BORGIA, Lucrezia. — Daughter of Cardinal Rodrigo and Vannozza, born on 18 April 1480. At the age of eleven, she was betrothed to the Valencian Cherubino Giovanni Centelles and later to Gaspare di Procida, Count of Aversa. Then, through the efforts of Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, she entered into a true marriage on 13 June 1493 with Giovanni Sforza, lord of Pesaro, who served the Pope as a condottiere. Political schemes led Alexander VI to annul this marriage as ratified but unconsummated on 20 December 1497, in order to arrange her marriage to Alfonso of Bisceglie, an illegitimate son of Alfonso II, King of Naples. This marriage was celebrated without excessive pomp on 15 July 1498; from it, Lucrezia had a son named Roderico. However, the shifting political alliances provoked fierce hatred in Cesare Borgia toward Alfonso, leading him to have Alfonso treacherously assaulted in St. Peter’s Square on 15 July 1500 and then killed on 18 August. Cesare did not deny his involvement in the murder.
Finally, through the intervention of King Louis XII of France, Lucrezia’s marriage to Alfonso, son of Ercole, Duke of Ferrara, was arranged on 10 September 1501. The proxy wedding was celebrated with great splendor on 30 December in the presence of Cardinal Ippolito, Alfonso’s brother, and on 6 January Lucrezia left Rome with a grand entourage. Her life in the papal court had been one of the most brilliant; the Pope entrusted her with the custody of the papal palace during his absences, took her with him on his travels, entrusted her with the governance of Foligno, Spoleto, and Nepi, and finally assigned her a princely dowry in lands, jewels, and trousseau.
One cannot say she remained unmoved by the events of her first twenty years, but she soon consoled herself for the tragedies in which she had been involved. She did not escape the calumnies leveled against her family, but in those years she was neither a shrewish accomplice nor a scheming instigator of crimes, nor a helpless victim of others’ tyranny. She was probably no more than a vain and dissolute young woman in a lavish and unscrupulous court.
In Ferrara, she conducted herself with dignity and upheld the prestige of duchess, which began for her in 1505, always courted by the leading figures who frequented the Este court in those years. She had several children: Ercole II, Ippolito (the second cardinal of that name who played a significant role in Franco-Este politics), Alessandro, Francesco, and Eleonora.
From 1512, perhaps in light of the tragic events of those years, she devoted herself to a more secluded life and to religious practices, until she died at the age of thirty-nine on 24 June 1519 in Belriguardo, following a miscarriage. She was buried in the Ferrarese monastery of the *Corpus Domini*.