Lucrezia Borgia: life, love and death in Renaissance Italy by Sarah Bradford

Author:Sarah Bradford
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Europe, Italy, Ferrara (Italy), Papal States, General, Renaissance, Nobility, Historical, Biography & Autobiography, History, Biography, Women
ISBN: 9780670033539
Publisher: Viking
Published: 2004-10-21T00:38:40.575000+00:00

This altogether mysterious letter was clearly intended to be properly understood only by Francesco; for important people to write personal letters to each other was a risky business. Strozzi, one could assume, would have provided the key, which centred on the ‘falcon’. Indeed, Lucrezia’s second letter of the same date was a passionate recommendation of Lorenzo, Ercole Strozzi’s brother, and his affairs in Mantua, pleading with Francesco to continue his protection of Lorenzo: ‘and to this end I am sending the present bearer to Your Lordship so that he may explain more fully my feelings towards the said count’. Lorenzo Strozzi, like Ercole, would act as go-between for Lucrezia and Francesco. Closely watched as they knew themselves to be, the letters Lucrezia and Francesco exchanged tended to be circumspect, and important messages would be delivered personally by trusted emissaries such as the Strozzi. Indeed, several letters of this period concern favours which she wanted Gonzaga to do for Lorenzo Strozzi. A letter to Francesco that year, written on 30 December, has a playful note:

May Our Lord God be thanked that we have here a pledge from Your Lordship that you will be constrained to let yourself be seen here sometimes for to tell the truth it has been too long since you have been here. I do not joke, My Lord, but I have not been able to be of more service to you than I have been. But it has not been possible for the reasons Count Lorenzo wrote to you: and if they are not enough to excuse me to you I ask a thousand pardons because certainly I desire to serve Your Lordship in everything possible. I thank you as much as I can for the good expedition you have given to the affairs of the said Count …18

From 1503 only one letter survives, written in a secretarial hand and asking Francesco to help a member of her household in his affairs at Mantua, while for the same year there are nine letters from Lucrezia to Isabella, all of an administrative nature; this is presumably because Francesco spent a great deal of his time that year with the French armies going against Naples, leaving Isabella in charge.

In the spring and summer of 1504, when Alfonso was on his travels and Duke Ercole was ailing, Lucrezia, following the example of the Duchess Eleonora, took a regular part in the Esame delle Suppliche (Examination of Petitions) and much of her correspondence arose out of the cases presented to her there. Many of the requests were for pardons or the release of prisoners held in Mantua. When Gonzaga did nothing about them, she repeated her requests firmly until he complied. While in Ferrara, he had promised to release to her a certain Bernardino della Publica, imprisoned for murder. When he failed to do so, she wrote insistently and several times, finally and sharply five months later: ‘I beg you to fulfil your promise… release [Bernardino della Publica] and send him

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