The very name Lucrezia Borgia conjures up everything that was sinister and corrupt about the Renaissance—incest, political assassination, papal sexual abuse, poisonous intrigue, unscrupulous power grabs. Yet, as bestselling biographer Sarah Bradford reveals in this breathtaking new portrait, the truth is far more fascinating than the myth. Neither a vicious monster nor a seductive pawn, Lucrezia Borgia was a shrewd, determined woman who used her beauty and intelligence to secure a key role in the political struggles of her day.
Drawing from a trove of contemporary documents and fascinating firsthand accounts, Bradford brings to life the art, the pageantry, and the dangerous politics of the Renaissance world Lucrezia Borgia helped to create.
Chapter 1. The Pope’s Daughter
Chapter 3. The Borgias Renascent
Chapter 4. The Tragic Duchess of Bisceglie
Chapter 7. The Road to Ferrara
Chapter 9. The Heavens Conspire
Chapter 11. Duchess of Ferrara
Chapter 13. ‘Horrors and Tears’
Chapter 14. The Years of War, 1509–12
Chapter 15. Lucrezia Triumphant
Chapter 16. The Last Year of Tranquillity