Lucrezia Borgia

Duchess of Ferrara, presumably born in Subiaco in 1480 and who died in Ferrara in the Castle of Belriguardo, in 1519. Daughter of Rodrigo Borgia, later elected Pope with the name Alexander VI, and of Vannozza Cattanei, as well as sister of Cesare Borgia, she has become the figure of the renaissance woman that is the symbol of  unscrupulousness. In 1492 she was promised to a noble Spaniard, but her father, when he became pope, annulled the engagement, and negotiated a new marriage to Giovanni Sforza, lord of Pesaro and the nephew of Ludovico il Moro. Il 1497 Alexander VI allied himself with the Neapolitan crown, enemies of the Sforzas, and dissolved the marriage so as to marry Lucrezia a second time to Alfonso of Aragon, Duke of Bisceglie, and a natural son of the King of Naples. But in 1499 the Duke of Bisceglie, whom Lucrezia did truly love, was assassinated. At that point, in 1501, she was married to Alfonso I d’Este Duke of Ferrara, who accepted her after some initial misgivings. In the little city that was her new home, Lucrezia set up a small court with famous intellectuals and men of letters. Through Ercole Strozzi she met and perhaps loved Bembo, who dedicated her the Asolani. Later she fell in love with Marquis Francesco II Gonzaga, the husband of Isabella d’Este. She met Ludovico Ariosto on the day she married Duke Alfonso and thus in 1501. The poet gave her a nuptial epithalamion in Latin inspired to Catullus, in which, alternately, the Romans manifest their mourning at the departure of this charming lady and the people of Ferrara exalt and acclaim her as their lady. Her friendship with Bembo helped Lucrezia to get to know and like Ariosto. Ludovico also twice mentioned Lucrezia Borgia in the Furioso: XIII, 69-71: ‘Lucrezia Borgia, di cui d’ora in ora / la beltà, la virtù, la fama onesta / e la fortuna crescerà, non meno / che giovin pianta in morbido terreno’ and XLII, 83, 1-2: ‘ La prima iscrizion ch’agli occhi occorre, / con lungo onor Lucrezia Borgia noma’.