The Grand Turk Page 25

  But the congress never reconvened, leaving Innocent’s dream of a crusade against the Turks unfulfilled. Sigismondo de’Conti was of the opinion that the crusade would have been carried through had it not been for the untimely death of Matthias Corvinus. The Hungarian king had endured years of land warfare against the Ottomans, experience that would have been invaluable in Innocent’s crusade. His death cost eastern Europe its strongest leader, and, with the accession of the weak Ladislas II of Bohemia to the Hungarian throne, the Magyar nobles took control and the kingdom reverted to medieval anarchy, destroying the principal bulwark that had protected central Europe from the Turks.

  Innocent died on 25 July 1492, and on 26 August he was succeeded by the Catalan Cardinal Roderigo Borgia, who became Pope Alexander VI. Among the messages of congratulation that the new Pope received upon his coronation was one from Pierre d’Aubusson, who hoped that under the wise leadership of Alexander Christendom might see the East freed from Turkish tyranny. He added that Alexander was fortunate ‘in having next to him the illustrious Jem Sultan, the terror, the exterminator of the Turks’.

  By the time of Alexander’s election he had fathered six children, and he was credited with siring two or three more during the years of his papacy, despite the fact that he was over sixty when he became Pope. His first son, Pedro Luis, became Duke of Gandia, and when he died in 1488 the title passed to his younger brother, Juan. The year after Alexander became Pope he gave cardinal’s hats to his son Cesare as well as to Alessandro Farnese, brother of Giulia Farnese, the Pope’s youngest mistress. Alexander’s favourite among his children was his daughter Lucrezia, who, unlike her notorious brother Cesare, did not deserve her lurid reputation. Prince Jem was well known to Lucrezia and the Pope’s other children, particularly his sons Cesare and Juan.

  During the first months of his reign Alexander worked on creating a triple alliance of the Holy See with Milan and Venice, which, by excluding King Ferrante of Naples, would tilt the balance of power in favour of the papacy and its allies. The new league, in which Siena, Ferrara and Mantua were also included, was announced in Rome on 25 April 1493. Two weeks earlier the Venetians had asked the Pope to include specific mention of Jem in the articles of the proposed alliance. Innocent concurred, and an article was included in the final treaty in which the Pope agreed to turn over Jem to the Venetians if they were attacked by the Turks, so that they could use the prince against Beyazit. The Turks learned of the new league and expelled the Venetian bailo in Istanbul ‘when some of his letters in cypher’ were intercepted. Fearing Beyazit’s wrath, the Venetians sent Domenico Trevisan as an envoy to Istanbul, hoping that he could convince the sultan that the new league was not directed against him, but was for purely defensive purposes in Italy. But Beyazit was not convinced, and he let it be known that he was no longer willing to pay for Jem’s custody, and that the formation of the new league had provoked him into building ships for a naval expedition against Italy.

  Beyazit soon relented, sending an envoy named Kasım Bey, who arrived in Rome on 9 June 1493, bearing rich presents for the Pope as well as 80,000 ducats as payment for Jem’s custody for the past two years. Alexander conveyed his thanks to Beyazit, and said that the sultan could show his friendship for Christendom by refraining from the attacks he had been making on Christians in the Balkans and the Aegean.

  But Beyazit persisted in his attacks, launching an invasion of Croatia in the autumn of 1493. Alexander wrote a circular letter to the Christian states of Europe on 2 October, appealing to them to take common action for ‘Italy and the Christian religion are in peril’. At the same time he sent an envoy to Beyazit, warning him to cease his invasion of Croatia, otherwise his brother Jem would be turned over to the Christian princes to lead a crusade against the Ottomans.

  Before long, however, Alexander faced a new threat from a wholly unexpected quarter. The young King Charles VIII of France had become set upon the idea of pursuing an extravagant claim to the Neapolitan throne, which he envisaged as the first step in a crusade to recapture Constantinople and Jerusalem from the Muslims, using Prince Jem as a figurehead. Charles was greatly encouraged when he learned that King Ferrante of Naples had died on 25 January 1494. He sent two envoys to Rome to warn the Pope not to invest Ferrante’s son Alfonso with the Kingdom of Naples, implying that if Alexander went ahead with this there would be serious trouble. Alexander took this as a threat that France would go to war if Alfonso were made King of Naples, and on 20 March 1494 he wrote to Charles pleading with him to desist for the good of Christianity.

  On 29 August 1494 Charles took leave of his queen, departing to lead the expedition that he believed would immortalise his name. His army probably numbered some 40,000, 10,000 of whom were aboard the French fleet, commanded by the Duke of Orleans, while the rest marched across the French Alps.

  The plan of defence against the French invasion had already been drawn up by the late King Ferrante, and his son King Alfonso now put it into operation in alliance with the Pope. To prevent the advance of the French, Alfonso sent his son Ferrantino with an army to the Romagna, whence he was to threaten Lombardy, while Piero de’Medici, the Florentine ruler, defended the frontiers of Tuscany. At the same time a Neapolitan fleet assembled at Leghorn under Don Federigo, Alfonso’s brother. Federigo was to attack Genoa, since it was controlled by the Milanese, who were allied with the French. The Pope was to protect the papal states with troops stationed in Tuscany.

  Pope Alexander and King Alfonso of Naples were joined in an anti-French league by Florence, Siena, Bologna, Pesaro, Urbino and Imola, while Venice declined to join because of its fear of violating its peace treaty with the Ottomans. Beyazit had sent an envoy to Naples to offer Alfonso military aid against the French, with the message that the sultan ‘did not want them in Italy’.

  Meanwhile, the French fleet commanded by the Duke of Orleans defeated the Neapolitan navy under Don Federigo at Rapello on 5 September. Two weeks later Fabrizio Colonna’s troops, acting as allies of the French, captured the papal fortress of Ostia, which had been abandoned by Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere. Charles sent part of his fleet to the Tiber, and on 16 October a French garrison was set up in Ostia, thus controlling the maritime approach to Rome.

  Charles led the French army into Pavia on 14 October and four days later he took Piacenza. The French troops crossed the Apennines, causing consternation in Rome, where the alarm was aggravated by the revolt of the Colonna and Savelli clans, instigated by Cardinal Ascanio Sforza. French galleys soon began to appear at the mouth of the Tiber, which made the enemy occupation of Ostia still more serious for Alexander.

  The French occupied Tuscany and encountered little resistance. Piero de’Medici presented himself at the French camp on 26 October and surrendered all the cities under his control. Eight days later the people of Florence rose in revolt, forcing the Medicis to flee, leaving their palace to be looted by the rebel mob.

  Charles entered Lucca on 8 November, and on the following day he was welcomed in Pisa by the townspeople, who hailed him as their liberator from Florentine tyranny. Soon afterwards Viterbo surrendered to the French, whose advance was so rapid that Giulia Farnese, the Pope’s mistress, fell into their hands while travelling. She was soon released at the Pope’s request, however, according to Giorgio Brognolo, the Mantuan envoy. Brognolo, in relating this incident, ends his report by saying: ‘The French King will not meet with the slightest resistance in Rome.’

  Rome was in a perilous situation, blockaded to seaward by the French-held fortress of Ostia and on land by the Colonna, and food was becoming scarce. The gates of Rome were chained and some were walled up. On 10 December Ferrantino, the Duke of Calabria, led the Neapolitan army into the city, with 5,000 infantry and 1,000 cavalry. Alexander prepared for the worst by moving into Castel Sant’Angelo, the papal fortress on the Tiber, taking Jem along with him.

  The port of Civitavecchia was taken by Charles on 17 December, and on the same day the Orsini clan went over to the
French and admitted them to their fortress of Bracciano, north-west of Rome, where the king set up his headquarters. French troops had already taken a number of castles along the roads leading into Rome, building wooden bridges over the Tiber. By 10 December they had even reached the walls of Rome, where they challenged the Neapolitan troops to come out and do battle with them. During the next three days French troops broke into the suburbs of Rome by Monte Mario and penetrated as far as the church of San Lazzaro and the fields close to Castel Sant’Angelo, where they seemed poised for an attack on the fortress.

  By the end of December food supplies in Rome had just about run out, although Castel Sant’Angelo was still well stocked for a long siege. But the people of Rome had no intention of subjecting themselves to a protracted siege, and they made it known to the Pope that if he did not come to terms with Charles within two days they would themselves admit the king into the city.

  Alexander now feared that he would lose the papacy along with Rome. He had hoped that the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian I, and Ferdinand of Spain would come to his aid, and even that the Venetians might help him. But all these possible allies were far away, and the French army was almost at the gates of Rome. Thus on Christmas morning Alexander finally decided to submit to Charles, who demanded that the Neapolitan army be withdrawn from Rome before the French entered the city. Ferrantino concurred and led his troops out of Rome under a promise of safe conduct from the French.

  That evening three envoys sent by Charles entered Rome, and by the following day they had come to an agreement with Alexander on arrangement for the formal French entry into the city. On 30 December Count Gilbert Montpensier, marechal of the French army in Italy, would enter Rome with his troops as military governor of the city. Charles himself would enter Rome on New Year’s Eve and take up residence in the Palazzo San Marco.

  Several points of contention remained, but these were put aside to be settled when the Pope and the king met in Rome. One of these was the question of Jem’s custody. Charles demanded that Alexander unconditionally surrender Jem to him, while the Pope was uwilling to give him up until the king was actually ready to embark on his crusade, and even then only for a limited period of time. Charles agreed to respect all the Pope’s rights, both temporal and spiritual. All of Rome on the left bank of the Tiber was to be occupied by the French army, while the Pope’s troops, consisting only of 1,000 cavalry and a few foot soldiers, occupied the Borgo, the quarter between the Vatican and Castel Sant’Angelo.

  On 27 December an advance force of 1,500 troops entered Rome with the permission of the Pope. The rest of the French army entered the city during the afternoon of New Year’s Eve, along with King Charles, who took up residence in the Palazzo San Marco as agreed. During the days that followed a succession of cardinals and other dignitaries conferred with Charles and his advisers. Charles had three principal demands, the first of which was the right of free passage for his forces through the papal states, which would include the surrender to him of a number of fortresses, including Castel Sant’Angelo. Secondly, he wanted the Pope to acknowledge his right to the throne of Naples. Finally, he demanded custody of Jem, who, he said, was to be the centrepiece of his forthcoming crusade against the Turks.

  Finally, on 15 January 1495, the Pope agreed to the king’s demands, which had been modified during the course of the negotiations. By the terms of the agreement Cesare Borgia was to accompany the French army as ‘cardinal legate’ (though really as a hostage) for the next four months. Jem was to be handed over to Charles for the expedition against the Turks, though the Pope would continue to receive the 40,000 ducats that Beyazit sent each year for his brother’s custody. The Pope was to keep Castel Sant’Angelo, and, on the king’s departure, the keys to the city were to be returned to Alexander. Charles was to profess obedience to the Pope, to impose no restraint upon him either in matters temporal or spiritual, and to protect him against all attacks.

  On 18 January Charles and Alexander met to settle one last point of disagreement, namely the guarantees to be given by the king for the restoration of Jem to the Pope after an interval of three months. Three days later, after the agreement had been signed, the king accompanied the Pope to Castel Sant’Angelo.

  There Charles met Jem for the first time, speaking to him at length through an interpreter, Alexander acting as an intermediary. According to the Venetian diarist Marino Sanudo, the Pope said to Jem, ‘Monseigneur, the King of France is to take you with him, what do you think about it?’ Jem answered bitterly, ‘I am only an unhappy slave, deprived of freedom, and I do not give any importance to whether the King of France takes me or if I remain in the hands of the pope.’

  On 27 January Jem, accompanied by his companions, was formally handed over to Charles. The following day Charles bade farewell to the Pope and departed from Rome with the French army, heading for Naples, accompanied by Jem and Cesare Borgia. They spent the night at Marino, where Charles received word that King Alfonso had renounced his throne five days earlier and fled from Naples, leaving the throne to his son Ferrantino. They spent the next night at Velletri, where Cesare Borgia made his escape and disappeared, and when the Pope was questioned about this he said he knew nothing of his son’s whereabouts. According to Marino Sanudo, Charles concluded from this that ‘the Italians were a pack of rogues and the Holy Father the worst of all!’.

  The French had been advancing south-eastward, capturing Montefortina on 31 January and San Germano on 3 February. When Charles entered San Germano he wrote to the Duke of Bourbon saying that he had conquered ‘the first town and city of my Kingdom of Naples’.

  After the surrender of several other towns King Ferrantino fled from Naples, and on 21 February the people of the city sent a deputation to lay their submission at the feet of King Charles. The following day Charles rode into Naples at the head of his army through the Porta Capuana, acclaimed by the townspeople as their liberator from Aragonese tyranny.

  Jem had fallen ill on the march from Rome to Naples, where he was taken to the Castel Capuana, a fortified palace at the Porta Capuana. Charles was very concerned and sent his personal physicians to look after Jem, who lapsed into a coma on 24 February. He clung to life during the night, but then early the following morning he passed away, as his grieving Turkish companions repeated the Islamic prayer for the dead: ‘Truly we belong to God and we will come back to Him, this is the fate of the world.’ Jem was two months past his thirty-fifth birthday when he died, having spent a third of his life as an exile and prisoner of the Christians.

  Charles ordered that Jem’s death be kept a secret, but soon everyone in Naples knew that the Turkish prince had passed away. There were rumours that Jem had been poisoned by the Pope, but modern historians generally agree that he died of pneumonia or erysipelas, an acute streptococcal infection of the skin.

  After the news reached Venice, Andrea Gritti was sent to Istanbul to inform Beyazit of his brother’s death. Beyazit told Gritti that he wanted to secure Jem’s body, and that he would send an envoy to discuss this matter with King Charles, who in the meanwhile had been crowned King of Naples.

  After Jem’s death Charles gave up his quixotic dream of a crusade, and the formation of an anti-French league forced him to abandon Naples on 20 May 1495 and take his army back to France. King Ferrantino reoccupied Naples on 6 July, but he died of malaria on 7 October of that same year. The former King Alfonso II died in exile on 10 November 1495, so that the succession passed to his brother Federigo d’Aragona, who thus became the fifth king to occupy the throne of Naples within three years, including Charles VIII.

  Beyazit then entered into negotiations with King Federigo for the return of Jem’s body, which was entombed in a coffin kept in the Castel dell’ Ovo in Naples, guarded by the prince’s faithful Turkish companions. The negotiations dragged on for nearly four years, until finally Beyazit’s patience was exhausted to the point where he threatened war against Naples unless Jem’s body was turned over to his representatives wit
hout further delay. Federigo was terrified, and on 29 January he submitted to Beyazit’s demand, whereupon the remains of Jem, still guarded by his companions, were shipped back to Turkey.

  Late in the summer of 1499 Beyazit interred Jem’s remains in the Muradiye at Bursa, the imperial mosque complex that their grandfather Murat II had built in 1426, and where he was buried in 1451. The place chosen by Beyazit for Jem’s burial was the tomb of their brother Mustafa, which had been built by Mehmet II after his second son had died in 1471. Beyazit could finally reign without the fear that his brother would be used against him in a crusade; he was now the last surviving son of Mehmet the Conqueror, ready to resume his father’s march of conquest.

  16

  The Tide of Conquest Turns

  Now that Beyazit no longer had to be concerned about Jem he was free to resume the campaigns of conquest that had been interrupted by the death of his father eighteen years before.

  At a consistory held in Rome on 10 June 1499 Pope Alexander VI had a letter read to the College of Cardinals from Pierre d’Aubusson, dated 30 April. The Grand Master wrote that the Turk himself (Beyazit) was outfitting a huge fleet of 300 sail to lay siege to the city of Rhodes, where he was expected to arrive sometime in May. D’Aubusson expected the siege to be a long one, ‘because the Turk was coming in person to the nearby province of Lycia, where vast preparations were being made of all things essential to a siege’.