Borgia (properly Borja)

BORGIA (properly Borja). - A noble family of Nativa in Aragon, it acquired fame when Alfonso became Pontiff under the name Callixtus III (v.) and hastened to surround himself with members of his house. First among them were RODERIGO, the future Alexander VI (v.), and PEDRO LUYS, sons of Isabella, the Pope's sister, and of Jofré de B.; this second was immediately made captain general of the Church and castellan of Castel Sant'Angelo around March 1456 and subsequently in that year governor of certain cities of the Church, then on 19 Aug. 1457 also governor of the Patrimony in Tuscia and prefect of Rome. Having fled from Rome at the death of his uncle (6 Aug. 1458), he died at Civitavecchia on 26 Sept.

Son of Caterina, another sister of Callixtus III, and of Luys Mila or del Milan, LUYS JUAN was bishop of Segorbe and cardinal of the Santi Quattro on 20 Feb. 1456 together with his cousin Roderigo. Sister of this cardinal was that ADRIANA MILA who married Lodovico Orsini, lord of Bassanello, and had wide influence in the court of Alexander VI.

The sons of Card. Roderigo were: PEDRO LUYS, for whom his father in 1485 bought for 40,000 scudi the duchy of Gandía in Spain; there he married Maria Enriquez; summoned to Rome in 1488, he died there shortly afterwards (cf. P. Paschini, Il carteggio Barbo-Lorenzi, Città del Vaticano 1947, p. 133; Pastor, III, p. 268). GIRO-

LAMA, wife of Gian Andrea Cesarini, d. in 1483, sister of the preceding 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 had by the children whom Card. Roderigo had by the Roman woman Vannozza dei Cattanei, with whom he had a relationship from 1474. First among them was CESARE (v.), second was GIOVANNI, b. in 1476-77, to whom his father had the duchy of Gandia assigned; having returned from Spain in Aug. 1496 and been created gonfalonier of the Church, he took part in an unfortunate enterprise against the Orsini and was to have the duchy of Benevento when he was mysteriously killed and thrown into the Tiber on the night of 14 June 1497. Third was GIOFFRÈ, to whom Ferdinand, king of Naples, in 1494 assigned the principality of Squillace and the county of Cariati; 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.

Last was LUCREZIA (v.). During the pontificate Alexander had a son, GIOVANNI, the Roman infant, by an unknown woman (1498), for whom on 1 Sept. he sought to create a position, but who ended obscurely. With the historically established vicissitudes of this tragic family were soon mingled the infamous accusations that politics, partisan spirit, and the hatreds provoked by its crimes accumulated upon its personages. Paul III, who did not deny it his gratitude for the benefits he had received from it, wished to give new proof of this by conferring upon ENRICO B., son of the duke of Gandia, on 17 Dec. 1539 the bishopric of Squillace and creating him cardinal. He received the hat on 31 May 1540, but died on 16 Sept. at the age of 22. In times closer to our own, Romanticism persisted in creating a whole bloodthirsty literature of novels, dramas, and lyrics, with influences even in melodrama, that has nothing to do with true history.

Pio Paschini