What do you think?
Rate this book
Lucrezia Borgia: Daughter of Pope Alexander VI
Lucrezia Borgia is among the most fascinating and controversial personalities of the Renaissance. The daughter of Pope Alexander VI, she was intensely involved in the political life of Italy during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. While her marriage alliances helped advance the political objectives of the papacy, she also held the office of Governor of Spoleto, a role normally reserved for Cardinals, making her one of the most powerful and dynamic female figures of the Renaissance. Among the first books to employ historical method to move beyond myth and romance that had obscured the fascinating story of Lucrezia Borgia was this biography written by the noted German historian Ferdinand Gregorovius.
Ferdinand Gregorovius (1821-1891) was one of the preeminent scholars of the Italian Renaissance. His biography of Lucrezia Borgia reveals the atmosphere of the Renaissance, painting a portrait of Lucrezia and her relationships with her father Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander VI, her brother Cesare, her mother Vanozza, her father's mistress, Giulia Farnese, her husband Duke Alfonso D'Este of Ferrara, and many others, including important artists and writers of the time. All are vividly portrayed against the colorful background of Renaissance Italy. Gregorovius separates myth from documented fact and his book remains a key reference work on the life and times of the Borgia princess.
This new edition of Gregorovius's classic work Lucrezia Borgia is enhanced with an introduction by Samantha Morris, a noted expert on the history of the Borgias. Samantha studied archaeology at the University of Winchester where her interest in the history of the Italian Renaissance began. She is the author of Cesare In a Nutshell and Girolamo The Renaissance Preacher. She also runs the website theborgiabull.com.
Ferdinand Gregorovius (1821-1891) was one of the preeminent scholars of the Italian Renaissance. His biography of Lucrezia Borgia reveals the atmosphere of the Renaissance, painting a portrait of Lucrezia and her relationships with her father Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander VI, her brother Cesare, her mother Vanozza, her father's mistress, Giulia Farnese, her husband Duke Alfonso D'Este of Ferrara, and many others, including important artists and writers of the time. All are vividly portrayed against the colorful background of Renaissance Italy. Gregorovius separates myth from documented fact and his book remains a key reference work on the life and times of the Borgia princess.
This new edition of Gregorovius's classic work Lucrezia Borgia is enhanced with an introduction by Samantha Morris, a noted expert on the history of the Borgias. Samantha studied archaeology at the University of Winchester where her interest in the history of the Italian Renaissance began. She is the author of Cesare In a Nutshell and Girolamo The Renaissance Preacher. She also runs the website theborgiabull.com.
- GenresHistory
375 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 19, 2020
6 people are currently reading
47 people want to read
About the author
Ferdinand Gregorovius
632 books2 followersFerdinand Adolf Gregorovius was a German historian who specialized in the medieval history of Rome. (Source: Wikipedia)
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 15, 2022
This is the only book on Lucrezia Borgia (that I have found) that does not let rumor or opinion dominate the story of this historical figure. He simply gives you the facts and allows you to make your own opinion on her character. The writing does seem to drift on other important figures of that time but I believe it is the author’s way of truly giving you the broad picture of Lucrezia’s story.
June 7, 2024
Lucrezia Borgia by Ferdinand Gregorovius was first published in 1904. In the book the author tries to rewrite what had become the popular history of its subject throughout the nineteenth century. This had cast Lucrezia as guilty of most crimes short of genocide. A play about her life written in the 1830s by Victor Hugo later formed the basis of Donizetti’s opera. But the author of this biography argues convincingly that many of the crimes attributed to Lucrezia Borgia are based on reports that were written after the fall of the Borgias, histories written obviously by their enemies. It is interesting to consider the reputation of England’s Richard the Third who, in the hands of Shakespeare, was a deformed, murderous tyrant. But Shakespeare was writing for those who brought about Richard’s demise, as victors in battle, and they had the right to rewrite history. It has to be said that in Richard’s case, he did find it hard to make friends. There is no smoke without fire, it seems. In the case of Lucrezia, however, she also had the indignity of being a woman, so it was even easier scorn her memory in order to demonize where she came from.
In the centre of Gandia in Spain on Valencia’s coast, there are statues in honour of the famous Borjas. Here Rodrigo, Cesare and Lucrezia share podiums with Francisco, occupier the fortified palace in the town, who was co-founder with Saint Francis Xavier of the Jesuit Order. But the family originally came from Xativa, about an hour’s drive from Gandia. They became landowners in Gandia by virtue of a favour from the king of Aragon. Rodrigo Borja eventually made it big in Rome, changed his name to Borgia and became pope. The rest, as they say, his history. Or is it?
What is beyond dispute is that the Borgias were hedonistic, conspiratorial, profligate, corrupt and unscrupulous, amongst other things. Whether this made them any different from the rest of the landed, power-hungry and wealth-hungry rulers of the time is debatable. Their enemies eventually ousted them, and it was they, the enemies and victors, who wrote much of the history. And in human history, it is far from unusual for the last word to endure the longest and maintain its pedigree.
Ferdinand Gregorovius assembles letters, documents, and existing positions to examine the history and thereby make an attempt to separate historical fact from historical fiction and downright lies. Paradoxically, the paucity of material relating to the Borgias, and particularly Lucrezia herself makes this task quite difficult. No one at the time did actually write down that they were about strangle an opponent, have a rival beheaded or poisoned out of spite, but plenty of this went on. In fact, one of the great achievements of this book is the light it casts on the wider society of the time, being the Renaissance at the end of the fifteenth century. At least on reading this text we know more about the class that populated power in the Italian states, more about their acquisitive nature, their endless search for profit, their habitual indebtedness, their obsession with brokering power and their willingness to use violence to achieve their selfish ends. Apparently they never stopped pursuing murderous one-upmanship even when bounded by solemn treaty of cooperation. Also, we realise in no uncertain terms that making a public show on a catwalk did not begin with twentieth century film and pop stars.
The bare facts are stunning for a modern reader. Born 1480 the illegitimate daughter of a pope, Lucrezia died in 1519, aged 39, having been married off three times and having borne ten children. A female, the chattel of her age, she was used repeatedly by her father as a bargaining chip to secure his own selfish ends. She may have secured his interest in other areas as well, but Gregorovius determinedly ignores what hight have originated as gossip. For this author at least, the sources are contemporary and are respected.
She did become an administrator and a ruler in her own right but spent many years in the long shadows cast by her father and her half-brother Caesar, or Cesare as we know him, who became the model for Machiavelli’s Prince (and perhaps later for Hobbes’s Leviathan). Caesar seemed to wander around the world, waging war whenever he could raise an army so that he could kill people for profit. And profit he did, material and politically. He was, incidentally, also a bishop and cardinal. Good old Christian values!
Ferdinand Gregorovius’s argument is that Rodrigo and Cesare were such tyrants, such cynical wielders of power that anyone associated with them would be tarred with the brush that eventually broke their skulls. Or didn’t, because Rodrigo died of malaria, perhaps, and Cesare was finished by the sword of an ambush. Lucrezia, like many women of her age, died after complications following childbirth.
But what becomes clear, after the author has examined Lucrezia’s correspondence from the time, is that the woman herself does not give clues as to her involvement in anything conspiratorial. Not that anyone would, of course, so we are perhaps no closer to establishing anything that might be called truth. But by writing the book, Ferdinand Gregorovius perhaps superseded those last words that had branded her a tyrant and murderess with some of his own.
In the centre of Gandia in Spain on Valencia’s coast, there are statues in honour of the famous Borjas. Here Rodrigo, Cesare and Lucrezia share podiums with Francisco, occupier the fortified palace in the town, who was co-founder with Saint Francis Xavier of the Jesuit Order. But the family originally came from Xativa, about an hour’s drive from Gandia. They became landowners in Gandia by virtue of a favour from the king of Aragon. Rodrigo Borja eventually made it big in Rome, changed his name to Borgia and became pope. The rest, as they say, his history. Or is it?
What is beyond dispute is that the Borgias were hedonistic, conspiratorial, profligate, corrupt and unscrupulous, amongst other things. Whether this made them any different from the rest of the landed, power-hungry and wealth-hungry rulers of the time is debatable. Their enemies eventually ousted them, and it was they, the enemies and victors, who wrote much of the history. And in human history, it is far from unusual for the last word to endure the longest and maintain its pedigree.
Ferdinand Gregorovius assembles letters, documents, and existing positions to examine the history and thereby make an attempt to separate historical fact from historical fiction and downright lies. Paradoxically, the paucity of material relating to the Borgias, and particularly Lucrezia herself makes this task quite difficult. No one at the time did actually write down that they were about strangle an opponent, have a rival beheaded or poisoned out of spite, but plenty of this went on. In fact, one of the great achievements of this book is the light it casts on the wider society of the time, being the Renaissance at the end of the fifteenth century. At least on reading this text we know more about the class that populated power in the Italian states, more about their acquisitive nature, their endless search for profit, their habitual indebtedness, their obsession with brokering power and their willingness to use violence to achieve their selfish ends. Apparently they never stopped pursuing murderous one-upmanship even when bounded by solemn treaty of cooperation. Also, we realise in no uncertain terms that making a public show on a catwalk did not begin with twentieth century film and pop stars.
The bare facts are stunning for a modern reader. Born 1480 the illegitimate daughter of a pope, Lucrezia died in 1519, aged 39, having been married off three times and having borne ten children. A female, the chattel of her age, she was used repeatedly by her father as a bargaining chip to secure his own selfish ends. She may have secured his interest in other areas as well, but Gregorovius determinedly ignores what hight have originated as gossip. For this author at least, the sources are contemporary and are respected.
She did become an administrator and a ruler in her own right but spent many years in the long shadows cast by her father and her half-brother Caesar, or Cesare as we know him, who became the model for Machiavelli’s Prince (and perhaps later for Hobbes’s Leviathan). Caesar seemed to wander around the world, waging war whenever he could raise an army so that he could kill people for profit. And profit he did, material and politically. He was, incidentally, also a bishop and cardinal. Good old Christian values!
Ferdinand Gregorovius’s argument is that Rodrigo and Cesare were such tyrants, such cynical wielders of power that anyone associated with them would be tarred with the brush that eventually broke their skulls. Or didn’t, because Rodrigo died of malaria, perhaps, and Cesare was finished by the sword of an ambush. Lucrezia, like many women of her age, died after complications following childbirth.
But what becomes clear, after the author has examined Lucrezia’s correspondence from the time, is that the woman herself does not give clues as to her involvement in anything conspiratorial. Not that anyone would, of course, so we are perhaps no closer to establishing anything that might be called truth. But by writing the book, Ferdinand Gregorovius perhaps superseded those last words that had branded her a tyrant and murderess with some of his own.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews