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LUCREZIA BORGIA, ITALY

Fair warning to you all, now that The Borgias has started on Showtime I’ll probably be rediscovering my love for Italian Renaissance history. I’ve done a few before, Catherine Medici is around here somewhere but anyway, I digress. The Borgia family is notorious for their corruption and power plays in Rome during the late 1400’s. The patriarch of the family famously bought his Papal throne at the Vatican and played his family accordingly. Of course, for any young woman in a powerful family was used as a token of alliance by marriage. Enter Lucrezia Borgia who married into another powerful Catholic family and then another and then another, all surrounded by a little mystery. There are very few surviving portraits of the Borgia heiress but she was allegedly quite beautiful, cunning and at one time as corrupt as the rest of her family. Although, as she became older and raised her children her image did clean up a bit. But I dare to say she was far from angelic. By today’s standards she’d be you know, totally normal. Not sure why I put her in all black but damn she fine.

1. “I don’t think my father, the guardian of the Catholic faith, would be too pleased to hear about this”

Dress by Alberta Feretti, shoes by Bottega Veneta

2. “You know who’s looking fine tonight?” “Cesare Borgia” “Okay, you did not just say that, he is your brother” “What? He’s a good kisser.”

Dress by Emilio Pucci, coat by Fendi, shoes by Lanvin

3. “She has two painted portraits and a silver carriage”

Dress by Versace, shoes by Gucci

Weird how relevant Mean Girls is to her. Ha.

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