L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2017 www.italoamericano.org 14 L'Italo-Americano LA VITA ITALIANA TRADITIONS HISTORY CULTURE SIMONE SCHIAVINATO R odrigo, Cesare and Lucretia, we saw, remain the most influential figures in the history of the Borgia family, that reached the apogee of its power and notoriety during the years of their lives. However, Rodrigo and his long time lover Vannozza, mother of Cesare and Lucretia, had two more children, Giovanni and Gioffré, the eldest and youngest respectively of their progeny. Rome-born Giovanni, class 1474, was well loved by his father, who supported his rise to power by giving him relevant positions within the Papal State ranks: he was Governor of St. Peter's and Captain General of the Church. He was nominated second Duke of Gandia after Ferdinand II of Aragon re- established the title in 1483, bestowing it to the Borgia families of Spain and Italy. Giovanni married Spanish noble woman Maria Enriquez de Luna and, to many extents, his fortune and power are more of a Spanish than an Italian affair. Even if less of a flamboyant character than his notorious siblings, Giovanni managed to honor -pass me the expression - his family's dark fame by loosing his life tragically and violently in 1497. In a series of events which would easily make the nation's headlines still today, Giovanni was first butchered then thrown in the Tiber, after having attended a party at his mother Vannozza's Roman villa. When, the following morning, his horse returned home without him, search parties were organized and the gruesome discovery made shortly after. Giovanni's murderer was never apprehended, but there were some VIP suspects, including the powerful Orsini family of Rome and even his own brother Gioffré. Gioffré. The youngest of Rodrigo and Vannuzza's children and, according to coeval accounts and historical research, also the least dear to his father's heart, possibly because conceived when Vannozza was already married to Giorgio della Croce, causing doubts about the child's paternity. Gioffré, apparently, lacked his siblings' ambition and social and political aplomb, but was nevertheless used by Alexander VI as a valuable pawn to create diplomatic liaisons with the Kingdom of Naples, becoming the husband of Sancha of Aragon. Gioffré was only 13. Things were to get rocky when Alexander VI decided to support French claims on the Neapolitan crown, making of his own daughter in law an enemy: he chased her away from Rome and sent both Gioffré and Lucretia (herself married with an Aragon at the time) to Spoleto, in an attempt to both protect and control them. The death of Alexander VI marked the end of the Borgias' political escalation. As it happened in Cesare's case, Gioffré was also forced to find refuge outside of Rome, where the new Pope, Julius II della Rovere, accepted with difficulty the powerful presence of the Borgias. Naples became a safe haven for Gioffré, who rekindled his relationship with estranged wife Sancha until the year of her death, 1506. He then moved to Squillace, town of which he was prince, and married his cousin Maria Mila of Aragon and Villahermosa, with whom he had four children. He died in 1517. When, two years later, Lucretia died, none of Alexander VI legitimate children remained alive. The Borgias' dominance on Rome had ended. By the 1520s, large part of the Borgias' Italian branch had made return to Spain, where the family remained powerful and still gave a bunch of notable names to both European and Church history. Francis of Borgia was a great grandchild of Alexander VI, born in the Duchy belonging to his family, that of Gandia near Valencia, in 1510. He was the grandchild of Giovanni Borgia, the eldest born of Rodrigo and Vannozza; his maternal grandfather was an illegitimate son of the King of Spain, Ferdinand II of Aragon. Francis showed a profound connection to the spiritual since early childhood and wished to become a monk, however his family had different plans and soon started him to military and political life. Francis excelled in both, becoming a respected kinsman of Charles V, King of Spain. In 1529, he married a Portuguese noble woman, Leonor de Castro Mello Meneses, with whom he had 8 children. When she died in 1546 Francis, who by then was the 4th Duke of Gandia, decided to fully dedicate his life to God, entering the Jesuit order, leaving titles and belongings to his oldest son Carlos. Francis made himself known for his efforts in establishing academic institutions in Spain and Italy, including the Gregorian University in Rome, but also as a missionary in Spain's newly created colonies in the New World. He died in 1572 and was canonized by Pope Clement X in 1670. Francis Borgia's lineage, that coming from Alexander VI's eldest son Giovanni, is the only still extant today stemming directly - and in a patrilinear line - from the protagonists of our story. Their lives, deaths and deeds all took place in Spain, with branches also in South America, notably in Chile and Ecuador. Different the history of the Italian Borgias, whose last male representative was the 11th Duke of Gandia, Luis Ignacio, who died in 1740. The Borgias' temporal domination on Rome and Italy wasn't long, only a handful of years, largely corresponding to the length of Alexander VI's papacy. Yet their cultural influence, the mark they left in our common imagination match those of families - I think of the de Medicis or the Sforzas, for instance - who ruled for much longer. Ruthlessness, thirst for power, lasciviousness have been the traits used by literature and, more recently, tv and cinema, to paint incredibly vivid portraits of this family, that however had less in common with history than imagined. As much as the Black Legend of the Borgias may have become a narrative trope, time may have come to seek the truth behind a fictional curtain created more than five centuries ago. The Borgias, Italy's most infamous family. Part three: the end of the legend Gioffré Borgia, the youngest and least famous of Alexander VI's children

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