Borgia, Lucrezia (1480–1519)

Duchess of Ferrara from 1501. She was the illegitimate daughter of Pope Alexander VI and sister of Cesare Borgia. She was married at 12 and again at 13 to further her father's ambitions, both marriages being annulled by him. At 18 she was married again, but her husband was murdered in 1500 on the order of her brother, with whom (as well as with her father) she was said to have committed incest. Her final marriage was to the Alfonso d'Este, the heir to the duchy of Ferrara (see Este family). She made the court a centre of culture and was a patron of authors and artists such as Ariosto and Titian.