This article is about the person. For artistic adaptations of the same name, see Lucrezia Borgia (disambiguation).
Lucrezia Borgia [luˈkrɛtːsi̯a ˈbɔrdʒa] (Latin Lucretia Borgia; Spanish/cat. Lucrecia Borja; * 18 April 1480 in Rome or Subiaco; † 24 June 1519 in Belriguardo near Ferrara) was an Italian-Spanish Renaissance princess and the illegitimate daughter of Pope Alexander VI with his mistress Vanozza de' Cattanei. She was the sister of Cesare, Juan and Jofré Borgia.
Described by contemporaries as pretty and fun-loving, Lucrezia became the beneficiary, but above all the instrument, of her father's policies after the rise of her notorious family.
Alexander VI, who loved her dearly, gave her the reins of government in the Vatican several times during his absence. He married her off three times in politically motivated marriages to consolidate the Borgia power. Lucrezia's first marriage, to Giovanni Sforza, was dissolved when she lost her usefulness to the Borgia family; her second husband, Alfonso of Aragon (1481-1500), Duke of Bisceglie, was murdered, presumably on the orders of her brother Cesare. In her third marriage she finally married Alfonso d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, to whom she remained married until her death and had several children.
Lucrezia survived the death of her father and the fall of her brother Cesare and the Borgia family in Italy unscathed; she died, highly honored, as Duchess of Ferrara.
The Borgia family still embodies the greed for power and moral corruption of the Renaissance papacy like no other, and Lucrezia Borgia retained a reputation for centuries as a wicked poisoner, adulteress and incestuous with her father as well as her brother Cesare. These accusations originated in the rumors and slanders of her own time and were later echoed and amplified by famous authors such as Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas in their works. It is only modern historical research that views Lucrezia Borgia in a different light and rejects these charges.
