Lucrezia - John Graham

Much has been written about the Borgias, and interest in their exploits hasn’t waned in more than 500 years. Here, Lucrezia Borgia gives her own account of the events that shaped her life through scandal, tragedy and triumph.Lucrezia Borgia starts life as the illegitimate daughter of Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, who bribes his way to the papal throne in 1492 as Pope Alexander VI. To help swing the election in his favour, he agrees to wed 12-year-old Lucrezia into the ruling house Milan, but this alliance soon becomes superfluous to the Borgias, and Lucrezia’s sinister brother Cesare drives away her husband by threatening him with death. Plans by her father and brother to marry her again, this time into the ruling house of the Kingdom of Naples, are put at risk by a liaison between Lucrezia and a chamberlain in her father’s household. Cesare has her lover murdered, but her new marriage makes Lucrezia blissfully happy, and produces a legitimate son.Cesare, however, is still not content to let his sister be, and his alliance with France against Naples results in the murder of her second husband. Lucrezia leaves Rome heartbroken and mired in scandal, but eventually accepts a third marriage to the heir apparent to the Duchy of Ferrara. Away from the pressures of her father and brother, she begins to chart a new life in which she learns much about herself and the many forms that love may take: sensual, sacred, platonic, and familial. From this she matures as a person and eventually delivers heirs to the house of d’Este to emerge triumphant.