butw0rldenough
One scandal was meat for the chroniclers. It happened on February 14, 1501, When Dorotea, the wife of Giovanni Battista Caracciolo, the Venetian captain of infantry, was abducted between Porto Cesenatico and Cervia. Since the incident took place on Cesare’s territory, fingers were pointed accusingly at him; And Yves d’Alegre and the french ambassador, the baron of Trans, together with the Venetian envoy Manenti called on Cesare to protest the incident in the King’s name. All they got by way of reply was a prompt and clear denial of responsability. Cesare did mention a Spaniard, Captain Diego Ramirez, who had been in his service and was now serving the duke of Urbino. He knew that Dorotea was Ramirez’s mistress and he said he himself had tried in vain to discover the man’s whereabouts.
As it happened, Il Valentino was indeed the guilty one. This came to light later, in December 1502, when Dorotea reappeared, leaving Imola for Cesena together with Cesare. […]Dorotea’s long detention
—she was not returned to her husband until a year later in Rome, on Pope Julius’s orders—
seems to indicate that she was not exactly an unwilling victim.
— Ivan Cloulas, The Borgias.
“The Venetian Signory had occasion to make formal complaint of a case of abduction, of which the wife of one of their officers was the victim. The matter was strangely exaggerated, though Cesare had difficuty in proving that he was not personally responsible. Nor when it was all over, did the lady appear to be specially aggrieved at what had occured. The unusal excitement which the romantic story aroused in Venice, shows that popular opinion had become very sensitive in respect of the progress of the Duke on the Venetian border.
— William H. Woodward, Cesare Borgia: A Biography.
[…]Sanuto does not mention the matter again until December 1503, nearly three years later, when we gather that, under pressure of constant letters from the husband, the Venetian ambassador at the Vatican makes so vigorous a stir that the lady is at last delivered up, and goes for the time being into a convent. But we are not told where or how she is found, nor where the convent in which she seeks shelter. That is Sanuto’s first important omission. And now an odd light is thrown suddenly upon the whole affair, and it begins to look as if the lady had been no unwilling victim of an abduction, but, rather, a party to an elopement. She displays a positive reluctance to return to her husband and she implores the Senate to obtain from Caracciolo some security for her, or else to grant her permission to withdraw permanently to a convent.
The last mention of the subject in Sanuto relates to her restoration to her husband. He tell us that Caracciolo received her with great joy; but he is silent on the score of the lady’s emotions on that occasion.
— Rafael Sabatini, The Life of Cesare Borgia.