BORGIA (properly BORJA). – Noble family of Navarre in Aragon, it acquired fame when Alfonso became Pope under the name of Callistus III (v.) and hastened to surround himself with members of his family. Foremost among them were RODERICO, the future Alexander VI (v.), and PEDRO LUYS, sons of Isabella, the Pope’s sister, and of Jofré de B.; the latter was immediately appointed captain general of the Church and castellan of Castel S. Angelo around March 1456 and subsequently, in that year, governor of several cities of the Church, then, on 19 August 1457, also governor of the Patrimony in Tuscia and prefect of Rome. Having fled Rome upon the death of his uncle (6 August 1458), he died at Civitavecchia on 26 September.
Son of Caterina, another sister of Callistus III, and of Luys Mila or del Milan, LUYS JUAN was bishop of Segorbe and cardinal of the Santi Quattro on 20 February 1456, together with his cousin Roderico. The sister of this cardinal was ADRIANA MILA, who married Lodovico Orsini, lord of Bassanello, and wielded considerable influence at the court of Alexander VI.
The children of Cardinal Roderico were: PEDRO LUYS, for whom his father purchased the duchy of Gandía in Spain in 1485 for 40,000 scudi; there he married Maria Enriquez; summoned to Rome in 1488, he died there shortly afterward (cf. P. Paschini, Il carteggio Barbo-Lorenzi, Città del Vaticano 1947, p. 133; Pastor, III, p. 268). GIRO-
LAMA, wife of Gian Andrea Cesarini, died in 1483, sister of the former and of another Giovanni B. LISABETTA, wife of Pietro Matuzzi, a Roman citizen, who died in 1541 (cf. U. Gnoli, Una figlia sconosciuta di Alessandro VI, in Urbe, 2 [1937, n. 8], p. 8). Greater prominence in history was attained by the children whom Cardinal Roderico had by the Roman woman Vannozza dei Cattanei, with whom he had a relationship from 1474. NAVA, CESARE. (v.); the second was GIOVANNI, born in 1476–77, to whom his father had the duchy of Gandia assigned; having returned from Spain in August 1496 and been appointed gonfalonier of the Church, he took part in an unsuccessful expedition against the Orsini and was to have received the duchy of Benevento when he was mysteriously killed and thrown into the Tiber on the night of 14 June 1497. The third was GIOFFRÈ, to whom Ferdinand, king of Naples, assigned the principality of Squillace and the county of Cariati in 1494; the following year he married Sancia, natural daughter of Alfonso, duke of Calabria. The progeny of these two continued respectively in and in the kingdom of.
The last was LUCREZIA (v.). During his pontificate Alexander had a son, GIOVANNI, the Roman infante, by an unknown woman (1498), for whom on 1 September he sought to establish a position, but who ended obscurely. The historically established events of this tragic family became confused with the defamatory accusations that politics, partisan spirit, and the hatreds provoked by his faults soon heaped upon its members. Paul III, who did not deny it his gratitude for the benefits he had received from it, wished to offer new proof of this by conferring upon ENRICO B., son of the duke of Gandia, the bishopric of Squillace on 17 December 1539 and creating him a cardinal. He received the hat on 31 May 1540, but died on 16 September at the age of 22. In times closer to our own, Romanticism devoted itself to creating an entire lurid literature of novels, dramas, and lyrics, with influences extending even into opera, which has nothing to do with true history.