The Aragonese Double Crown & the Borja or Borgia Device

Introductory

　The discovery of a payment, in the accounts of Francis Manners, sixth Earl of Rutland, ' to Mr Shakspeare in gold about my Lorde's impreso, xliiijs,' has recently drawn attention to the subject of the device* or impresa in the form which it assumed in the last days of the renaissance.

　 * A Discovery about Shakespeare, by Sidney Lee; 'The Times,' December 27, 1905. G . F. Barwick, 'Impresa, ' The Library, New Series, VII. 140, 1906.

For, as the document shows, the device paid for on March 31, 1613 , had for collaborators, on the literary side, Mr Shakspeare, who, whether the conceit it embodied was his or not, may safely be considered the author of the indispensable motto or verses that accompanied the device; and the designer, ' Richard Burbage for paynting and making yt, in gold xliiijs.'
　Hundreds of devices conceived on similar literary and piftorial lines have been preserved in the works of Giovio (1559), Simeone (1560), Contile (1574), Dolce (1583), the Ruscelli (1583), Capaccio (1592), Ferro (1623) and others, but it is doubtful whether they are, as a class, the best or most interesting examples of this variety of insignia. Giovio's collection perhaps excepted, they are, for the most part, imaginings of a period which had lost the true art of conveying ideas by emblems, and their outward form smacks alike of humanist diffuseness and pifture-making. Such defeats, if there be a difference between the devices of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and those that followed, were spared the former period by its naiveness of thought, conciseness of expression and the conventions of mediaeval armorial design.
　But the laconism of the mediaeval device had often a consequence which one may doubt that its inventors foresaw or would have approved had they done so. For a device to be enigmatic to contemporaries was often intentional and might be necessary, even, in certain circumstances or to certain minds; that it should be for ever wrongly construed or permanently misattributed were eventualities that could not have been contemplated. Yet, somedeviceslingerlikethepyramids aforetime, repositories of things unguessed or of which the knowledge is no more. What, to name but a few examples, are the real meanings, and what the circumstances that prompted the adoption by Edward III, of a radiant cloud; by Richard II, of a lodged white hart? What did ss and FERT , and Gruuthuyse's ' Plus est en vous,' signify?
　It is seen that we include in the term devices mottoes pure and simple; and collar-insignia: the motto because it was either part of the device, and in renaissance times very generally so, or alone it discharged the same function in a literary way; collar-insignia, because the idea of an order of chivalry and the bestowal of its badge upon the chosen few is but another development of the distribution by a prince, for his own reasons, of a jewel in the form of a device among certain relatives and friends.
　Such jewels have fared like most other precious ornaments, rings excepted. The curious will find them mentioned in inventories, that is all, and he will probably be surprised at the number of these insignia and the diversity of articles they adorned, that are revealed by those lists of effefts and apparel which were ever being compiled, in the olden time, in the palaces of kings and nobles, and which to-day throw a strong light upon manners and standards of life in those ranks, if sometimes they tantalize as to ideas and conceits.
　The aim of the present work is, first, to bring together, from various little-known publications of original documents, the fails concerning a device used (1392-1410 or later) by the last two generations of the Barcelonese kings of Aragon; attempting, also, a solution of the same in the light of history; and, lastly, to propound a theory as to the occurrence of the device in the armorial insignia of a pope of Aragonese nationality, Alexander VI (1492-1503), his relatives and descendants.

I. The house of Barcelona in Aragon and Sicily. The Eagle. The Corona Doble or Double Crown

　The history of the House of Barcelona is one of the most romantic, as the state over which it ruled is assuredly one of the most important in Mediterranean annals of the later middle-ages. Its counts first emerge from a comparative obscurity that is enlightened only by their intermittent struggle with Arab or Frank, during three centuries, at the marriage of Ramon IV of Barcelona with Petronilla, heiress of the neighbouring kingdom of Aragon, in 1135. Their possessions form the nucleus of that Aragonese realm to which accrued, at various epochs, the kingdoms of Sicily (cis- and trans-Pharum), Sardinia, Corsica, Majorca, the county of Provence, Malta, the lordship of Montpellier, the duchies of Athens and Neopatras.
　So wide strewn a dominion was the expression of the prominent characteristics of the dual Aragonese nationality: the enterprising energy of the Catalans, a seafaring nation, traders, but aggressive, and the militarism of the aristocratic and intransigeant Aragonese. To an age insensible of the real significance of the efforts made by the Spanish kingdoms to gain control over Islam in the Peninsula, or such stages in the progress as the conquest of Valencia by James I in 1238, the Barcelonese kings attained European importance as the heirs of the imperial Hohenstauffens in Sicily. The princess Constance, daughter of Manfred of Sicily (d. 1266), became the wife of the Conqueror's heir apparent, the Infante Peter, in 1260.*

　 *Zurita,' Anales,' 1610 ed., I, 174 verso.

In 1282 the power of the French Guelphs, the dynastic supplanters of the imperial blood, was overthrown in insular Sicily (trans-Pharum) by the massacre of the Sicilian Vespers, and the domain of Charles I of Anjou, brother of St Louis of France, and papal nominee, was reduced to the mainland portion * of that kingdom.

　 *Henceforward historians term the latter Naples or the kingdom of Naples, which practice, however corresponding to the de facto subdivision of united Sicily, and convenient as a means of distinguishing between both halves of it and the rulers of either, has the demerit of ignoring, so far as nomenclature goes, the pretensions (reflected in the style of the rulers) which were the motive of two centuries' conflict between Barcelona-Aragon (de facto, also, Sicily trans-Pharum) and Anjou-Sicily {defacto Naples or Sicily cis-Pharum).

The Sicilians then proclaimed Peter III of Aragon their sovereign, and by a series of engagements during 1283-85 the admiral of Aragon, Roger de Luria, destroyed the naval armadas of Charles of Anjou.
　A particular account of the struggle between Aragon and the insular Sicilians, on the one hand, against Anjou-Sicily, the Pope and France, on the other, after Peter's death, in 1285, is unnecessary here; suffice it that of Peter Ill' s sons the eldest, Alfonso III, ruled (1285-91) the paternal Aragon, as did James, the younger, over Sicily during the same period, and the latter succeeded, on Alfonso's death, to the Aragonese crown also. Before the death of James II that monarch had been forced by the Guelphic coalition for the restitution of Sicily to the dominion of Anjou, to abandon his rights to the island, to take a wife from the family of Charles II of Anjou-Sicily, and to coerce the Sicilians into a fresh acceptance of Angevin sovereignty. Thereupon the Sicilians proclaimed as their king the youngest of the sons of Peter III by the daughter of Manfred, the Infante Fadrique, who, in this connexion, appears to merit a literal translation of the epithet Onor di Sicilia' applied to him by Dante.*

　 *' Purgatorio,' 111, 116. But it is strange that the elder brother, he of the Anarqui treaty by which Anjou was to have regained insular Sicily, should have been the poet's ' Onor . . . d'Aragona.' Elsewhere (' Paradiso,' xix, 130-2) Dante appears to have changed his mind about Frederic and censures the 'avarizia e la viltate di quel che guarda l'isola del fuoco.'

Fadrique, or Frederic II, * stood by the Sicilians, who maintained their independence of Anjou under his issue Peter II, and, in the second generation, Louis and Frederic III.

　　* To adopt the enumeration by which the Emperor Frederic II counts first of the name as king of Sicily.

During the course of Frederic Ill' s reign the style of his house underwent a change. In a last vicissitude of the struggle with Anjou he agreed to hold the island as a fief of Johanna I of Anjou-Sicily and relinquished the title of his sovereignty in her favour for that of Trinacrie Rex, a style only temporarily affected by him, however, and not perpetuated by his successors. Relationship between the contemporary house of Aragon and its Sicilian offspring may be seen in the accompanying table. Peter IV of Aragon and Frederic III of Sicily were not only third in male descent from Peter III and the daughter of Manfred, but their relationship had been complicated by marriage. Peter IV's third wife was Leonora (d. 1375) the elder sister of Frederic; the latter had married Constance, daughter of Peter by his first wife, Mary of Navarre.
　The immediate facts of the history of the Double Crown may be said to begin in 1377. In that year Frederic III died, leaving Sicily and the shadowy dukedoms of Athens and Neopatras to his daughter, the Infanta Mary, then aged fifteen, and Malta to his illegitimate son Guillen and his legitimate issue; and he instituted the count of Malta heir to Mary's dominions in event of her death childless. The issue of his sister Leonora by Peter IV of Aragon were declared next heirs in event of the failure of the issue of Mary and of Guillen.*

　 *Zurita, 11, 370. In return for Aragonese assistance in quelling an Angevin rebellion Frederic had, in 1356, sworn the eventual cession of Sicily, in event of his demise withoitt issue, to Leonora, Peter's consort, or to one of her sons. Leonora, upon her marriage, had renounced any rights to Sicily. G. Cosentino,' Cessione del regno di Sicilia, alia Casa di Aragona fatta dal Re Federico III,' in Archivio storico siciliano, New Series, vii, 184 1883.

By his will the Sicilian monarch, with the example before him of Peter's usurpation of the Mallorcan crown (1343) from princes of his own blood, seems to have done what he could to make the reversion of his dominions to the parent stock a remote contingency.*

　　*Peter claimed the Sicilian crown under the will of Frederic II (1338), by which, in default of males, it reverted to Aragon. ' Cronica del rey de Aragon D. Pedro IV,' p. 39, 1850. Zurita, 11, 129, 374.

But the divisions of the Sicilian nobility and a faftion in his favour soon gave the king of Aragon an opportunity to interfere in the affairs of the island. The powerful and widely-landed Count of Mistreta, Artal de Alagon, had been designated by Frederic's will tutor and governor of the heiress until her marriage or her eighteenth year. Alagon schemed to marry his ward to Giovanni Galeazzo Visconti, count of Vertus and, later, duke of Milan, and Mary is said to have been not unfavourable to the match, but civil war in Sicily and the burning of Visconti's fleet by the Aragonese, Gilaberto de Cruylles, put an end to the project. At this juncture a domestic event afforded Peter IV the hope of an almost immediate acquisition of the Sicilian crown: John, duke of Gerona, the elder of his sons by Leonora of Sicily, lost his wife, Matha d'Armagnac. On November 4, 1378, upon which date he wrote * condoling with his son, not forgetting also to touch in general terms upon the desirability of a fresh alliance, the king of Aragon, in a letter to a certain Pere Guillem, speaks of the royal solicitude for the orphan daughter of Frederic and his determination to procure her a 'matrimoni honros e profitos.'

　 * Coroleu, 'Documents historichs Catalans del sigle xiv,' p. 74, 1889; and F. de Bofarull y Sans, ' Memorias de la R. Academia de Buenas-Letras de Barcelona,' vi, 336. 1898.

He then broaches the subject of a match between her and the duke of Gerona by which Sicily would be gained, and Guillem is enjoined to mention the matter to the duke and to inform the king of his son's disposition thereto. Peter adds that there need be no doubt as to obtaining the dispensation for a match between maternal uncle and niece.*

　 *Coroleu, pp. 75-76; Bofarull y Sans, p. 337.

John of Gerona was, in fact, the Infanta's uncle of the half-blood, through her mother, his half-sister Constance.
　In the following year the stroke of a partisan placed Peter IV in possession of the Sicilian Infanta's person. Guillen Ramon III de Moncada, Count of Agosta, seized Mary from Alagon, and, imprisoning her at Agosta, was able to apprise the king of Aragon that she would be held until either he in person or one of his sons came to take charge of her. To that effect, at least, Peter wrote the duke of Gerona in August, 1379, declaring that he saw it to be the will of the Almighty that he should recover Sicily; and, in the hope of rendering the idea of the match attractive to that prince, informed him that 'so beautiful a woman as our niece is not to be found in Barcelona.'*

　 *Coroleu, pp. 76-77; Bofarull y Sans, p. 339.

　But the marriage with John of Gerona was not to be. In February, 1380, disregarding his father's representations, the duke took to wife Yolande, daughter of duke Robert of Bar and his duchess Mary, a younger daughter of John II of France.*

　 Zurita, 11, 392, says 1384, but see F. de Bofarull y Sans, ' Generacion de Juan I de Aragon,' in ' Memorias de la R. Academia de Buenas Letras de Barcelona,' vi, 289, 1898.

This alliance enraged and embittered the king of Aragon, who saw a danger of the projected union of the crowns upon which he had set his heart, coming to naught, his second and only other surviving son, Martin, being already provided (since 1372) with a spouse, Mary, daughter of Lope, Count of Luna, lord of Segorbe, and his second wife, Brianda de Gouth.*

　 Brianda de ' Agaouth,' or de 'Agasunt' as she is called by native historians, was, according to her husband's epitaph in the monastery of Veruela, a niece of Bertrand de Gouth (also de or du Goti), Pope Clement V (1305-14). The epitaph, which is modern, states . . duxit iterum Briandam filiam Bertrandi comitis Clementis P. V ex fratre nepotis ex qua Mariam reginam," etc.

In the same year (1380, June 11) he nevertheless made over the sovereignty of Sicily to Martin, then count of Xerica, Luna and Besalu, constable and seneschal of Catalonia,* afterwards Duke of Montblanch.

　 Zurita, 11, 374; P. de Bofarull y Mascaro, ' Los Condes de Barcelona vindicados,' 11, 277; F. de Bofarull y Sans, op. cit. Martin was royal-vicar in Sicily without the kingly title, which Peter IV reserved to himself, the dignity having been transferred nevertheless to Martin and his successors. In his 'Cronica,' 1850 ed., p. 394, the king says he gave Martin ' lo dret que haviem en Sicilia ' (the right we had to Sicily). Martin appears as king of that island in 1409-10, after the death of his son, Martin I.

　From then until 1387, the termination of his fifty-one years'reign, little is known of the Sicilian Infanta, or of Peter IV's intentions regarding her. She was removed, in 1382, from Agosta to Cagliari by the viscount of Rocaberti, a Dalmau;*

　 Zurita, 11, 378.

according to Peter himself she stayed two years at Cagliari and was then brought to Barcelona, where she dwelt at the royal palace £at our charge and that of the said Infante Don Martin our son.'*

　 'En lo quel castell de Caller la dita infanta estigue per dos anys, e apres Nos femla venir en Barcelona y fern estar en nostre palau major a messio nostra, y del dit infant, don Marti fill nostre.' Cronica, p. 398. I. La Lumia, ' Storie Siciliane,' 11, 305, says in 1388. The mention of Martin forbodes the Infanta's future.

　In 1387 the duke of Gerona succeeded his father as John I of Aragon. The court life of this reign offers a remarkable contrast to the more sober manners that prevailed under his predecessors. The king's addition to hunting, which, indeed, brought about his death, earned him the nickname Έ 1 Cazador.' Yolande or Violante, of Bar, his consort, a typical French princess of the age, introduced into Aragon the literary culture and extravagances of the 'cours d'amour ' then flourishing across the Pyrenees. In 1383,* some three years after her marriage with the Aragonese heir-apparent, her brother, Henry, had taken to wife Mary, daughter of the famous Enguerand VII, sire of Coucy, sometime earl of Bedford and count of Soissons, by his first wife, Isabella, daughter of Edward III.

　 Dom Calmet,' Histoire de Lorraine,' 1748,111, 404; and table, xxv.

It will be seen later how Coucy's device, the Crown, may have suggested that of the Double-Crown, of Aragon. The Queen of Aragon's brother was slain at the battle of Nicopolis (1396, 28 Sept.); his captain, the sire of Coucy, died at Brusa early in the following year (1397, Feb.)
　Aragonese records of the last quarter of the fourteenth century contain numerous evidences of the northern influence which came in train of John I's Bar marriage (1380). Upon James (1384-88), eldest of the sons born of the union, was conferred the French title, Dauphin of Gerona. As regards the arts, intercourse with the Netherlands, the effect of which appears so strongly later on, in the work of Luis Dalmau and others, seems already to have begun in the presence, at the courts of John I and his successor, Martin, of textile artists from Brabant.*

　 S . Sanpere y Miguel, 'Las Cuatrocentistas Catalanes,' 1, 29-31. Cf. 'Burlington Magazine,' x, 100; 1906. A tapestry with the arms of Martin of Aragon and Maria de Luna was published by the writer in the same journal, VII, 141 ; 1905. From a letter of Peter IV, published by A. Rubio y Lluch, ' Documents per l'historia de la cultura catalana mig-eval,' 1, 248; 1908, it appears that the painter, Jean de Bruges, had passed from the court of Aragon to Armagnac territory in 1373 .

A fondness for devices must also be attributed, it appears, to extraneous influences. On November 30, 1387, John I, then at Villafranca del Panades, wrote to his treasurer that the King of Castile [i.e. John I] would send one of his sons to the coronation about to take place at Saragossa, on which account he ordered the treasurer to have made a sword and its furniture and a jewel. He says:

　 E fets fer aximateix una aguila que sia daur, que pes una onga, e tot ago faga en Coscolla.*

　 *Coroleu, p. 107. Th e original document is in the Archives of the Crown of Aragon at Barcelona, Reg. 1952, fol. 75. 　[And have an eagle made of gold, of one ounce weight, and all this is to be made by Master Coscolla.]

　At Saragossa on June 12, 1388, he wrote:

　　Al molt alt e molt poderos princep Charles, per la gracia de Deu, Rey de Franga, nostre frare molt amat e molt car. En Johan, per aquella matexa gracia Rey Darago, etc. Salut e creximent de tota prosperitat. . . . Vostres letres gracioses havem reebudes, [etc.] . . .
　De la vostra empresa del cerf volant som contents, molt car frare, que per vos nos sia tramesa, car nos la portarem volentorosament per amor vostra. Certificants vos, molt car frare, que pus a vos plau portar la nostra de la aguila, nos la farem fer presentament e laus enviarem, per tal que la portets per amor nostra. . . . Dada en Saragoga, . . . a xij dies de Juny, . . . MCCCLXXXVIIJ. Rex Johannes.*

　 Coroleu, pp. 110-11 ; Archives of Aragon, Reg. 1954, fol. 135 . 　[To the most high and powerful Prince Charles, by the grace of God, King of France, our very beloved and dear Brother. Don John, by the same grace King of Aragon, etc. Health and increase of all prosperity. . . . We have received your gracious letters, [etc.] . . . We are pleased, dear Brother, with your device of the Flying Stag, that you have sent us, which we will wear willingly for your sake. Assuring you, very dear Brother, that should it please you to wear ours of the Eagle, we will have it made forthwith and send it to you, so that you may wear it for ours. . . . Given at Saragossa, .. . on the twelfth day of June . . . 1388. King John.]

　Upon the two devices alluded to: John Fs Eagle and the French Flying Stag* we will here, without unduly digressing, briefly consider the former.

　 *See Appendix I.

　There can have been only one allusion in the employment of an Eagle as insignia by the Barcelonese house. Hereditary reasons concur with contemporary events in which the latter was concerned, and of which some recital has already been attempted, to indicate the eagle as that of Sicily. In other words, John drew his device from the armorials of the imperial blood to which in that country he was male heir.
　Since Peter III of Aragon's union with the daughter of Manfred, himself son of the Emperor Frederic II, and although base-born, sole heir of the last Hohenstauffen, the single-headed imperial eagle, sable, had been perpetuated in the shields of his descendants. According to the system of differencing the shields of cadets by quartering the arms of the maternal house, James II, as King of Sicily, and then his brother Frederic II, to whom the island had passed, and his successors had borne the Sicilian eagle. As king of Sicily (i285-91), James bore: 1-4, or four pales gules (Barcelona-Aragon); 2-3, or an imperial eagle displayed sable.*

　 J . Menendez Pidal, in ' Revista de Archivos,' 3 series, 1, 310 (note 1); M. Fernandez Mourillo, ' Apuntes de sigilografia espanola,' p. 57.

Frederic II bore the pales of the Barcelonese house flanked in saltire by two imperial eagles. *

　 Zurita, 1, 366.

This, the well-known shield of insular Sicily throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, as opposed to the labelled lilies of Anjou-Sicile, was borne by Frederic III,* last sovereign of the Aragonese branch, and by his daughter.

　 L. Cadier, 'Etude sur la sigillographie des rois de Sicile,' Melanges del'Ecole franςaise de Rome, VIII, 176; pi. in, no. 13. 1888.

A miniature from a fifteenth century cartulary of Palermo shows the Infanta Mary grasping the Sicilian shield, the imperial eagles being also depicted as a kind of back or arm support to her throne (fig. i).*

　 Reproduced from P. Lanza di Scalea, ' Donne e gioielli in Sicilia,' pi. 11, 1892. The number of pales shown is two; on the seal of Frederic, cited, there appear to be three. The eagles in each case look to the dexter. For a seal of Mary, her consort Martin, and his father, see F. de Roberto,' Catania,' p. 114. 1907: arms Aragon dimidiated impaling Sicily.

John of Aragon, fourth in descent from the daughter of Manfred, himself son of a Siculo-Aragonese princess, and next in blood to the heiress of Sicily whose hand and succession were then assured to Aragon, so far as dynastic precautions could make certain of them, could not, as events stood in 1387-91, have chosen a device which spelled clearer a foremost event in the history of his race, or that foretold its ambition more plainly. If, as heir-apparent to Aragon, John proved himself unwilling to bring Peter IV's scheme to fruition by himself securing the hand of the Sicilian heiress and, at the same time, covering that monarch's aftion towards Sicily with the cloak of a matrimonial alliance, he nevertheless evinced himself the continuator of his sire's policy in its later stage, i.e. in the foundation of another Sicilian royal line upon a cadet of Aragon-Barcelona, which had previously occurred in the issue of Peter III.
　Of seven children born (1381-96) to John I and Yolande of Bar, the two males that came into the world before 1390,* the date we have now reached, were dead; the daughter Yolande had been promised to Louis II of Anjou.

　 *F. de Bofarull y Sans, pp. 305-8.

At this time, consequently, prudence indicated the desirability of an immediate disposal of Mary of Sicily's hand. In 1390 she was contracted to the younger Martin,* count of Xerica, son of the king's brother of the same name, and of Maria de Luna.

　 Zurita, 11, 388 (verso) states that this event took place about the same time as the contract between Yolande of Aragon and Louis of Anjou, i.e. 1390, Ma y 18; Cf. I. La Lumia, 'Storie Siciliane,' 11, 310; Beccaria, ' Spigolature sulla vita privata del re Martino,' p. 13, 1894. Martin's age could not have exceeded seventeen years.

　On September 9, 1391, at Saragossa, King John had an order issued to his treasurer that, upon all cases (? edifices) were to be represented:

　　. . . lo nostre senyal e de nostre caracompanyonala Reyna. E axi mateix la empresa de la aguila e dell sinyell, segons que feel argenter de casa nostra en Barthomeu Coscolla vos recomptara de part nostre largament.*

　 *Coroleu, p. 111 ; Archives of Aragon, Reg. 1954, fol. 147 verso. 　[.. .the arms of us and of our dear consort the queen, and likewise the device of the eagle and of the sinyell, according as our trusty silversmith master Bartholomew Coscolla will explain at length.]

　For the term senyal or sinyell one need go no further back than Peter IV of Aragon's ordinances, in which that monarch distinguishes between (a) the arms of Aragon proper, sometimes called Aragon ancient, and (b) the senyal, of the royal house of Barcelona, kings of Aragon, Or four pales gules, sometimes termed Aragon modern.*

　 Ordenanzas de Pedro IV de Aragon,' P. de Bofarull y Mascaro's Coleccion de documentos ineditos, v, 209, 1850. The text, " of the manner of sealing," says: . . les armes Darago que son aytals una creu per mig del escut e a cascun carte un cap de sarray"—to be figured on the reverse of the bulls. Upon the reverse of the flahon was to be engraved " cavalier ab corona en lo cap armat sobre cavall darmes de nostre senyal real," a knight crowned, upon a horse, with trappers of our royal arms, i.e. of the house of Barcelona. (See F. de Sagarra, ' Apuntes para un estudio de los sellos del rey Don Pedro IV de Aragon,' Memorias de la Real Academia de Buenas-Letras de Barcelona, vi, 101, 1898.) Elsewhere, in the chapter upon horse-furniture, nostre senyal real, the senyal de Sent Georgi (the cross of the Aragonese patron St George, to whom an order was dedicated) and the senyal antich de rey Darago, are also distinguished.

By "lo nostre senyal e de nostre cara companyona la Reyna," John II referred to the arms of the royal house, AragonBarcelona, and those of Bar.*

　 A seal of Queen Yolande of Bar (1380), in the engraved collection by Garma y Duran, in the Archives of Aragon at Barcelona, shows the arms: Aragon-Barcelona dimidiated, impaling France and Bar quarterly within a bordure indented (dentellee).

As regards the device or " empresa del aguila e dell sinyell," it is to be noted that there is here question of the eagle and of the sinyell or senyal, combined, as of one device. Whether it consisted of an eagle bearing the senyal or pales of the Barcelonese kings in an escucheon upon its breast; or, whether the imperial bird was combined, per saltire, with the pales of Barcelona, being in fa6t the Sicilian arms, remains uncertain.
　By January 1, 1392 [—93], the device of the eagle and the senyal had been superseded by that which gives a title to these notes. John of Aragon writes thus from Villafranca to Charles VI of France:

　　. . . molt car frare, nos havem lexada la empresa del cenyill e portam la corona dobla. Perque vos e tots aquells qui ab vos son, qui porten lo cenyill, lexats lo, e portats daciavant la dita empresa de la corona dobla. A90US explicara pus larch lo dit nostre camerlench [Hugo de Santa Pau].*

　 *Coroleu, pp. m-12 ; ' Archives of Aragon,' Reg. 1962, fol. 18 verso. 　[. . . very dear brother, we have abandoned the device of the senyal and bear the Double Crown. You, therefore, and all those with you who wear the senyal, leave it, and bear henceforth the said device of the Double Crown. About this our chamberlain [Hugh de Santa Pau] will give explanations.]

　On January 10 immediately following, John wrote to his brother Martin, from Barcelona:

　　. . . 110s trametem per lo dit noble [B. A. de Cervello] la forma dc la empresa de la corona, e com se deu donar als cavaliers daurada e als escuders blancha. Perque plau a nos que la dita empresa port vostre fil e los altres que sien de la nostra empresa del cinyel.*

　 Coroleu, p. 112 ; Reg. 1963, fol. 14 verso. 　[.. . we send, by the said noble [B. A. de Cervello], the shape of the device of the Crown, and [instructions] how it is to be conferred, upon knights, in gold, and upon esquires, in silver. It is our pleasure that your son should wear it, and those who belong to our device of the cinyel.]

　The appropriateness of the Corona Doble or Double Crown, the device newly chosen by King John to exemplify (as the writer believes) the accretion of the Sicilian sovereignty to the Aragonese house, recently sealed by his nephew Martin's marriage, is manifest. Of all symbolisms that of the crown is least equivocal. But the actual instance or prompting which led the king to relinquish an eagle which was of imperial associations, for the emblem of a dual royaltv, can but be surmized. The great Enguerrand VII de Coucy, was proprietor of a like device, and head of an order of which a crown was the badge. As previously stated, Enguerrand was related to John I's consort through the marriage which Mary, his daughter by Isabella of England, had contracted in 1383 with Henry of Bar, brother of the queen of Aragon, then duchess of Gerona. Coucy himself was not only, paternally, of the first nobility of France, but his mother, Catherine, was a daughter of duke Leopold of Austria, son of Albert, king of the Romans, and grandson of the emperor Rudolph of Hapsburg; and he had taken wives from the houses of England and Lorrain.*

　 *He married: (1) in 1365, Isabel, daughter of Edward I, and Philippa of Hainault, d. 1379; (2) in 1380, Isabel, daughter of John, Duke of Lorrain and Sophia of Wurtemberg.

His order of the Crown is mentioned in the deed of foundation of the convent of the Celestines at Soissons in 1390; and a crown appears in the field of his seals. Little more than this is known concerning Coucy's order. Its date of foundation is unknown, but was probably contemporary to the inroad he made into the territories of the holy Roman empire in 1375-76 to recover his maternal share of the allodial lands of his grandfather, Leopold of Austria, who died without male issue. In token of the unsuccessful issue of this expedition, for, of the Hapsburg lands in Alsace, the Aargau and Suabia, the sire de Coucy appears to have obtained little but the counties of Nydau and Buren (1379-88),*

　 Stockvis,' Manuel d'histoire, de genealogie,' etc., ill, ii, 541. 1890-93.

his order is described by some writers as the Inverted Crown ('couronne renversee'). Of the merits of this theory some discussion will be found elsewhere.*

　 See Appendix II.

　We find Coucy at Avignon in 1389, in which year the French king, Charles VI, journeyed thither to the court of Clement VII (Robert of Geneva). Later in the same year (November 1), the pope crowned Louis II of Anjou, king of Sicily, and a marriage was projected between him and a daughter of John I of Aragon. Froissart relates that at Avignon the queen of Naples (i.e. of Anjou-Sicily, Mary of Chatillon-sur-Marne, called 4 of Blois') desired Coucy to accompany her son, the twelve-year old Louis, across the Pyrenees into Aragon, on the ground that (as she told him), 'la Royne d'Arragon vous verra voulontiers, car vostre fille a espouse son frere, messire Henry de Bar'; that they travelled, as would be natural, by Montpellier, Beziers, Narbonne and Perpignan, the first city lying in the Aragonese dominions; that their coming was looked for by the court; that they 'tant cheuaucherent qu'ils vindrent en la cite de Barcelonne,' where the king, the queen and their daughter were. ' Si fut le ieune Rov Louis recueilly liement et tresdoucement.' *

　 *Froissart, bk. iv, cap. ii ' . . . comment Louis d'Aniou, rov de Sicile fut fiance & marie a la fille d'Arragon.'

Except for Froissart's testimony,*

　 It is evident that the chronicler (Cf. book iv, cap. i) was in close relations with 'le gentil seigneur de Coucy, un de mes seigneurs & maistres,' who is thus alluded to in 1389.

this journey of Louis II of Anjou and the sire de Coucy into Spain is veiled in darkness; but the chronicler's circumstantiality though interesting is not vital to the argument, except as witness to the Coucy-Bar-Aragon connexion and its repute in 1389-90, in which latter year Violante, the eldest daughter of King John, and his consort of Bar was affianced to the heir of Anjou-Sicile.*

　 May 18, 1390: Zurita, 11, 388 verso. The union was consummated in 1400, when Louis sent two ambassadors to Barcelona to fetch his wife: Zurita, 11, 434 verso; F. de Bofarull y Sans, pp. 304-5; Lecoy de la Marche,' Le roi Rene,' 1, 25.

This lady, then aged eleven years, is the ' Yolande, reine de Sicile' of French history, the mother of Rene of Anjou and grandparent of a queen of England. But she is also the 'Violante de la Corona doble' of Catalonia. 　The reign of John I of Aragon came to an end in 1397. Matha d'Armagnac and Yolande of Bar, his consorts, are recorded to have borne twelve children, of whom seven were sons, but the king left no male issue. Only one daughter, moreover, by each marriage, survived him: Juana (d. 1407), wife of Matthew, count of Foix; and Violante, or Yolande, duchess of Anjou. 　The royal Aragonese devices were adopted, for the best of reasons, by Martin the elder, now king of Aragon and count of Barcelona, known as El Humano (the humane). Upon his brother's decease, Martin was oversea in Sicily, engaged in consolidating the rule of his son and namesake, husband of Frederic Ill' s daughter. The new king of Aragon had proposed that Martin the younger should be crowned king of Sicily upon the day of his own coronation, but this could not be effected. Blancas records that, at the Aragonese coronation banquet at Saragossa (1399), the Eag/e figured as an entremet. It is described as 'a very large counterfeit eagle, entirely gilt,' and it made its appearance in the hall immediately before the entry of the duke of Gandia, as high chamberlain, at the head of the service with the meat.*

　 *Blancas, 'Coronaciones de los seren. Reyes de Aragon,' p. 76, 1641 (written 1585). An instance of the employment of the French flying-stag in a very similar capacity is given infra at p. 39. The monarch's kinsman and cousin, Alfonso of Aragon, count of Ribagorza and Denia in Aragon, marquis of Villena in Castile, had been created duke at the coronation; Blancas, p. 71.

An eagle is depicted, moreover, upon the royal mantling, on a great seal of Martin used under date 1399.*

　 J . Menendez Pidal,' Sello en cera de Don Martin, rey de Aragon,' Revista de Archivos, 3 series, 1, 310, 1897.

　Extracts from the treasury accounts in the Palermo archives, published by Beccaria,* show that Martin the younger affected not only the Eagle but the Double Crown also, which indeed he might do as king of Sicily and heir-apparent to Aragon.

　 Spigolature sulla vita privata del re Martino in Sicilia,' 1894.

　The king of Sicily's silversmith, Georgius Carraf, received payment on September 27, 1397, at Catania, for a half-ounce and three tarens of nineteen carat gold, of which he made a signet-ring engraved with an eagle, for the royal use:

　 Die xxvii Septembris sexte Indicionis,apud Cathaniam. Solute sunt Magistro georgio Carraf argenterio dominj Regis, pro precio uncie dimidieet trium tarenorum ponderis de auro de caratis decern et novem, de quo laboravit et construxit quemdam annulam ad signum vel sculpturam aquile ad opus eiusdem dominj Regis; et pro magisterio eiusdem anulj: uncia una, tareni sex et grana novem.* On 7 I. VI, VIIII.

　 Beccaria, ' Spigolature,' p. 99.

　On June 23, 1399, occurs a payment for gold and the making of ' a certain impresa of the Double Crown which the lord king wears round his neck for a device, and of an enamelled garter for the said lord king;' these were also made at Catania by Georgius Carraf:

　 Cathanie, die xxiii Junij viie Ind. Solute sunt georgio carraf, argenterio Regie domus, pro precio certe quantitatis aurj per eum empti in pluribus et diversis pecijs, de quo laboravit et fecit quamdam Inprensam de duabus coronis quam dominus Rex portat in collo pro divisa, et quamdam garrecteriam ismaltatam ad opus dictj domini Regis, etc.*

　 *Beccaria, doc. LXII , p. 165.

　As to the garter here mentioned, Beccaria suggests that it is nothing less than the English order; and he notes that upon the death of Mary of Sicily in 1399, the younger Martin's hand was sought in marriage for his daughter by the King of England* [i.e. Henry IV].

　 Beccaria, pp. 43, 44.

This upon Zurita's authority*; but it must be observed that Martin's name is not found upon the Garter roll.

　 1610 ed., 11, 436 .

　It is seen from the document of 1399 that the Double Crown device was worn from the neck. A brief description of a collar of the Order is afforded by an inventory of jewellery received by Martin of Sicily from his father, at Catania, on February 7, 1407-8:

　 (4) Item un altre collar daur a corones dobles ab malla daur ab florectes esmaltades a la part de jus e pesa al dit march [i.e. de Valencia] mig march un diner.*
　[Item another collar of gold with Double Crowns, with a golden . . . with enamelled fleurons on the upper side, and it weighs according to the said march [of Valencia], a half march one diner.

　 P. Lanza di Scalea, 'Donne e gioielli in Sicilia,' p. 321.

Martin the younger died in 1409 without surviving legitimate issue,*

　 An infant, Peter, died shortly before Mary of Sicily, in 1399. (Bofarull y Sans, p. p. 312.) The date of Mary' s death is given elsewhere as 1402 (Hopf, p. 474), or 1401 (Mariana, 1790 ed., vi, 413), a variation which appears to be merely a matter of style. His second wife (1402) was Blanche, daughter of Charles III of Navarre, who survived him. Their son Martin died in 1407. By Tarsia Rizzari, of Catania, Martin had an illegitimate son, Fadrique, count of Luna, whom John II of Castile created duke of Arjona. He was legitimated by his relative the Luna anti-pope for the Sicilian succession, and his claim to Aragon on his grandfather's death was rejected. He died in a Castillian prison in 1438.

and with the death of his father, in 1410, the male descendants of Peter IV came to an end. In the inventory of Martin the elder's effects,* compiled after his decease, are the following: (No.) 1484. Item. 1. cubertor de confiter de randa de cede vermeya brodada de corones dobles e de letres del Rey de Sicilia ab flocadure entorn d aur e de seda de diuerses colors. i486. Item. ia . touallola de li prim obrada de corones de sede e letres als caps orlada de rande d aur. No. 2029. Item. 1. parxe ample veil ab. III. senyals reyals et. VIII. aguiles daur e en les III. aguiles ha algunes perles menudes sotils. [Item. A . . . cover of thread-work (?) of red silk, embroidered with double crowns and the King of Sicily's initials, with a fringe around it of gold and silk of different colours.] [Item. A small towel of fine linen worked with crowns in silk and letters at the corners (?), edged with threadwork of gold.] [Item. A large, old girdle with three royal shields and eight golden eagles, and in three of the eagles are some small, w©rn pearls.] Of the 2,118 items in the inventory, which comprises every class of obje6l and article of furniture, these alone are described as bearing the Double Crown or the Eagle,f but the royal arms are not infrequently mentioned. The Double Crown is also inseparably associated with Violante (or Yolande) of Aragon, born in 1381, eldest child of John I, by Yolande of Bar, and a lady whose virtues and talents have gained her a foremost place among notable women produced by the Latin nations of her day. At her uncle Martin's death in 1410, the renunciation she had executed in his favour of her rights to the crown of her native land upon her union with Louis II of AnjouRevue hispanique,' XII, 543, 584. Only a portion of the inventory has yet been published. tTh e corollary of this fact may possibly be held to explain the actual uncertainty of the form of the device (a subject to be dealt with later), when the paucity of the remains of the Barcelonese house is also remembered. Only those who have visited the shell of the Cistercian monastery of Poblet, destined by Peter IV to be the sepulchre of his house, wrecked in 1835, can realize what a store of Catalan art and armorial record was then lost. In Appendix III are noted a few objects bearing the arms of Don Martin the elder. l 8 Sicily in 1400,* did not prevent Yolande de Sicile, as she was called in France, from entering a claim to Aragon in her capacity as the surviving legitimate descendant of Peter IV. Infanta of Aragon and Sicily (trans-Pharum), her use of the device as such might seem less appropriate than in right of her Angevin regality of Sicily and her pretension to Aragon,f the one unsubstantial, the other never more than a shadow. But the faft that, after 1396,! she was the only living child of John I's Bar marriage, to which may be attributed the inception of the Double Crown, suggests the reason for her use of the same. Don P. de Bofarull y Mascaro states that Yolande adopted the device while Infanta, and that she conferred it upon many ladies of her court before leaving for Italy,§ i.e. in 1400. Yolande died in 1442 and was buried in the cathedral of Angers, the capital of her husband's duchy. Her sepulchre has perished and the records of it|| yield no data that throw light upon her use of the device. Nor is her device de- *Zurita, 11, 434, verso. Martin gave her the lordships of Borja and Magallon. tHe r son Rene bore Aragon in pretence from 1466-80, and was invited by a deputation from Catalonia to assume the sovereignty in 1466, during the insurrection under John II. JTh e Countess of Foix (d. 1407) was John's surviving daughter by Matha d'Armagnac. Los Condes de Barcelona vindicados,' 11, 289. Cf. Beccaria, who terms the impresa an order, sedfailing any knowledge as to statutes. ||L. de Farcy, ' Monographie de la cathedrale d'Angers,' 11, 285-7, I9°5 · J· Dena i s ' work by the same title, p. 265, 1899.

1 9 pifted in the rose window in the north transept of Le Mans cathedral, which preserves what appears to be the only extant representation of this royal lady (fig. 2).* A circumstance, relating to Yolande of the Double Crown, that must be mentioned finally is that her dowry, consisting of the towns of Borja and Magallon in Aragon proper, were sold, on July 11, 1443, to Alfonso V of Aragon for 20,000 florins gold.f The existence of the Double Crown, as a royal device, may be said to end with the last of the Barcelonese kings in 1410, or with the death of Yolande; and no records have been forthcoming connecting it with the lingering scions of the house, the counts of Urgel and of Prades, or the dukes of Gandia. J A terminus being reached, there arises the necessity of discussing the form of the insignia. The writer is fain to admit that he has been unable to glean the slightest indication of the Double Crown's shape from Spanish antiquarian or armorial literature,§ nor have enquiries in admittedly competent quarters elicited the information. It was worn dependent from the neck, as appears from the Sicilian documents of 1399 and 1407,|| and it was originally either of gold or silver according to the rank—equestrian or merely armigerous—of the wearer. Apparently, this is all that is known concerning the adtual insignia. Truth to tell, it would not be hard to demonstrate a like dearth of exa£t knowledge of some *The best reproduction is by E. Hucher,' Caiques des vitraux peints de la cathedrale du Mans,' pi. 100, 1864. Also in A. Ledru, ' La cathedrale Saint-Julien du Mans,' p. 429, 1900. An inaccurate version was given by Lasteyrie, ' Histoire de la peinture sur verre,' pi. LII; 1853. The arms are: Jerusalem and Anjou-Sicily (less the label), impaled, with Aragon dimidiated. tZurita, HI, 271, verso. JFo r some other Aragonese devices of this period, see Appendix IV. §Don G. J. de Osma's' Las divisas del Rey en los pavimentos de " obra de Manises " del Castillo de Napoles (anos 1446-58) ' appeared when this study was practically completed. The Aguila and Corona Doble are treated of at pp. 61-64, anc^ present writer has derived some courage from the fact that the learned author has not cited a representation of the latter. The student is referred, for supplementary. unedited records of the insignia, to Don G. J. de Osma's work. ||Cf. Osma, p. 63. 20 English devices or 4 badges,' or the difficulty of indicating contemporary representations of the same in certain cases. But there are few devices the names of which are susceptible of vitally equivocal constructions. The term Double Crown, but still more Corona Doble, implies a combination of two crowns. It would appear that this was effe6ted in one of two ways. The crowns were either represented superimposed, more or less as with the papal 'tiara,' in the medial stage of its evolution during the pontificate of Boniface VIII, 1294-1303; * or they were placed base to base. The circumstances accompanying the adoption by the house of Borja or Borgia, at the end of the fifteenth century, of a device which it is difficult to describe otherwise than as a corona doble, are of a kind to warrant the belief that their cognisance was a revival if not an imitation of the Double Crown of the old Barcelonese kings; or, a perpetuation of insignia granted, maybe, to a Borja by John I of Aragon, by Martin or Yolande. The subje6t, if obscure, is not the least remarkable point in a family chronicle full of the mysterious, the abnormal, or the unique. *E. Miintz, ' La tiare pontificale du VIII e au XVI e siecle,' p. 38, 1897.

II. The house of Borja (Borgia) and its Double Crown

　Rodrigo de Borja (1431-1503 ) afterwards Pope Alexander VI, was a member of what was probably the ^elder branch of a Valencian house which derived its name from the town of Borja in Aragon proper, and appears in the kingdom of Valencia after the conquest of 1238. Between the early lords of Borja, at home in Aragon, and the Borjas figuring in the lists of the Repartimiento, or distribution of lands taken from the Moors at the conquest, the connecting links have yet to be discovered. All that need be noted of the claim of Borja of Valencia to descent from the lords of Borja in Aragon is its rejection by competent authorities as devoid of any historical basis. It comprehended a far-off but illustrious ancestor in Pedro Atares (d. 1152), a founder of the monastery of Veruela,*

　 *J. M. Quadrado, 'Aragon,' p. 539 (note 3) gives the epitaph at Veruela. See also Florez, ' Espana sagrada,' L, 211, 1866; Atares figures among the Aragonese ricohombres de mesnada, with arms an ox, in G. de Blancas, ' Aragonum rerum commentarii,' 1588.

and grandson of Ramiro I of Aragon's bastard, count Sancho.*

　 Sancho was founder of a chapel in Jaca cathedral. For the deed by which his son Garcia's widow, domina Tares a de Boria, sister of the ricohombre Sancho Cajal or Caxal, agreed to hold the lordship of Borja of Ramon Berenguer, prince of Aragon, April 30, 115r, see Bofarull y Mascaro, ' Coleccion de documentos ineditos del Archivo general de la Corona de Aragon,' iv, 179. On her death Borja appears to have reverted to the Crown. It was held, with the title of count, by Duguesclin, 1366-75 ; as we have seen, it subsequently formed part of the dowry of Violante or Yolande, daughter of John I of Aragon.

By the fifteenth century, Aragon itself had passed through the house of Barcelona to a cadet of the Trastamara kings of Castile descended from an illegitimate brother of Peter the Cruel. So that Pope Alexander might consider that the descent from Pedro Atares, which the Borjas of his day are held to have revindicated, was but subject to the same defect as that inherent to the blood of his contemporaries, Ferdinand and Isabella, the sovereigns of Aragon and Castile.
　At the conquest of Valencia, Dolça, the wife of P. Borja received land and houses in Andarela, and land in Roteros,* in 1238.

　 *Bofarull y Mascaro, 1, 199, 490.

In 1248, in the parcelling of the territory of Jativa, Stephanus de Borgia received houses in that town, and land at Huadacecar in the valley of Albaida.*

　 Bofarull y Mascaro, xi, 337. The form Borgia here occurring was, according to Don F. Fernandez de Bethencourt, adopted by the family in Valencia, and this spelling has generally prevailed at the hands of continental writers. But the Gandi'a grants, etc., by Ferdinand the Catholic (1485) all use Borja. Another spelling of the name is stamped upon an early sixteenth century Spanish binding that must have belonged to the third duke of Gandia, a grandson of Alexander VI : DO. IOAN. DE BORGA. DVCH. It contains a fourteenth century Divina Commedia formerly in the library of San Miguel de los Reyes. ' Burlington Fine Arts Club. Exhibition of Illuminated MSS.' no 176. 1908.

In 1243, Eva, wife of Paschasius de Borgia, received houses and land in Coces (?).*

　 Bofarull y Mascaro, xi, 355.

J. de Borgia was granted property at Onda in 1249.*

　 Bofarull y Mascaro, xi, 416.

　The line then presents a hiatus until the fourteenth century, when two families of the name Borja are discovered in the south of the Valencian kingdom, one at Canals, another at the neighbouring Jativa. To the former belonged Alonso de Borja (1378-1458), bishop of Valencia (1429), cardinal of the title Sancti Quatuor Coronati (1444), and pope as Calixtus III (1455). The paternity ot his nephew, Alexander VI, who belonged to the Jativa (? elder) branch, has been obscured since the days of the annalist Panvinio * in an alleged marriage of Isabella, a sister of Calixtus, with a certain Jofre Lanzol (italice Lenzuoli).

　 " Sanctiss. D. N. Alexandri VI. Pont. Max. Valentinus. Rodericus Lenzolius Iofredi nobilis equitis filius, & sororis Callisti III. Pontificis Maximi, Valentiae in Hispania natus, ab avunculo Callisto P.P. Ill , & cognomine Borgiarum quod suum erat & gentiliciis insignibus donatus, post. n. Co. Lenzolius, sed Borgia apellatus est." O. Panvinius, ' Epitome pontificum Romanorum,' p. 334. Venetiis, 1557.

The documents establishing the existence of the Borja line of Jativa demonstrated, however, that the pope's father Jofre, husband of Isabella (d. 1468), was the same individual as Jofre de Borja, son of Rodrigo Gil de Borja, of Jativa, and Sibilla de Oms*; and that, in fact,

　 In the codicil (1466) to her will, Isabella, styling herself " muller del Magnifich Mosén Jofre de Borja, Caballer, habitador quondam de Valensia," names as executors, " a lo molt illustre et molt amat e car fill nostre Don Rodrigo de Borja; " Fernandez de Bethencourt, iv, 29.

Rodrigo de Borja, or Alexander VI, had been confounded nominally with his great-nephew Rodrigo de Borja Lanzol y Romani, and the pope's father, Jofre de Borja, with the parent of the latter, Jofre Lanzol de Romani, afterwards Borja, respectively.
　The best general account of this somewhat complicated genealogical question is given by Don F. Fernandez de Bethencourt* (1902), since which publication a deed has been discovered confirming the extraction of Alexander VI.

　 *' Historia genealogica y heraldica de la monarquia espanola,' iv, p. 3. Jofre Lanzol assumed the name Borja under the entail of the barony of Anna executed by the pope's mother Isabel, his great aunt; op. cit. pp. 31, 357.

It is a bull addressed by the pope himself to Caesar Borgia in 1493, declaring him legitimate son of Dominico d'Arignano and his wife, Vanozza de'Catanei, and conferring upon him the name, nobility and arms of Borja. The importance of this extraordinary document lies not only in its purpose, a fraudulent one, showing the strange shifts to which Alexander was driven in attempting, some two days before Caesar's elevation to the cardinalate, to regularize the birth of this son of his by the Catanei,andin the material it affords for revising the seniority of the pope's family, but also in its affirmation of his own descent— " by the authority of these presents we receive and adopt you into our family and kindred, and of our nobles of Borgia from which in the direct male line we draw our origin."*

　 " . . . . contulimus ac maiora pro dignitatis tue incremento facere intendimus, in familiam et cognationem nostram ac nostrorum nobilium de Borgia, de qua per rectam et paternam lineam originem traximus, auctoritate presentium recipimus et adoptamus." L . Cellier, 'Alexandre VI, et ses enfants en 1493'; Melanges de l'Ecole frangaise de Rome, xxvi, 319, 1906. In a bull of 1482, Sixtus IV had, nevertheless, declared Caesar son of Rodrigo Borja.

　We have dwelt thus at length upon Alexander VI's extraction, because the accumulation of incidents, as it were connecting the Borjas with the Aragonese kings, which reached a climax in his day, and in the person of his own offspring, would have lost much of its force were he, what he has since generally been considered, a Lanzol. The proofs to the contrary being formal, there remain to be seen the evidences of the practical application of the theory of a royal, if remote, extraction, in the insignia used by the pope and his house.
　In terms of English blazon the Borja arms were: Or on a terrace vert an ox passant within a bordure, gules, charged with eight garbs of the field. Other versions charge the bordure with flames, between which and the garbs or wheat-sheaves it is a nice point to decide, so few are the fifteenth-century evidences that have been cited.*

　 *Considering the interest of this subject it is regrettable that an exhaustive search has not been undertaken in Spanish and Italian archives for the pre-papal seals of the two Borja popes and the members of the clan which, under their aegis, in Italy especially, held extensive sway. No armorist appears to have explored a question which, at the genealogist's hands, is liable to receive, and in this case undoubtedly has received, too summary treatment. An inadequate paper by J. Martinez Aloy, 'Armas de las Borjas,' appeared in ' El Archivo,' n, 84, of Denia.

The woodcut of the duke of Gandia's arms published by Martin de Viciana,* together with certain shields still existing at Gandia, appear to settle the matter in favour of the garbs or wheat-sheaves; there are, however, possibilities suggested by flames and crowns in the devices of the pope and of Caesar Borgia disquieting to that theory.

　 Segunda parte de la Chronyca de Valencia,' 1564.

Calixtus III is credited with the addition of the bordure to his shield, but no reason for the same is recorded; unless, therefore, a similar assumption was made at that or later times by the Jativa —thought also to be the elder—branch, it must have inherited the bordure through the marriage of Jofre de Borja, Alexander VI's father, with Isabella,* the sister of Calixtus.

　 it is strange that no mention is made of the bordure, in the blazon of the thirty-two-year-old Cardinal Rodrigo Borja (Alexander VI) in Isabella's deed of donation founding the majorât of the Lanzols, October 29, 1463. " Armes e senyal de Borja, ςο es tres barres grogues [i.e. yellow] e tres negres a la una part [i.e. for Oms], e 1'altre Bou [an ox], segons hui les fa lo dit Reverendissim Senyor Cardenal." E. Bertaux, ' Monuments et souvenirs des Borja dans la royaume de Valence,' Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 3e serie, xxxix, 92-93 (note). A shield of Aragon dimidiated impaling Borja, ensigned by the triple crown, published by G. Pawlowski in ' Le missel d' Alexandre VI.' has always appeared to the present writer of doubtful authenticity, to say nothing of the MS. itself. Cf. Count Couret's remarks, ' Memoires de la Societe nationale des Antiquaires de France,' 7 serie, I, 219; 1900. He describes the pales as " les pals des Lanza " !

As regards the Borja ox, the description by Bernardino Corio, an eyewitness of the customary procession by which the pope, after his coronation, took possession of the church of St John Lateran, suggests that in the Borja shield of Alexander VI's day that famous animal was depicted, drooping its head, as if browsing. Corio states that the pope's banner was borne by Count Antonio della Mirandola; it was emblazoned with a shield Party of gold with a red ox browsing, and three black bands (i.e. bars) traversing a gold field. Above it were the keys and mitre (sic); it was of crimson cendal.*

　 * " . . . intervenea il conte Antonio de la Mirandula quale portava il vexillo dil Papa: cioe uno scudo mezo doro con uno Bove rosso che pascevalerba : e laltraparte tre bande negre che transversavano il campo aurato; e di sopra le chiave con la mitrra: la sua fogia era di sandale cremesino." The lord of Correggio carried the banner of the Holy Roman Church; he and the Pico were on horseback. Gabriele Cesarini bore the " conphalono S.P.Q.R." For Corio's relation, see Burchard's' Diarium,' ed. Thuasne, 11, 617.

This detail is corroborated by the arms in the Borja rooms at the Vatican, a shield existing at Gandia, the ox in the arms upon Caesar Borgia's seal,* and some woodcuts in Panvinio's 'Epitome' (1557).

　 Douet d'Arcq, 'Archives de l'Empire, Collection de sceaux,' 111, 11756 ; ' une vache (!!) paissante.' See also the seals in Yriarte 'Autour des Borgia,' p. 13 ; and 'Les Borgia.'

　But the family armorials concern us less than a device used by (i) Alexander VI; (ii) the dukes of Gandia, his sons; and (iii) Francisco Borja, archbishop of Cosenza, bishop of Teano. Its probable employment by the redoubtable Caesar Borgia will not be discussed by the writer, the evidences as to the exact device used by that individual being uncertain. *

　 A seal of Csesar as duke of Valentinois is reproduced in both Yriarte's works, apparently from an old woodcut. It is inscribed CAES. BORGIE. DE. FRANCIA. DUCIS.VALENTINI, the patent of which dignity was delivered him in 1498. The shield, containing the French augmentation, is between two single crowns shedding rays towards the base; perhaps an error of the engraver ?

　The insignia in question, the principal component of which is a Double Crown darting rays from the fleurons upon its lower rim, takes two forms. It is employed (a) alone, or (b) quartered with flames issuing fessewise from the sinister flank; in this instance based entirely upon the contemporary Italian usage which extended to the impresa methods of marshalling proper to arms only. As examples of this there may be noted the devices of: Francesco Sforza, duke of Milan (1447-66), Quarterly, barry undy (the onde grosse of a captain adventurer's life) and a greyhound standing beneath a pine tree with, in chief, a hand issuing from a cloud; duke Lodovico, il Moro (1494-1508), a brush (sedola or scopetta) with a scroll quartering the onde grosse; Cardinal Ascanio (1445-1505), the latter's brother, quartered a radiant cloud and the onde. The employment of either or both the insignia by the Borjas named can be traced as follows:

　I. Alexander VI, used the crown device from the earliest days of his pontificate. He was elefted August 10-11, 1492. Corio records that upon August 26, the coronation day, the papal banner was flown on the great tower of the Castel Sant' Angelo at Rome.*

　 * " Sopra la torre de langelo era il vixillo papale; a laltra piu bassa due bandere con le chiave. "Corio, apud Burchard, ed. Thuasne, n, 618.

The particulars about this banner, lately published, are of some interest. It measured six Cannes (about 12 metres) in length and four in breadth, and had a gold fringe 1 1/2 palms in width. It cost, in all, 150 ducats and was executed by Antonaccio Achili of Rome, who painted the entire surface with the pope's arms upon a field strewn with golden crowns.*

　 L. Pastor, ' History of the Popes,' edited by the Rev. J. Antrobus, vi, 99-100; C. Phillips, 'Th e earlier work of Titian,' pp. 27, 92. In the Antwerp painting (formerly in Charles I's collection) the papal Generalissimo is seen presented to St Peter by Alexander VI; the altarpiece at Venice shows Benedetto Pesaro as the standardbearer, with the bishop of Paphos in the foreground. In both instances the papal shield is upon an arabesqued field. Mr Claude Phillips notes " the magnificent dark-red and gold banner of the Borgias," in the Frari altarpiece, op. cit. p. 93.

Mention of this banner will recall Titian's works in the Antwerp Gallery, and in the church of the Frari at Venice, which depict the pope's banner emblazoned with the Borja-Oms arms surmounted by the papal tiara and crossed-keys, in the keeping of Giacopo Pesaro, bishop of Paphos, and of Benedetto Pesaro, respectively commanders of the Roman and Venetian fleets in the Turkish war of 1500-03.*

　 Achili was paid sixty-two florins on November I, 1492. E. Rodocanachi, 'L e chateau Saint-Ange,' p. 94; and ' Revue des Questions historiques,' LXXXV , 424, 1909. The artist must have received the commission shortly after the election.

　The principal remaining examples of Alexander VI's devices are found in the Borgia apartments in the Vatican,* among the mural and other decoration which, if not the one good thing the Borgia pope initiated, is probably the most creditable one he left to posterity.

　 *This suite of rooms, lying between the cortili di Belvedere and del Papagallo, originally built by Nicholas III, and enlarged by Nicholas V, was chosen for his personal occupation by Alexander VI, who added to them a tower (the " Torre Borgia "). The y were restored with extreme care and accuracy during the pontificate of Leo XIII, in 1892-7. The whole of the decorations can be studied in the monumental work by Father Ehrle, S.J., and Commendatore Stevenson, 'Gli affreschi del Pinturrichio nell'appartamento Borgia del palazzo apostolico Vaticano,' 1897, to which the writer is indebted for revised dates of the frescoes, and from which the facsimiles of the insignia, nos. 3-5, have been made.

　The work was begun by Pinturrichio (Bernardino Betti) less than four months after Alexander's succession, and it occupied the painter about three years or, roughly, from mid-December 1492 until the end of 1495. The pope's insignia are employed in the greatest profusion in the second room (the ' Sala dei Misteri'). Here (b) the quartered device is found in the circular compartments in the centre of the vaults (fig. 3); ranged along the edges of the pendentives are Borja oxen, whilst the extremities of the pendentives are occupied with the (a) Double Crown irradiated and raining tongues of flame (fig. 4). Another combination of the insignia is seen in the vaulting of the fourth room ('Sala delle Arti liberali'), where the crown casts its light upon the head of the Borja ox (fig. 5). Tiles of Valencian manufacture used in the pavement of these rooms also bear (b) the quartered device."*

　 *That important armorial detail, the colouring of the devices, is not perfectly clear from the text of Ehrle-Stevenson, pp. 64,40. In the quartered device upon the ceilings the flames (in 2-3) are: or upon azure; on the tiles, the crown(1-4) is either blue or greenish upon a yellow field, the flames (called ' onde ') are brown (' castane ') on a white field.

It is found also upon well-heads in the Borja court of the Castel Sant' Angelo.*

　 Rodocanachi, pi. 8.

　II. Heraldic carvings at the castle of Gandia, which town and duchy passed into the possession of the Borjas in December 1485, show both forms of the insignia. The castle itself had been the residence of royal dukes, and remains of the early ironwork bear the escucheon of Aragon-Barcelona. The authors of a valuable mono graph upon the palace date the existing façade from the two first Borja dukes,* Pedro Luis (d. 1488) and Juan (d. 1497); a relief upon it is carved with the Borja-Oms shield supported by two angels, and surmounted by a helmet fronted, crowned with a large jewelled circlet, out of which rises the crest of a lion's head and shoulders, gazing out of the achievement.

　 Fathers Sola and Cervos, S.J., ' El palacio ducal de Gandia,' 1904, whose pages, as in the previous instance, we are happy to acknowledge as our authority for facts stated in this section, and from which the facsimile (fig. 6) has been made.

In the upper angles are (a) Double Crowns radiant. The whole composition is in a frame supported by two figures, apparently also holding {b) the quartered device of crowns and flames. Another armorial panel in relief (fig. 6) shows the Double Crown used not only (a) singly as a device, but combined in the crest paraphernalia. As with the entire facade carving, the shield here is defaced. The palace was sacked, it may be noted, during the Germania troubles in July, 1521. The Borja quartered device was likewise formed at Gandia by repeats of two square blue-and-white tiles—these dating from 1494 or the last years of the century (fig. 7).*

　 *J. Font y Guma, ' Rajolas Valencianas and Catalanas,' pp. 132-134 , Nos. 183-4, and 185 in which the tiles are misplaced; also 178, bears a papal tiara, and 182, the arms of Borja (a blank) impaling Doms. These are all from the ducal palace. Cf. Osma, pp. 36-37 (notes).

　III. Francisco Borja, bishop of Teano (1495-1508), archbishop of Cosenza (1499-1511), appears also to have borne the quartered device. In 1497 founded a chapel in the collegiate church of Jativa, whence a picture, depicting him in prayer before the Infant Christ and His Mother, has found its way to the Valencia Gallery. Upon a stool are depicted: (b) the quartered device, quarters reversed, the flames gules upon argent, the Double Crowns or upon argent; and the Borja shield (ox only), ensigned by a mitre, which object also rests upon the ground at the donor's knee. This Francisco Borja is stated by Chacon or Ciacconius to have been son of Pope Calixtus III, which would explain the absence of the Oms impalement.'*

　 * Another authority attributes his paternity to Juan Borja, a natural son of Rodrigo Gil de Borja, in which case also the non-existence of the insignia of the latter's consort is accounted for; Fernandez de Bethencourt, op. cit., pp. 22-23. E. Bertaux, ' Monuments et souvenirs des Borja dans le royaume de Valence,' Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 3e serie, xxxix, pp. 97-98, with a reproduction of the painting.

At all events, he was a familiar and near relation of Alexander VI, who created him cardinal in 1500. His death occurred in 1511 or thereabouts.

III. Calixtus III, Alexander VI and the dukes of Gandia

　' Accipe tiaram tribus coronis ornatam et scias te esse patrern principum et regum: rectorem or bis: in terra vicarium Salvatoris nostri Jesu Christi cui est honor et gloria in soecula saeculorum.'
　WE are now confronted with the two devices: the first, used by the royal house of Aragon from 1392 till 1410, or later, which is known as the Double Crown; the second, affected by the house of Borja from 1492 till 1503 , or later, and only adequately described by the same name as the former. It is also found that the existence of the former rests upon documentary evidence only. The latter lives, on the other hand, in figured remains—what it was called, how in fail the Borjas described or qualified their device or the quartered insignia of which it formed a part, appears to be unrecorded.* This being the case, the striilly evidential part of the enquiry is ended. But while the facts must be allowed to stand for themselves, the history of the house of Borja is such that its discovery in possession of insignia similar, or but nominally identical with the Aragonese Double Crown would, alone, be a matter of peculiar armorial interest. In the writer's judgment, however, the subject transcends the merely curious, for it seems probable that Rodrigo Borja indeed adopted, as a device, insignia which carried old regal associations not at all uncongenial to his ambition, or incompatible with the name he bore. The name Borja sums up a body of policy and tentatives on the part of Alexander VI, and even perhaps of Calixtus III, to elevate their family to the highest rank in Italy. The worthy Calixtus' disinclination to grant to Ferrante, the illegitimate son of Alfonso V of Aragon and the Sicilies, investiture of the kingdom of Sicily cis-Pharum, and the high offices he bestowed upon his eldest nephew, Pedro Luis, are cases in point. In 1456, the latter was created captain-general of the Church, commander of the *Sola and Cervos (p. 61), and Font y Guma (pp. 132-4), alone, call it the Corona Doble, without reference to the device of the Barcelonese house. 32 citadel of Sant' Angelo, and governor of twelve cities and fortresses, including Spoleto, of which he is generally given the ducal title. It is recorded of this Borja that when made prefe6t of Rome in 1457, one of the city conservators observed that he hoped soon to see him king of Rome. To Calixtus was also attributed the design of making Pedro Luis emperor of Constantinople or king of Cyprus, and in 1458 it was current that he would receive the Sicilian investiture.* The Pope died on August 6, 1458, less than two months after Alfonso, without having accorded Ferrante the investiture. But it was reserved for Alexander to scheme such alliances as that proposed (1497-98) for Caesar Borgia with Charlotte the daughter of Frederick of Aragon, the last of the Neapolitan line, which would have secured the mainland kingdom of Sicily; or that which he finally obtained for Lucrezia with the heir-apparent to Ferrara in 1501. At the date of his eledlion to the throne of St Peter, Rodrigo Borja had accomplished much that suggests a scheme of family aggrandisement persistently followed, one that to the nephew of a pope, with talent and repute in affairs, was not beyond the limits of the possible. It is in the career of his descendants upon the Spanish, rather than the Italian side, that the motives underlying the use of the Double Crown may however be seen. To the riches he inherited from his brother, Pedro Luis of Spoleto, Rodrigo Borja, created cardinal in 1456, had disposed of an annual 18,000 ducats revenue from his see of Valencia since 1458, when he also received the important office of papal vice-chancellor and commander-in-chief of the Roman forces in Italy. To these were added the sees of Albano (1476) and Porto (1479), Majorca (1490-92), and Carthagena. The wealth thus accumulated, and a legation to Spain in 1472-3, in the reign of Sixtus IV, during which he dispensed the princes Ferdinand and Isabella (1472), in the name of the pontiff, from the canonical impediment to marriage between cousins within the third degree, seem to have been the immediate * L. Pastor, t Lives of the Popes,' 11, 459,468, etc. f 33 bases upon which he was enabled to establish a branch of his family as a great house in the Peninsula in 1485. In that year the eldest of the young Borjas his children, another Pedro Luis or Pier Luigi, is found among Ferdinand's vassals, fighting the Moors in the kingdom of Granada; and on May 28 the style egrcgius, transmissible in the male line, is granted to him, to Cassar, Juan and another Borja unnamed, in recognition of his prowess, in particular for that he was the first to enter Ronda. On December 3 following, Pedro Luis, described as Ferdinand's chamberlain, bought the duchy and town of Gandia and the castle of Bayren for the sum of 63,121 timbres, 3 solidos, 8 denarios, of the same monarch as curator bonis to his son the Infante John, prince of the Asturias and of Gerona, Before the close of the year, King Ferdinand delivered Pedro Luis a patent under date December 20, 148 5, bestowing upon him (and his successors) the title of the duchy, of which he had recently become possessed, in reward for his assistance in the Granada campaign.·* So far the ambition of Cardinal Borja must have been fulfilled in the acquisition of a great fief in his South Valencian homeland, for the dignity attached to it had been royal since the creation of the dukedom of Gandia by King Martin in favour of his kinsman Alfonso of Aragon, count of Denia and Ribagorza and, in Castile, marquis of Villena, called el duque real (the royal duke), fin 1399. But this was not all. Before the tragedy of the young duke of Gandia's death in 1488, his marriage had been concerted with Maria Enriquez, issue of the same royal blood as King Ferdinand, of whom she was first cousin;{ this lady married in 1493, Pedro *The three documents of 1485 were published verbatim in £ El Archivo ' of Denia, iv, 344, et seq., 1890. f H e was succeeded (1412) by his son Alfonso II (d. 1422), when the dignity merged in the Crown. A second creation by Alfonso V, circa 1426, was in favour of his brother John, king-consort of Navarre, from whom it descended to his son Charles, prince of Viana (d. 1461). JMaria Enriquez was youngest daughter of Enrique Enriquez, lord of Baza, admiral of Sicily, and of Maria de Luna of the lords of Fuentiduena. Her father, who was fourth in male descent from Fadrique, master of Santiago, the brother of Henry II of Castile, 34- Luis' younger brother and heir, Juan, the second Borja duke of Gandia (d. 1497), anc^ from their union sprang the ducal line of the name which ended in 1740. With Pedro Luis' death a point is reached only four years from the election of his father cardinal Rodrigo Borja to the papacy, and from the first appearance we have recorded of his Double Crown device. Within little more than half the span of life allotted to man, Borjas had sat twice in the chair of St Peter, had risen from the Valencian untitled nobility to the highest rank possible to a subject in Spain or Italy, and had allied themselves with the royal blood of the land from which they had sprung. Whatever their racial concept, the Borjas might certainly find material to hand for both ancestry and impresa in the historical associations of the name by them, transplanted, at all events, to Valencia; their ancestry in the old lord of Borja, Pedro Atares, the great-grandson of Ramiro I of Aragon; their device in the insignia of the lady of Borja, Yolande of Aragon, queen of Sicily, de la Qorona Doble. That the idea of a royal origin may have commended itself to a family so eminent as the Borjas, at the commencement of Alexander's pontificate, is possible.* The Double Crown, fraught with associations of Sicily no less than of Aragon, appears to be the embodiment of the theory, in the light of the Borja policy towards Ferrante and his house. In the subsequent history of the Borjas, the claim to royal origin lasted. But the conceit of their device was to perish, if it had not already done so, in the ascetic construction it received at the hands of St Francis Borja, the fourth duke, in the Room of the Crowns icuarto de las Coronas) which he built at Gandia (1544-45), with the inscription: sic CVRRIT E V T COMPREHENDATIS QVIA NON CORONABITVR NISI QVI LEGITIM E CERTAVERIT. f Nor, strangely enough, is the device had for half-sister, Johanna, the second wife (1444-68) of John II of Aragon, and Ferdinand's mother. Th e latter's own descent was from the same Henry II of Castile. ^Fernandez de Bethencourt, iv, 7 (note 1), dates the idea of a royal origin from 1501 upon the occasion of Lucrezia Borgia's Este marriage. For Borja-Aragon coincidences see Appendix V. f S t Paul, I Corinthians, ix, 24; 2 Timothy, 11, 5. Fathers Sola and Cervos, p. 82. 35 included in the 'Empresas morales,' of a son of St Francis, Juan de Borja, count of Mayalde and Ficalho, a work printed, according to the latter's grandson, another Francisco de Borja, at Prague in 1583. * *' Empresas morales, compuestas por el excellentisimo sefior Don Juan de Borja, conde de Mayalde [etc.], Sacalas a luz, el doctor Don Francisco de Borja.' Brussellas, 1680. 4to. See dedication. 36 APPENDIX I (see p. 10) T H E FLYIN G STAG (Cerf Volant) TH E circumstances in which Charles VI of France (1380- 1422) adopted a winged stag as a device are detailed by Froissart (Book II, cap. cv: D'un songe du Roy de France, Charles sixieme: dont il prit un Cerf volant) and by Juvenal des Ursins (cap. vi). Whether the incident related by the chroniclers records the facts or not, there is a payment in Charles' household expenses which, as it occurs early in his reign and is the only one of its kind noted, suggests that the origin of the device is to be found in an experience of the king when hunting in the neighbourhood of Choisy. The stag took refuge in a stable belonging to the hospital or infirmary at that locality, and, after being branded with a fleur-de-lys, was set at liberty by the king's command. 'Deuxieme compte de l'hotel du roy Charles VI pour le terme de Noel 1381. ' Colin le serreuier, pour une fleur de liz de fer achetee de lui pour saigner un cerf, lequel le Roy chassoit en la forest de Compiegne, lequel cerf se vint rendre en une estable en la maladrerie de Choisy, et fut seigne ledit cerf a ladicte fleur de liz, et puis ot congie de retourner en la forest par le commandement du dit seigneur, mardi 17 jour de Septembre. . . . 28 1. 2 s. parisis* [total of that and other items]. It cannot be doubted that among the recipients of the device of the Flying Stag during this reign, there was, beside John I of Aragon (1388), the pope of Avignon, Clement VII (Robert of Geneva), related to the French house, and visited by Charles VI in the latter part of 1389, when the pontiff crowned young Louis II of Anjou, king of Jerusalem and Sicily. A volume of inventories of the papal palace at Avignon, temp. Clement VII (1378-94), shows that a room * ' Comptes de l'hotel des rois de France aux XIVe et XVe siecles, publies . . . par M . L. Douet d'Arcq,' p. 182; 1865. 37 on the third storey of the Holy Angels' Tower (SS. Angelorum or Turris Plumbi) was called the Room of the Stag, probably from the insignia depifted in paintings or tapestry upon its walls. This would appear to have been Clement VII's sleeping apartment. We find: 4 in camera Cervi turris Plumbi unus lectus in quo dormit dominus noster papa.'* In an inventory of the Grande Ecurie of 142 1-2 (February 7) there is an error which, taken with other entries, suggests that towards the end of Charles VI's reign his device had fallen into desuetude: ' 172. Item une celle de parement couvert de veluyau vermeil, a cerfs volans de la devise du roy d'Angleterre, et n'ya point de harnois.' f Here the compiler would appear to have confused one of Henry V's devices, a chained antelope,{ with the Flying Stag which occurs without attributions in other items of the foregoing list: 4 194. Item un estandart de satin rouge, blanc et noir, et un cerf volant qui a une couronne ou col, de broderie le tout seme de genestis. '195. Item une couverture entiere de veluau vermeil, a un cerf volant semee de chappellez de genestes.' The best known representations of the Flying Stag date from the reign of Charles VII, when they are depicted as supporters to the royal arms in Jean Foucquet's miniature of the Lit de justice held at Vendome in 1458, at which John, duke of Alen^on, was tried for *F. Ehrle, S J . ' De historia palatii Romanorum Pontificum Avenionensis,' pp. 89, 124, 125. 1890. t L . Douet d'Arcq, 'Choixde pieces inedites relatives au regne de Charles VI., 11, 396. J Jewels of Richard II's device (a white hart lodged) are found in an inventory of Philip III, Duke of Burgundy, in 1435. One is described " 1 fermail d'or a la devise du Roy Richart, en la fa^on d'un cerf, garni d'un ruby, in saphirs, 1 balay, m i grosses perles, et es cornes dudit cerf xiin perles, et ou col pendant une chesne d'or." 4 Inventaire sommaire des Archives departementales. Par J. Finot. Nord. Lille,' vni, 162. 1895. 3« treason (fig. 8).* The white stags gorged with crowns or, and the arms, are shown upon hangings striped vertically gules, argent and vert. By the middle of the fifteenth century the Flying Stag had become part of the heraldic furniture of the house of Valois. We have

seen the eagle figuring at the coronation banquet of Martin of Aragon at Saragossa in 1399 (p. 16). The Flying Stag discharged a very similar function upon the evening of Louis XFs entry into Paris, August 31, 1461: 4 . . . en la fin du soper furent apportez a la table du Roy les entremetz qui s'ensievent, et furent ainsi presentes: au Roy, ung cerf *This miniature is the frontispiece to Laurent de Premierfait's version, ' Des Cas des nobles hommes et femmes,' of Boccaccio's' De casibus.' For a full size reproduction see Count P. Durrieu,' Le Boccace de Munich,' pi. I; also his ' Les antiquites juda'iques et le peintre Jean Foucquet,' pi. xxn, pp. 99-101; 1907. 39 volant; au due d'Orleans, ung chesne; au due de Bourgoigne ung lyon; au due de Bourbon, ung pavon; au conte de Charoilois, ung pellican; au conte d'Eu, ung fenis; au conte d'Estampes, ung licorne; au conte de Vendosme, ung senglier; et au due de Cleves, ung tigre. Tous les quelz entremetz estoient armoies des armes des seigneurs dessusdifts.' * *' Societe de l'histoire de Paris, Memoires,' xxm , 166. 40

APPENDIX II (seep. 14) COUCY'S CROW N AN D TH E CAMAI L OF ORLEAN S TH A T the badge of Enguerrand VII de Coucy's order was an Inverted Crown would be of importance for the theory which discerns in the Double Crown of Aragon the prototype of the Borja device. But although certain writers term Coucy's a Couronne renversee, there appears to be no evidence for this qualification. Du Plessis says: " L e premier Sceau d'Enguerrand ou je trouve des Couronnes est de l'an 1379. . . . Les Princes du Sang, du moins ceux qui ont possede dans la suite la Terre de Coucy, n'ont pas cru qu'il fut au dessous d'eux d'en etre les chefs; & nous avons un Sceau de Charles, Due d'Orleans, neveu du Roy Charles VI, ou ce prince est represente a cheval, arme de toutes pieces & portant sous le bras droit l'Ordre d'Enguerrand. Au reste la Couronne est renversee dans le Sceau du Due d'Orleans, comme dans ceux de tous les Chevaliers de cet Ordre, quejai vus; & par cette raison je ne sai si l'lnstituteur n'aurait pas eu en vue la perte qu'il avoit faite de la Couronne d'Autriche."* The same writer illustrates three seals as bearing the insignia of the order of the Crown: (I) The equestrian seal he mentions of the duke of Orleans with an imperfect legend; (II) another bearing two shields, the principal, France ancient quartering a dolphin, the other a lion rampant; (III) an escucheon of a lion rampant. Upon each are depicted one or more inverted crowns of the type sometimes known as "antique," or "eastern," having five or six points rising from the circlet. Upon the Orleans seal the crown has six points. The only other insignia which the artist has represented in these very poor and inaccurate engravings are what he apparently considered to be wheat-ears (?) in bunches, which, accompanied by *Dom Toussaint du Plessis, ' Histoire de la ville et des seigneurs de Coucy,' p. 89; 1728. g 41 a motto-scroll in seals I and II, are powdered over the field of the seals. We propose to show (a) that Enguerrand's device was not a Crown inverted; (b) that the seals engraved in Du Plessis' work bear the insignia of the order of the house of Orleans. (a) It is clear from the foregoing that although DuPlessis states that he found crowns upon Enguerrand's seals of the year 1379, he does not mention that they were inverted; nor does he illustrate them, possibly for the reason that it would have been impossible to reconcile the insignia they present with those upon the three other seals we have described. The idea underlying the "Inverted" Crown in its application to Enguerrand de Coucy is based upon the erroneous supposition that that magnate attempted ineffectually to recover the Austrian duchy itself in his expedition of 1375-76. This is Froissart's version, adopted by Du Plessis (1728), and corrected by Zurlinden,* who did not, however, deal with the question of the device, Toussaint du Plessis' account of which still holds the ground. Against the latter must be cited the foundation deed of the Celestine house at Soissons in which the order is mentioned not at all casually by its founder as "Nostre Ordre de la Couronne." The deed recites that, moved by devotion, " & pour avoir prieres perpetuelles pour nous, nos devanciers & successeurs; de notre tres chere & amee Compaigne Isabel de Lorraine, apresent nostre femme; pour tous les chevaliers & dames, les ecuyers et Damoiselles qui ont ete, sont & seront de nostre Ordre de la Couronne, .. . a Paris le vingt sixieme jour d'Avril, l'an de grace mil trois cens quatre vingt & dix."f Add. Charter 1 3,759 at the British Museum, given by Enguerrand at Asti on January 2, 1 395, a score of years after the German expedition, has affixed a seal which, though imperfect, J leaves no doubt *In the 4 Histoire de l'Academie des Inscriptions,' xxv, and the abridgement, vol. XII. Cf. the footnote in Gibbon,' Decline and Fall,' cap. LXIV. +Du Plessis, p. 158. iThe seal is of red wax, and being a horizontal section much of the inscription is 4 2 as to the upright position of Coucy's device. The shield of arms bears Coucy quartering the fesse of Austria, the field is trellised with palm branches, with a crown in each compartment. Excepting its extreme simplicity the crown has nothing noteworthy about it; it is a circlet having one central, and at either extremity a half, fleur de lys. (b) The device which gave its name to the collar of the dukes of Orleans' family order was the camail, that portion of the coat of mail which, laced to the bascinet, was, from 1360 until the early fifteenth century, the principal defensive covering of the neck. The date of the order's foundation is given as 1394, and it is known variously as the camail or porcepic. Among the effects of the famous Jacques Cceur, in 1410 , was: " Ung camail d'argent de l'ordre de Monseigneur d'Orleans pesant sept onces, trois gros."* The double denomination is explained by an order in the accounts of Charles of Valois, duke of Orleans, under date October 10, 1415 , for the payment to his goldsmith Aubertin de Boillefeve, on account of the insignia he had made: "Ung colier de camail en argent a un pore espy d'or," from which it would appear that the collar was in the form of a camail, and the jewel a porcupine.f It is a curious fact that the camail, which is represented upon seals of the Valois dukes of Orleans, has been consistently misdescribed by modern sigillographers. Fig. 9 reproduces a seal of the second duke, Charles, from the facsimiles of the 'Tresor de Numismatique et de Glyptique,' where the camail device, plainly visible in the field beneath the duke's extended sword-arm, is described as a crown, j An impression from this seal was the original of the inaccurate engraving given by Toussaint du Plessis; this is seen by what can be read of the inscription, and by the general composition missing. There remains, on the right . . . |Vom]itis su[^]sonensis, and on the left . . . (V«g«]errandi de . . . * L. de Laborde, ' Glossaire,' p. 192. t j . Roman, ' Inventaires et documents relatifs aux joyaux et tapisseries des princes d'Orleans-Valois,' 1389-1481, p. 256, 1894. This camail was given to a certain 'Eusson,' presumably Azzo, stated to be a relative of the Marquis of Ferrara. X( Sceaux des grands feudataires,' pi. xi, No. 8, p. 11 ; 1836. 43 and arrangement; but the drawing of the camail and the rendering of the detail are a gross travesty in the earlier work. Douet d'Arcq described the camail as "une enceinte fortifiee,"* and Birch, as tca semicircular redoubt, lunette, or enceinte, embattled and fortified."+ The impressions in question are of the year 1444, and the inscription runs: Sigillu karoli aurelianen « valesii ducis as ten bles bellimot comitis ac aiii couciaci sc. Seal of Charles, duke of Orleans and Valois, count of Asti, Blois and Beaumont, and lord of Coucy, etc., which latter lordship, his father Louis of Orleans assumed by right of purchase (1400) from Marie (d. 1405), the daughter of Enguerrand VII and his first wife, Isabel of England.\ The camail is likewise figured upon a seal of Louis II, duke of Orleans, son of duke Charles (d. 1466) and grandson of Louis I of Oleans (d. 1407) and Valentina Visconti, daughter of Giovanni Galeazzo, first duke of Milan. The seal in question (fig. 10) is of a date unknown to the writer, but between 1466 and 1498, when the duke succeeded to the crown of France as Louis XII. It is inscribed "contra . sigillum . ludouici . ducis . aur e lian . medio I an . et . valesie ": counter-seal of Louis, Duke of Orleans, Milan and Valois. The arms are a quarterly shield of Orleans and Visconti, with porcupine supporters, the Visconti biscia surmounted by the double fleur-de-lys, for crest, and beneath the shield a camail.% The latter has the six points seen at the base of the insignia in the other seal, reduced to five, but so exaggerated that the general likeness to a reversed crown is even more striking than in the former instance. The relation of * 'Archives de l'Empire. Collection de Sceaux,' 1, no. 944, 1863. f W . de G . Birch, ' Catalogue of seals in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum,' vol. v, 19594, p. 583. The eighteen impressions from this seal are appended to documents of 1436-44. JFo r the lawsuit brought by her half-sister Isabel against Marie and the duke of Orleans, see H. Lacaille, ' La vente de la baronnie de Coucy (1400),' Bibliotheque de L'Ecole des Chartes, LV, 573 ; 1894. §The reproduction is taken from A. Champollion-Figeac's monograph upon the first two Orleans dukes of this line,' Louis et Charles dues d'Orleans,' pi. v, No. 14, p. 73 ; 1844. This seal does not appear in the Archives Nationales catalogue. Th e title duke of Milan was assumed in his style by the second Louis, afterwards Louis xn. 44- shield and camail in this seal may be compared with that revealed by an entry in the ducal accounts of May 2, 1468, when Pierre Sauvage, silversmith, received 20 liv. 9 sols. 2d., "pour un esmail d'argent de nos armes, environne d'un camail de notre ordonnance, et autour d'icellui esmail, a une branche d'ortie doree et le champ d'icellui esmail semblablement dore."* In the writer's opinion, sufficient data have been adduced to prove that the device figured as an inverted crown in the field of Charles, duke of Orleans' seal, by Dom Toussaint du Plessis, is in reality the camail of that prince's family order. And he does not propose to elucidate the "inverted crowns" depidted upon the other two seals illustrated in the same work and previously mentioned: that of a dauphin, perhaps, and of an individual who bore for arms a rampant lion. There can be very little doubt that these also exemplify persons who had received the ca?nail from a duke of Orleans,f the representation of which upon their seals has been similarly distorted to suit the inversion theory. *J. Roman, p. 268. t j . Roman, p. 256, mentions the existence, in the Bibliotheque Nationale, of a series of authorizations for the delivery of the camail to members of the ducal suite, the king, the duke of Berry, etc. Add. Ch. 2627-9, British Museum, relate to the purchase by duke Charles from Philipot d'Hedouville of a camail for Louis de Cambort, his "panetier." 45 APPENDIX III (seep. 18) SOME OBJECTS BEARIN G TH E ARM S OF MARTI N OF ARAGO N ^T^H E ivory casket owned by the Royal Academy of History, Madrid, exhibited at the exhibition of 1892, sala χ (2a J L serie), no. 749 (and 'La s Joyas,' pis. LI, LII), with passages from the Koran carved in Cufic character, and painted arabesque-foliage in gold, bears also twelve shields of Aragon, and Aragon-Sicily impaled. Given by Martin to the Val de Cristo Charterhouse at Segorbe (Valencia) which was commenced in 1385, the casket itself is officially attributed to the twelfth century, the painted decoration to the fourteenth century. Armorial criticism suggests that the shields exemplify Martin's father, Peter IV, and his third consort, Leonora of Sicily (d. 1375), and that, had the painted ornament, of which the arms form part, been executed for Martin, the insignia of his Luna wife would probably have been depicted—the Val de Cristo having been founded in the patrimonial lands of the queen, then duchess of Montblanch; (2) the alreadymentioned tapestry with the arms of Martin and Maria de Luna, published by the writer ('Burlington Mag.,'vii, 141; 1905), which, as it depicts the Carthusian saint Hugh of Grenoble, would seem to have been destined likewise for the Segorbe charterhouse; (3) a Cistercian breviary containing the obituaries of Peter IV and John I of Aragon, probably written and illuminated at Poblet for Martin the elder, who in 1397 built a palace within the monastery. This MS. has the shield of Aragon-Barcelona ensigned by the royal crown, within a band inscribed AS AFA R FASSES ; 'Catalogue des livres composant la bibliotheque de feu M. le baron James de Rothschild,' iii, No. 2529, p. 326; 1893. A great seal of Martin of Aragon has been published by J. Menendez Pidal, ' Revista de Archivos,' 3 Series, I, 246, 309; 1897. 46 APPENDIX IV (see p. 20) SOME OTHE R ROYA L ARAGONES E DEVICES TH E records show that, contemporary to the Eagle and the Double Crown, there flourished, under Martin the elder, another royal device, the correa, correja or correge. Its form is unknown, but from the usual signification of the word ( = belt, band or strap), it is probable that the insignia was a band or narrow scarf passing over one or both shoulders. Some light upon the bearing of such devices is afforded by the exemption from the provisions of the sumptuary edi0ts in force at Valencia in September, 1391, granted by Martin to two noble ladies, Violante Soler and Violante Siscar: when actually wearing the device, their costume might include pearls, precious stones, cloth of gold, silk and any other adornments of whatsoever value.* Zurita recounts that a kinsman of the monarch, James of Aragon, count of Prades, was also presented with the insignia.f It was sent to him in Sicily upon the death of Ferrer de Abella; thus it would appear that the recipients of the insignia being limited in number, they formed an order. Ferdinand of Castile, elected to the throne of Aragon at Caspe in 1412 , introduced his order of the Jar of Lilies, and the Griffin (Jarra y Grifo), the collar of which was formed of jars of lilies emblematic of his devotion to the Blessed Virgin, with a griffin for jewel. The insignia can be seen in the sepulchral effigy of Gomez ManriqueJ (d. 1411), oAdelantado of Castile. Under Alfonso V, who used griffins for supporters, this order continued to flourish. His queen is described in a contemporary romance as clad in white, with a girdle of gold, a collar of J arras round her neck, and a pen- *Bofarull γ Mascaro vi, 474. f Anales,' 1610 ed.. 11, 434 verso. JCarderera y Solano, 'Iconografia espafiola,' r, pi. 43. The Estola (stole) also added to the designation of the order, can be seen over Manrique's shoulder, and appears so far to have been similar to the Banda of Castile, and perhaps to the Correa. 47 dant griffin.* At Naples in 1454, Alfonso gave 'Rogerio' Scanderbeg, knight of the order, permission to confer the insignia of the same four times.t Philip III, duke of Burgundy, received the insignia in 1446; and Frederick III of Germany, who, doubtless with some such faculty as that cited in the case of Scanderbeg, conferred the Jarras and Grifo upon Maximilian. The latter it was knighted Florian Waldauff, whose arms are accompanied by the insignia in a woodcut attributed to Diirer, published in 1502.} Sir Conrad Griinenberg, of Constance, also had the jewel.§ *Cancionero of Lope de Stufiiga; quoted by J. Menendez Pidal, ' Revista de Archivos,' 3 Series 1, 31 3 (note 2). fBofarull y Mascaro, VII, 22. NoRuggiero being found in the family tree, afiud Hopf (p. 533), apparently Giorgio Castriota (1403-68), prince of Albania, a lord in Naples, and the great Iskander Beg is intended. J'Da s Puch der himlischen Offenbarung der heiligen wittiben Birgitte,' fol. iii verso. Niirnberg, 1502 (Anton Koberger). Cf. C. Dodgson's Catalogue of early German and Flemish woodcuts in the British Museum, 1, 277, 1903. Wapaenpuch (1483),' 1840-45 ed. 48 APPENDIX V (see p. 35) BORJA AN D ARAGO N H E story of the Aragonese kings and of the Borjas includes points of contact which shed a remarkable light upon the policy of the popes of that house and the subject of the Double 1. Borja is known as a royal fief from the twelfth century; the bearers of the name claim royal descent in the early sixteenth century, if not earlier. 2. Circa 1400-43, Borja the domain of Yolande of Aragon, de la Corona Doble. 3. 145 8, Calixtus III dies refusing investiture of Sicily cis-Pharum to Ferrante of Aragon. 4. 1478, Isabel del Balzo (de Baux), of the princes of Altamura, marries Frederic of Aragon, the last ruler of Sicily c.-P. An 'Isabel de Baux' figures in the Borja tree, as wife of a mythical ancestor of the Jativa Borjas, Fortun Arnaldo de Borja. 1485. The Borjas obtain the royal dukedom of Gandia. 1494. Jofre de Borja contracted to Sancha of Aragon, illeg. dau. of Alfonso, duke of Calabria. 1496. Juan de Borja, second duke of Gandia, created captain and gonfalonier of the Holy Roman Church, a dignity first conferred by Innocent III upon James II of Aragon. 1497-8. Caesar Borgia to be married to Carlotta d'Aragona, heiress-apparent to King Frederic; he is to have the principality of Taranto. The project abandoned. 1498. Lucrezia Borgia marries Alfonso of Aragon, duke of Bisceglie, prince of Salerno. The Borja armorial colours or and gules were those of the house of Aragon-Barcelona; they have been displayed upon the banner of the Roman Church since the pontificate of Innocent III. Crown. h 49 APPENDI X VI. (see pp. 10 - n ; and over) T H E EAGL E I N ARAGONES E SICIL Y F URTHER instances of the employment of an Eagle as a device by the first Aragonese house in Sicily have been noted by the writer as follows: The eagle is carved upon the troussequin of a saddle (fig. 11) in ivory, preserved in the Louvre Museum. It is found in the centre of the composition, and grasps in its claws a hare ; above is a crown from which rise emblazoned banners of Barcelona-Aragon and Sicily trans-Pharum. The shield of the mounted figure upon the right indicates its bearer as a Sicilian monarch of the Aragonese branch, and there is no reason to doubt that it represents Frederic n. (1291- 1337), first of the line to quarter the arms of his house saltirewise with the imperial eagle. To the identity of the opposite knight, no clue is vouchsafed other than his location upon the same side as the banner of Aragon. It may therefore represent a contemporary Aragonese sovereign, or the progenitor of the collateral lines of Aragon and Sicily, Peter 111. who married Constance the daughter of Manfred. This work is apparently Sicilian or South Italian of the early xiv. century, and is here reproduced from the catalogue of the Spitzer collection (Ivories, pi. xvi; pp. 26 and 42). In the Nederlandsch Museum, Amsterdam, is a copper saucer or bowl of Siculo-Moresque origin with inscriptions in Latin and Arabic (the latter containing royal epithetd) and four almond-shaped shields: Sicily impaling Suabia with the fesse of Austria, and an eagle for Tyrol. These are the arms of Elizabeth of HapsburgCarinthia, consort of Peter 11. of Sicily (1337-42) ; and they are accompanied by the eagle as a device. The illustration (fig. 12) is taken from an article by J. Kalfin the Bulletin of the Nederlandsch Oudheidkundige Bond, 111, 300 (1901-02), in which, however, an individual identification of the insignia is not attempted. The reverse of a gold bull of Frederick 111. of Sicily (1355-77), father of the heiress Mary, figured by L. Cadier (see supra, p. 10), is likewise reproduced (fig. 13) for comparison with the equestrian figure of Frederick 11. upon the saddle. It closes a series of armorial remains of the Sicilian house which is of significance for the derivation of the device mentioned in the Aragonese documents of 1 387-88.

The Aragonese Double Crown & the Borja
or Borgia Device

with Notes upon the Bearing of Such Insignia in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries

Introductory

I. The house of Barcelona in Aragon and Sicily. The Eagle. The Corona Doble or Double Crown

II. The house of Borja (Borgia) and its Double Crown

III. Calixtus III, Alexander VI and the dukes of Gandia

I. The French Cerf Volant or Flying Stag

II. Coucy's Crown and the Camail of Orleans

III. Some objects bearing the arms of Martin of Aragon

IV. Some other royal Aragonese devices

V. Borja and Aragon

Index

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