Part 1 (1/2)

Lucrezia Borgia.

Life, Love and Death in Renaissance Italy.

by SARAH BRADFORD.

Acknowledgements

My husband, William Bangor, has been my co-author in the sense that only someone with his knowledge of late fifteenth-and early sixteenth-century Italy could have helped me transcribe the thousands of pages of ma.n.u.script material which have formed the basis for this book. Without his help, it would have taken far longer to complete. The admiration which he developed for Lucrezia in the course of his work has been a sustaining inspiration.

So many people with great knowledge of this subject have been generous with their help. I would like to distinguish for particular grat.i.tude Raffaele Tamalio, the the expert on the archives at Mantua and the Gonzaga family, and his wife Lynn. In Ferrara, Dott. Giuseppe Muscardini, Bibliotecario presso i Musei Civici di Arte Antica di Ferrara, went out of his way to guide us round the city and archives and to provide me with every possible information and help. expert on the archives at Mantua and the Gonzaga family, and his wife Lynn. In Ferrara, Dott. Giuseppe Muscardini, Bibliotecario presso i Musei Civici di Arte Antica di Ferrara, went out of his way to guide us round the city and archives and to provide me with every possible information and help.

I am also grateful to the following: Philip Attwood, Dr Silke Ackermann; the Reverend Father Miquel Batllori, S.J., Dott. Maria Barbara Bertini, Director of the Archivio di Stato di Milano, Dott. Mario Bertoni, Archivist of the Archivio di Stato di Modena, Harriet Bridgeman, Dr R. J. Bridgeman, Jose Maria Burrieza, departmental head of References at the Archivio General de Simancas; Dr Ann G. Carmichael, Edward Chaney, Dr Cecil H. Clough, Dr Barrie Cook, Margaret Critchley; Dott. Alessandra Farinelli, Responsabile Fondi Antichi, Biblioteca Comunale Ariostea di Ferrara; Dott. Daniela Ferrari, Director of the Archivio di Stato di Mantova, Simonetta Fraquelli, Antonia Fraser; Nicole Garnier, conservateur, the Musee Conde at Chantilly; Alberto Govi, Professor Guido Guerzoni; Mary Hollingsworth, Dr Charles Hope; Professor Douglas Johnson; Professor Robert J. Knecht; Dr Jilly Kray, Librarian of the Warburg Inst.i.tute; Dott. Laura Laureati; Sarah Lawson; Carmelo Lison; Alvaro Maccioni; Dr Michael Mallett; Philip Mansel; Professor Joan Francesc Mira; Kenneth Montgomery; Dr Ornella Moscucci; Professor Reinhold Mueller; Dott. Andrea Nascimbeni of the Fondazione Ca.s.sa di Risparmio di Ferrara; Jette Nielsen and Vivian Nutton of the Wellcome Library; the Reverendissimo Padre Prefetto Sergio Pagano of the Archivio Segreto Vaticano; Lucia Panini; Dr Stephen Parkin, Curator Italian Printed Books 15011850 at the British Library; Milo Parmoor; Dott. Paola Pelliccia of the Biblioteca Comunale in Subiaco; Guy Penman of the London Library, Antonio Pettini; Luciana Pignatelli; Dr Dennis Rhodes; Padre Nazzareno Romagnollo; the late Professor Nicolai Rubinstein; Maude Sallansonet, archivist, the Musee Conde at Chantilly; Diana Scarisbrick; Jane and Tony Scheuregger of the Minstrels Gallery; Eva Soos, photoservices, the Pierpont Morgan Library; Dott. Angelo Spaggiari, Director of the Archivio di Stato di Modena; Dr David Starkey; Julien Stock; Simon Stock; Baron Berti von Stohrer; Professor Roy Strong; Hugh Thomas; Priscilla Thomas; Peter Thornton; Dr Dora Thornton; Albert Torra, Vic-Director, Archivio de la Corona de Aragon; Dott. Francesca Trebbi of the Biblioteca dei Musei Civici in Pesaro; Dr Thomas Tuohy; Anna Uguccioni of the Prefettura in the Palazzo Ducale in Pesaro; Dott. Gianna Vancini; Professor Laurent Vissiere; Maureen Waller; John Wells, a.s.sistant Under Librarian, Department of Ma.n.u.scripts and University Archives, University Library, Cambridge; Roger S. Wieck, Curator, Medieval and Renaissance Ma.n.u.scripts, the Pierpont Morgan Library.

On the publis.h.i.+ng side grateful thanks are due to the following for their contribution: Andrea Cane of Mondadori; Helen Fraser, Juliet Annan and Carly Cook of Viking, London; Lynda Marshall, picture research; Antonia Till for her kindness in reading the type-script; Richard Collins for his skilful editing; Douglas Matthews for his compiling of the index; Camilla Eadie, for all her help and technical expertise; Wendy Wolf and Clifford J. Corcoran, Viking, New York; Gillon Aitken, Sally Riley and Ayesha Karim Khan of Gillon Aitken a.s.sociates. Finally, I would like to thank Keith Taylor, Elisabeth Merriman and Sarah Day for their invaluable help in the production of this book.

Foreword.

Lucrezia Borgia's name has been a byword for evil for five hundred years, her life distorted by generations of historians and seen through the prism of the crimes of her family, themselves magnified by hostile chroniclers of the time. Lucrezia herself has been charged with murder by poisoning and incest with her father, Pope Alexander VI, and her brother, Cesare Borgia. As an archetypal villainess she has featured in works by Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas, an opera by Donizetti and a film by Abel Gance to name but a few. Byron was so fascinated by her reputation that, after viewing her love letters in Milan, he stole a strand from the lock of her blonde hair which accompanied them.

A cautious rehabilitation of her reputation began in the nineteenth century, but the general conclusion was that, if she were not a murderer and a wh.o.r.e, she was no more than an empty-headed blonde, helpless victim of the males in her family. The truth is that in a world where the dice were heavily loaded in favour of men, Lucrezia operated within the circ.u.mstances of her time to forge her own destiny. Born the illegitimate daughter of one of the most notorious of Renaissance popes, Alexander VI, she was married at the age of thirteen to a man she had never met, then divorced from him at the behest of her father and brother and remarried to a second husband who was murdered on the orders of her brother when she was just twenty. It was then that she took her fate into her own hands and was actively involved in the promotion of her third marriage, to Alfonso d'Este, the future Duke of Ferrara, whom she knew to be violently opposed to the idea of her as his wife. As d.u.c.h.ess of Ferrara, Lucrezia came into her own, showing a powerful intelligence and skill in managing her life. Winning over her hostile in-laws with the notable exception of the formidable Isabella whose husband she took as a lover she ruled over a magnificent court with herself as the focus of a circle of poets and intellectuals. In times of war and plague, she administered justice and oversaw the defence of Ferrara. As she had survived the violence of the papal court of the Borgias she survived the inbred violence of the Este family; only childbirth, the curse of the age for women, ultimately defeated her.

More recent historians have imposed their own patterns on Lucrezia: in going back to the original sources, the thousands of papers in the archives of Modena, Mantua, Milan and the Vatican, I have let Lucrezia speak for herself. This is her story.

London, November 2003

The Scene

At the time of Lucrezia Borgia's birth in 1480, Italy was famously a geographical expression rather than a country, a peninsula divided into independent states bound by the weakest sense of common nationality. Neapolitans, Milanese and Venetians were Neapolitans, Milanese and Venetians first and foremost: the concept of Italy as a political whole did not exist beyond a vague xenophobia in which non-Italians were perceived as barbarians. Italians saw themselves as richer, more cultivated and sophisticated than the rest of Europe. At a time when Europe was unified by the Catholic religion with the Pope, wielding both spiritual and temporal powers, at its head, Rome, as the seat of the papacy, was the centre of the Western world, or Christendom as contemporaries would have known it.

The princ.i.p.al Italian states in the late fifteenth century were (from north to south) Milan, ruled by the Sforza family; Venice, a merchant empire ruled by an oligarchy of patrician families headed by a doge; Florence, then ruled by the Medici as a hereditary despotism in the person of Piero, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent; the Papal States, the temporal dominion of the Pope whose authority in practice was devolved to 'papal vicars', princ.i.p.ally the Este of Ferrara, but including smaller city states such as Bologna, Rimini, Pisa, Siena, Camerino, Forl, Faenza and Pesaro, where families such as the Bentivoglio, the Malatesta, the Petrucci, the Varani, the Riarii and the Manfredi held sway. Mantua was held as a fief of the Holy Roman Empire by the Gonzaga family. In this fragmented state the smaller ent.i.ties bound themselves to the larger ones for protection, sometimes, as in the case of the Este and the Gonzaga, also to outside powers, notably France or, in the case of Naples, to Spain. Round Rome the great baronial families the Orsini and Colonna, Savelli and Caetani officially owed allegiance to the Pope but in practice often fought against him, their loyalties given to the highest payer among the major states. To the south the Kingdom of Naples, at this time ruled by a junior branch of the royal house of Aragon in Spain, included not only Naples itself and the Neapolitan Campania but also Puglia and Calabria. The possession of Naples lay at the heart of the foreign invasions in Lucrezia's lifetime, the throne being disputed by both its present Aragonese kings and the descendants of the previous rulers, the French house of Anjou. The Pope, as temporal lord, had the right of invest.i.ture of the crown of Naples, and it was this power which placed him at the heart of the Italian wars, as the two outside powers, France and Spain, claimed hereditary rights to the Kingdom.

In his History of Italy History of Italy the Florentine historian Francesco Guicciardini saw 1492, the year of Lucrezia's father's election as Pope Alexander VI, as marking the end of a golden age and the beginning of Italy's troubles: the Florentine historian Francesco Guicciardini saw 1492, the year of Lucrezia's father's election as Pope Alexander VI, as marking the end of a golden age and the beginning of Italy's troubles: Italy had never enjoyed such prosperity, or known so favourable a situation as that in which it found itself so securely at rest in the year of our Christian salvation 1490, and the years immediately before and after. The greatest peace and tranquillity reigned everywhere; the land under cultivation no less in the most mountainous and arid regions than in the most fertile plains and areas. Dominated by no power other than her own, not only did Italy abound in inhabitants, merchandise and riches, but she was also highly renowned for the magnificence of her many princes, for the splendour of so many n.o.ble and beautiful cities, as the seat and majesty of religion, and flouris.h.i.+ng with men most skilful in the administration of public affairs and most n.o.bly talented in all disciplines and distinguished and industrious in all the arts. Nor was Italy lacking in military glory according to the standards of that time, and adorned with so many gifts that she deservedly held a celebrated name and reputation among all the nations.1 That peace in the country regarded as the richest and most civilized on earth had been kept over the last forty years by the Italian League, the alliance between Naples and Milan, held together by Lorenzo de'Medici ('the Magnificent') and cemented by a common fear of the power of Venice. Lorenzo de'Medici died prematurely in April 1492, aged only forty-three; on his death the strains which had developed within the League burst apart, rupturing the hermetic seal which had protected Italy from the newly centralized European powers without. The ambitions of Ludovico Sforza, brother of Cardinal Ascanio, to dethrone the legitimate ruler of Milan, his nephew, Gian Galeazzo Sforza, married to Isabella d'Aragona, niece of the King of Naples, had led to an intense family quarrel between Milan and Naples. This spilled over the Italian borders when Ludovico (always known as 'il Moro', a play on his dark complexion and his emblem, the mulberry) invited the young King of France, Charles VIII, to invade and claim his right to the throne of Naples on the grounds of his descent from the former Angevin rulers of the Kingdom. Hungry for glory, in 1494 Charles descended on Italy with a large, well-equipped army in pursuit of his claim, ushering in a period of war and foreign invasion which would be the background to Lucrezia Borgia's entire life.

Cast of Princ.i.p.al Characters Borgia (in Spanish de Borja)

LUCREZIA BORGIA: illegitimate daughter of Rodrigo Borgia, later Pope Alexander VI, and his mistress Vannozza Cattanei. Married (1) 1493, Giovanni Sforza, lord of Pesaro, (2) 1498, Alfonso d'Aragona, Duke of Bisceglie, (3) 1501, Alfonso d'Este, later Duke of Ferrara ALONSO DE BORJA, of Jativa in Valencia: Rodrigo's uncle and Lucrezia's great uncle, founded the family fortunes when elected Pope Callixtus III in 1455 BORJA, of Jativa in Valencia: Rodrigo's uncle and Lucrezia's great uncle, founded the family fortunes when elected Pope Callixtus III in 1455 RODRIGO BORGIA, also of Jativa in Valencia: Lucrezia's father. Elected Pope Alexander VI in 1492 CESARE BORGIA: Lucrezia's eldest brother, illegitimate son of Rodrigo Borgia and Vannozza Cattanei. Cardinal of Valencia and then Duke of Valentinois, known as 'il Valentino'. Married Charlotte d'Albret, sister of the King of Navarre JUAN BORGIA: Lucrezia's second brother, illegitimate son of Rodrigo Borgia and Vannozza Cattanei. Better known as second Duke of Gandia. Married Maria Enriques and was the unworthy grandfather of St Francis Borja JOFRE BORGIA: supposed son of Rodrigo Borgia by Vannozza Cattanei but suspected by Rodrigo to be Vannozza's son by her third husband, Giorgio della Croce. Created Prince of Squillace, married Sancia d'Aragona (see below) VANNOZZA CATTANEI: Rodrigo Borgia's long-time mistress and mother of his favourite children ADRIANA DE MILA: Rodrigo Borgia's first cousin, married to Lodovico Orsini-Migliorati. Lucrezia's guardian until she married, mother-in-law of Rodrig's mistress, Giulia Farnese ANGELA BORGIA: illegitimate cousin of Lucrezia, known for her beauty which caused havoc among the Este brothers at Ferrara. Married Alessandro Pio da Sa.s.suolo GIOVANNI BORGIA: known as the 'Infans Roma.n.u.s', illegitimate son of Alexander VI and a Roman woman and therefore Lucrezia's half-brother. Often reputed to be the product of an incestuous relations.h.i.+p between Lucrezia and her father, a rumour which was almost certainly unfounded illegitimate son of Alexander VI and a Roman woman and therefore Lucrezia's half-brother. Often reputed to be the product of an incestuous relations.h.i.+p between Lucrezia and her father, a rumour which was almost certainly unfounded RODRIGO BORGIA (the younger): illegitimate son of Alexander (the younger): illegitimate son of Alexander VI VI, born in the last year of his papacy and therefore another half-brother of Lucrezia.

Aragona KING FERRANTE I OF NAPLES OF NAPLES: grandfather of Lucrezia's second husband, Alfonso Bisceglie KING ALFONSO II OF NAPLES OF NAPLES: known as Duke of Calabria before his accession, father of Alfonso Bisceglie (illegitimate) KING FERRANTE II OF NAPLES OF NAPLES: son of Alfonso II, known as Ferrantino KING FEDERICO III OF NAPLES OF NAPLES: brother of Alfonso II II ALFONSO D'ARAGONA, Duke of Bisceglie: Lucrezia's second husband, illegitimate son of Alfonso II SANCIA D'ARAGONA, Princess of Squillace: illegitimate daughter of Alfonso II and sister of Alfonso Bisceglie, married Jofre Borgia RODRIGO D'ARAGONA, second Duke of Bisceglie: Lucrezia's only son by Alfonso Bisceglie Sforza LUDOVICO MARIA SFORZA: known as 'il Moro', Duke of Bari and then of Milan, married Beatrice d'Este (see below) ASCANIO SFORZA: cardinal, brother of the above Giovanni sforza, lord of Pesaro: illegitimate son of Costanzo Sforza. Lucrezia's first husband Este ERCOLE I, Duke of Ferrara: Lucrezia's father-in-law ALFONSO I, Duke of Ferrara: eldest son of Ercole, Lucrezia's third husband FERRANTE D'ESTE: Ercole's second son ISABELLA D'ESTE. See GONZAGA GONZAGA. Alfonso's sister, married to Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua (see below) IPPOLITO D'ESTE: cardinal, Ercole's third son GIULIO D'ESTE: Ercole's illegitimate son SIGISMONDO D'ESTE: Ercole's youngest legitimate son ERCOLE II: Alfonso and Lucrezia's eldest son and heir IPPOLITO D'ESTE: Alfonso and Lucrezia's second son, later also Cardinal d'Este and builder of the Villa d'Este FRANCESCO D'ESTE: Alfonso and Lucrezia's third son ELEONORA D'ESTE: Alfonso and Lucrezia's only surviving daughter Gonzaga FRANCESCO GONZAGA, Marquis of Mantua: husband of Isabella d'Este and lover of Lucrezia ELISABETTA GONZAGA: sister of the above, married to Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino LEONORA GONZAGA: daughter of Francesco and Isabella, married Francesco Maria della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, after the death of Guidobaldo da Montefeltro in 1508 FEDERICO GONZAGA: son and heir of Francesco and Isabella, succeeded his father as Marquis in 1519 and later became first Duke of Mantua Delia Rovere GIULIANO DELLA ROVERE: Cardinal of San Pietro in Vincula, Rodrigo Borgia's great rival for the papacy in 1492, later succeeding as Julius II (see below) FRANCESCO MARIA DELLA ROVERE: nephew of the above, married Leonora Gonzaga (see above) and succeeded to the dukedom of Urbino Popes (with the dates of their papacy) INNOCENT VIII (Giovanni Battista Cibo of Genoa) 1484-92 (Giovanni Battista Cibo of Genoa) 1484-92 ALEXANDER VI (Rodrigo Borgia, see above) 1492-1503 (Rodrigo Borgia, see above) 1492-1503 PIUS III (Francesco Piccolomini of Siena) 1503 (Francesco Piccolomini of Siena) 1503 JULIUS II (Giuliano della Rovere of Albisola, near Genoa, see above) 1503-13 (Giuliano della Rovere of Albisola, near Genoa, see above) 1503-13 LEO X (Giovanni de'Medici of Florence, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent) 1513-22 (Giovanni de'Medici of Florence, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent) 1513-22 Spanish sovereigns (with the dates of their reigns) (For Aragonese Kings of Naples see Aragona above) FERDINAND OF ARAGON (1479-1516) married (1479-1516) married ISABELLA OF CASTILE ISABELLA OF CASTILE (1474-1504) in 1469 when they became known as 'the Catholic Kings'. Rodrigo Borgia's patron and occasional foe (1474-1504) in 1469 when they became known as 'the Catholic Kings'. Rodrigo Borgia's patron and occasional foe French sovereigns (with the dates of their reigns) CHARLES VIII (1483-98) (1483-98).

LOUIS XII (1498-1515) (1498-1515).

FRANCIS I (1515-47) (1515-47).

PART ONE.

The Pope's Daughter 14801501

1. The Pope's Daughter

'She [Lucrezia] is of middle height and graceful in form. Her face is rather long, the nose well cut, hair golden, eyes of no special colour. Her mouth is rather large, the teeth brilliantly white, her neck is slender and fair, the bust admirably proportioned. She is always gay and smiling'