Giovanni Borgia (1498)
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- For the Giovanni Borgia born in 1474, see Giovanni Borgia (1474).
Giovanni de Candia Borgia, 2nd Duke of Candia (Catalan: Gandia), (March 1498 – 1548), the infans Romanus ("the child of Rome"), was probably the love-child of Lucrezia Borgia and Pedro Calderon. Pope Alexander VI issued two papal bulls, both dated September 1, 1501, in each of which a different father is assigned to Giovanni Borgia, the second appearing to supplement and correct the first.
The first of these Bulls, addressed to "Dilecto Filio Nobili Joanni de Borgia, Infanti Romano," declares Giovanni Borgia to be a child of three years of age, the illegitimate son of Cesare Borgia, unmarried (as Cesare was at the time of the child's birth), and of a woman (unnamed, as was usual in such cases), also unmarried.
The second declares Giovanni Borgia instead to be the son of Pope Alexander VI himself and runs: "Since you bear this deficiency not from the said duke, but from us and the said woman, which we for good reasons did not desire to express in the preceding writing." The pope was forbidden by canon law to publicly recognize children and did not wish that Giovanni Borgia should suffer in his inheritance as a consequence [1]. Precisely at the same date, the final arrangements were made for Lucrezia Borgia's betrothal to Alfonso d'Este, duke of Ferrara.
Giovanni Borgia appeared as a companion of Lucrezia Borgia, who named him as her younger half-brother. Pope Alexander VI, in two bulls excommunicating members of the Savelli and Colonna families and confiscating their properties, was able to name Giovanni Borgia as heir to the duchy of Nepi, a property important to the Borgia family, and also as duke of Palestrina (September 17, 1501). Giovanni Borgia was passed from guardian to guardian, eventually ending up with Lucrezia Borgia in Ferrara. Giovanni Borgia held several other titles, including the signory of Vetralla, but never succeeded in possessing his titles, and, after a career serving as a minor functionary in the Papal Curia and at the court of France, failed to gain much power and eventually died relatively unknown.
[edit] Popular culture
Hella S. Haasse constructed a historical novel around the figure of Giovanni Borgia, The Scarlet City (1952).
