As the only recognised daughter of Pope Alexander VI, Lucrezia’s marriages forged important alliances for her family - but her husbands didn’t always fare well
Borgia – no name conjures up more images of depravity cruelty and immorality Described by some as the original crime family they exerted a vice-like grip on Renaissance Rome. The main female presence in this ‘debauched’ clan – Lucrezia – has been tarred with the brush of incest and murder, yet later historians cast her aside as a hapless and weak-minded pawn, used in the scheming of her father and brothers. Who was this famed beauty whose name lives on through the centuries – was she a villainess or simply an instrument in her family’s games?
Lucrezia Borgia was the third child of Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia and his favourite mistress, Vannozza dei Cattanei. At her birth, her father consulted an astrologer who foretold of a remarkable future. Born in 1480, her name and that of her family would be vilified down the centuries. The Borgias originally came from Spain and were seen by the Italian noble families as outsiders – which made them natural targets of suspicion and rumour.