A View Into Papacy of Alexander VI: The French Armies In Rome, January 8, 1495

It was near the middle of December that the hordes of french troops had arrived at the gates of Rome led by King Charles VIII, in 1494. For days, messengers went back and forth. The Borgia pope Alexander VI was very careful in all his dealings with them. A few days after all the valuables were taken from the Vatican palace and put into safe keeping in Castel Sant' Angelo, around January 6th, this pope and his retinue also retired there for a time. King Charles for his part, made public proclamations forbidding all french forces and their allies and minions from looting or pillaging any property in or around the city. These happened anyway.

Johann Burchard, now in his role as the steadfast master of ceremonies for this his third pope, also gives us a view in his Liber Notarum from inside the city. Compared to what even he had seen before, with tens of thousands of french and other troops in and around the city, this must have seemed a nearly complete military occupation of Rome. Even so, the amount of troops did not ensure security so much as breed its opposite.

"On Thursday, January 8th, the house of Paolo Branca, a Roman citizen, was plundered and pillaged by the French, and his two sons were killed, whilst others, including Jews, were murdered and their homes ransacked. Even the house of Donna Vanozza Catanei, the mother of Cardinal Cesare Borgia, did not escape being pillaged." [p. 106]

The next day several thieves were hung from windows of prominent houses in central Rome. With the pope and several of his closest members of his court in Castel Sant' Angelo, an exterior wall there collapsed. The wall 'from the tower to the gate' according to Burchard, was where the Castel's keeper was on watch, and which crushed him as it fell.  These and many other frights would beset this pope. Yet somehow he kept his cool.

Effectively under siege, pope Alexander VI, Rodrigo Borgia also knew that his office held captive - in this very same Castel in Rome that he himself was now hidden in - Djem, the brother of the current Turkish Sultan. In time, this Borgia pope would use this exalted personage as leverage in his negotiations with Charles VIII. The pope managed to convince Charles that the real reason the french were in Italy, the real dispute, was with Naples, not Rome. But this story came a few days later.
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from Johann Burchard: At The Court of the Borgia translated for english with introduction by Geoffrey Parker, The Folio Society, Ltd, 1963