Giovanni Borgia (Infans Romanus)
Giovanni Borgia (Spanish: Juan de Borja , * March 1498; † 1547 or 1548), called Infans Romanus , from 1501/1502 to 1503 Duke of Camerino, Nepi and Palestrina, was a member of the Borgia family , most likely an illegitimate son of Pope Alexander VI. (Rodrigo Borgia), who recognized him as his son in a secret papal bull of September 1, 1501. According to a contemporary rumor, however, Giovanni was the secret, illegitimate son of Alexander's daughter Lucrezia with her lover Perotto or even with her father or brother Cesare .
Giovanni was born when Pope Alexander and his older children Cesare and Lucrezia were at the height of their power and notorious throughout Europe. In 1501, when he was only three years old, Alexander gave Giovanni the Duchy of Camerino, which he created from lands that Cesare had conquered during his campaigns. After Alexander's death in 1503, however, the star of the Borgia went down in Italy and Giovanni was stripped of the duchy. Giovanni had to flee with Cesare and three other Borgia children from the Vatican, which was besieged by enemies, to the fortified Castel Sant'Angelo.
When Cesare was imprisoned a little later, Lucrezia, now Duchess of Ferrara, took care of the children. She took Giovanni in as her brother at the court in Ferrara and took care of his education. Her attempt to get him a position at the French court later failed, and after her death Giovanni's efforts to bring his lost duchy to court were unsuccessful. He died an insignificant man in 1547 or 1548.
Mysterious origin
The inconsistencies surrounding Giovanni's origins and his birth stem from a number of contradicting contemporary documents and rumors about him. The truth can no longer be ascertained beyond doubt today, but historians agree that Giovanni must have been the son of Pope Alexander and not his daughter Lucrezias.
The rumor that he was Lucrezia's son arose in March 1498. At that time, the Ambassador of Ferrara reported that Lucrezia had given birth to a child. This was particularly spicy news, because Pope Alexander had only managed to get Lucrezia divorced from her husband Giovanni Sforza in December - on the grounds that her husband was impotent, but in fact because the marriage had become politically useless for him. As a result, rumors soon spread in Rome that Lucrezia's alleged child was of a lover named Pedro de Calderon (called Perotto), a servant of the Pope who had been fished out of the Tiber together with Lucrezia's maid in February (an act for which her brother Cesare was held responsible). Another rumor alleges that the child was born of an incestuous relationship between Lucrezia and her father, an idea that presumably came up after Lucrezia's divorced husband accused the Pope of soliciting the divorce so that he could have Lucrezia for his own bed. Since Giovanni Borgia was born in the year of this rumor, many Italians believed that he was Lucrezia's secret child.
However, the Pope himself legitimized Giovanni three years later as his own son. He had two papal bulls made on September 1, 1501 , one of which was published, the other remained secret. (Lucrezia, who was publicly mistaken for Giovanni's mother, later took copies of both cops with her to Ferrara for her third marriage.) The public bull was addressed to Joanni de Borgia, Infanti Romano . She described Giovanni as a child of three years and as the illegitimate son of Cesare Borgias, "unmarried", with a woman - as is customary in such cases - not named, also "unmarried". The second, secret bull, on the other hand, referred to Giovanni as the son of the Pope and thus as Cesare's and Lucrezia's brother, with the wording: “Since you do not bear this stain [of illegitimate birth] from the aforementioned Duke [Cesare Borgia], but from us and him said woman, which we did not want to express in the previous letter for good reasons. "
Alexander had already used the method of two contradicting cops to legitimize a child in 1493 to legitimize Cesare, who was now publicly declared to be Giovanni's father. In contrast to the Pope, it was no scandal for Cesare, as an unmarried man, to be the father of an illegitimate child. The first bull thus served to avoid a public scandal, while the second was intended to secure Giovanni's right as his father's inheritance.
Life
Early years
Giovanni Borgia's family were Catalans from Spain who emigrated to Italy in the 15th century, where they successfully competed with the powerful Italian aristocratic families. However, they always maintained their Spanish roots and even the late born Giovanni spoke Catalan , the language used by the Italian Borgia within the family. He also always signed his letters with Juan de Borja , the Spanish version of his name. Presumably it was named after Juan Borgia , the Pope's favorite son, who was murdered the year before Giovanni's birth.
When Giovanni was three years old, Pope Alexander enfeoffed him with several duchies specially created for him. Rodrigo Borgia, who had become Pope in 1492, was notoriously known for publicly, in an unheard-of manner and with “boundless greed, the advancement of his children whom he idolized” by showering them with titles and lands. On September 2, 1501, one day after his legitimation, Alexander installed Giovanni as Duke of Nepi and Palestrina , with pending lands that he had expropriated from the Gaeteni and Colonna families . When his son Cesare expelled the 82-year-old Giulio Cesare da Varano from his Principality of Camerino during his Romagna campaign in 1502 and had him strangled, he took the opportunity to obtain another title for Giovanni and also gave him Camerino as a duchy . Shortly after Lucrezia's marriage to Alfonso d'Este , Alexander also revoked Ranuccio degli Ottoni in favor of Giovanni's property in Macerata .
Giovanni stood together with Lucrezia's son Rodrigo Bisceglie under the official guardianship of Cardinal Cosenza and from November 1501, in preparation for Lucrezia's marriage to Alfonso d'Este, also under the guardianship of Alfonso's brother, Cardinal Ippolito I. d'Este . The two young boys probably shared a household because Lucrezia ordered two purple silk cloaks for them from Ferrara on August 9, 1502.
After the decline of the Borgia
Pope Alexander died as early as 1503, just one year after Giovanni was made Duke of Camerino. Cesare, on whom the whole power and survival of the Borgia family now depended, did not succeed in holding his conquests without his father. The Varano family quickly took possession of Camerino again, so that Giovanni's duchy existed only on paper, and the Borgia were surrounded by their enemies in Rome. In this dangerous situation, Cesare had four-year-old Giovanni, Rodrigo Bisecglie and his own children Gerolamo and Camilla brought to safety from the beleaguered Vatican in Castel Sant'Angelo. However, Cesare was imprisoned in Spain soon after, and it is not known where Giovanni stayed in the years immediately following the final fall of the Borgia.
Apparently, Lucrezia, who as the Duchess of Ferrara was able to hold on even after the fall of her family, took care of Giovanni's education and upbringing. In February 1506 a trace of Giovanni is found for the first time. Lucrezia's expenditure register shows that at that time he was staying with her son Rodrigo Bisceglie in Bari , where Rodrigo's aunt, Isabella of Aragon, was Duchess. The two boys had the same tutor there named Baldassar Bonfiglio. In October 1506 Giovanni appeared in Carpi (presumably at the seat of the Pio family), where he had been taken with Cesare's son Girolamo. Later that year Lucrezia had him come to Ferrara from there, but in November he was back in Carpi, because Lucrezia sent him fine linen there.
In 1508 Giovanni was reunited with Rodrigo in Bari; Lucrezia had clothes sent for both of them and commissioned the boys' new teacher, Bartolommeo Grotto, to buy a copy of Virgil for Giovanni .
For the time after Rodrigo Bisceglie's death in 1512, Giovanni's whereabouts are not known, but Lucrezia may have taken him to Ferrara . In any case, he stayed there in May 1517, because one of his men killed a squire of the duke's sons there. Duke Alfonso , enraged by such a "cruel and arrogant case", was determined to arrest him and arrested some of Giovanni's servants who were suspected of helping the guilty man to escape. Giovanni himself left Ferrara and went to Rome before Alfonso returned from Venice on June 3rd . It was presumed because he “no longer enjoys the duke's reputation”. Lucrezia, too, was apparently upset about the incident, but she was always concerned about Giovanni's well-being. Already at the beginning of September it was said that Giovanni was receiving a pension from the French King Francis I and would travel to France.
This was certainly Lucrezia's idea. She wrote a letter of recommendation to Giovanni and her agent reported that the French king had graciously replied to him for the "courtesy" she asked for - presumably a position at the French court for Giovanni. Alfonso, who stayed regularly at the French court, also promised his wife in a letter: “I will do everything I can for him, out of love for you”. In December 1518 he presented Giovanni to the king in Paris. Giovanni announced that he was ready to do any service and the king and his mother "greet him very graciously when he waits for them every day". Lucrezia thanked her husband for all the care and favor he had shown "this, my brother", but in France nothing turned out for Giovanni after all. On January 21st, Lucrezia's agent reported: "The great promises made to Your Highness for Don Giovanni seem extremely coldly carried out, and I doubt he will wish to stay here longer at his own expense." It is unknown whether the young man ever gained favor or position in France.
Attempted enforcement of the duchy
After Lucrezia's death in 1519, nothing was heard from Giovanni for a few years, and it was not until 1530 that he reappeared as a pretender of the Duchy of Camerino. He tried to assert his claim as the first Duke Camerinos when in 1527 the succession of the Duchy under the Varanos was contested between an underage daughter and a bastard of the house. In December 1529 he had apparently traveled to see Emperor Charles V in Bologna on this matter . He had advised him to take legal action directly with the Pope in Rome. Giovanni then wrote to Alfonso d'Este asking for assistance; Alfonso gave him several documents from Alexander's time, which concerned his rights to Camerino and which Lucrezia had taken with him to Ferrara. Giovanni's lawsuit was rejected by the Roman Rota and he had to bear the legal costs. Pope Clement VII even forbade him in 1532 to bother the Varanos with further claims.
In his complaint, Giovanni describes himself as the Pope's orator and is called domicellus romanus principalis , from which it can be seen that he now held a position at the papal court and lived in Rome as a distinguished gentleman.
death
Giovanni's death emerges from a letter of November 19, 1547, which a Ferrarese ambassador in Rome wrote to Duke Ercole II :
“Don Giovanni Borgia died in Genoa; it is said that he had invested many thousands of ducats in Valencia. Here (in Rome) he has few items of clothing, two horses and a vineyard worth about 300 ducats. Since he has not made a will, part of his legacy will go to Your Excellency and your brothers, the local noblemen Mattei, the Duke of Gandía [the son of Juan Borgia] and the children of the Duke of Valence [Cesare Borgia's illegitimate children Gerolamo and Camilla], unless they are opposed by the fact that they are natural children. I will not fail to inquire about the funds in Valencia and then to inform Your Excellency. "
Representation in artistic arrangements
Giovanni is portrayed in many literary adaptations and film adaptations as the son of Lucrezia, either with Perotto, Cesare, Juan or the Pope.
- In his drama Lucrèce Borgia (1833), Victor Hugo processes the rumors about Giovanni Borgia by giving his Lucretia a son named Gennaro , who arose from incest with her brother Juan
- In the BBC miniseries The Borgias (1981), Giovanni appears as Lucrezia's son with her father.
- In the Spanish film Los Borgia (2006), Giovanni is Lucrezia's son with her lover Perotto.
- In Mario Puzo's novel Die Familie (2002) Giovanni is the son of Lucrezia with her brother Cesare.
- In the television series The Borgias , Giovanni is Lucrezia's son with a lover named Paolo.
- In Hella Haasse's novel Die Scharlachrote Stadt (S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1955) Giovanni tries to explain the secret of his origins. At first he suspects that he is a son of Lucrezia. In the end he is convinced that he would be a son of Giulia Farnese and Alexander VI. to be.
See also
literature
- Ferdinand Gregorovius: Lucrezia Borgia. According to documents and correspondence from her own time. Cotta, Stuttgart 1875 (contains, among other things, the two papal bulls on Giovanni's origin)
- Sarah Bradford: Lucrezia Borgia. Penguin Group, London 2005, ISBN 978-0-14-101413-5 (English)
- Sarah Bradford: Cesare Borgia. A life in the Renaissance. German by Joachim A. Frank, original title: Cesare Borgia. His Life and Times. Bound first edition, Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 1979, ISBN 3-455-08898-8 .
- Rafael Sabatini: The life of Caesar Borgia, Duke of Valentinois and Romagna, Princes of Andria and Venafri, Counts of Dyois, Lords of Piombino, Camerino and Urbino, standard bearers and captain of the Church. Stuttgart 1925, original title: The Life of Cesare Borgia. 1912, p. 301f ( online )
Individual evidence
- ↑ 1548 in Sarah Bradford: Lucrezia Borgia. Family tree of the Borgia; on the other hand in Ferdinand Gregorovius in 1547: Lucrezia Borgia.
- ^ Sarah Bradford: Lucrezia Borgia. Penguin Group, London 2005, foreword; Elizabeth Lev: The Tigress of Forlì: Renaissance Italy's Most Courageous and Notorious Countess, Caterina Riario Sforza de 'Medici. 1 edition, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston 2011, ISBN 978-0151012992 , p. 247.
- ^ Sarah Bradford: Lucrezia Borgia. P. 68
- ^ Sarah Bradford: Lucrezia Borgia. P. 114
- ^ Rafael Sabatini: Life of Cesare Borgia , p. 302
- ^ A b c Sarah Bradford: Lucrezia Borgia. P. 343
- ^ Sarah Bradford: Cesare Borgia. P. 160
- ^ Sarah Bradford: Lucrezia Borgia. P. 181
- ^ Sarah Bradford: Lucrezia Borgia. P. 136f
- ^ A b Ferdinand Gregorovius: Lucrezia Borgia. P. 342
- ^ A b Sarah Bradford: Lucrezia Borgia. P. 317f
- ^ Sarah Bradford: Lucrezia Borgia. P. 357f
- ^ Ferdinand Gregorovius: Lucrezia Borgia. P. 349f
- ^ Ferdinand Gregorovius: Lucrezia Borgia. P. 350f online
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Borgia, Giovanni |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Juan Borgia, Infans Romanus |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Italian nobleman |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 1498 |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1547 or 1548 |