Lucrezia Borgia

Possible portrait of Lucrezia as St Catherine of Alexandria in a fresco by Pinturicchio, in the Sala dei Santi in the Borgia Apartments in the Vatican, c. 1494.

Coin showing Giovanni Sforza

On 26 February 1491, a matrimonial arrangement was drawn up between Lucrezia and the Lord of Val D'Ayora, in the kingdom of Valencia, Don Cherubino Joan de Centelles, which was annulled less than two months later in favour of a new contract engaging Lucrezia to Don Gaspare Aversa, count of Procida.[4] When Rodrigo became Pope Alexander VI, he sought to be allied with powerful princely families and founding dynasties of Italy. He therefore called off Lucrezia's previous engagements and arranged for her to marry Giovanni Sforza, a member of the House of Sforza who was Lord of Pesaro and titled Count of Catignola.[5] Giovanni was an illegitimate son of Costanzo I Sforza and a Sforza of the second rank. He married Lucrezia on 12 June 1493 in Rome.[3]

Before long, the Borgia family no longer needed the Sforzas, and the presence of Giovanni Sforza in the papal court was superfluous. The Pope needed new, more advantageous political alliances, so he might have covertly ordered the execution of Giovanni: the generally accepted version is that Lucrezia was informed of this by her brother Cesare, and she warned her husband, who fled Rome.[6]

Alexander asked Giovanni's uncle, Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, to persuade Giovanni to agree to an annulment of the marriage. Giovanni refused and accused Lucrezia of paternal incest.[7] The pope asserted that his daughter's marriage had not been consummated and was thus invalid. Giovanni was offered her dowry in return for his cooperation.[8] The Sforza family threatened to withdraw their protection should he refuse. Giovanni finally signed confessions of impotence and documents of annulment before witnesses.

There has been speculation that during the prolonged process of the annulment, Lucrezia consummated a relationship with someone, perhaps Alexander's chamberlain Pedro Calderon, also named Perotto.[9] In any case, families hostile to the Borgias would later accuse her of being pregnant at the time her marriage was annulled for non-consummation. She is known to have retired to the convent of San Sisto in June 1497 to await the outcome of the annulment proceedings, which were finalized in December of the same year. The bodies of Pedro Calderon[9] and a maid, Pantasilea, were found in the Tiber in February 1498. In March 1498, the Ferrarese ambassador claimed that Lucrezia had given birth, but this was denied by other sources. A child was born, however, in the Borgia household the year before Lucrezia's marriage to Alfonso of Aragon. He was named Giovanni but is known to historians as the "Infans Romanus".

In 1501, two papal bulls were issued concerning the child, Giovanni Borgia. In the first, he was recognized as Cesare's child from an affair before his marriage. The second, contradictory, bull recognized him as the son of Pope Alexander VI. Lucrezia's name is not mentioned in either, and rumours that she was his mother have never been proven. The second bull was kept secret for many years, and Giovanni was assumed to be Cesare's son. This is supported by the fact that in 1502 he became Duke of Camerino, one of Cesare's recent conquests, hence the natural inheritance of the Duke of Romagna's oldest son. Giovanni went to stay with Lucrezia in Ferrara after Alexander's death, where he was accepted as her half-brother.[10]

Duke Alfonso of Aragon by Pinturicchio

Following her annulment from Sforza, Lucrezia was married to the Neapolitan Alfonso of Aragon, the half-brother of Sancha of Aragon who was the wife of Lucrezia's brother Gioffre Borgia. The marriage was a short one.[3]

They were married in 1498, making Lucrezia the Duchess consort of Bisceglie and Princess consort of Salerno. Lucrezia – not her husband – was appointed governor of Spoleto in 1499; Alfonso fled Rome shortly afterwards but returned at Lucrezia's request, only to be murdered in 1500.[11]

It was widely rumoured[12] that Lucrezia's brother Cesare was responsible for Alfonso's death, as he had recently allied himself (through marriage) with France against Naples. Lucrezia and Alfonso had one child, Rodrigo of Aragon, who was born in 1499 and predeceased his mother in August 1512 at the age of 12.[3]

Alfonso d'Este

Possible portrait by Bartolomeo Veneziano (c. 1510)[13]

After the death of Lucrezia's second husband, her father, Pope Alexander VI, arranged a third marriage. She then married Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, in early 1502 in Ferrara. She had eight children during this marriage and was considered a respectable and accomplished Renaissance duchess, effectively rising above her previous reputation and surviving the fall of the Borgias following her father's death.[14]

Neither partner was faithful: beginning in 1503, Lucrezia enjoyed a long relationship with her brother-in-law, Francesco II Gonzaga, Marquess of Mantua.[15][16] Francesco's wife was the cultured intellectual Isabella d'Este, the sister of Alfonso, to whom Lucrezia had made overtures of friendship to no avail. The affair between Francesco and Lucrezia was passionate, more sexual than sentimental as can be attested in the fevered love letters the pair wrote one another.[17] It has been claimed that the affair ended when Francesco contracted syphilis and had to end sexual relations with Lucrezia.[18] This last assertion is problematic as Francesco had contracted syphilis before 1500 as it was known that he passed the disease onto his eldest son Federico Gonzaga who was born in 1500. Francesco did not meet Lucrezia until 1502.[19]

Lucrezia also had a love affair with the poet Pietro Bembo during her third marriage. Their love letters were deemed "The prettiest love letters in the world" by the Romantic poet Lord Byron when he saw them in the Ambrosian Library of Milan on 15 October 1816.[20][21] On the same occasion Byron claimed to have stolen a lock of Lucrezia's hair – "the prettiest and fairest imaginable"[21] – that was also held there on display.[22][23][24]

Lucrezia met the famed French soldier, the Chevalier Bayard while the latter was co-commanding the French allied garrison of Ferrara in 1510. According to his biographer, the Chevalier became a great admirer of Lucrezia's, considering her a "pearl on this Earth".[25]

After a long history of complicated pregnancies and miscarriages, on 14 June 1519 Lucrezia gave birth to her tenth child, named Isabella Maria in honour of Alfonso's sister Isabella d'Este. The child was sickly and – fearing she would die unbaptised – Alfonso ordered her to be baptised straightaway with Eleonora della Mirandola and Count Alexandro Serafino as godparents.

Lucrezia had become very weak during the pregnancy and fell seriously ill after the birth. After seeming to recover for two days, she worsened again and died on 24 June the same year. She was buried in the convent of Corpus Domini.[26]

• French author Victor Hugo wrote in 1833 the stage play Lucrèce Borgia.
• Victor Hugo's play was transformed into a libretto by Felice Romani for Donizetti's opera, Lucrezia Borgia (1834), first performed at La Scala, Milan, 26 December 1833.[44]
• Kathleen McGowan refers to Lucrece, as one of the many unjustly vilified women, in her book The Expected One. She refers in particular to Frank Cadogan Cowper's painting "Lucretia Borgia Reigns in the Vatican in the Absence of Pope Alexander VI" on display at the Tate Gallery in London.[45]
• F. M. Klinger's 1791 novel Fausts Leben, Thaten und Höllenfahrt features an episode in which the Borgias figure, including an affair between Faust and Lucrezia.
• Rafael Sabatini wrote the 1912 non-fiction book, The Life of Cesare Borgia,[46] that attempts to treat the Borgias historically.
• The 1947 historical novel Prince of Foxes by Samuel Shellabarger describes the adventures of the fictional Andrea Orsini, a captain in the service of Cesare Borgia, during his conquest of the Romagna; it was made into a film of the same name in 1949, starring Orson Welles and Tyrone Power.[47]
• Jean Plaidy's two 1958 novels, Madonna of the Seven Hills and Light on Lucrezia, follow the story of Lucrezia and her entanglement with her father and brothers.[48]
• Lucrezia, Cesare and Alexander play key roles in Cecelia Holland's 1979 historical novel City of God: A Novel of the Borgias.[49]
• In Roberta Gellis's 2003 novel Lucrezia Borgia and the Mother of Poisons (ISBN 9780765306616), Alfonso d'Este of Ferrara accuses Lucrezia of murder, and she must solve the crime and expose the true murderer.
• The Dutch writer Louis Couperus published a story called "Lucrezia" in 1920 and takes place between the death of her second husband and the marriage of her third.[50]
• In the Marvel Comics comic book Avengers West Coast No. 98 (September 1993), the demon Satannish resurrected Borgia as the supervillain Cyana. As a nod to her reputation for poisoning her lovers in life, Cyana could fatally poison people with sharpened nails or a kiss.[51]

• Lucrezia Borgia (1922) is based on the life of Lucrezia, who is played by Liane Haid. Cesare Borgia is portrayed by Conrad Veidt.
• Lucrezia (Estelle Taylor) and Cesare (Warner Oland) Borgia are the major antagonists in Alan Crosland's 1926 silent film Don Juan, starring John Barrymore.[52]
• Lucrezia is the subject of Abel Gance's film Lucrezia Borgia (1935)[53] and of a 1953 French film, played by Martine Carol.[54]
• Lucrezia is the Bride of Vengeance (1949), played by Paulette Goddard, with Macdonald Carey in the role of Cesare Borgia, and John Lund playing Alfonso d'Este (Duke of Ferrara).[55][56]
• In Walerian Borowczyk's 1973 feature film Immoral Tales, Lucrezia is played by Florence Bellamy.[57]
• In the Italian movie Lucrezia giovane ("Young Lucrezia") that was written and directed in 1974 by Luciano Ercoli (as André Colbert), Lucrezia was played by Simonetta Stefanelli.[58]
• In the 1981 BBC series, The Borgias, Lucrezia was played by Anne-Louise Lambert.[59]
• In the 1982 feature film The Secret Nights of Lucrezia Borgia of director Roberto Bianchi Montero, Lucrezia is played by Sirpa Lane.[60]
• She is featured as a major plot point in the 1994 TV movie The Shaggy Dog.[61] A portrait of her, along with a display case of her rings are featured in a local museum along with a legend that she had written spells to turn her lovers into dogs. The legend is revealed to be true as the main character accidentally casts one on himself while holding one of her rings and reading its inscription.
• In the pilot episode of the SyFy series Warehouse 13, a jeweled comb, purported to have been created for her by an alchemist, is used by a Iowa lawyer to hypnotize several individuals into causing acts of violence.[62]
• In the video game Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Lucrezia is in an incestuous relationship with her brother Cesare. She is kidnapped by the main character, Ezio Auditore and reappears later, a changed woman.[63]
• She is played by Holliday Grainger in the 2011–2013 Showtime/Bravo TV series The Borgias, which explores a theme of incest with Cesare, despite lack of historical evidence for such events.[64] Her character is portrayed not as a ruthless murderer, but initially as a compassionate and sweet young girl who suffers from her family's ambitions, both struggling against and eventually aiding them.
• In the Canal+ television series Borgia, Lucrezia is portrayed by German actress Isolda Dychauk.[65]