The traceable beginning of the Borgia family ( Borja in Spain )goes back to Rodrigo de Borja who was born in Borja, Zaragoza Spain around 1349.  A branch of the family would later move to Italy and two of them become Popes.  As I was tracing back one of my Carafa lines, I found that one of my Carafa great grandfathers was the son of Juana de Borgia, the sister of Rodrigo Borgia, who later became Pope Alexander VI.  The first Borgia pope was Rodrigo’s uncle Alfonso de Borgia or Pope Callixtus III.

A rumor was started by Pope Alexander’s rivals that the family descended from Jewish roots, in an effort to discredit him and remove him as Pope, however their is no proof that this is true.  The Borgia family was pretty notorious for some pretty evil deeds and we have attached a few articles that highlight them.  

Lucrezia Borgia was pretty well known for being promiscuous  and had an affair with another one of my great grandfathers, Francesco Gonzaga the Duke of Mantua.  The Borgia family was recently chronicled in two TV series and while not 100% accurate, both were very entertaining

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Borgia Family

Four Borgias became especially noteworthy in a historical sense. Alfonso de Borgia (1378–1458) established the family’s influence in Italy and became Pope Calixtus IIIin 1455 (seeCalixtus III). Rodrigo Borgia became a cardinal of the Roman Catholic church and, later (1492), Pope Alexander VI(seeAlexander VI underAlexander [Papacy]). As cardinal and pope, Rodrigo fathered a number of children by his mistress Vannozza Catanei. Cesare Borgia (q.v.; c.1475/76–1507), son of Rodrigo, achieved political power while ruthlessly attempting to establish a secular kingdom in central Italy. Lucrezia Borgia (q.v.;1480–1519), a daughter of Rodrigo and a patron of the arts, became famous for her skill at political intrigue.

The family produced many other persons of lesser importance. One, St. Francis Borgia (1510–1572), a great-grandson of Rodrigo, was canonized. The family began to decline in the late 1500s. By the middle of the 18th century it had disappeared.

Primary Contributors

• The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Other Encyclopedia Britannica Contributors

• Parul Jain

• Marco Sampaolo

Alexander VI

From Britannica

Written By:

• Francis Xavier Murphy

Last Updated: Jun 19, 2019

Alexander VI, original Spanish name in full Rodrigo de Borja y Doms, Italian Rodrigo Borgia, (born 1431, Játiva, near Valencia[Spain]—died August18, 1503, Rome), corrupt, worldly, and ambitious pope(1492–1503), whose neglect of the spiritual inheritance of the church contributed to the development of the Protestant Reformation.

Rodrigo was born into the Spanish branch of the prominent and powerful Borgia family. His uncle Alonso de Borgia, bishopof Valencia (later cardinal), supervised his education and endowed him with ecclesiastical benefices while still in his teens. Rodrigo studied law at Bologna, and on February 22, 1456, he was created a cardinal by his uncle, now Pope Calixtus III. As vice chancellor of the Roman Catholic Church, Rodrigo amassed enormous wealth and, despite a severe rebuke from Pope Pius II, lived as a Renaissance prince. He patronized the arts and fathered a number of children for whom he provided livings, mainly in Spain. By a Roman noblewoman, Vannozza Catanei, he had four subsequently legitimized offspring—Juan, Cesare, Jofré, and Lucrezia—whose complicated careers troubled his pontificate.

Despite the shadow of simonythat surrounded the disposal of his benefices among the papal electors, Rodrigo emerged from a tumultuousconclave on the night of August 10–11, 1492, as Pope Alexander VI and received the acclaim of the Roman populace. He embarked upon a reform of papal finances and a vigorous pursuit of the war against the OttomanTurks. His position was menaced by the French king Charles VIII, who invaded Italyin 1494 to vindicatehis claim to the Kingdom of Naples. Charles, at the instigation of a rival cardinal of the influential della Roverefamily, threatened the pope with depositionand the convocationof a reform council. Politically isolated, Alexander sought assistance from the Turkish sovereign, Bayezid II. In the course of the pope’s meeting with King Charles in Rome in early 1495, however, he received the traditional obeisance from the French monarch. He still refused to support the king’s claim to Naples and, by an alliance with Milan, Venice, and the Holy Roman emperor, eventually forced the French to withdraw from Italy.

In September 1493 Alexander created his teenaged son Cesarea cardinal, along with Alessandro Farnese (the brother of the papal favourite Giulia la Bella and the future pope Paul III). In the course of his pontificate Alexander appointed 47 cardinals to further his complicated dynastic, ecclesiastical, and political policies. His son Juan was made duke of Gandía (Spain) and was married to Maria Enriquez, the cousin of King Ferdinand IV of Castile; Jofré was married to Sancia, the granddaughter of the king of Naples; and Lucreziawas given first to Giovanni Sforza of Milan, and, when that marriage was annulled by papal decree on the grounds of impotence, she was married to Alfonso of Aragon. Upon his assassination Lucrezia received as a third husband Alfonso I d’Este, duke of Ferrara.

Tragedy struck the papal household on June 14, 1497, when Alexander’s favourite son, Juan, was murdered. Gravely afflicted, Alexander announced a reform program and called for measures to restrain the luxury of the papal court, reorganize the Apostolic Chancery, and repress simony and concubinage. Alexander had shown great forbearance in dealing with the Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola, who usurped political control in Florence in 1494, condemned the evils of the papal court, and called for the pope’s deposition, and, even before the friar’s downfall in May 1498, theologians and men of affairs had expressed support for the papacy. Meanwhile, however, Alexander had returned to a policy of political intrigue.

Cesare resigned the cardinalate in 1498 and married Charlotte d’Albret in order to cement the Borgia alliance with the French king Louis XII, whose request for a marriage annulment was granted by the pope. By a ruthless policy of siege and assassination, Cesare brought the north of Italy under his control; he conquered the duchies of Romagna, Umbria, and Emilia and earned the admiration of Niccolò Machiavelli, who used Cesare as the model for his classic on politics, The Prince. In Rome, Alexander destroyed the power of the Orsiniand Colonna families and concluded an alliance with Spain, granting Isabella and Ferdinand the title of Catholic Monarchs. In 1493, in the wake of Christopher Columbus’s epochal discoveries, and at the request of Ferdinand and Isabella, Alexander issued a bull granting Spain the exclusive right to explore the seas and claim all New World lands lying west of a north-south line 100 leagues (about 320 miles) west of the Cape Verde Islands. Portugal was granted similar rights of exploration east of the demarcation line. This papal disposition, which was never subsequently recognized by any other European power, was jointly amendedby Spain and Portugal in the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494.

As a patron of the arts, Alexander erected a centre for the University of Rome, restored the Castel Sant’Angelo, built the monumental mansion of the Apostolic Chancery, embellished the Vatican palaces, and persuaded Michelangelo to draw plans for the rebuilding of St. Peter’s Basilica. He proclaimed the year 1500 a Holy Year of Jubilee and authorized its celebration with great pomp. He also promoted the evangelization of the New World.

Attempts to whitewash Alexander’s private conduct have proved abortive. While his religious convictionscannot be challenged, scandal accompanied his activities throughout his career. Even from a Renaissance viewpoint, his relentless pursuit of political goals and unremitting efforts to aggrandizehis family were seen as excessive. Neither as corrupt as depicted by Machiavelli and by gossip nor as useful to the church’s expansion as apologists would make him, Alexander VI holds a high placeon the list of the so-called bad popes. 

Lucrezia Borgia

(born April 18, 1480, Rome—died June 24, 1519, Ferrara, Papal States), Italian noblewoman and a central figure of the infamous Borgia familyof the Italian Renaissance.

 Daughter of the Spanish cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, later Pope Alexander VI, and his Roman mistress Vannozza Catanei, and sister of Cesare, Lucrezia is often accused of sharing in their many crimes and excesses. In historical perspective, however, she seems to have been more an instrument for the ambitious projects of her brother and father than an active participant in their crimes. Her three successive marriages into prominent families helped augment the political and territorial power of the Borgias.

 In 1491 the young Lucrezia was successively betrothed to two Spanish nobles. But after her father became pope in 1492, he sought an alliance with the Sforza family of  Milan a gainst the Aragonese dynasty of Naples. Accordingly, Lucrezia was in 1493 married to Giovanni Sforza, lord of Pesaro. When Alexander allied himself with Naples, and Milan with the French, Giovanni, fearing for his life, fled from Rome and became an enemy of the Borgias, later charging incestuous relations between Lucrezia and Alexander. Alexander annulled the marriage in 1497 on the dubious grounds of nonconsummation.

Seeking to strengthen his ties with Naples, the Pope in 1498 arranged a marriage between Lucrezia and the 17-year-old Alfonso, duke of Bisceglie, an illegitimate son of Alfonso II of Naples. Upon Cesare’s alliance with the French king Louis XII(1499) and his subsequent campaign in the Romagna, which threatened Naples, Alfonso fled Rome in August but returned with Lucrezia in October. In July 1500 he was wounded by four would-be assassins on the steps of St. Peter’s. While recovering, he was strangled by one of Cesare’s servants. The murder provoked the desired rupture with Naples.

Lucrezia retired to Nepi, and during this period the mysterious Infans Romanus (Roman Infant) was first seen, the three-year-old boy named Giovanni, with whom Lucrezia appeared in 1501. Two papal bulls recognized the child as the illegitimate son first of Cesare, then of Alexander, who was probably the true father. The mysterious origin of the child as well as Lucrezia’s presence at a celebrated night orgy at the Vatican have been used to support the rumours of incest in the Borgia family.

Alfonso d’Este, son of Ercole I, duke of Ferrara, married Lucrezia on December 30, 1501, although he shunned the union for a time because of the Borgias’ unsavoury reputation. This marriage was arranged by Cesare to consolidate his position in the Romagna. When Alexander VI died in 1503, Lucrezia ceased to play a political role and led a more normal life at the brilliant court of Ferrara, which became a centre for the arts and letters of the Italian Renaissance. She turned to religion in her last years and died at the age of 39.

Lucrezia

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