Written by Francesca Newson
Lucrezia Borgia has long been presented as a controversial figure: subjected to political intrigue and accusations of incest and murder. Whilst Lucrezia’s negative reputation persists in popular culture, historiographical progress challenges her unfounded caricature. Instead, research led by the nineteenth-century historian Ferdinand Gregorovius has seen a shift in the way she has been portrayed. Subsequent historians, influenced by the need to reassess women’s roles in history, have repurposed primary sources to reveal Lucrezia’s remarkable administrative role that has been disregarded throughout her historiography.
Born in 1480, Lucrezia was the illegitimate daughter of Pope Alexander VI and Vannozza dei Cattanei, and the sister of Cesare Borgia. The prominent Spanish Borgia family who rose to power during the Italian Renaissance were known for corruption, scandal, and their vast array of political enemies. Lucrezia was vital in bolstering her family’s power through advantageous marriages which forged important political alliances. On 12 June 1493, Lucrezia married Giovanni Sforza; however, when the Borgias no longer needed an alliance with the Sforza family, Alexander VI and Cesare organised an annulment on the basis that he was impotent. Angered by this, Giovanni initially refused the annulment and accused Lucrezia of incest with her father and brother. This rumour endured through the ages and haunted Lucrezia’s reputation for centuries to come. Her second marriage was with Alfonso of Aragon in 1498. The marriage was short as Alfonso was murdered in 1500 and the perpetrator was rumoured to be Lucrezia’s brother — Cesare. Lucrezia’s reputation was, therefore, tainted due to the notorious acts of the Borgia family.
Scholars have previously focused on specific contemporary accounts, encouraging ungrounded accusations of Lucrezia and demonstrating how the reliance on contemporary sources — based on rumour and untruth — meant that those rumours were presented as historical facts. One such contemporary writer was the Florentine historian Francesco Guicciardini, writing in the early sixteenth century. Guicciardini was a well-respected statesman and historian who produced a report accusing Lucrezia of committing incest. However, his account was motivated by his mistrust of the Spanish and his strong hatred for Alexander VI and the Borgias; witnessed in his degrading account of Lucrezia. Guicciardini’s views were very influential as they persisted for centuries and inspired later writers’ judgements of Lucrezia. After centuries of Lucrezia’s reputation remaining unjustly tarnished because of the political hatred for her family, historians began to reappraise her role.
In 1840 William Roscoe, an English lawyer, wrote an apology which argued that Lucrezia could not have been guilty of incest and was a victim of circumstance — basing his conclusion on archival sources. Whilst Roscoe seemed to represent a change of approach to the study of Lucrezia, it was the scholarly rigour which Ferdinand Adolph Gregorovius took up which had a more lasting impact. The task of transforming the portrayal of Lucrezia after a period of no change was inevitably difficult, particularly after the success of Victor Hugo’s 1833 play titled Lucrezia Borgia portraying her in a negative way. Gregorovius described it as a ‘grotesque aberration of poetry’ as it presented an inaccurate depiction of Lucrezia.
Gregorovius was born in 1821 in East Prussia and moved to Rome in 1852 where he lived for over 20 years. Prior to writing his work about Lucrezia, Gregorovius was immersed in historical studies of the medieval history of Rome, having spent fifteen years writing and researching his previous 1872 book History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages. During this time, he came across the dowry and marriage contracts of Lucrezia and was inspired to take on the task of rediscovering and reassessing her role and portrayal in historical terms. He carried out extensive research in Mantua and Modena and wrote his biography on Lucrezia. Gregorovius recognised the need to carefully analyse the sources and utilise them to shape a more sympathetic view of her. Gregorovius was influenced by the increasing idea of ‘professionalism’ which began during the second half of the nineteenth century, when the importance of research grew and the need to conduct research in a thorough ‘scientific’ way was encouraged. He quickly realised that reliance on contemporary, biased sources resulted in historically inaccurate accounts. He therefore resolved to consult primary sources and produce a thorough, more accurate depiction of Lucrezia in his 1874 work Lucrezia Borgia: A Chapter from the Morals of the Italian Renaissance.
In the last 50 years, historians such as Michael Mallett and Diane Yvonne Ghirardo have offered valuable contributions to Gregorovius’ pivotal work which successfully form a more complete depiction of Lucrezia. Using a feminist lens, scholars have turned in particular to her time as Duchess of Ferrara during her third marriage to Alfonso d’Este. In Ferrara, Lucrezia had a leading administrative role at court where she acted as regent twice when her husband was away. This not only showed her capabilities but also demonstrated the trust he had placed in her, signifying a vital shift in her life, where she was able to play an active role in the consolidation of her power. Although the archival sources utilised by Gregorovius remain indispensable when researching Lucrezia, scholars have repurposed sources that had not been seen as valuable by previous historians. For example, Lucrezia’s account books demonstrate her substantial involvement in running her household, as she signed them off right until the last year of her life. This reveals her persistent and active involvement in the administration of Ferrara.
However, despite the vital historiographical progress brought about by Gregorovius’ research and that of more recent historians, ultimately little has changed regarding Lucrezia’s presentation in contemporary popular culture. The television series, Showtime’s The Borgias, and the video game Assassin’s Creed still portray her as an incestuous murderer. Even over five hundred years after her death Lucrezia’s negative reputation has become ingrained in modern culture. There is clearly more work to be done to rewrite the image of Lucrezia, which is why the ongoing historiographical research begun by Gregorovius and continued through later historiography is key to addressing those inaccuracies.
Bibliography
Ghirardo, Diane Yvonne. ‘Lucrezia Borgia as Entrepreneur.’ Renaissance Quarterly 61, no.1 (2008): 53-91.
Mallett, Michael. The Borgias: the Rise and Fall of a Renaissance Dynasty. London: Bodley Head 1969.
Morris, Samantha. ‘Introduction.’ In Lucrezia Borgia: Daughter of Pope Alexander VI, Ferdinand Gregorovius, 7-10. Las Vegas, Nevada: Vita Histria, 2020.
Phillips, Mark. Francesco Guicciardini: The Historian’s Craft. Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1977.
Roscoe, William. The Life and Pontificate of Leo the Tenth. London: Cadell and Davies, 1805.
Woolf, Daniel. ‘Disciplining the Past: Professionalization, Imperialism and Science, 1830–1945.’ In A Concise History of History: Global Historiography from Antiquity to the Present, 172-227. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.
Retrospect Journal 