Lucretia Borgia | Page 7

attention to his "elegance of figure, his serene
brow, his kingly forehead, his countenance with its expression of
generosity and majesty, his genius, and the heroic beauty of his whole
presence."
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Zurita, Anales de Aragon, v. 36.
[2] Zurita (iv, 55) says he died sin dexar ninguna sucesion.
Notwithstanding this, Cittadella, in his Saggio di Albero Genealogico e
di memorie su la Familia Borgia (Turin, 1872), ascribes two children
to this Pedro Luis, Silvia and Cardinal Giovanni Borgia, the younger.
[3] Raynaldus, 1460. No. 31.
[4] Statura procerus, colore medio, nigris oculis, ore paululum pleniore.
Hieron. Portius, Commentarius, a rare publication of 1493, in the

Casanatense in Rome.
CHAPTER II
LUCRETIA'S MOTHER
About 1466 or 1467 Cardinal Rodrigo's magnetism attracted a woman
of Rome, Vannozza Catanei. We know that she was born in July, 1442,
but of her family we are wholly ignorant. Writers of that day also call
her Rosa and Catarina, although she named herself, in well
authenticated documents, Vannozza Catanei. Paolo Giovio states that
Vanotti was her patronymic, and although there was a clan of that name
in Rome, he is wrong. Vannozza was probably the nickname for
Giovanna--thus we find in the early records of that age: Vannozza di
Nardis, Vannozza di Zanobeis, di Pontianis, and others.
There was a Catanei family in Rome, as there was in Ferrara, Genoa,
and elsewhere. The name was derived from the title, capitaneus. In a
notarial document of 1502 the name of Alexander's mistress is given in
its ancient form, Vanotia de Captaneis.
Litta, to whom Italy is indebted for the great work on her illustrious
families--a wonderful work in spite of its errors and
omissions--ventures the opinion that Vannozza was a member of the
Farnese family and a daughter of Ranuccio. There is, however, no
ground for this theory. In written instruments of that time she is
explicitly called Madonna Vannozza de casa Catanei.
None of Vannozza's contemporaries have stated what were the
characteristics which enabled her to hold the pleasure-loving cardinal
so surely and to secure her recognition as the mother of several of his
acknowledged children. We may imagine her to have been a strong and
voluptuous woman like those still seen about the streets of Rome. They
possess none of the grace of the ideal woman of the Umbrian school,
but they have something of the magnificence of the Imperial City--Juno
and Venus are united in them. They would resemble the ideals of Titian
and Paul Veronese but for their black hair and dark complexion,--blond
and red hair have always been rare among the Romans.

Vannozza doubtless was of great beauty and ardent passions; for if not,
how could she have inflamed a Rodrigo Borgia? Her intellect too,
although uncultivated, must have been vigorous; for if not, how could
she have maintained her relations with the cardinal?
The date given above was the beginning of this liaison, if we may
believe the Spanish historian Mariana, who says that Vannozza was the
mother of Don Pedro Luis, Rodrigo's eldest son. In a notarial
instrument of 1482 this son of the cardinal is called a youth
(adolescens), which signified a person fourteen or fifteen years of age.
In what circumstances Vannozza was living when Cardinal Borgia
made her acquaintance we do not know. It is not likely that she was one
of the innumerable courtesans who, thanks to the liberality of their
retainers, led most brilliant lives in Rome at that period; for had she
been, the novelists and epigrammatists of the day would have made her
famous.
The chronicler Infessura, who must have been acquainted with
Vannozza, relates that Alexander VI, wishing to make his natural son
Cæsar a cardinal, caused it to appear, by false testimony, that he was
the legitimate son of a certain Domenico of Arignano, and he adds that
he had even married Vannozza to this man. The testimony of a
contemporary and a Roman should have weight; but no other writer,
except Mariana--who evidently bases his statement on
Infessura--mentions this Domenico, and we shall soon see that there
could have been no legal, acknowledged marriage of Vannozza and this
unknown man. She was the cardinal's mistress for a much longer time
before he himself, for the purpose of cloaking his relations with her and
for lightening his burden, gave her a husband. His relations with her
continued for a long time after she had a recognized consort.
The first acknowledged husband of Vannozza was Giorgio di Croce, a
Milanese, for whom Cardinal Rodrigo had obtained from Sixtus IV a
position as apostolic secretary. It is uncertain at just what time she
allied herself with this man, but she was living with him as his wife in
1480 in a house on the Piazzo Pizzo di Merlo, which is now called
Sforza-Cesarini,