Lucrezia Borgia: The Life of a Pope's Daughter in the Renaissance by Vogt-Lüerssen Maike

Author:Vogt-Lüerssen, Maike [Vogt-Lüerssen, Maike]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Renaissance, History, Italy, Biography, the Borgias
Publisher: Maike Vogt-Lüerssen
Published: 2014-06-26T21:00:00+00:00

Fig. 39: Four medals depicting Lucrezia Borgia

The Pope had no option other than to let his beloved daughter go. He was said to have wept bitterly. He followed her from window to window in the Vatican till her train disappeared from sight. The papal court, the cardinals, the ambassadors and envoys present in Rome, the municipality and her brother Cesare accompanied her up to the Porta del Popolo. Only the Archbishop of Cosenza, Francesco Borgia († 1511), who was an illegitimate son of Pope Calixtus III and hence a cousin of her father, stayed with her until Ferrara.41 He acted as the papal legate and was responsible for the receptions and accommodation of Lucrezia within the papal territories that were traversed during their journey.

The route of this voyage led through Castelnuovo, Civita Castellana, Narni, Terni, Spoleto, Foligno, Urbino, Pesaro (which was Cesare’s estate now), Rimini, Cesena, Forlì, Faenza, Imola and Bologna. Each ruler of those territories or his deputy had been precisely instructed by the Pope on how to receive his daughter. The priors of Nepi, for example, had received the following letter from Alexander VI: “Dear Sons, Greeting and the Apostolic Blessing. As our dearly beloved daughter in Christ, the noble lady and Duchess Lucrezia de Borgia, who is to leave here next Monday to join her husband Alfonso, the beloved son and first-born of the Duke of Ferrara, with a large escort of nobles, and two hundred horsemen will pass through your district, therefore we wish and command you, if you value our favour and desire to avoid our displeasure, to provide for the company mentioned above for a day and two nights, the time they will spend with you. By so doing you will receive from us all due approbation. Given in Rome, under the Apostolic seal, December 28, 1501, in the tenth year of our Pontificate.”42

Thus, wherever Lucrezia and her escort stayed for one or more days and nights, they were provided not only with food and drinks but also with music, dance and comedies. Moreover, the inhabitants decorated their towns with triumphal arches and had organised elaborate mythological pageants in honour of the Pope’s daughter. All of this took considerable amounts of time. On 31st January, she entered the territory of the Bentivoglios, who had arranged a magnificent banquet followed by a splendid ball.

The next day, on 1st February, her hosts escorted her to a barge which would take her into the territories of her new father-in-law. In the border town of Castel Bolognese, the first encounter between Lucrezia and her husband Alfonso (Fig. 40) took place. He wanted to surprise her and had dressed in disguise, but she recognised him immediately and greeted him in her typically charming way, which – as said before – left no one unaffected. Alfonso, who had met Lucrezia once in Rome many years earlier, thus could not tear himself away from her and stayed a full two hours.

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