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Showing posts from April 20, 2014

Lucrezia Borgia, Entrepreneur

W ho was Lucrezia Borgia?  Tradition has it that she may have poisoned her second husband, Giovanni Sforza.  Rumor of the day had it that Lucretia had incestuous relations with both her father, Rodrigo Borgia, later Pope Alexander VI, and her brother, Cesare Borgia.   What is know for certain is that Lucretia was the illegitimate daughter of Rodrigo, then a cardinal of the Catholic Church, and his mistress,  Vannozza dei Cattanei.  It is known that she was married three times, the first being annulled as never being consummated (despite her giving birth a few months after the annulment).  The second marriage ended in the death of her husband, Giovanni, and her third to  Alfonso d'Este, son of the powerful Duke of Ferrera.  This was also to be Alfonso's third marriage, which ended when Lucrezia dies ten days after she gave birth to a stillborn daughter.  She also had affairs (as did her husbands) with several political figures of the day, and even gave birth to the