BORGIA, a family originally Spanish, but which acquired great eminence in Italy after the elevation of Alfonso Borgia to the popedom, as Calixtus III., In 1455. Ile had -previOnsly been a privy-councilor of the king of Aragon. He died in 1458.—Bodrigo 13. ascended the papal throne in Aug., 1492, under the name of Alexander VI. (q.v.).
Before his elevation to the popedom, he bad a number of children by a Roman woman named Vanozza (Giovanna de' Catanei), of whom two, Cesare and Luerezia, share their father's extraordinary historic infamy.—CEsAnE or CzEsAit B. was one of the greatest mon sters of a time of depravity, when the court of Rome was the scene of all the worst forms of crime. He unscrupulously made use of the most sacred things as means to the most iniquitous ends. He had early received high ecclesiastical preterment, and his father, soon after becoming pope, invested him with the purple. But his father conferring upon his brother Giovanni the duchy of Benevento, with the counties of Terracina and Puntecorvo, Cmsar, as was believed, moved with envy, caused his brother to be assas sinated. He obtained the duchy and counties for himself, and was permitted by his father to resign the purple and to devote himself to the profession of arms. He was sent in 1498 to France, to convey to Louis XII. a bull of divorce and dispensation from his marriage with Anne of Brittany. Louis rewarded him for the pope's complaisance with the duchy of Valentinois, a body-guard of 100 men, 20,060 livrcs of yearly revenue, and a promise of support in his schemes of ambition. In 1499, Caesar married a daughter of the king of Navarre; and accompanied Louis XII. to Italy, where he undertook the conquest of the Romagna for the holy see. The rightful lords of that country, who fell into his hands, were murdered, notwithstanding that their lives had been guaranteed by his oath. In 1501, he was named by his father, duke of Romagna. In the same year he wrested the principality of Piombino from Jacopo D'Appiano, but failed in an attempt to acquire Bologna and Florence. He took Camerino, and caused Giulio Di Varano. the lord of that town, to be strangled along with his two sons. By treachery as much as by violence he made himself master of the duchy of Urbino. A league of
Italian princes was formed to resist him, but he kept them in awe l.y a body of Swiss troops, till he succeeded in winning some of them over by advantageous offers, employed them against the others, and then treacherously murdered them on the day of the victory, 31st Dec., 1502, at Sinigaglia. He now seized their possessions, and saw no obstacle in the way of his being made king of Romagna, of the March, and of Umbria, when, on 17th Aug., 1503, his father died, probably of poison which he had prepared for twelve cardinals. Caesar, also, who was a party to the design (and who, like his father, had long been familiar with that mode of dispatching those who stood in the way of his ambition, or whose wealth he desired to obtain), bad himself partaken of the poison, and the consequence was a' severe illness, exactly at a time when the utmost activity and presence of mind were requisite for his affairs. Enemies rose against him on all hands, and one of the most inveterate of them ascended the papal throne as Julius II. Cesar was arrested and conveyed to time-castle of Medina Del Campo, in Spain, where lie lay imprisoned for two years. At length lie contrived to make his escape to the king of Navarre, whom lie accompanied in the war against Cas tile, and was killed on the 12th Mar., 1507, by a missile from the castle of Biano. With all his baseness and cruelty, B. was temperate and sober. He loved and patronized learning, and possessed in a remarkable degree a ready and persuasive eloquence. Mac chiavelli has delineated his character in his Priiicipe.—LucmatA B. was a woman of great beauty. She was married first to Giovanni Storm, lord of Pesaro, but this mar riage was dissolved by the pope. She was said, without ground, to have lived in incest with her brothers and father. She next married in 1498, Alfonso, duke of Bisceglie, a natural son of Alfonso II. of Naples; but he was assassinated by her brother Cresar in 1501. In Sept. of the same year, she married Alfonso of Este, who afterwards inherited the duchy of Ferrous. She died in 1520. Like her brother Cresar, she shrank from no crime; but she also was a patroness of art and learning, and was therefore adulated by several poets. See Gregorovius, Lycra& B. (1874).