Lucretia Borgia According To Original Documents And Corresponde

Lucretia Borgia is the most unfortunate woman in modern history. Is this because she was guilty of the most hideous crimes, or is it simply because she has been unjustly condemn...

The Spanish house of Borja (or Borgia as the name is generally written) was rich in extraordinary men. Nature endowed them generously; they were distinguished by sensuous beauty...

About 1466 or 1467 Cardinal Rodrigo's magnetism attracted a woman of Rome, Vannozza Catanei. We know that she was born in July, 1442, but of her family we are wholly ignorant. W...

Lucretia passed the first years of her childhood in her mother's house, which was on the Piazza Pizzo di Merlo, only a few steps from the cardinal's palace. The Ponte quarter, t...

After that, Borgia's passion for this woman, who was now about forty, died out, but he continued to honor her as the mother of his children and as the confidant of many of his s...

It is not difficult to imagine what emotions were aroused in Lucretia when she first became aware of the real condition of her family. Her mother's husband was not her father; s...

On July 25, 1492, occurred the event to which the Borgias had long eagerly looked forward, the death of Innocent VIII. Above all the other candidates for the Papacy were four ca...

Alexander had a residence furnished for Lucretia close to the Vatican; it was a house which Cardinal Battista Zeno had built in 1483, and was known after his church as the Palac...

Lucretia's marriage with Giovanni Sforza confirmed the political alliance which Alexander VI had made with Ludovico il Moro. The Regent of Milan wanted to invite Charles VIII of...

By the end of the year 1493 Alexander had amply provided for all his children. Cæsar was a cardinal, Giovanni was a duke in Spain, and Giuffrè was soon to become a Neapolitan pr...

The storm which suddenly broke upon Alexander did not disturb Lucretia, for on the eighth of June, 1494, she and her spouse entered Pesaro. In a pouring rain, which interrupted...

Early in September, 1494, Charles VIII marched into Piedmont, and the affairs of all Italy suffered an immediate change. The Pope and his allies Alfonso and Piero de' Medici fou...

After the surrender of the remnant of the French forces in the fall of 1496, Giovanni Sforza returned from Naples. There is no doubt that he went to Rome for the purpose of taki...

Lucretia, now Duchess of Biselli, had been living since July, 1498, with a new husband, a youth of seventeen, she herself having just completed her eighteenth year. She and her...

Lucretia certainly must have been pleased by her brother's long absence; the Vatican was less turbulent. Besides herself only Don Giuffrè and Donna Sancia, who had effected her...

The jubilee year 1500 was a fortunate one for Cæsar, but an unhappy one for Lucretia. She began it January 1st with a formal passage to the Lateran, whither she went to make the...

After the fall of the Riario, of Imola, and Forli, all the tyrants in the domain of the Church trembled before Cæsar; and greater princes, like those of the Gonzaga and Este fam...

Travelers from Rome to Nepi, then as now, followed the Via Cassia, passing Isola Farnese, Baccano, and Monterosi. The road consisted in part of the ancient highway, but it was i...

Towards the end of September, Cæsar entered Romagna with seven hundred heavy men at arms, two hundred light horsemen, and six thousand foot soldiers. First he advanced against P...

During this time Lucretia, with her child Rodrigo, was living in the palace of S. Peter's. If she was inclined to grieve for her husband, her father left her little time to give...

The hereditary Prince of Ferrara made a determined resistance before yielding to his father's pressure, but the latter was now so anxious for the marriage to take place that he...

Lucretia was impatient to leave Rome, which, she remarked to the ambassador of Ferrara, seemed to her like a prison; the duke himself was no less anxious to conclude the transac...

In the meantime Lucretia's trousseau was being prepared with an expense worthy of a king's daughter. On December 13, 1501, the agent in Rome of the Marchese Gonzaga wrote his ma...

Although the escort which was taking the Duchess Lucretia to Ferrara traveled by easy stages, the journey was fatiguing; for the roads, especially in winter, were bad, and the w...

February 1st Lucretia continued her journey to Ferrara by the canal. Near Malalbergo she found Isabella Gonzaga waiting to meet her. At the urgent request of her father, the mar...

The wedding festivities in Ferrara continued for six days during the carnival. At the period of the Renaissance, court functions and festivities, so far as the intellectual part...

On entering the castle of the Este, Lucretia found a new environment, new interests--one might almost say a new world. She was a princess in one of the most important Italian St...

Alexander carefully followed everything that took place in Ferrara. He never lost sight of his daughter. She and his agents reported every mark of favor or disfavor which she re...

After Lucretia's first transports had passed she may well have blessed her good fortune, for to what danger would she have been exposed if she now, instead of being Alfonso's wi...

During the year, when Lucretia, filled with a sister's love, was grieving over the fate of her terrible brother, a great change occurred in her own circumstances, she having bec...

It was at the time of this great tragedy in Ferrara, which must have vividly reminded Lucretia of her own experiences in the papal city, that Julius II left Rome for the purpose...

Alfonso's hopes of having an heir had twice been disappointed by miscarriages, but April 4, 1508, his wife bore him a son, who was baptized with the name of his grandfather.

The war about Ferrara, thanks to Alfonso's skill and the determined resistance of the State, had ended. Julius II had seized Modena and Reggio, which was a great loss to the Sta...

In the same year that this her father's last son appeared at her court Lucretia also learned of the death of her mother. Vannozza was already a widow when Alexander VI died. Dur...

The State of Ferrara again found itself in serious difficulties, for Leo X, following the example of Alexander VI, was trying to build up a kingdom for his nephew Lorenzo de' Me...