Three Times in One Night – While Everyone Watched (The Vatican’s Darkest Wedding)

PART 2:

  She knew that this third husband was nothing more than another political transaction. But even in her worst nightmares, Lucress couldn’t imagine what her father and brother had planned for her wedding night.  Preparations at the Vatican were already in full swing. But these were not the preparations for an ordinary papal wedding .

  In the corridors of the Apostolic Palace, servants and cardinals whispered nervously. Rumors were circulating.  There was talk of strange instructions, of unusual guests brought in through back doors during the night.  The master of papal ceremonies, Johann Bourchard, a clear-sounding German who had been documenting papal celebrations for years, was seized by a growing sense of unease.

  He had already seen many scandalous things during his service because Alexander VI was not an ordinary pope.  Rodrig Borgia had obtained the papacy through corruption and intrigue.  His mistress, Vanodza of Kataney, had given him four children, including Caesar and Lucress, and he did nothing to hide this fact.

  He organized lavish banquets while the people of Rome suffered from hunger.  He sold ecclesiastical offices to the highest bidder.  But what Burchard would document in the days to come, and especially that fateful night, would eclipse everything that had happened before.  The golden trap was set, and both Alphonse and Lucress were inexorably moving towards the darkest chapter of their lives.

  In December of that year, Alphonse d’Este passed through the gates of Rome accompanied by a small escort of Ferrarese knights.  The journey from Ferrari had lasted several weeks through snowy alpine passes and muddy roads. Each beat of his horse’s hoof brought him closer to his destiny, and Alphonse felt a weight on his chest heavier than armor.

  When he caught sight of the Vatican, that monumental fortress of Christendom with its unfinished basilica, he knew he was about to make a pact with the devil himself. The reception ceremony was overwhelmingly splendid.  Pope Alexander II sat on the papal throne, dressed in white and gold robes that shone in the candlelight.  To his right stood Cesare Borgia, the famous cardinal and condottier, whose eyes were as cold as steel.

  Caesar was only 26 years old, but he was already feared for his brutality.  He had conquered cities, assassinated rivals, and wiped out entire families.  His gaze upon Alphonse was both amused and threatening, like a predator playing with its prey.  In the weeks that followed, Alphonse was subjected to a series of humiliations disguised as festivities.

  There were banquets where he was seated next to peasants while the cardinals watched maliciously. There were hunting parties where Caesar demonstrated his superiority.  military.  There were receptions where Alexander openly mocked Alfonso’s predecessors and implied how  short-lived the life of a Borgia son-in-law was.

  Alphonse tried to preserve his dignity, but he was a prisoner in every respect except name.  His Ferrarese knights were kept away from the Vatican under various pretexts.  They slept in apartments guarded by papal soldiers.  Each day, he understood more clearly that he had fallen into a trap from which there was no escape.

  The political marriage was just a pretext.  The Borgias wanted to humiliate the Deste family, demonstrate their power, and show all the Italian noble families that no one could escape their will.  While Alphonse was enduring this psychological torture, very different preparations were underway at the Vatican.  Cesare Borgia had taken charge of planning the wedding banquet, and his visions went far beyond what was acceptable even for decadent Roman society.

In secret meetings with his father, the Pope discussed details that would have tortured any God-fearing Christian . The most beautiful courtesans in Rome were selected and brought to hidden rooms in the Vatican. These women were not ordinary prostitutes, but cultivated courtesans who usually served the elite of Roman society.

  Many were horrified by what was expected of her, but no one dared refuse an order from the Pope.  They were ordered to put on sumptuous dresses which they would have to remove later.  They were brought into the secret passages of the Vatican so that they could be brought unnoticed into the papal apartments.   On the day of the wedding, the maids who were attending her preparations crossed themselves and murmured prayers, for she knew that something unholy was being prepared.

  Lucres herself was largely kept out of the loop regarding these preparations, but she could feel the dark energy building up in the Vatican.  These ladies-in-waiting reported strange instructions from the courtesans in the corridors of her brother Caesar, who walked the corridors with a disturbing smile. The day before the wedding, while the final preparations were underway, Lucress fled into the Sistine Chapel.

She knelt beneath Michelangelo’s ceiling frescoes, beneath God’s creative hand and the Last Judgment, and prayed with a despair that came from the depths of her soul.  She prayed for salvation, for protection, for some form of divine intervention. But that night, God seemed very far away.

  The candles flickered in the cold January wind that whistled through the cracks of the ancient chapel. Outside, the Vatican was preparing for a celebration that would completely erase the boundaries between sacred and profane, between marriage and horror. Johann Burchard, the master of ceremonies, sat in his office, finalizing the protocol he had prepared for the coming night.

  His hand trembled as he dipped his pen.  He knew that what he was about to document would remain forever hidden in the archives, where it would become evidence of the most incredible corruption in the history of the church.  On the night of October 30th, 1500 were approached, and with them an event that would put even hell to shame.

  On October 30, 1500, a ceremony began with all the signs of a sumptuous papal wedding.  The bells of Saint-Pierre rang at dawn .  Their echo resonated across the seven hills of Rome.  The areas around the Vatican filled with onlookers hoping to catch a glimpse of the infamous bride. In the Apostolic Palace, Lucre had been prepared for the ceremony by a dozen servants.

  She wore a silk dress embroidered with gold that shimmered in the candlelight like liquid fire.  Her blond hair was braided into intricate patterns intertwined with pearls and precious stones.  Her face was pale as marble, carefully made up to hide the dark circles under her eyes. When she looked at herself in the mirror, she did not see a radiant wife, but an offering adorned for a pagan hotel.

  The ceremony itself took place in the papal chapel, a magnificent room with gilded walls and religious paintings.  Pope Alexander VI personally officiated at the wedding. His voice echoed in the room as he uttered the sacred words that were to bind Alphonse and Lucress forever.  Disturbed cardinals in scarlet robes lined the chapel, their faces adorned with masks of pious devotion.

But their eyes betrayed a sense of unease. They were all aware of the Borgias’ reputation.  They all knew that this ceremony was only the beginning of something that would desecrate the sacred halls of the Vatican. After the ceremony, the guests were led into the Borgia apartments, a series of sumptuous rooms that Pope Alexander had furnished for his family.

  The walls were decorated with pantukidō frescoes depicting religious scenes and mythological stories.  Massive tables sagged under the weight of the roasted wild boars, their feathers ruffled.  Mountains of exotic fruits, wine from the best cellars in Italy.  The guests, a mix of cardinals, Roman nobles, Ferrari emissaries and carefully selected courtiers, took their seats.

  Alphonse sat next to the bride at the head table, both trapped in a surreal scene of marital solemnity.  The banquet began like any other aristocratic wedding celebration.  There was music played by a wrestling and rape ensemble.  There were toasts offered to the bride and groom.  There were polite conversations and diplomatic exchanges.

But as the hours passed and night fell, the atmosphere began to change.  The Pope, having already drunk considerable quantities of wine, became louder and more exuberant.  Cesare Borgia, who had remained silent at the table until then, stood up and gave a discreet order.  The heavy doors of the Borgia apartments were locked.

Guards took up positions in front.  No one would be able to leave before the end of the night.  What happened next crossed the line of what was acceptable, even in the decadent atmosphere of the Renaissance.  At a signal from Caesar, the side doors opened and fifty courtesans entered the room.

  They were magnificently dressed in velvet and silk, adorned with jewels, but their eyes betrayed fear and shame.  The guests fell silent, confused and worried by this unexpected development.  Pope Alexander rose from his throne, a broad smile on his lips, and announced that the real entertainment was now about to begin. On orders, the courtesans began to undress.

  One after another, they dropped their sumptuous attire until they were completely naked before the assembly.  Some cardinals averted their gaze.  They signed, murmured prayers. Some tried to get up to leave, but the guards at the doors made it clear that no one would leave the room.  Alphonse watched the spectacle incredulously, his face a mask of horror and disbelief.

Lucresse remained seated, petrified. Tears were silently flowing down her cheeks, her hands clenched on her knees.  The naked women were then ordered to dance between the long tables.  Servants placed tall candelabras with lit candles, and the courtesans moved among these lights.  Their shadows danced spectrally on the frescoed walls.

It was a surreal, nightmarish vision of sacred religious art on the walls, cardinals in their ecclesiastical robes, and naked women dancing among themselves like figures in a pagan ritual.  But the Pope wasn’t finished yet.  In a calculated act of humiliation, he had several baskets of chestnuts brought into the room.

  These chestnuts were scattered on the marble floor, rolling between the feet of the horrified guests.  Then Alexandre announced aloud the next phase of his perverse entertainment. The courtesans should crawl on all fours between the legs of cardinals and nobles to collect the chestnuts.  Those who collected the most would receive prizes.

  Silk coats, gold necklaces, precious stones from the papal treasury.  What followed was a scene of such grotesque humiliation that Johann Bourchard, the master of ceremonies, would later write in his diary that he had difficulty finding the right words. Fifty naked women wander on the sacred floor of the Vatican between the legs of the princes of the Church, picking up chestnuts like animals.

  Meanwhile , the Pope and his son Caesar, from their elevated position, watched and placed bets on which one would perform best.  Some of the younger cardinals , intoxicated by the wine and the surreal atmosphere, began to laugh and encourage the women. Others remained seated, heads bowed, unable to watch the spectacle, torn between their faith and their fear of the Pope.

  Alphonse Desté sat in stunned silence, his mind unable to comprehend that this was his wedding celebration, that it was taking place in the Vatican itself under the very eyes of the Vicar of Christ on earth.  And Lucresse, poor Lucresse, sat beside him, her wedding dress now a shroud of shame, her tears long since dried, replaced by an empty numbness.

  She already knew that her father and brother were incapable of everything, but even she didn’t expect him to turn his own wedding into such a spectacle of dancing.  However, the night was not yet over.  The worst was yet to come.  As midnight approached and the Vatican clocks struck twelve, Pope Alexander VI rose from his seat.  The chestnut banquet was over.

The courtesans had received their humiliating prize and now stood huddled exhausted in the corners of the room.  The wine had flowed freely and many of the guests were in a state somewhere between drunkenness and the torpor of shock.  But Alexander had a clear mind and a precise objective.  With a gesture that displayed both papal authority and paternal possessiveness.

  He announced to the assembly that the sacred duty of marriage now had to be fulfilled.  But what they did next crossed all boundaries of decency, morality, and human dignity. He ordered Alphonse to consummate the marriage with his daughter Lucress three times that night, and it was not to be done in private.  All those present were to serve as witnesses to ensure that the marriage was legally and indissolubly consummated.

The room fell into a silence of horrified disbelief.  Even Cesare Borgia, already infamous for his cruelty, showed a moment of surprise at his father’s audacity.  Alphonse Desteux stood up, his face as pale as death.  He was a prince of Ferrar, a man of honor and pride.  But they found themselves in an impossible situation.

Caesar’s armed men stood around the room. Their hands rested on the hilts of their swords.  It wasn’t a request, it was an order.  And to resist meant certain death.  Alphonse looked at Lucress, sitting next to him, head bowed, trembling like a captive bird.  Her eyes were empty, her soul already broken by the events of that night.  He tried to speak.

  Her lips moved, but no words came out.  What could one say at such a moment?  What word of comfort or apology could have made this grotesque situation more bearable?  Under the watchful eyes of Caesar’s guards and the impatient gaze of the Pope, Alphonse had no choice.  He led Lucress into an adjoining room which normally served as a reception room, but had been furnished for the night with a sumptuous bed.

  The doors remained open.  The guests who had not fled were forced to remain positioned in the outside room but with a direct view of what was going to happen.  What happened in the following hours was a violation of human dignity in the most literal sense of the term.  Alphonse, psychologically broken and surrounded by armed men, consummated the marriage in front of dozens of spectators.

Lucres lay motionless, his eyes fixed on the ceiling, tears silently flowing down his face. She had already outlived two husbands. Both had been violently torn away.  to his life, but it was a new form of torment.  She was not physically tortured, but her soul was systematically destroyed.  After the first time, Cesare Borgia personally entered the room.

  With clinical coldness, he inspected the bed, nodded his head in satisfaction, and announced loudly enough for everyone to hear that the first consumption had taken place.  Then he ordered Alphonse to wait and repeat the act in an hour.  The guests remained seated, stunned.  Cardinals were murmuring prayers. Roman nobles stared at their wine cups, unable to process what was happening.

Some of the courtesans, sacrificial victims of that night, were weeping softly with compassion for Lucress.  The second consumption took place around 2 a.m., this time in a state of total exhaustion and despair. Alphonse moved like a man in a nightmare, mechanically unconscious. Lucres had long since fallen into a state of dissociation.

  His spirit had detached itself from his body in order to survive the horror.  And then, as the first glimmer of dawn illuminated the windows of the Borgia apartments, the Pope ordered the third and final consumption.  Caesar also personally oversaw this, and when it was accomplished, he triumphantly announced that the marriage was now thrice sealed and absolutely indissoluble according to the laws of Church and State.

  Pope Alexander laughed with satisfaction and raised his cup of wine for a final toast.  The guests who had survived that endless night were broken beings, cardinals who had entered the Vatican.  that night, as servants of God, they emerged complicit in a crime against humanity.  When the sun rose over Rome, it illuminated a scene of devastation.

In the Borgia apartment, empty wine bottles, scattered chestnuts, and exhausted courtesans lay on the floor.  Lucres lay motionless in the bed, his eyes fixed, his mind somewhere very far from this place of horror.  Alphonse was sitting on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands, his whole body trembling.

  He had been humiliated in a way that no amount of revenge could ever compensate for. Within a few days, he left Rome, traumatized and broken, and returned to Ferrar.  He would never speak of that night again.  News of the banquet spread like wildfire through Rome and then throughout Europe. Emissaries sent coded dispatches to their sovereigns.

  In Venice, Florence, Milan, Paris and London.  The reports were read with horrified disbelief.  The Venetian ambassador wrote: “What has happened in the Vatican surpasses anything that could have occurred in the darkest days of the Roman Empire. The Pope has not only defiled his daughter, but the Holy Church itself.

”  In the streets of Rome, people were whispering about the borgias.  The family was already hated, but now it was considered the embodiment of evil itself. Preachers in other parts of Europe used the story as evidence of Rome’s corruption and as justification for the coming reform. Martin Luther, who years later would nail his theses to the church door, mentioned the Borgias’ banquet as one of the worst examples of papal corruption.

  Johann Burchard, the faithful master of ceremonies, wrote everything down in his diary.  His hands trembled as he put the words down on paper.  He knew that this document would remain hidden forever or serve as the most shocking testimony in the history of the church.  These notes would enter  later and would form the basis of the historical understanding of that night.

Lucre Borgia would never fully recover from that night. She remained married to Alfonso d’Este, left for Ferrara and desperately tried to lead a normal life as a duchess.  She devoted herself to charitable works, supported the arts and literature, and tried to escape the dark shadow of her name. Contemporary accounts of Ferrari describe her as pious, melancholic, and deeply sad.

  She had several children with Alphonse, but their marriage was never marked by love. How could he have been after what happened that night?  Alphonse avoided him as much as possible.  The trauma of that night had erected an insurmountable wall between them. Lucres died in 1519 giving birth to her child.  She was only 39 years old.

  On her deathbed, she asked for a priest and spent her last hours in prayer.  His last words would have been I am ready, finally free.  Pope Alexander VI died in 153, possibly poisoned.  An ironic end for a man who had poisoned so many others.  Cesare Borgia, the powerful con Tierré, quickly lost his power after the death of his father and died in 17 in an ambush in Spain.

  His body was dismembered by enemies and buried in an unmarked grave.  The night of October 30, 1500, remains one of the darkest hours in the history of the Vatican.  It wasn’t just a story of sexual perversion or moral corruption.  It was a story about the complete destruction of human dignity, about the instrumentalization of human beings as a political tool, about the absolute corruption of power.

  The Borgias had not only destroyed Lucrese and Alfonso, they had defiled the institution of the Church itself.  The banquet became the symbol of everything that was wrong with the late medieval church and contributed directly to the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther repeatedly mentioned the Borgias in his writings as proof that Rome was ruled by the devil.

  The counter-reformation that took place in the following decades was partly an attempt to erase the memory of families like the Borgias. Yet today, more than 500 years later, the banquet of the chestnuts and the triple infamy are used as synonyms for the excesses of the Renaissance. Berchard’s diary, rediscovered in the 18th century, still shocks all who read it.

  History is a reminder that absolute power corrupts and that humanity’s darkest acts are often committed in the most sacred places.  The story of the night of our Lucress is a grim reminder that the darkest chapters of history are often written in the shadow of power.  If you have made it to the end of this story, write the word Borgia in the comments so I know you have followed this tragic and moving story to the end.

Never forget, the past is not just history, it is a warning.  Mr.