Bradford - Lucrezia Borgia: Life, Love and Death in Renaissance Italy

PENGUIN BOOKS
LUCREZIA BORGIA

Bradford does much to put the record straight and has fulfilled her aim of letting Lucrezia Borgia speak for herself and allowing the world in which she lived to come alive for the reader Sunday Telegraph

Richly detailed Bradford writes authoritatively on the politics of the time Sunday Times

Sarah Bradford writes with cool authority and her research in Italian archives is exemplary. No other biography is likely to bring us closer to Lucrezia Spectator

Bradford brings her subject fully into focus and provides a very full, readable and soundly based account The Times Literary Supplement

If you want a brilliant and erudite study of the continually changing balances of power in the Italian princely and ducal states, and the power of the Vatican, this book could not be bettered History Today

Bradfords juicy work [is] a mouthwatering prospect Tatler

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sarah Bradford is a historian and biographer. Her previous books include Cesare Borgia: His Life and Times (1976), Disraeli (1982), Princess Grace (1984), George VI (1989), Sacheverell Sitwell (1993), Elizabeth:A Biography of Her Majesty the Queen (1996) and Americas Queen: The Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (2000).

Lucrezia Borgia

Life, Love and Death in Renaissance Italy

SARAH BRADFORD

PENGUIN

PENGUIN BOOKS

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Published by Viking 2004
Published in Penguin Books 2005

Copyright Sarah Bradford, 2004

All rights reserved
The moral right of the author has been asserted

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

ISBN:978-0-14-190949-3

Contents

Authors Note

Money Values

Economic historians now regard equating the value of fifteenth-and sixteenth-century coinage with todays money as unrealistic owing to the number of factors involved in the calculation. However, a rough rule of thumb would be to multiply each currency (gold coins such as ducats, francs, florins and scudi were all much the same) by one hundred to arrive at a modern sterling equivalent.

Time Calculations

In fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italy there were twenty-four hours in the day (like ours) but, instead of starting the day at midnight as we do, the Italians began the day half an hour after sunset: thus the twenty-fourth hour was the last hour of daytime.

List of Illustrations

Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia), Lucrezias father. Detail from a fresco by Pinturicchio, Borgia Apartments, Vatican, Rome (Photo: Scala, Florence)

Vannozza Cattanei, Lucrezias mother. Private collection, Rome (Photo: Scala, Florence)

The town of Subiaco (Photo: Travel Shots Photo Library)

Lucrezia Borgia. Detail from The Disputation of St Catherine by Pinturicchio, Borgia Apartments, Vatican, Rome (Photo: Bridgeman Art Library)

Cesare Borgia, by Altobello Melone. Accademia Carrara, Bergamo (Photo: Scala, Florence)

Sancia dAragona and Jofre Borgia. Codice Ferraiolo, Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, MS M.801, f. 107 (Photo: Pierpont Morgan Library)

Juan Borgia. Detail from The Disputation of St Catherine by Pinturicchio, Borgia Apartments, Vatican, Rome (Photo: Scala, Florence)

Giulia Farnese. Detail from The Transfiguration by Raphael, Pinacoteca, Vatican, Rome (Photo: Scala, Florence)

Giovanni Sforza, Lucrezias first husband. British Museum, London (Photo: Trustees of The British Museum)

Alfonso dAragona, Lucrezias second husband. Codice Ferraiolo, Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, MS M.801, f. 146V. (Photo: Pierpont Morgan Library)

Ercole I dEste, Lucrezias father-in-law by her third marriage, by Dosso Dossi. Galleria e Museo Estense, Modena (Photo: Laborado Pincelli)

Castello Estense, Ferrara (Photo: Scala, Florence)

Alfonso I dEste, Lucrezias last husband, by Dosso Dossi. Galleria e Museo Estense, Modena (Photo: Bridgeman Art Library)

Ippolito dEste. Biblioteca Comunale Ariostea, Ferrara (Photo: Fototeca Civica, Musei Civici di Arte Antica di Ferrara)

Detail from a fresco of The Months by Francesco del Cossa and others, depicting courtly pastimes. Palazzo Schifanoia, Ferrara (Photo: Scala, Florence)

Late fifteenth-century woodcut of Ferrara. Biblioteca Estense Universitaria, Modena (Photo: Studio Roncaglia)

Isabella dEste, by Leonardo da Vinci. Cabinet des Dessins, Muse du Louvre, Paris (Photo: Scala, Florence)

Francesco II Gonzaga, Lucrezias lover, bust by Gian Cristoforo Romano. Palazzo Ducal, Mantua (Photo: Scala, Florence)

Pietro Bembo, famous poet and Lucrezias lover, by Raphael. Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest (Photo: Bridgeman Art Library)

Ercole Strozzi, Biblioteca Comunale Ariostea, Ferrara (Photo: Fototeca Civica, Musei Civici di Arte Antica di Ferrara)

Pope Julius II (Giuliano della Rovere), by Raphael. National Gallery, London (Photo: Bridgeman Art Library)

Pope Leo X (Giovanni deMedici), by Raphael. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence (Photo: Scala, Florence)

Engraved silver plaque showing Lucrezia Borgia, her son Ercole and San Maurelio, protector of Ferrara, by Giannantonio da Foligno. Basilica di San Giorgio, Ferrara (Photo: Fototeca Civica, Musei Civici di Arte Antica di Ferrara)

Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders and we apologize in advance for any unintentional omission. We would be pleased to insert the appropriate acknowledgement in any subsequent editions.

Acknowledgements

My husband, William Bangor, has been my co-author in the sense that only someone with his knowledge of late fifteenth-and early sixteenth-century Italy could have helped me transcribe the thousands of pages of manuscript material which have formed the basis for this book. Without his help, it would have taken far longer to complete. The admiration which he developed for Lucrezia in the course of his work has been a sustaining inspiration.