The Borgias…the name evokes images of intrigue, lust, and maybe previews for a new TV series. The family of Pope Alexander VI certainly provided Rome and the rest of the world with enough scandal to last several lifetimes, or at least enough to earn the Spanish pope several hundred years in purgatory. But I’m sure Alexander, or Rodrigo Borgia thought himself exempt to the punishments of lesser and common people, after all he was God’s anointed vicar on earth!
The mere fact that the pope had a family (and by family I mean children) that lived with him in the Vatican was a scandal in itself. Catholic priests were supposed to be celibate, having children was definitely not allowed, and if one did have them, or a mistress, propriety would demand that they be hidden away or unacknowledged. This didn’t fly with the Borgia pope. In fact, as a Cardinal in 1460 he had been reprimanded by Pope Pious II for being too fond of cavorting with women, an outlandish charge against a faultless clergyman, no? When Borgia was elected to the papal throne in August of 1492 the church was the center of the European world. The inquisition was alive and well Queen Isabella of Spain was waging a holy war against the Moors for the religion she considered to be true and right. Columbus discovered America in the same year and all manner of new “heathen” tribes to convert by force. One would think that Catholic Europe would be hopping up and down in protest of this lecherous churchman being elected as the new leader of all that was holy, but they were not. There were political considerations, such as a potential French invasion of Italy and disputes between Spain and Portugal that were taken under advisement by the ruling monarchs and the election of a Spanish pope was most likely a boon to Ferdinand and Isabella, who now had a countryman on the throne of St. Peter.
After a lavish coronation Alexander took up the papal mantle and residence in St. Peter’s. He soon brought his four youngest children Cesare, Juan, Lucrezia, and Jofre to live with him there. Their mother was Vanozza Cattanei, Rodrigo’s lover of many years. Vanozza was thought to have been born in Mantua, and despite being the mistress of a powerful cardinal was married three times, at one point living in a house next to the Cardinal’s with her second husband. She remained in favor with Borgia until his death, although they were probably not lovers by the time he was elected pope. By then he had taken on a new and much younger mistress, Giulia de Farnese, the daughter-in-law of his niece Adriana Mila. Giulia was around 15, Borgia was 60. She and Lucrezia were housed in a palace given to them by the Cardinal of Santa Maria in Portico. The palace connected to the Vatican through a door that led into the Sistine Chapel. There is just something very ironic about lovers being able to rendezvous by way of a door into a chapel, especially one that later had the last judgment painted on the wall. It’s even more scandalous when one of those people is married and the other is the Pope.
The leading families of Italy quickly set out to ally themselves with the new pontiff, and sought marriages with his sons and daughter. Borgia decided to ally his family with the house of Sforza, the ruling Dukes of Milan. Gian Galeazzo, who would meet an untimely end, was the reigning ruler of the city but he was overshadowed and controlled by his ambitious uncle, Ludovico, “Il Moro,” who was married to an equally ambitious woman, Beatrice d’Este. Lucrezia, Borgia’s only daughter was engaged and subsequently married to Giovanni Sforza, a lesser Sforza relative and the Count of Pesaro. She would later be forced to divorce the poor man and would be miraculously “revirginized,” so that she could marry again. But that is only the beginning…
Sources:
“Lucrezia Borgia” by Maria Bellonci
http://www.1902encyclopedia.com/A/ALE/alexander-vi.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Inquisition.html