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.

Among the violent personalities of the High Renaissance, Lucrezia Borgia is chiefly remembered as a raven-haired poisoner.

Lucrezia Borgia is among the most fascinating and controversial personalities of the Renaissance. The daughter of Pope Alexander VI, she was intensely involved in the political life of Italy during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. While her marriage alliances helped advance the political objectives of the papacy, she also held the office of Governor of Spoleto, a role normally reserved for Cardinals, making her one of the most powerful and dynamic female figures of the Renaissance. Among the first books to employ historical method to move beyond myth and romance that had obscured the fascinating story of Lucrezia Borgia was this biography written by the noted German historian Ferdinand Gregorovius. Ferdinand Gregorovius (1821-1891) was one of the preeminent scholars of the Italian Renaissance. His biography of Lucrezia Borgia reveals the atmosphere of the Renaissance, painting a portrait of Lucrezia and her relationships with her father Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander VI, her brother Cesare, her mother Vanozza, her father’s mistress, Giulia Farnese, her husband Duke Alfonso D’Este of Ferrara, and many others, including important artists and writers of the time. All are vividly portrayed against the colorful background of Renaissance Italy. Gregorovius separates myth from documented fact and his book remains a key reference work on the life and times of the Borgia princess. This new edition of Gregorovius’s classic work Lucrezia Borgia is enhanced with an introduction by Samantha Morris, a noted expert on the history of the Borgias. Samantha studied archaeology at the University of Winchester where her interest in the history of the Italian Renaissance began. She is the author of Cesare Borgia: In a Nutshell and Girolamo Savonarola: The Renaissance Preacher. She also runs the website theborgiabull.com.

Maria Bellonci depicts Lucrezia as a passionate, womanly figure moving uncertainly through the Papal court and through the intrigues, ambitions and political chicanery that swirled about her. Married three times for her family¿s political advantage Lucrezia also entertained, for her own pleasure, a long list of eminent lovers, particularly the poet Pietro Bembo. Her father, Pope Alexander VI, emerges as a fiercely devoted parent while the catlike and sinister Cesare Borgia is seen as a relentless and unscrupulous power-seeker.

THE FULL STORY BEHIND THE BORGIAS, NOW A MAJOR TV DRAMA STARRING JEREMY IRONS 'Either Caesar or nothing' was the motto of Cesare Borgia, whose name has long been synonymous with evil. Almost five centuries have passed since his death, yet his reputation still casts a sinister shadow. He stands accused of treachery, cruelty, rape, incest and, especially, murder - assassination by poison, the deadly white powder concealed in the jewelled ring, or by the midnight band of bravos lurking in the alleys of Renaissance Rome. This classic book by acclaimed historian and biographer Sarah Bradford (author of Lucrezia Borgia and Diana), is the drama of a man of exceptional gifts and a driving lust for power. Cesare Borgia dared fortune for the highest goals and when fate turned against him he fell like Lucifer. Set against the brilliant backcloth of High Renaissance Italy, his life had the perfect proportions of a Greek tragedy.

Lucrezia Borgia - an infamous murderess or simply the victim of bad press? Lucrezia Borgia's name has echoed through history as a byword for evil - a poisoner who committed incest with her natural father, Pope Alexander VI, and with her brother, Cesare Borgia. Long considered the most ruthless of Italian Renaissance noblewomen, her tarnished reputation has prevailed long since her own lifetime. In this definitive biography, a work of huge scholarship and erudition, Sarah Bradford gives a fascinating account of Lucrezia's life in all its colourful controversy. Daughter, sister, wife and mother, Lucrezia Borgia was surrounded by wealth, privilege and intrigue. But what was the truth behind her extraordinary existence - was she a monster of cruelty and deceit, or simply the pawn of her power-hungry father and brother?