Borgia, Lucrezia, << BAWR juh, loo KREE zhuh >> (1480-1519), was an Italian noblewoman and the daughter of Pope Alexander VI. People who hated her powerful father and her cruelly ambitious older brother Cesare Borgia told lies about Lucrezia to ruin her reputation.
Lucrezia Borgia was born in Subiaco, near Rome, probably on April 19, 1480. She was the daughter of Rodrigo Borgia, a Spanish nobleman who later became Pope Alexander VI. Her father married her off to princes to advance his own political schemes. She was first married at age 13, but that marriage was annulled when she was 17. She married again at age 18, but her brother Cesare had that husband murdered. Enemies of her father and brother spread the lie that she committed incest with her father and brother. In 1501, Lucrezia married Alfonso d’Este, the future Duke of Ferrara. She presided over the glittering court of Ferrara, where she was a leader of fashion. Lucrezia helped artists and writers, and she was generous to the people of Ferrara, who admired her. On June 24, 1519, she died of an infection after the birth of her seventh child.
