Lucrezia Borgia—younger sister of the famous (or infamous) Cesare Borgia—was supposedly one
of the most beautiful women of her time. She was first married in
1493, when she was only thirteen years old, to Giovanni Sforza. This
marriage was annulled (cancelled) in 1497. Next, only a year later,
she married Alfonso, Duke of Bisceglie, whom Cesare is
thought to have killed.
Lucrezia has been shrouded in scandals. One story tells us about
an incestuous family of the Borgias; another suggests that Lucrezia attended orgies in the Vatican. After a brief sojourn, Lucrezia
reappeared in 1501 when she was seen with a small child.
This young boy was first claimed as the son of Cesare and later as
Pope Alexandre’s son.
Her third marriage was to Alfonso d’Este. Lucrezia
went to the court of Ferrara with her husband. All of her marriages
had been arranged for political reasons. She was only freed from
being used as a political pawn when her father died. She lived
quietly during the last few years of her life and became very
religious. She was thirty nine when she died.
Lucrezia Borgia has been for years considered a hussy or a jade, if not a pervert, of the Italian Renaissance courts. However, without two colorful, if not terrible, relatives—her father, Pope Alexander VI, and her older brother Cesare, she might have led a rather ordinary life of a
typical Renaissance lady.
Indeed, her life was used as a pawn by both—especially for her brother Cesare to advance his worldly position and realize his ambitions. When you want to learn the person of Lucrezia, therefore, you cannot ignore these two unique people.
A hint of the power, charm, and ruthlessness of Cesare Borgia can be
seen in the portrait of a handsome man, unsmiling, dark, menacing, eyes fixed on the distance. You can sense the validity of the
comment by Baluze (a contemporary observer): “The Pope loves his son and yet has great fear of him.”
Cesare was the oldest son born to Alexander and his long-time mistress—Vannozza de Catanei (Hachette)—during the height of Alexander’s tenure as Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia.
Thus, Cesare was the first child of the second family begun by Rodrigo. His
first set of known illegitimate children are from one or more unknown women, and
began with Pedro Luis (1462 - 1488), the first Duke of Gandia, elevated to that
duchy in Spain by his father’s manipulation.
In 1480, Pope Sixtus IV produced a papal bull that
dispensed with Cesare having to prove that he was of legitimate birth,
allowing him to receive “benefices”—income from various offices to which
Sixtus appointed him.
At the age of seven, Cesare was given the title of
prebend of the cathedral chapter of Valencia, then shortly thereafter
apostolic protonotary, or dignitary of the papal chancellery. Both of
these offices carried benefices.
By the age of nine,
Cesare was also the rector of Gandia, provost of Albar and Jativa, and
finally the treasurer of Cartagena. These appointments, of course, were
granted by the influence of his father, Rodrigo, who ensured that
those ecclesiastical properties in Valencia remained in
the control of the Borgia family. Thus, Rodrigo decided that Cesare
would have an ecclesiastical career, strengthening the Borgia influence in
the Church.
Cesare had a younger brother, Vannozza’s second child, Giovanni, and
when the stepbrother, Pedro Luis, the first Duke of Gandia died, Rodrigo made
Giovanni the second Duke of Gandia. However, his fate was doomed.
Many historians believed that Giovanni may have been one of the first of Cesare’s victims (described below).
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Pope Alexander VI
(Rodrigo Borgia) |
Cesare was brought up in Rome until he was twelve, educated by tutors. Rodrigo then sent his son to Perugia, in the care of a Valencian tutor who later became a cardinal, a
reward for his tutorial services. Cesare studied law and the humanities at the
university, then went to the University of Pisa to study theology. By the end of
these studies, his father, now Pope Alexander VI, made him a cardinal.
In 1493, after attending a family dinner with his mother, Vannozza, and his older brother, the second Duke of
Gandia—Giovanni—disappeared from this world. He had
ridden off into the dusk with his brother, friends and servants.
Giovanni took his leave of them, and rode off toward the papal palace accompanied by a groom and
an unknown man in a festive mask.
Giovanni was never seen alive again. The following
evening, while searching for Giovanni, searchers came upon a witness who had
seen two men throw a body into the Tiber. The river was dragged by some three
hundred searchers, and, after working all night, the body was found at noon on
the next day. He was still dressed in his finery, still had a purse of thirty
ducats, but his throat had been slit and his body was hacked with other vicious
wounds.
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Vannozza de Catanei (Hachette)
Rodrigo Borgia’s long-time mistress
|
When he heard of the death of his favorite son, Alexander went mad with grief,
declaring that he had resolved to “amend our life and reform the Church. We
renounce all nepotism. We will begin the reform with ourselves and so proceed
through all levels of the Church till the whole work is accomplished”.
The
temporarily sincere Alexander, however, could not live up his pronouncement, and soon
slipped into his old ways—manipulation and pleasure. The murderer was never discovered, but about a year after Giovanni’s death,
when Cesare had thrown off the robes of a cardinal for secular power, the rumor
spread that Cesare had killed his brother. The motive was supposed to have been
Cesare’s jealousy of his brother’s secular success, and his desire to acquire
Giovanni’s titles and honors for himself.
Some historians argued, however, that there was little to be
gained by Cesare by killing his brother, since Giovanni had a son, also named
Giovanni, who immediately became the third Duke of Gandia. The motive could have
been for revenge by a cuckolded husband. Giovanni might have incited the hatred of the murderer, whose wife had submitted herself to the duke, whose excessive sexual appetite is consistent with the members of the Borgia family.
Cesare might not have been the murderer, but the later behavior of Cesare made it
difficult for the Romans to believe that he had not been involved.
In 1498, when Cesare was still a cardinal, Alexander attempted to
arrange a marriage between Cesare and Carlotta, the daughter of the King of
Naples. Such a union would bring the wealthy city of Tarento with her as a
dowry. Much to his delight, Cesare renounced his holy orders, and thus sped up the negotiations.
However, the King of
Naples had other ambitions for his daughter, and declined the pope’s offer.
Alexander, not to be thwarted, formed an alliance with the new king of France,
Louis XII, who claimed both the kingdoms of Milan and Naples, having inherited
them from his predecessor.
In return for annulling the king’s marriage, Louis XII would provide Cesare with a princess, who turned out Charlotte
d’Albert, daughter of Duke of Guyenne. The dowry was large, the marriage
duly solemnized, and, according to a letter written by Cesare to his father,
consummated eight times on their wedding night.
Cesare, now the ally of the French king, became a leading general of Louis
XII, winning important victories in the Romagna, a city state adjacent to the
papal states. He entered Rome in triumph in February 1500, dragging behind him, Caterina Sforza, the duchess of Forlì and Imola he had conquered.
She was imprisoned, and would have died in chains had not the French interceded for her release.
The jubilee year of 1500 began the period of greatest decadence for Alexander
and Cesare. Cesare amused the throngs of Romans by killing five bulls in St. Peter’s Square. The court scribe recorded
several scenes of debauchery during these early months of 1500. Not only was
there the callous shooting of unarmed criminals by Cesare, but
also a lascivious scene in which Alexander, Cesare, and Lucrezia watched with amusement as fifty
Roman harlots coupled with fifty palace servants, competing for prizes for “best
performance” awarded by Alexander.
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