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EUROPEAN DEAD GIRLS - LUCREZIA BORGIA

Lucrezia Borgia

1480 - 1519

EUROPEAN

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Lucrezia
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Lucrezia Borgia was born in April 1480, the daughter of Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, the future Pope Alexander VI, and his mistress, Vannozza de Cattanei.

Vanozza Catanei had been Rodrigo's mistress since around 1473 when she was in her early thirties. She remains a somewhat shadowy figure, but it is known that she was quite beautiful and from a family which was rather poor. She bore Rodrigo four children, Cesare, Juan, Lucrezia, and Jofre.

"I met Cesare yesterday in the house in Trastevere:
He was just on his way to the chase
dressed in a costume altogether worldly:
that is, in silk --- and armed.
He had only a little tonsure like a simple priest.
I conversed with him for a while as we rode along
--- I am on intimate terms with him.
He possesses marked genius and a charming personality,
bearing himself like a great prince.
He is especially lively and merry and fond of society.
[This] archbishop never had any inclination for the priesthood
but his benefices bring him in more than
16,000 ducats annually."
-Andrea Boccaccio,
describing Cesare Borgia when he was a priest,
just before being elevated to cardinal.

As a young girl Lucrezia led a pampered life while her father began investigating beneficial marriage alliances.

"She is of middle height and graceful of form;
her face is rather long, as is her nose;
her hair is golden, her eyes gray, her mouth rather large,
the teeth brilliantly white,
her bosom smooth and white and admirably proportioned.
Her whole being exudes good humor and gaiety."
- Niccolo Cagnolo (as reported in Cloulas)

Rodrigo became Pope in 1492 through bribery. While a cardinal, and then later as Pope, his conduct was most unbecoming to his saintly station. He openly kept a string of mistresses, fathered many children, and held orgies within the papal residence. Lucrezia and her brothers participated in these functions. In fact, she was having sexual relations with her father and her brothers Cesare and Juan.

Rodrigo arranged and cancelled two betrothals to Spanish nobleman before she was married to Giovanni Sforza, Count of Pesaro at the age of 13.

Unfortunately, Rodrigo and Cesare Borgia decided Lucrezia could be better utilized to gain them entrance into the powerful house of Aragon. They publicly declared that Lucrezia’s husband was impotent, that his marriage to her had not been consummated. Pope Rodrigo annulled the marriage.

Sforza was outraged and humiliated, maintained the Borgias were liars, and swore revenge against their house. Lucrezia, while apparently in love with her husband, chose not to go against the machinations of her father and brother. Sforza was forced to sign a confession of impotence and left Rome. Lucrezia was dispatched to a nunnery while her father and brother made arrangements for her next marriage.

On the morning of June 15, 1497, Juan Borgia's corpse was found floating in the Tiber mutilated by nine savage dagger wounds. Rumor marks Cesare as the chief suspect.

Lucrezia began a love affair with Pedro Calderon, a young papal legate. By February of 1498 rumors were flying that Lucrezia was pregnant. Cesare Borgia was furious and threw the unfortunate young man in prison. A few days later, Pedro's body was found in the Tiber stabbed to death with his hands and legs tied.

In March 1498 Lucrezia bore a son, Giovanni, whom she always referred to as her "little brother." Rodrigo Borgia announced publicly that Giovanni was the result of a liaison between Cesare and one of his mistresses. But this news only inflamed suspicions that Lucrezia had indeed had incestuous relations with her father and brother and that either man could have been the boy’s father. Giovanni died half a century later in relative obscurity and without title.

Lucrezia was declared to be still a "virgin." In 1498, Lucrezia was wed to Alfonso, Duke of Bisceglie. Alfonso was the illegitimate son of a former king of Naples, Alfonso II, and nephew of the present king. He was also the full brother of Sancia, the beautiful wife of Jofre. The marriage was made in an effort to move Cesare closer to his goal of marrying Carlotta, the daughter of Frederico, King of Naples.

Alfonso was well educated, young, and good-looking. Lucrezia was happy in her marriage and began to gather a court of intellectuals and artists about herself and her husband. They were highly devoted to one another.

When political changes made her marriage to Alfonso no longer useful to Pope Rodrigo or Cesare, Alfonso was attacked on the steps of St. Peter's at ten o'clock on the night of July 15, 1500, by assailants who escaped with forty men on horses. He barely survived. Lucrezia took him to the Borgia tower in the Vatican and procured a guard of trustworthy men. She and Sancia (Jofre's wife) were constantly at his side and nursed him for the next month. They even cooked his food themselves to prevent poisoning. All of the effort was to prove to have been in vain.
Alfonso was healing well from his near-fatal wounds when Cesare visited and strangled Alfonso in his bed. Lucrezia was utterly grief-stricken and refused to be consoled.

"Since Don Alfonso refused to die of his wounds,
he was strangled in his bed."
- Burchard, Diarium

After this, Pope Rodrigo successfully forged an alliance with the House of Aragon and Lucretia was married to Alphonse d'Este, the son of Ercole I, duke of Ferrara, on February 2, 1502.

From this point on, Lucrezia became a loving wife and admired mother. She bore seven children between 1505 and 1519. She was highly esteemed for her religious devotion, her spiritual retreats and her penitential devotions. During her stay in Ferrara, she established relationships with famous dukes and princes, prominent artists and men of letters of her time.

Domesticity did not dull Lucrezia's sexual thirst. She carried on numerous affairs. One ended in another messy scandal when the young poet, Ercole Strozzi, was discovered gruesomely murdered. Whether Lucrezia had him killed or whether Cesare succumbed to another fit of jealous rage has never been proven.

She carried on a romance with the poet Pietro Bembo. Whether it was a physical affair or a platonic romance is not clear, but it temporarily aroused the suspicions of her husband. Bembo left Ferrara for Venice and slowly ended the relationship.

Lucretia died in childbirth on June 24, 1519 at the age of 38.

She had written a beautiful letter to Pope Leo X the night before her death. In this letter, she expresses a desire for death and states that she is at peace with herself. The Duchess of Ferrara died sincerely mourned by her husband and her people, having earned their affection and respect with a good and charitable life.

Quotes from Burchard, Diarium.

"Once he became Pope Alexander VI, Vatican parties, already wild, grew wilder. They were costly, but he could afford the lifestyle of a Renaissance prince; as vice chancellor of the Roman Church, he had amassed enormous wealth. As guests approached the papal palace, they were excited by the spectacle of living statues: naked, gilded young men and women in erotic poses. Flags bore the Borgia arms, which, appropriately, portrayed a red bull rampant on a field of gold. Every fete had a theme. One, known to Romans as the Ballet of the Chestnuts, was held on October 30, 1501."

"After the banquet dishes had been cleared away, the city's fifty most beautiful whores danced with the guests, first clothed, then naked. The dancing over, the ballet began, with the Pope and two of his children in the best seats. Candelabra were set up on the floor, scattered among them were chestnuts, which the courtesans had to pick up, crawling between the candles. Then the serious sex started. Guests stripped and ran out onto the floor, where they mounted, or were mounted by, the prostitutes. The coupling took place in front of everyone present. Servants kept score of each man's orgasms, for the Pope greatly admired virility, and measured a man's machismo by his ejaculative capacity. After everyone was exhausted, His Holiness distributed prizes - cloaks, boots, caps, and fine silken tunics. The winners were those who made love with the courtesans the greatest number of times."

"His daughter had just turned seventeen and was at the height of her beauty. We now know that he was, in fact, her lover. Here, however, the tale darkens. Romans had scarcely absorbed the news that the father lusted for his daughter when they learned even more. Lucrezia was said to be unavailable to her father because she was already deeply involved in another incestuous relationship, or relationships - a triangular entanglement with both her handsome brothers. The difficulty, it was whispered, was that although she enjoyed coupling with both of them, each, jealous of the other, wanted his sister for himself."

"Borgia's enjoyment of the flesh was enhanced when the woman beneath him was married, particularly if he had presided at her wedding. Breaking any commandment excited him, but he was partial to the seventh. As priest he married Rosa to two men. She may have actually slept with her husbands from time to time - since Borgia always kept a stable of women, she was allowed an occasional night off to indulge her own sexual preferences - but her duties lay in his eminence's bed. Then, at the age of fifty-nine, he yearned for a more nubile partner. His parting with Rosa was affectionate. Later he gave her a little gift - he made her brother a cardinal."

- Burchard, Diarium.

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