dence in
Rome, and there is not a single poem dedicated to her or which mentions
her; therefore it is due to the malicious epigrams of Sannazzaro and
Pontanus that she has been branded as the most depraved of courtesans.
If there ever was a young woman, however, likely to excite the
imagination of the poet, Lucretia Borgia in the bloom of her youth and
beauty was that woman. Her connection with the Vatican, the mystery
which surrounded her, and the fate she suffered, make her one of the
most fascinating women of her age. Doubtless there are buried in various
libraries numerous verses dedicated to her by the Roman poets who must
have swarmed at the court of the Pope's daughter to render homage to her
beauty and to seek her patronage.

In Rome, Lucretia had an opportunity to enjoy, if she were so disposed,
the society of many brilliant men, for even during the sovereignty of
the Borgias the Muses were banished neither from the Vatican nor from
Rome. It can not be denied, however, that the daughters of princely
houses were allowed to devote themselves to the cultivation of the
intellect more freely at the secular courts of Italy than they were at
the papal court. Not until Lucretia went to Ferrara to live was she able
to endeavor to emulate the example of the princesses of Mantua and
Urbino. While living in Rome she was too young and her environment too
narrow for her to have had any influence upon the literary and aesthetic
circles of that city, although, owing to her position, she must have
been acquainted with them.

Her father was not incapable of intellectual pleasures; he had his court
minstrels and poets. The famous Aurelio Brandolini, who died in 1497,
was wont to improvise to the strains of the lute during banquets in the
Vatican and in Lucretia's palace. Caesar's favorite, Serafino of Aquila,
the Petrarch of his age, who died in Rome in the year 1500, still a
young man, aspired to the same honor.

Caesar himself was interested in poetry and the arts, just as were all
the cultivated men and tyrants of the Renaissance. His court poet was
Francesco Sperulo, who served under his standard, and who sang his
campaigns in Romagna and in the neighborhood of Camerino.[69] A number
of Roman poets who subsequently became famous recited their verses in
the presence of Lucretia, among them Emilio Voccabella and Evangelista
Fausto Maddaleni. Even at that time the three brothers Mario, Girolamo,
and Celso Mellini enjoyed grea