0:00

Welcome to Noble Blood, a production

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of I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild

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from Aaronminkie. Listener discretion

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is advised. While

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touring through Milan in eighteen

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sixteen, Lord Byron

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visited the museum collection of the

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Bibliotheca Ambrosiana.

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Byron found himself entranced

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by one particular exhibit, handwritten

0:29

letters from over four hundred

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years earlier between

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poet and his lover, Lucrezia

0:36

Borgia. The letters

0:39

were displayed under glass,

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along with a luck of Lucrezia's

0:43

famous blonde hair that

0:45

she had cut off, in this case to send her

0:48

paramour, along with one of the letters.

0:51

Lord Byron being Lord Byron,

0:53

he couldn't resist the urge to

0:55

look around, be sure no one was watching,

0:58

and then take some of the hair for himself.

1:02

Byron could never resist a woman

1:04

or the glamor of fame, and

1:07

Lucrezia Borgia was famous

1:10

in her lifetime. She was a

1:12

central figure in the Italian social

1:15

scene, the illegitimate daughter

1:17

of a man who would then go on to become

1:19

the Pope, she was a member

1:21

of one of the era's most powerful

1:23

families, the Borges. Even

1:27

while she was alive, rumors about Lucrezia

1:29

spread wildly, but after

1:32

her death especially, she became

1:34

a larger than life figure,

1:37

a Lady Macbeth, villainous, a

1:39

conniving poisoner, a usurper,

1:42

a man eater. Famously,

1:45

Lucrezia Borgia was said to

1:47

have owned a ring where

1:49

instead of a stone, there was

1:51

a hollow chamber that she could

1:53

fill with powdered poison in

1:56

order to surreptitiously murder

1:59

her enemies. For the record,

2:01

there's no evidence that that actually

2:04

existed. Though political

2:06

murders were happening all around

2:08

her, several at the behest of her

2:10

family, there's no actual

2:12

evidence that Lucrezia was

2:15

involved in any of them at all. It's

2:18

rare for me in an episode of

2:20

Noble Blood to come to an understanding

2:23

that a figure or any historical

2:25

event is less interesting

2:28

than most people understand it to be. But

2:31

in Lucrezia Borgia's case it

2:33

might be true. The rumors

2:35

and speculation around her in

2:37

the centuries since her death have loomed

2:40

so large that in researching

2:42

her life, I felt not

2:45

unlike a Renaissance artist chipping

2:47

away at a block of marble. You

2:50

begin with a block of stone,

2:53

A story high and then

2:55

carve away piece by piece until

2:58

what's left a woman just

3:01

human sized? So

3:03

was she a fen fatale or

3:06

maybe she was just a blonde bimbo manipulated

3:09

by the more powerful men in her

3:11

life, her father and her brother. What

3:14

if the answer is neither, what

3:16

then what's left? There's

3:20

a painting that I think embodies the

3:22

strange marriage between the perception

3:24

and the reality of Lucrezia Borgia.

3:27

It's called Lucrezia Borgia reigns

3:29

in the Vatican in the absence of Pope Alexander

3:32

the sixth It was painted

3:34

around by Frank Cadogan

3:37

Cowper and it currently hangs in the

3:39

Tape in London. The

3:41

painting is of a Vatican throne

3:44

room, painted almost entirely

3:46

in reds. The cardinals

3:49

surrounding the papal throne look

3:51

more like flames, and in

3:53

the center of the canvas, where

3:55

the Pope should be sitting, is instead

3:58

his daughter. The at t a Borgia,

4:01

a vision in orange yellow,

4:03

almost glowing golden.

4:07

The artist's rendition is actually

4:09

based on a true event in

4:11

which Lucrezia scandalized

4:14

the Vatican by taking her father's

4:16

place in his seat, but

4:19

the artist imagined something

4:21

one step further. The

4:23

artist painted two cardinals

4:25

pulling away at either side of

4:28

Lucrezia's dress to allow

4:30

a friar to kiss her feet.

4:33

That almost certainly never happened,

4:36

But in the painting it is, at

4:39

least to my eyes, unambiguously

4:41

sexual symbolism.

4:44

Whatever was true or false

4:46

in terms of rumors about Lucrezia's

4:48

life, that symbolic implication

4:51

at least was true. Here

4:53

was a woman more sexual than

4:55

sixteenth century Italy wanted her

4:57

to be more powerful, and

5:00

they wanted her to be and

5:03

glowing or not, nobody

5:05

could take their eyes off of her.

5:09

I'm Danis Schwartz, and

5:11

this is noble blood. In

5:20

the fifteenth century, the notion

5:22

of a pope having children was

5:24

considered far less outrageous

5:26

than it might sound today. Though

5:29

Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia had gone

5:32

through the motions briefly pretending

5:34

that the four children that he had with his

5:36

married mistress were his nephews

5:39

and niece. Eventually he lifted

5:41

his hands and admitted that he had

5:44

four children, Chessire, Giovanni,

5:46

Lucrezia, and Geoffrey. Their

5:49

mother, Venoza, was

5:51

a notoriously famous

5:53

beauty of Rome, and though

5:55

she was, as previously mentioned,

5:58

married, she was also the favorite

6:00

of Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia. At

6:03

this point, the Borges had limited

6:06

but significant power. The

6:08

borgia Is already had a pope in their

6:11

family, trade Pope Callixtus the Third,

6:14

but they were still considered outsiders

6:16

in Italian society. For

6:18

one, they weren't really Italian. The

6:21

Borges were actually Catalan, and they

6:23

had lived in the formerly Moorish

6:25

currently Spanish kingdom of Valencia,

6:29

as they did with most other Catalans.

6:32

Italians thought of the Borgia's

6:34

as tight fisted and ruthless.

6:37

They referred to them as Morani or

6:39

secret Jews, and

6:42

so even as the Borgias became

6:44

more powerful in Italy, they

6:46

remained a tight knit family

6:48

above all else. They

6:50

spoke Catalan amongst themselves, and

6:53

they had their own internal loyalties.

6:56

They were all raised believing in

6:58

in us versus them mentality.

7:02

If you've watched or read Game of

7:04

Thrones, certain parallels will

7:06

reveal themselves soon enough, and

7:08

I suspect that George R. Martin

7:10

might have been a little bit inspired by the

7:12

Borgia family, especially

7:15

when building the personalities

7:17

of the Landisters. When

7:20

Lucrezia Borgia was twelve, her father

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was elected Pope Alexander the sixth.

7:25

There were rumors even then that

7:28

he had bought the seat with bribery, or

7:30

that it was nepotism because his uncle had

7:32

been pope already, and both

7:34

of those things may have been factors, but

7:37

probably a more important factor is

7:39

that Borgia was seen as a centrist

7:41

candidate. The other powerful

7:44

families vying for pope had their

7:46

own rivalries and loyalties.

7:49

Bourgea wasn't to pro France

7:51

or to Milanaise. The Borgia's

7:54

just mostly looked out for the Borgia's.

7:57

And a brief note from this point

7:59

in the story, I'll be referring to Lucrezia's

8:01

father by his papal name Alexander

8:04

for clarity. Even though he was born Rodrigo,

8:08

at this point in history, there was very

8:10

little stigma attached to the fact that

8:12

Alexander's four children were bastards,

8:15

just as there was really no stigma attached

8:17

to the fact that Alexander was about

8:20

to use his new found powers as pope

8:22

to advance his family's position. It's

8:25

what all the popes did in

8:27

this case. Advancing his family

8:30

meant advantageous marriages. By

8:38

the time she was twelve, Lucrezia

8:40

had already been engaged three

8:42

times. It wasn't hard to

8:44

find her matches even from

8:47

a young age. She had golden hair and

8:49

bright white teeth. She was charming

8:51

and well educated. But

8:54

then her father was elected pope and

8:56

her prospects got a whole lot

8:58

better. In fourte three,

9:01

when Lucrezia was just thirteen years

9:04

old, she was married to a man

9:06

nearly fifteen years her senior, a

9:09

man named Giovanni Sparza

9:11

of the powerful Sparza family. Giovanni

9:15

was the nephew of the Duke of Milan, and

9:18

even though Lucrezia and her new husband remained

9:20

in Rome, it was important for the

9:22

Boorges to have allies in northern

9:24

Italy. But as it turned out,

9:26

that alliance was more temporarily

9:29

important. Lucrezia

9:31

and Giovanni had been married only a year

9:34

when the Sparzas began to seem like

9:36

a liability. A

9:38

lot of complicated political maneuvering

9:41

is happening behind the scenes in Italy at

9:43

this moment, But to make a long story

9:45

short, the Duke of Milan allied

9:47

with the King of France against the

9:50

Pope still in Rome, Giovanni

9:53

was stranded metaphorically in the belly

9:55

of the beast, not quite sure if

9:57

she was supposed to ally himself with his uncle

9:59

but of Milan or with his wife's

10:02

powerful family. But for

10:04

the Borges, their choice of loyalty

10:06

was entirely clear. Lucrezia's

10:09

older brother, Chessire, met with her

10:11

one afternoon and calmly explained

10:14

to her that her husband would need to

10:16

be killed so that she could be remarried

10:18

to someone who could actually help them politically.

10:22

Lucrezia panicked. She

10:24

liked her husband, they were genuinely

10:26

fond of each other, and so

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she ran home that afternoon and

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warned him. Giovanni

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fled to Milan disguised as a

10:36

beggar. We can just imagine

10:38

Pope Alexander putting his head in his

10:40

hand and sighing, saying something

10:42

like, darn, it's going to be

10:44

so much harder for you to get out of that marriage

10:47

now, Lucrezia. Now,

10:49

the Borges only had one option to get Lucrezia

10:51

out of that marriage. That option was

10:54

annulling it. With them being

10:56

Catholic and their father being the

10:58

Pope meant the only way to do

11:01

that was to claim that the marriage had

11:03

never been consummated. Well,

11:05

that was a bit of a laugh. There was absolutely

11:08

no reason to believe that that was true,

11:11

and all of Rome knew it. No,

11:13

it's true, Chess, he said, It's Giovanni's

11:16

fault. He is impotent. Ignore

11:18

the fact that he had already been married once and

11:20

his first wife died in childbirth. He

11:23

never consummated the marriage with my sister

11:25

because he's impotent. Trust me.

11:28

The Borges were going to force Giovanni

11:30

Sparza to sign a statement

11:33

to that effect, which he eventually

11:35

did, but not without lashing

11:37

out in his own way, saying that maybe

11:39

the Boorges only wanted Lucrezia single

11:41

so that they could have her for themselves.

11:44

Alexander, her father, and Ssary.

11:47

The Borges were notoriously close,

11:49

weren't they. This is about

11:52

when the rumors of incest began, but

11:54

those rumors would continue on for

11:56

the rest of Lucrezia's life.

12:04

While the annulment was working itself out,

12:06

Lucrezia needed to get out of

12:08

the picture, just to be put aside

12:10

so that no one in Rome would think about her for a

12:13

little while, and you know, maybe

12:15

just in case she had gotten pregnant from

12:17

her first husband, to make sure that

12:19

no one could see it lest they believed that

12:21

the marriage had been consummated,

12:24

and so Lucrezia was sent to a nunnery

12:27

outside the city. But

12:29

two unfortunate incidents occurred

12:32

in the months after lucrezia separation

12:34

from her first husband that would

12:36

begin the tarnish on her reputation.

12:40

First, on Valentine's Day fourteen

12:43

ninety eight, a young Spaniard

12:45

named Pedro called her own, known colloquially

12:47

as Perotto, who worked in the Pope's

12:50

chamber, was found dead

12:52

in the Tiber River along with

12:54

one of Lucrezia's ladies. Speculation

12:58

ran rampant that Lucrezia

13:01

had been having an affair with Piroto

13:04

and that her brother Chessia had

13:06

had him killed in order to protect

13:08

his sister's reputation. Although

13:11

before you think I'm accusing Chessire of

13:14

brotherly kindness, protecting

13:16

Lucrezia's reputation really just

13:18

meant protecting her marriage prospects.

13:22

And then the second incident, a

13:24

Borgia baby was born, and

13:26

no one seemed to be sure whose it was.

13:30

The baby was initially known as the

13:32

Infant Romanus or the

13:34

Infant of Rome, but he would later

13:36

be known as Giovanni. There

13:38

are a lot of Giovanni's in

13:40

this story. The most

13:43

likely explanation for the baby is

13:45

that he was Pope Alexander's child,

13:48

and the Pope even admitted so much in a papal

13:50

bull later in his life. But

13:52

early on, right after the baby appeared,

13:55

they said it was chess Eire's child out

13:57

of wedlock before he got married. But

14:00

Lucrezia had been sent away and

14:03

her marriage being unconsummated

14:05

was essential to her family's

14:07

political dealings. What

14:10

if people thought the

14:12

baby was hers and

14:14

it was result of I don't

14:16

know, incest with her father,

14:19

or and here you can cue

14:22

the Game of Thrones theme song, what

14:24

if it was a result of incest with

14:26

her brother? Again,

14:29

there was no evidence to support this,

14:31

and most historians agree. Now the

14:33

child was almost certainly Pope

14:35

Alexander's, possibly Chanceres,

14:38

but really probably not Lucrezia's.

14:41

Still, the Boers has had power, and

14:44

other families of Italy wanted that power.

14:47

Rumors were a weapon. When

14:55

Lucrezia turned eighteen, it was

14:57

time for her to get married. Again and

15:00

again, death, tragedy

15:03

and rumors would follow behind

15:05

her. This time,

15:08

Pope Alexander wanted to secure

15:10

the Borgia position with the royal

15:12

family of the Kingdom of Naples. Naples

15:15

was in a precarious position under

15:18

the threat of King Charles the eighth

15:20

of France, who claimed the throne

15:22

for himself through a certain inherited

15:25

lineage. Not to get too

15:27

deep into the weeds of these politics,

15:30

but the Pope's youngest son, Geoffrey,

15:32

had already married the daughter of

15:34

the King of Naples, a girl named Sancha,

15:37

although seeing her name spelled out s

15:40

A n c I A, you

15:43

might be forgiven for mispronouncing

15:45

it Sansa. Geoffrey

15:47

and Santa is another fun little

15:49

layer of Game of Thrones intrigue

15:52

into the mix. But back

15:54

to Lucrezia. Lucrezia was

15:56

going to get married to the King of naples illegitimate

15:59

son, Alfonso, Duke of Bichellier,

16:02

the half brother of Sancha, but

16:04

that marriage wasn't the Pope's end game.

16:08

The thing was their dad, Alfonso

16:10

and Sancha's dad wasn't the king

16:12

anymore. He had died and

16:15

their uncle became the king and

16:17

the new king had a daughter, Carlotta,

16:20

that the Pope really wanted for his eldest

16:22

son, chess Are, so

16:25

as sort of a consolation prize, he

16:27

was marrying Lucrezia to the illegitimate

16:29

but still titled and important Duke of

16:31

Bichellier, hoping it would be

16:33

a foothold for Carlotta to

16:35

get with chess Are. That

16:38

marriage for chess Are never worked

16:40

out, although jess a A did end

16:42

up having an affair with Sancha, his

16:44

younger brother's wife. In

16:46

her defense, relatively, she

16:49

was sixteen when she was married to a

16:51

twelve year old Geoffrey,

16:53

but what can I say? The Borgias

16:55

were very scandalous and

16:57

very messy. As

17:01

for Lucrezia and husband number two,

17:04

it seemed like she had finally struck the jackpot,

17:06

at least in terms of her own personal happiness.

17:10

Another quick aside, there is just

17:12

an influx of Alphonso's in this

17:14

story, and so for clarity, husband

17:17

number two will be referred to by his title

17:19

Bachelier. Lucrezia

17:21

and Bichellier were only a year apart

17:24

in age, and he was known to be tall

17:26

and graceful, athletic and

17:28

handsome. Their wedding

17:31

was private, but we know details from

17:33

Sanche's writing. We know

17:35

that Lucrezia wore addressed with jewel

17:38

studded sleeves and a French

17:40

style robe with black thread and

17:42

a red velvet trim. Pearls

17:45

encircled her belt and her neck,

17:48

and her cap was embroidered with

17:50

glittering gems. She

17:53

wore a gold circlet crown

17:55

in her golden blonde hair.

17:59

The groom were a broach that his

18:01

new bride had given him.

18:03

The festivities were as magnificent

18:06

as he might expect from a Borgia party.

18:09

After the ceremony, there was another

18:12

raucous after party, and marvelous

18:14

tableaus were set up to amuse the guests

18:17

throughout the Borgia apartments. In

18:19

one tableau there was an intricate fountain.

18:23

Another was a room all made

18:25

up to look like the woods, and members

18:27

of the Borgia family dressed up as wild

18:30

animals. Chessire dressed

18:32

as a unicorn, his younger,

18:35

cockolded little brother was

18:37

given a sea goose costume.

18:41

For a short while, the Cretia and her

18:43

husband were living a life

18:45

together, she lost a pregnancy,

18:48

but eventually she became pregnant

18:50

again. The two lived together

18:52

in relative happiness in Rome,

18:55

but politics were still happening

18:57

in the world all around them.

19:04

This is going to be a vast

19:06

oversimplification, but I hope

19:09

it at least serves as a decent overview.

19:13

Naples was in a precarious position.

19:15

It was under threat by King Charles

19:17

the Eighth of France, who claimed

19:19

the throne of Naples for himself through

19:22

a sort of convoluted lineage.

19:25

But then King Charles the Eighth died

19:27

in France without a director, which

19:29

meant that his second cousin, once removed, Louis

19:32

the twelfth inherited France, and

19:34

he also inherited Charles's claim

19:36

to the throne of Naples. But

19:39

there was something else. Louis the Twelfth wanted

19:42

Brittany. Brittany

19:44

wasn't part of France at the time, and

19:46

the former king only had it because

19:49

he had been married to the Duchess of Brittany

19:51

named Anne. Well, Great

19:54

Louis the twelfth would marry Anne of Brittany

19:56

too. The only problem was

19:59

Louis was already married. There's

20:02

a quick answer to that. You just need the pope

20:04

to take care of it. An alliance

20:07

was born. Pope Alexander

20:09

annulled louis marriage so he could

20:11

marry the Duchess of Brittany, and

20:13

in exchange, Louis gave the

20:16

Pope's son chits Or, a duchy

20:18

military assistant, and a

20:21

bride, a Princess of Navarre. All

20:24

of this is to say, through a convoluted

20:26

series of events, the Boorges

20:29

became allied with France, and

20:31

they supported the French claim to Naples

20:34

and not the claim of the Italian

20:37

royal family of Naples. The family

20:39

of Lucrezia's husband, Michelier,

20:43

sensed that the winds were changing, and

20:46

he fled Rome when his wife was six

20:48

months pregnant. The

20:50

Pope was furious and sent out

20:53

men to find him. They couldn't,

20:56

And yet, even though he was home free,

20:59

Chellier returned to Rome for the birth

21:01

of his child at his wife's

21:03

behest. The way it looked

21:05

later, it looked likely

21:08

Crezzia alured him back into a trap.

21:16

As the sun set on July dred

21:20

Butchellier was strolling up the steps

21:23

of St. Peter's Basilica when

21:25

before he reached the threshold, he

21:28

was accosted by a group of

21:30

assassins. The

21:32

assassins stabbed him

21:34

in the head, in the right arm,

21:37

and in the leg. While

21:39

the Chellier bled on the stairs, the

21:41

assassins tried to snatch him up

21:44

and carry him away, but then

21:46

guards came out and the assassins

21:48

fled. There wasn't much

21:51

time to save his life, or any time

21:53

at all. He needed to get

21:55

to safety, and so he was

21:57

brought inside the Borgia Tower, where

21:59

his sister Sancha and his wife Lucrezia

22:03

wept over his body while he slept.

22:07

Lucrezia knew that her brother

22:09

was behind it, but there was nothing

22:11

she could do about that. All

22:14

she could do in the meantime was prepare

22:16

her husband's food just to be sure it

22:18

wasn't poisoned, and send

22:20

for her husband's own doctors from Naples

22:23

to take care of him. And

22:25

for a few weeks it looked like he was getting

22:27

better. Baschellier was going

22:30

to survive his wounds. To

22:32

sorry ever, acting innocent,

22:35

came one morning to visit his brother

22:37

in law. He leaned in close

22:40

to give Bachelier a kiss on the cheek.

22:43

What didn't happen at lunch can

22:45

still happen at dinner, he whispered.

22:48

A month later, Bachellier

22:51

was strangled in his bed. The

22:53

assassins were never caught. Lucrezia

22:57

was heartbroken. She went

23:00

into deep mourning, signing

23:02

letters to her family as Latin

23:04

filicima, the extremely

23:07

unhappy one. She was

23:09

only twenty years old and

23:11

she had already had two husbands.

23:14

Maybe she was cursed like everyone

23:16

said, but her

23:18

family wouldn't let her mourn for long.

23:22

In fifteen o two, she was married

23:24

yet again to another Alfonso,

23:27

Alfonso d'Este, who had later

23:29

become the Duke of Ferrara. Alfonso,

23:32

for his part, was, and I'll

23:35

say maybe justifiably hesitant

23:37

to marry into this incredibly conniving,

23:40

bloodthirsty family. It

23:43

objectively had not worked out for

23:45

either of his predecessors. The

23:47

Duke sent a group of ambassadors to Rome

23:50

to scope Lucrezia out, and

23:52

the report came back spotless. One

23:55

of his ambassadors wrote of Lucrezia

23:57

quote, she is a wise lady, and

24:00

it is not only my opinion, but that

24:02

of the whole company. And

24:04

so Alfonso agreed to the marriage. It

24:07

turns out he had a lot in common with Lucrezia.

24:11

He was only twenty four and a widower

24:13

himself. The pair were married

24:16

and for the first time in Lucrezia's

24:18

life, she lived away from

24:20

Rome and away from the direct

24:22

influence of her powerful father and

24:24

brother. As the

24:26

Duchess of Ferrara, Lucrezia Sword,

24:29

she was accomplished and widely

24:32

praised for her beauty and leadership. This

24:35

would be the longest marriage of her life,

24:37

lasting seventeen years, though

24:39

neither party was faithful. Lucrezia,

24:42

in classic Boorgia fashion, had

24:45

an affair with her husband's

24:47

brother in law, the husband

24:50

of her husband's sister,

24:53

and of course she also had an affair with

24:56

the much older poet whose love letters

24:58

to her Lord Byron would one

25:00

day call the prettiest love letters

25:02

in the world. But

25:11

there was one dark spot to her life in

25:13

Ferrara. She was never allowed

25:15

to see her son, Rodrigo again,

25:18

her firstborn that she had with her

25:20

second husband. The

25:22

idea coming into her third

25:24

marriage was that she still had to sort

25:26

of ostensibly present herself as

25:29

if she was a virgin, even

25:31

though by that point everyone knew the jig

25:33

was up. Throughout Rodrigo's

25:36

entire young life, she begged

25:38

to see him. She would send him gifts

25:40

and letters. She sent him a tutor

25:42

from university in Ferrara. She

25:45

didn't get to see him until he

25:47

was twelve years old. After

25:49

he already died, Lucrezia

25:53

was able to travel to where he had been

25:55

living, where she stayed for

25:57

a month in mourning. Lucrezia's

26:01

own end would be far less dramatic

26:03

than her life. She outlived

26:05

her oldest son, her father, and

26:08

her older brother Chesare, and

26:10

over the course of her multiple marriages

26:13

she would have eight known children, at

26:15

least one stillborn, and several miscarriages.

26:19

It would be during the birth of what might

26:21

have been her ninth child, Isabella, that

26:24

Lucrezia, then thirty nine,

26:26

would finally fall. It

26:29

was the burden of all women,

26:31

the risk of childbirth, that

26:34

looming specter. Her

26:36

father, Pope Alexander, died in

26:38

fifteen o three, and with his

26:41

death came the fall in power for

26:43

the whole Bourgah clan. Lucrezia's

26:46

brother Cesare had been forced

26:48

to flee Italy, and he attempted

26:50

to capture Navarre. In a military

26:52

battle in fifteen

26:54

o seven. He was chasing an enemy

26:56

group of knights, only to be ambushed

26:59

an attacked, killed by a spear.

27:02

The enemy men stripped him of

27:04

all of his fine clothing and valuables

27:07

and left him alone with just a single

27:10

red tile covering his genitals

27:13

and the leather mask that he

27:15

wore later in life to cover

27:17

the half of his face that had become grossly

27:19

disfigured thanks to Syphilers.

27:23

With the deaths of Chesire and Pope

27:25

Alexander came the death

27:28

of Borgia's central power

27:30

and protection. The

27:32

rumors and stories about Lucrezia

27:35

had always been there, but now

27:37

more quickly came the slander and accusations.

27:41

Some of the stories were probably

27:43

warranted. The Borgia's

27:45

as a whole were murderous and promiscuous,

27:49

but Lucrezia would always

27:51

be cast as the fun fatale,

27:54

the murderous black widow. It's

27:57

an archetype, so compelling, so

28:00

romantic, but sometimes

28:02

it's hard to find the woman underneath.

28:11

That's the story of Lucrezia Borgia. But

28:13

stick around after a brief sponsor break to

28:16

hear a little bit more about the overall

28:18

legacy of the Borgias. Lucrezia

28:31

has been immortalized in books

28:33

and plays and operas hundreds

28:36

of times, but her brother Tessare

28:39

has an even more impressive literary

28:41

legacy. Tessire had been

28:43

ruthless in his pursuit of power, using

28:46

his father's papal armies and his

28:48

own mercenaries to expand his

28:50

land and his family's influence.

28:53

Chess Are was so notable that

28:55

he caught the interest of the political theorist

28:58

Niccolo Macchiavelli. It

29:01

was Chessire Borgia who inspired

29:03

what would become Machiavelli's

29:05

most famous work. Some

29:08

say that Machiavelli wrote it

29:10

ironically as a tongue

29:13

in cheek critique of power. Plenty

29:16

of people take it completely earnestly,

29:19

but Machiavelli had watched

29:21

Chessire Borgia operate, and

29:24

he would use that as his playbook,

29:27

his template when he sat down

29:29

to write his treatise, The

29:31

Prince. Noble

29:39

Blood is a production of I Heart Radio and

29:41

Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky.

29:44

The show was written and hosted by Dani Schwartz

29:46

and produced by Aaron Manky, Matt Frederick,

29:49

Alex Williams, and Trevor Young.

29:51

Noble Blood is on social media at Noble

29:54

Blood Tales, and you can learn more about

29:56

the show over at Noble Blood tails dot com.

29:58

For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit

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the I heart Radio app, Apple podcasts,

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or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. M

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