Lucrecia, ¿monstruo o víctima? - Ep.4 (Los Borgia. Sed de poder)

Lucrecia Borgia fue presentada por el escritor Víctor Hugo como una mujer viciosa, despiadada y maestra en venenos. La realidad es que la verdadera Lucrecia, la que emerge de los archivos y los documentos históricos, era radicalmente distinta: una mujer espléndida, culta, gentil, delicada y también valiente y fuerte. Acusada de todo tipo de atrocidades, seguramente es una de las mujeres más calumniadas de la historia. Solo en los últimos años se ha empezado a hacer justicia a la hija de Alejandro VI y a contar una historia muy distinta a la de su leyenda negra. Ni ninfómana ni envenenadora ni incestuosa, simplemente fue la hija de un hombre poderoso que sería utilizada por él para sus intereses; una mujer de noble cuna, bella e inteligente, que se vio arrastrada por las circunstancias que rodearon a su familia, los poderosos, temidos y envidiados Borgia. Escucha la historia completa en el podcast. Déjanos tu comentario en Ivoox o Spotify, o escríbenos a [e-mail] Comparte nuestro podcast en tus redes sociales, puedes realizar una valoración de 5 estrellas en Apple Podcast o Spotify. Texto: Sandra Castellanos Dirección, locución y producción: Iván Patxi Gómez Gallego Contacto de publicidad en podcast: [e-mail]

Episode Transcript

(00:05):
Great reports of very history presents theBorgia set of power accused of all kinds
of atrocities. She' s probablyone of the most slandered women in history.

(00:28):
In recent years alone, justice hasbegun to be done to Alexander VI
' s daughter and to tell astory very different from that of her legend.
Black, no nympho, no poisoner, no incestuous. She was simply
the daughter of a powerful man whowould be used by him for his interests,
a woman of noble cradle beautiful andintelligent, who was dragged by the

(00:51):
circumstances surrounding her family the powerful,feared and envied. Borgia Another chapter four.
Lucrecia monster or victim, a textby Sandra Castellanos. Victor Hugo introduced

(01:21):
Lucrecia Borgia to us as a viciouswoman, ruthless and master in poisons.
Although far from reality, Rodrigo Borgia' s daughter never poisoned or killed or
ordered to kill. The French writerdid nothing but drink of the legend that
presents her to us as perfidious,unscrupulous, avid of sex and pleasure,
unbridled, ambitious, poisonous and incestuous. The reality is that the true Lucrecia,

(01:48):
which emerges from the archives and historicaldocuments, was radically different, a
splendid woman, cultured gentle, delicateand also brave and strong. Today we
know that she was a woman witha strong personality, able to organize an
army if the situation required it,or to rule a duchy when the men
were away, that she was agentle mother who cared for her children and

(02:10):
a patroness given protector of poets,musicians and painters. It is time to
delink his name as a cruel anddepraved vicious poisoner to the Italian population of

(02:35):
Subiaco, sixty- five kilometers fromRome, where Cardinal Rodrigo had built himself
a beautiful castle, while at thesame time ordering the restoration of the old
monastery. He was born on April18, 1980, to the daughter of
Este and Banoche, Cataney, theprincipal of his many lovers and with whom
he had a long and stable relationship. When the little girl came into the

(02:58):
world, her mother was home toGeorgio de la Croche, so the first
years she lived in the Roman houseof East with her mother in Pitcho Square
tell me about it in the neighborhoodof Ponte. Cardinal Borgia, who always
referred to her as a natural andcarnal philamegua, lived nearby and also one

(03:23):
of his most important families in Rome, the Orsini, in his great palace
on Mount Giordano. The girl wasseven years old when she and her brothers
left the banoche to go live preciselyin that palace with Adriana Mila Orsini,
cousin of her father, to whomthey entrusted her formation. At the Palace

(03:44):
of the Orsini she received a carefuland refined education and was taught in arts
such as painting, drawing, poetryand others. He excelled in embroidery with
silk and silver threads and in music. He played the lute and dominated different
lava, Castilian, Valencian, Italian, French and to a lesser extent,
Greek and Latin dances. When hewas only eleven, he agreed to marry

(04:15):
the girl to Juan de Centelles,a Valencian nobleman, but in a few
months a new marriage contract was signed, this time with Gaspar Versa, another
Valencian young man, with whom hedid not marry either because his father reached
the pontificate and ceased to be agood candidate. In a thousand four hundred
and ninety- two, Lucrecia becamean even more valuable pawn for the marriage

(04:38):
policies of her family. On theone hand, marrying her was the Gordo
prize, as it was an alliancewith the most powerful family of the time.
On the other hand, Lucrecia wasn' t just an ordinary woman.
From the testimonies of his contemporaries hisintelligence is evident, for example, in
a broñuelo report representative in Rome delMar, Marquis de Mantua affirms without a

(05:01):
doubt that he possesses a great intelligencefor his age. Then thirteen years well
knew also her father and those abilitiesand that she was a woman capable of
governing a city later. In hisabsence from Rome, he left her under
the command of the Pontifical Curia severaltimes and put her at the head of
the government of the city of Espoletoand Folino in a thousand four hundred and
ninety- nine. But in spiteof this, Lucrecia was reserved the role

(05:25):
of reward for alliances. Her fatherand her brother Caesar decided to marry her
and her widows married her at theage of thirteen, and at sixteen she

(05:57):
was forced to separate from her husbandby declaring that marriage null and void.
When she was eighteen, she wasmarried a second time when she was twenty.
Her own brother left her widow afterhaving her second husband murdered and the
twenty- two had her married forthe third time. Lucrecia married three times,
but she never chose her husbands.He always went to the altar for

(06:17):
his father' s political interests,for each of his three marriages meant for
his family an alliance that made itmore politically powerful. When these unions were
no longer convenient, they were nullifiedor resorted directly to murder. Her first

(06:38):
husband was Giovanni or Juan Esforzo ofAragon, a man broken and a real
tyrant with his village of Pesaro.Alexander VI was obsessed with the idea of
unifying Italy and was interested in gettinginvolved with Milan' s efforts, so
he married Lucrecia to Giovanni, hopingthat his son- in- law would
support him in his plans, buthe behaved ambiguously and against victory, leaving

(07:00):
his father- in- law withoutthe military support he needed. On several
occasions, when he saw that thisalliance was not useful to him, the
Pope avenged himself by holding his daughterin Rome and preventing her from returning to
Pesaro and giving the order after killingEsforza. He saved his life because Lucrecía
found out about the plan for hisbrother and alerted him. But the Pope,

(07:21):
ignoring Lucrecia, decided to take itout of the way, initiating a
divorce process. The marriage was declaredvoid, arguing that John was powerless to
save her husband' s life,Lucrecia must have sworn lying that he had
not consummated the marriage. The Esforzastook it as a brutal affront and began

(07:44):
a campaign of contempt and defamation againstPope Borgia and unjustly against Lucrecia. Faced
with these accusations, among others,that he had incestuous relations with his father.
According to Giovanni Esforza, the Popedoes not want for another what he
wants to keep for him. Lucrecialocked herself in the convent of San Sexto,
in Rome, until she was marrieda second time. Woman Duke of

(08:18):
Visegli and illegitimate son of Alfonso II, king of Naples, was her new
husband, handsome and cordial man.He shared his young wife' s artistic
and literary hobbies and was the onlyone she was really in love with.
The wedding was held in July ofone thousand four hundred and ninety- eight
and after a short stage of happinessin which his son was born, Rodrigo

(08:41):
Alfonso de Aragón became a hindrance tothe family' s plans. We also
had to get him out of theway. Black legend says he was killed
by Caesar' s hit men,apparently in a jealous attack, but the
real motive was less romantic. Thealliance with the House of Aragon simply ceased

(09:01):
to be beneficial to family interests,as the Kingdom of Naples had returned against
the Borgia. Two years after thewedding, on July 15, 1,
500, Alfonso was the victim ofan attack on St Peter' s Square,

(09:22):
stabbed by a group of five men. He survived and tried to kill
Caesar, but failed. Not likethis. Alexander VI' s son who
finally ended his brother- in-law' s life by strangling his arm.
Executor was, as on other occasions, his faithful henchman Miguel de Corella,
known as Mickeloto. This episode wouldforever mark the life of Lucrecía,

(09:48):
who, sunk and determined to renounceworldly life, locked himself in a room
totally upholstered in black in the castleof Nepi. He returned to the Pope
his jewels, his dresses and hissilverware and lived for a few months as
the poorest and saddest of widows lBut it was so valuable currency of exchange

(10:11):
that his father would not allow itto be out of play. Too long
he returns to Rome, but refusesto accept the marriages proposed to him by
his father and by César Francisco Gravinahimself of the Orsini family and the lord
of Ligny noble French. His thirdand last husband would be Alfonso de Este,

(10:43):
prince and heir of the Duchy ofFerrara, one of the most important
courts of Renaissance Italy the alliance withthe important family of this one was expensive,
for Hercules de Este demanded the cardinalialchapeau for his son Hippolyte and the
suppression of the annual tribute that Ferrerapaid to the Vatican. Even so,
Ferrara' s house was reluctant toaccept this union because of Lucrecia' s

(11:05):
real or invented bad reputation. Theduke put his spies to work and,
contrary to what he expected, hewas informed that Lucrecia was a lady full
of virtues. Once married, theyoung woman more than proved the truth of
the report. The wedding with Alfonsode Este was celebrated on the thirtyth of

(11:26):
December of 1, 500 one andthe daughter of the Pontiff went to Ferrara
on the six of January of 1, 500 two. Although Lucrecia decided this
marriage, it was not out oflove and politics was always present. In
addition, he forced her to abandonher son Rodrigo and face at first the

(11:50):
hostility of her political family and theindifference of her husband, who had Laura
de Anti in his bed. However, for Lucrecia it was an opportunity to
move away from his family and tobegin a new stage Rome that was backward.

(12:15):
Lucrecia lived in the Court of Ferrarathe 19 most stable years of her
life. In that prosperous locality north- east of the Italic Peninsula, Lucrecia
lived quietly, earned the love ofher subjects and the sincere appreciation of her
father- in- law. DukeHercules, first of this cultural city and
patron saint Ferrara, was a leadingartistic center in the Italian Renaissance. There

(12:39):
the importance was given to art andto the new tendencies that were well received
by the Duke, and there beganthe new cultural and artistic movement that was
the humanism of which Lucrecia herself participatedalong with Alfonso, the daughter of the
Pope, became an authentic patron ofthe arts that I know laughed around intellectuals
and artists. The cultural circle ofLucrecia would consist of poets, music editors

(13:11):
and a court of Renaissance painters whoworked for the Duke for several years.
Tichiano two and people from Rafael's workshop, Sancio Bellini himself, among
many others in ferarrara. Lucrecia alsocoincided with Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo in
his correspondence with Pietro Bembo, agreat poet and scholar. It is clear

(13:35):
that Lucrecia had very little frivolous orsuperficial in this humanistic context. He raised
his three sons, Hercules Hippolytus andLeonora, of whose intellectual preparation he was
personally engaged through prominent humanists. Actually, Lucrecia had six children with Alfonso of

(14:03):
this one, but she saw theother three die last time a premature girl,
Isabel la Marea, nine days beforeshe herself died of puerperal fevers,
which occurred on the 24th of Juneof 1, 500 nineteen. The Duchess
of Ferrara died at the age ofthirty- nine She had earned over the

(14:26):
years the appreciation of her subjects fromFerrara, who, at the end of
their days, came to call herthe mother of the people, especially because
when Ferrara fell. Unfortunately, Lucreciabegan to carry a sackcloth as penance and
founded a mountain of mercy to helpthe poor. She had to be a

(14:48):
sweet and pleasant woman, and sheshowed that it was the friendship she had
with her father- in- law, despite the initial disagreements, as well
as the respect that her husband alwaysprofessed to her, who survived her for
fifteen years and wept at last.Far from Rome and from the domination of

(15:09):
his family, Lucrecia found peace andmanaged to be remembered, at least in
her surroundings as a good mother,wife, virtuous and active patron. However,
the black legend was able to breakthrough and how to dismantle this black

(15:35):
legend? While it was the bloodypower struggles that during the Renaissance confronted the
great Italian Borgia families, which fueledthe nefarious rumors about Lucrecia for years,
it was after her death that theblack legend, a black legend that should
be dismantled, was consolidated? Whileit was the bloody power struggles during the

(15:56):
Renaissance that confronted the great Italian familieswith the Borgia, which fueled the nefarious
rumors about Lucrecia for years, itwas after his death that the black legend
was consolidated, that centuries later wasreborn by the hand, among others,
of Victor Hugo, the French writerand playwright, wrote in one thousand eight

(16:18):
hundred thirty- three Lucrecia Borgia,a book based more on myth than reality
and in which he re- createsmorbidly his supposed perversity and depravity. The
rehabilitation of the perfidious and despised faithin fatal rebirth had an outstanding chapter with

(16:41):
Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, the Valencian writerdefended the Borgia, who for him only
lived according to the atmosphere of thenat the feet of Venus. The Borgia
of nineteen hundred and twenty- sixmakes a review of the family, but
especially of Lucrecia, of which hesays he used Celilio lived devoutly. It

(17:03):
was the admiration of his contemporaries andwas never attributed to him by any poisoning
or the most fierce enemies of hisfamily. In two thousand and fourteen,
the Italian Darío was Nobel Prize inLiterature. He joined this current of rehabilitating
Lucrecia' s memory with the Pope' s daughter. In this novel,

(17:26):
which she wrote after a year ofresearch in archives and historical sources, Lucrecia
Borgia was said to be a splendid, gentle, delicate and even shy woman.
The effort to present her as agigantic whore is simply because that story
sells better. This is what haslong been defending some historians, among others

(17:52):
he has already died Michel bad Jori, the greatest authority in the Borgia was
made by his parents, his brothers, his husbands and also the people He
was a great patron and a piouswoman, but, however, he is
remembered as a dissolute and incestuous woman. It was a borgia. No more

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s s s. S. Thankyou very much for listening to great stories

(18:42):
of great history. You know youcan share your content on social media or
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