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Speaker 1: Welcome to you stuff you missed in history class from

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Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. You've heard the rumors before,

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Speaker 1: perhaps and whispers written between the lines of the textbooks. Conspiracies,

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Speaker 1: paranormal events, all those things that disappear from the official explanations.

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Speaker 1: Tune in and learn more of this stuff they don't

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Speaker 1: want you to know in this video podcast from how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Katie Lambert and I'm Sarah Daddy. So last weekend

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Speaker 1: I checked out the new exhibit on Leonardo da Vinci

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Speaker 1: at the High Museum in Atlanta, and I would definitely

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Speaker 1: call the centerpiece of the exhibit this colossal horse reproduction.

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Speaker 1: So you're basically in the middle middle of like midtown Atlanta,

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Speaker 1: and then you're by this huge foe Bronze Renaissance force.

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Speaker 1: And when I was learning a little bit about it,

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Speaker 1: it was originally commissioned by the sports of Family, which

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Speaker 1: got me thinking about other famous Renaissance families, and we're

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Speaker 1: talking about the Borgia's, specifically Lucrezia Borgia, and it was

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Speaker 1: funny I changed my Facebook stas to say that I

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Speaker 1: knew more about Lucretia Borgia than anyone, and I got

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Speaker 1: so many comments on it, and a friend of mine

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Speaker 1: brought up a three Stooges sketch where Mo accuses Curly

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Speaker 1: of being a Lucretia Borgia by trying to poison them.

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Speaker 1: And that's the legend that she was this incestuous poisoning

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Speaker 1: thumb fatale or just a victim in a pawn of

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Speaker 1: her brother and her family. So we're gonna try to

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Speaker 1: figure out what really happened with her. Um. To do that,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna start out talking a little bit about the

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Speaker 1: Borgia family. They're originally from Spain, but they were based

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Speaker 1: in Italy, and it's a pretty amazing family. They produced

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Speaker 1: two popes, the mo Attele for the Mackavellian Prince and

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Speaker 1: a saint But don't worry, we're not going to focus

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Speaker 1: on the saintly family the contrary Um and their primary puppet,

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Speaker 1: or perhaps their primary player, was Lucrazia, who was the

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Speaker 1: illegitimate daughter of Um, an unlikely character as we'll find

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Speaker 1: out in a minute, but the family kind of got

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Speaker 1: set up by a great uncle, Alfonso di Borgia, who

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Speaker 1: was Pope Callixtus the third, and he set up his

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Speaker 1: family through neptism in the church and in politics, including

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Speaker 1: his young nephew Rodrigo Borgia, who becomes a cardinal and

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Speaker 1: Rodrigo Borgia, who later became Pope Alexander the sixth had

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Speaker 1: a mistress, the notesa Dikatane, and it wasn't that uncommon

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Speaker 1: for religious men of the time to have mistresses, as

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Speaker 1: surprising as that maybe to us today, especially religious men

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Speaker 1: of that statue. A cardinal is a pretty important position, right,

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Speaker 1: that's very high up there. But they had three kids together.

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Speaker 1: He had at least six kids, and possibly some more,

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Speaker 1: We're not entirely sure. And one of those three was Lucrezia,

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Speaker 1: who was born in April eighteenth, fourteen eighty in Rome.

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Speaker 1: The other two were Cis and Juan, and Wan ends

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Speaker 1: up in the Tiber at some point, probably killed high Csari.

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Speaker 1: The Borges as a family were known for being very attractive,

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Speaker 1: very intelligent, and very strong willed. They were also well educated.

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Speaker 1: Lucrezia was educated by a woman named Adriana Orsini, who

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Speaker 1: was related to them, and traditionally, most well off young

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Speaker 1: women of the time were educated in convents, but a

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Speaker 1: lot of these convents weren't the morally upstanding kind of

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Speaker 1: places you would think a convent would be. Again, kind

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Speaker 1: of on par with being a cardinal or Yeah, the

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Speaker 1: church was a bit corrupt at the time, and a

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Speaker 1: lot of religious education was more about the forms of

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Speaker 1: religion rather than the ethics. So you would learn how

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Speaker 1: to appear to be a holy person. But no one

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Speaker 1: told you not to have orgies in the Vatican. We'll

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Speaker 1: come up a little bit later. So she was trained

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Speaker 1: in languages, music, drawing, and embroidery, and by the age

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Speaker 1: of eleven she was engaged twice to Spanish nobles, actually

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Speaker 1: at the same time. So covering her bets, I gotta

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Speaker 1: have a back up to Don Cherubino, Wanda Centell and

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Speaker 1: Don Gasparo. And it's rumored she lost her virginity at

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Speaker 1: age ten to Don Cherubino. But in four two, Daddy

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Speaker 1: becomes pope, so little Lucrezia can do better than her

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Speaker 1: Spanish dawns. And uh, they're the Borgia family wants to

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Speaker 1: find an alliance that can do some work for him,

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Speaker 1: and so they decide on Giovanni Sports and this is

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Speaker 1: a powerful alliance with a Milanese family. And these are

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Speaker 1: the these are the guys who are commissioning the horse

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Speaker 1: from Bernardo DaVinci, eventually the giant horse people. As far

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Speaker 1: as those remember, he was an illegitimate prince, and I

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Speaker 1: think according to the wedding contract, she was supposed to

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Speaker 1: remain in Rome for a year after the ceremony, until

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Speaker 1: which time the marriage was not to be consummated. But

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Speaker 1: this wedding is something else. So once again her father

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Speaker 1: is pope. By now he's actually moved on to a

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Speaker 1: new mistress aside from her mother, Julia France. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: they have this big wedding at the Vatican, which just

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Speaker 1: seems so terribly inappropriate, the pope's daughter getting married to

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Speaker 1: the Vatican um. But it's a really big deal, five

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Speaker 1: ladies attending the bride, and um the new mistress involved,

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Speaker 1: and it's it's a little screwing. Yeah. So they're married

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Speaker 1: for a few years and she lives with her husband

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Speaker 1: and Pizarro, and then eventually they come back to Rome,

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Speaker 1: but Lucuzia things are rupturing. By that point. The Borges

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Speaker 1: have decided that Giovanni doesn't have all the power that

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Speaker 1: they need. He's no longer that beneficial of a political alliance,

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Speaker 1: and they're thinking she could do better. Yeah, the Pope

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Speaker 1: has switched as alliance, so he's supporting Naples, so he

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Speaker 1: he doesn't want to be aligned with the sorts of

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Speaker 1: family anymore. And it wasn't a happy marriage either, so

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Speaker 1: Lucretia maybe wouldn't have been so sad to have it

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Speaker 1: ruptured for her. So one of two things may have

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Speaker 1: happened here. One, the Pope may have actually ordered Giovanni's execution,

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Speaker 1: and Lucrezia warned her husband he got out of Dodge

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Speaker 1: Dodge being Rome in this case, and then that kind

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Speaker 1: of gives ground for an eventual annulment. Or she might

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Speaker 1: have just made the entire thing up to get rid

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Speaker 1: of him then, like boring Husble, and he knew that

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Speaker 1: he was no longer the person that they had hoped

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Speaker 1: him to be, and so she tells him, you know,

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Speaker 1: my father once she murdered, he's very powerful, and and

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Speaker 1: he leaves. Yeah, but regardless, Giovanni's out of Rome, and

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Speaker 1: this opens up an avenue for a forced annulment. And

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Speaker 1: the ennulment is so embarrassing for Giovanni they force him

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Speaker 1: to sign it and it says that he's impotent and

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Speaker 1: therefore the marriage was never consummated, which is dubious at

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Speaker 1: best because may have been pregnant at the time, although

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Speaker 1: perhaps not from him. We won't find out about that

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Speaker 1: until a little bit later. But Giovanni is so ticked

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Speaker 1: off about how he's been forced to do this that

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Speaker 1: he accuses her of incest with her father and brother,

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Speaker 1: and that's where that long history linger with her reputation

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Speaker 1: for quite some time. But she's free to marry again,

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Speaker 1: and the Borges of course want an equally powerful political

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Speaker 1: alliance as her first was, so they marry her off

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Speaker 1: right away, and they marry her off to Alfonso of Aragon,

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Speaker 1: who was seventeen. He was the Duke of Basselli, an

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Speaker 1: important part of Naples, and it seemed to be a

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Speaker 1: off match. They're both, you know, young and in love

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Speaker 1: and handsome, and things were working out well. But of course,

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Speaker 1: if you're a Borgia son in law, things can't last

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Speaker 1: too long. And soon enough, the Pope has realigned his

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Speaker 1: allegiances again and Alfonso is no longer in favor, and

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Speaker 1: that's where things get very tragic. The Pope tells them

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Speaker 1: they should come to Rome to wait for the birth

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Speaker 1: of their baby, um Rodrigo Borgia to Aragon, and Alfonso

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Speaker 1: gets there and realizes this is not a good place

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Speaker 1: for him to be, so he leaves and eventually is

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Speaker 1: convinced to come back by Lucrezia. And he is attacked

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Speaker 1: and almost killed in St. Peter's Square in July by

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Speaker 1: a mysterious band of men, and as he's recovering from

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Speaker 1: that and Lucrezia is nursing him, he's strangled, likely by

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Speaker 1: her brother or perhaps the servant. So she's heartbroken. Her

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Speaker 1: family has murdered her husband and she's sent off because

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Speaker 1: they're tired of watching her grieve. Well, and that may

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Speaker 1: have been a case too of cis are going against

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Speaker 1: Pope Alexander's wishes because the pope it's on a guard

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Speaker 1: because he knew what might happen, and cis are got

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Speaker 1: around him. But Lucrezia was heartbroken and she heads to

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Speaker 1: Nippy and start signing her letters the most unhappy Princess

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Speaker 1: of Salerno, so our from Fatale here, it's clearly a

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Speaker 1: little devastated by what's happens. Yeah. Well, and around the

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Speaker 1: same time we have one of the weirdest events in

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Speaker 1: Lucrezia's life. This toddler appears on the scene three year

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Speaker 1: old child who's popularly known as the Roman infant, but

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Speaker 1: whose name Toiovanni, don't you like that very descriptive name, right,

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Speaker 1: I do? Um? And two papal bulls are released regarding

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Speaker 1: this kid. So I'd say one would be a lot

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Speaker 1: for most people, but two, and the first one calls

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Speaker 1: him the legitimate son of cis A, Lucrezia's brother. The

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Speaker 1: second calls him the legitimate son of Alexander the Pope,

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Speaker 1: neither of whom should be having kids anyways. Obviously Alexander's

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Speaker 1: the pope cs are he is probably still a cardinal

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Speaker 1: when this mysterious infant is fathered, So those are both

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Speaker 1: pretty sketchy options well, and to issue papal bulls saying

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Speaker 1: things like the Pope has had this child is even stranger.

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Speaker 1: But a lot of people thought it might have been

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Speaker 1: Lucrezia's child, And there's also a rumor that it was

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Speaker 1: her child by this messenger who's later murdered Pedro Calderone,

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Speaker 1: and he's found in the Tiber along with a lot

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Speaker 1: of Borgia enemies. So, but this kid kind of follows

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Speaker 1: Lucrezia around through her life, you know, living with different relatives,

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Speaker 1: but making appearances, they seem to have an important bond

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Speaker 1: between them, even though she refers to him as her

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Speaker 1: nephew for most of it. A lot of historians think

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Speaker 1: it was actually her child, which means again, she would

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Speaker 1: have been very pregnant when she was getting divorced for

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Speaker 1: non consummation of her marriage. So thanks Porgea's she gets

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Speaker 1: married again, her third and last marriage, and that's to

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Speaker 1: Alphonso Destay, the Duke of Ferrara, and they're married in

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Speaker 1: fifteen o one. It's arranged by Chaserae and Alfonse, who

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Speaker 1: is not excited about marrying Offfortunately, I mean, you've seen

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Speaker 1: what what's happened to her previous two husbands, Like, why

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Speaker 1: would you want to hear a family? They're clearly morally

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Speaker 1: corrupt and in general terrible people. Her future sister in

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Speaker 1: law Isabelle, freaks out and wants nothing to do with

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Speaker 1: this marriage and does everything she can to stop it,

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Speaker 1: but Lucrezia does her best to win over the family.

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Speaker 1: And this is my favorite detail about this. Her future

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Speaker 1: father in law collects nuns, preferably those who have displayed

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Speaker 1: the stigmata, so of course, yeah, why would you want

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Speaker 1: any other kind, So Lucrezia helps him add his collection

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Speaker 1: by sending him a few nuns. And I just I

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Speaker 1: have to wonder, since she's a member of the Borgia family,

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Speaker 1: how did these poor nuns get their stigmatas and really

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Speaker 1: probably rather work for them. The Estay family was extremely

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Speaker 1: important and powerful, and the Borgias were desperate to be

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Speaker 1: part of it, and they also really wanted to fix

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Speaker 1: the Crazias image because at this point people were calling

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Speaker 1: her terrible things. I think one of her nicknames was

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Speaker 1: the worst whore in all of Rome. Apologies for the language,

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Speaker 1: that's what it was. Although her new husband wasn't that

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Speaker 1: fantastic either. He was warlike and uncouth and really liked

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Speaker 1: the company of prostitutes, but his first wife had died

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Speaker 1: in childbirth and he was in need of someone else

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Speaker 1: to give him an air. But it actually ends up

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Speaker 1: being a pretty good match. Surprisingly, they sort of rule

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Speaker 1: as um partners over Ferrara. She helps bring a lot

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Speaker 1: of art and culture to her court, and she's generally

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Speaker 1: regarded as a as a success and manages to survive

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Speaker 1: most impressively, survived the fall of her family, and when

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Speaker 1: the Borgia's fall, they go down hard and It starts

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Speaker 1: when Alexander dies in fifteen oh three, maybe from poisoning,

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Speaker 1: maybe from the plague, and the priests at St. Peter's

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Speaker 1: this is how bad things are. The priests refused to

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Speaker 1: accept his body initially, the Pope and um Esar. Without

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Speaker 1: the support of his father and all that strength, he

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Speaker 1: goes down pretty fast, and his exile to Spain died

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Speaker 1: shortly afterwards in a siege. So you would think Lucrezia

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Speaker 1: would be influenced by this fall too, but she's set

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Speaker 1: herself up so respectfully by this point that she's pretty

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Speaker 1: much immune to it. It it even improves her oddly enough.

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Speaker 1: She becomes a lot less political and a lot more religious.

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Speaker 1: She even pawns her jewels to help the poor. She's

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Speaker 1: not so interested anymore in the intrigues of the Borgia family,

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Speaker 1: and she's had her own private tragedies during this marriage.

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Speaker 1: She's had had several miscarriages and very difficult pregnancies, a

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Speaker 1: few still births, and was treated with the typically medieval

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Speaker 1: medical procedures of the time. So people were bleeding her

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Speaker 1: from the foot with her stillborn children, which it could

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Speaker 1: not have unpleasant. They end up having six children, four

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Speaker 1: lived to adulthood. Um. Little Isabella dies at birth, and

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Speaker 1: so does Alessandro. But we don't want to make her

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Speaker 1: out to be too pious, because she had her fund.

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Speaker 1: During her marriage as well, she had several love affairs,

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Speaker 1: one of whom was her brother in law, Francesco second Gonzaga,

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Speaker 1: the Marquis of Mantua, her bisexual brother in law, who

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Speaker 1: was married to the aforementioned Isabella dste who hated her,

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Speaker 1: and they ended up breaking off their affair, possibly because

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Speaker 1: of syphilis which he died of, and possibly because the

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Speaker 1: messenger between them was stabbed twenty two times and killed.

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Speaker 1: It's really the boys is a dangerous, dangerous people to

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Speaker 1: be around. Um. One of her other lovers perhaps just

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Speaker 1: uh this this affair might have just been conducted in

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Speaker 1: courtly love letters, but regardless it went on for sixteen years.

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Speaker 1: Was with Pietro Bembo, who was a linguist and later

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Speaker 1: a cardinal's ken. We feel that because um, but he's

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Speaker 1: most famous today because his name belongs to a font

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Speaker 1: which Katie and I checked it a lot available in

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Speaker 1: our office suite. UM. And he's also a character in

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Speaker 1: Castiglione is the book of the courtier. But uh. These

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Speaker 1: letters exchanged with Lucrezia made it survive through history and

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Speaker 1: came along with a lock of hair believed to be lucreziaus.

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Speaker 1: And Lord Byron views this correspondence in the eighteen hundreds,

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Speaker 1: and he's so taken by this correspondence, which he just

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Speaker 1: thinks it is absolutely beautiful that he steals the strand

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Speaker 1: of the hair. It's kind of it's kind of greed,

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Speaker 1: be isn't it. He steals the strand of the hair

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Speaker 1: and he shows it to Lee Hunt and Walter Savage Lander,

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Speaker 1: who writes an epigram about the hair. It's more about

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Speaker 1: the hair than it is about Lucrezia. You know, you

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Speaker 1: have to read it. Okay, It's called on seeing a

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Speaker 1: hair of Lucrezia Borgia Borgia. Thou once wert almost too

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Speaker 1: august and high for adoration. Now thou art dust. All

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Speaker 1: that remains of these plates in fold calm hair meandering

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Speaker 1: with pellucid gold. Which is a much nicer thing written

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Speaker 1: about her than what Victor Hugo wrote in his preface

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Speaker 1: to the play Lucrezia Borgia. This is a direct quote.

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Speaker 1: Who actually is Lucrezia Borgia? Take the most hideous the

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Speaker 1: most repulsive, the most complete moral deformity. Place it where

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Speaker 1: it fits best, in the heart of a woman, whose

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Speaker 1: physical beauty and royal grandeur will make the crime stand

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Speaker 1: out all the more strikingly. Then, add to all that

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Speaker 1: moral deformity the purest feeling a woman can have, that

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Speaker 1: of a mother inside our monster. Put a mother, and

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Speaker 1: the mother will interest to us and make us weep.

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Speaker 1: And this creature that filled us with fear will inspire pity.

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Speaker 1: That deformed soul will be almost beautiful in our eyes.

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Speaker 1: So you can see the scathing judgment that history put

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Speaker 1: on the Crazia. Romantics became almost obsessed with Lucrezia and

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Speaker 1: of an opera. Donaldetti wrote an opera based on Victor

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Speaker 1: Hugo's work. They just they couldn't get enough of her,

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Speaker 1: it seems. When it was one of those things I

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Speaker 1: keep saying, history is not black and white, and people

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Speaker 1: wanted to make her either really good or really bad.

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Speaker 1: So if there were those people who said she was

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Speaker 1: the incestuous poisoner who was evil embodied, and then the

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Speaker 1: people who tried to say, no, no, she was actually

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Speaker 1: very pious, and go to the complete obvious extreme, she'd

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Speaker 1: run away to the nunnery whenever, whereas we're going to say,

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Speaker 1: she was somewhere in the middle and had a lot

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Speaker 1: of good qualities and a lot of bad ones. And

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Speaker 1: she died complications of childbirth and june um when baby

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Speaker 1: Isabella was born stillborn, and before when she knew she

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Speaker 1: was dying, she wrote to Hope Leo asking for his

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Speaker 1: forgiveness for all of her sins and as for her

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Speaker 1: other children. Giovanni went to the French court, and he

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Speaker 1: never succeeded in making his fortune like they'd hope. He

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Speaker 1: died in Genoa in fifteen forty seven. Er Cole succeeded

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Speaker 1: his father as the Dike of Ferrara. I Polito became

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Speaker 1: a cardinal, and when I think of Bippolito, I think

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Speaker 1: of the restaurant, so that's all I could think of

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Speaker 1: when I was sitting at this. Leonora became a nun

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Speaker 1: and Francesco was Marquese di Messo Lombardo, and the Borgia

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Speaker 1: is actually just sort of slip away not too long

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Speaker 1: after this. There really only prominent in the fourteen hundreds

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Speaker 1: and the fifteen hundreds, and well, we think of the

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Speaker 1: Medici family and even the sports is is having descendants

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Speaker 1: who made it into all sorts of European courts, or

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Speaker 1: or had had influential family members down the line. The Borgias,

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Speaker 1: they're pretty much gone. Um one interesting descendant though, Brookshields.

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Speaker 1: She's a She's a descendant of Lucretia's. Well, there's a

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Speaker 1: Hollywood trivia tidbit. I bet you didn't know, because I

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Speaker 1: certainly didn't. So if you'd like to learn more about

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Speaker 1: how the papacy works, as well as the Italian Renaissance,

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Speaker 1: go check out our homepage at www dot how stuff

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Speaker 1: works dot com and check out the blog while you're there.

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Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit

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Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Let us know what you think.

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Speaker 1: Send an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com,

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Speaker 1: and be sure to check out the stuff you missed

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