papal throne. Perotto survived but was thrown into prison. A few days later it was announced that he had ‘fallen into the Tiber against his will’. The chambermaid who had helped Perotto and Lucrezia was also made to ‘swim with the fishes’.
The child born of the liaison between Lucrezia and Perotto was named the infans Romanus (Roman infant) by Alexander and he issued two papal bulls concerning him. The first said that he was the child of Cesare and an unknown woman; the second acknowledged that he, the Pope, was the father. Some have suggested that Lucezia insisted on the two bulls because Perotto was not, in fact, the father, although she herself was unsure whether it was her father or her brother who had sired the child.
Her next husband was Alfonso, Prince of Aragon and Duke of Bisceglie. One night he was set upon by a gang of armed men in St. Peter’s Square. He was brought to his apartments, close to death and Lucrezia knew that Cesare had been behind the attack. As he lay wounded in his room, Cesare arrived, ordering everyone out. When they returned Alfonso lay dead. He had been strangled.
Lucrezia’s third husband was chosen by Cesare. The heir to the Duchy of Ferrarra, Prince Afonso d’Este, was twenty-four and a childless widower. In return for the repeal of his papal tax and a huge dowry, he agreed to marry the twenty-one-year-old Lucrezia.
She had four children by the Prince, but this did not stop her having a fling with the poet Pietro Bembo.
She died on 24 June 1519 at the age of thirty-eight shortly after giving birth to a fifth child. In her latter years she had even gained some respect and managed to kick off the stigma of murder, incest and moral turpitude.
Countess Erzsébet Báthory
Villages would wait in dread as, in the dead of night, a carriage, drawn by powerful black stallions, would drive noisily past. Inside would be young girls, cowering in fear. They had every right to be afraid. They would enter the huge Castle Csejthe and never be seen again. People living nearby reported hearing horrific screams emanating from behind the castle walls. There was talk of witchcraft, orgies and vile practices.
Nothing could be done about it, however. The beautiful denizen of the castle, Countess Erzsébet Báthory, was as well-connected as they came. Her family included counts, princes, bishops and cardinals. She was a cousin of the prime minister, Thurso, her uncle Stephen had been King of Poland and she had once been married to the warrior count known to Hungarians as the ‘Black Hero’ due to the courage he showed in battles against the hated Turks.
King Mathias II of Hungary was reluctant to take action against her because if he did and the allegations and rumours turned out to be untrue, the political repercussions would be dreadful. Eventually, however, he decided that it was time to bring an end to the rumours that had been spreading about the Countess. Either that, or bring an end to what was going on behind the forbidding walls of the castle. He sent a party to investigate, a party that included her cousin the prime minister. They had to be careful – she was, after all, said to be a practitioner of the black arts and some even claimed that she used cats as emissaries and to attack people – but in all likelihood, on seeing her cousin’s colours, she would open the castle’s massive gates to them.
They had heard that she was likely to be holding one of her late-night gatherings where, they had heard, there were all kinds of goings-on. Screams were often heard coming from the castle while she held these events. The king’s mind had been made up when he heard that nine girls from good families had gone missing in the vicinity of the castle.
Most of the windows of the castle that they could see were in darkness as they approached, but the party was surprised to find that there was no guard at the open door. They entered a great hall. Immediately they found a young, partly-clothed girl lying on the floor. She was unnaturally pale, as if the blood had been drained out of her body. She was dead and another girl they found nearby was close to death. She, too, looked as if the blood had been sucked from her body and the many piercings that peppered her body seemed to confirm that fact. Further on, a woman was found chained to a post. She had been whipped and her body was lacerated and burnt. Like the others, her blood appeared to have been taken.
As they descended into the dungeons, they could hear screams and moans from below and the smell of decomposition was terrible. They discovered cells filled with women and children who had been beaten and abused. They released them and escorted them from the castle, before returning to continue their grim search.
No one wrote a description of that night’s discoveries, so horrific were they. In a large hall, illuminated by torches, they found all the signs of a drunken orgy having taken place. Implements of torture were scattered around. But there was no sign of the castle’s owner. She had fled.
Born in either 1560 or 1561, she was the daughter of Gyrögy and Anna Báthory, who had embraced the new religion of Protestantism and she was raised on an estate in Transylvania. Her cousin Stephen, prince of Transylvania, who attempted to unite Europe against the Turks, was known for his savagery and many have claimed that he provides clear evidence of mental instability in the Báthory family, Erzsébet herself suffered from fits as a child, which, it has been suggested, indicate that she may have suffered from epilepsy. It is also said that she was very promiscuous and got pregnant at the age of fourteen by a peasant.
Aged 15, she married Count Ferencz Nádasdy, whose family, while powerful, shared with her family a reputation for being dangerously unstable and ruthlessly cruel. Her husband was a warrior who was rarely at home, giving Erzsébet ample opportunity to indulge in unsavoury pastimes. That was not unusual in her family, though. Her aunt was reputed to be a witch, she had an uncle who was an alchemist and a devil-worshipper and her brother was a paedophile. Her nurse was said to be a practitioner of black magic and was reputed to have been involved in the sacrifice of children.
As if that was not bad enough, her husband had a number of unsavoury habits, many of which he passed on to his young wife. He was partial to beating servant girls to within an inch of their lives or spreading honey on their naked bodies and tying them down in the open, leaving them to be bitten and stung by insects. When he was not doing that, he was freezing girls to death by pouring water over their naked bodies in the icy depths of winter and leaving them to die. His idea of a love token to his wife was a black magic spell brought back from whichever land he was fighting in.
