t renown as poets and orators, while the
brothers of the house of Porcaro--Camillo, Valerio, and Antonio--were
equally famous. We have already noted that Antonio was one of the
witnesses at the marriage of Girolama Borgia in the year 1482, and that
he subsequently was Lucretia's proxy when she was betrothed to Centelles
in 1491. These facts show how closely and how long the Porcaro were
allied to the Borgias.

This Roman family had been made famous in the history of the city by the
fate of Stefano, Cola di Rienzi's successor. The Porcaro claimed descent
from the Catos, and for this reason many of them adopted the name
Porcius. Enjoying friendly relations with the Borgias, they claimed them
as kinsmen, stating that Isabella, the mother of Alexander VI, was
descended from the Roman Porcaro, who somehow had passed to Spain. The
similarity of sound in the Latin names Borgius and Porcius gave some
appearance of truth to this pretension.

Next to Antonio, Hieronymus Porcius was one of the most brilliant
retainers of the house of Borgia. Alexander, upon his election to the
papal throne, made him auditor of the Ruota (the Papal Court of
Appeals). He was the author of a work printed in Rome in September,
1493, under the title _Commentarius Porcius_, which was dedicated to the
King and Queen of Spain. In it he describes the election and coronation
of Alexander VI, and quotes portions of the declarations of loyalty
which the Italian envoys addressed to the Pope. Court flattery could not
be carried further than it was in this case by Hieronymus, an affected
pedant, an empty-headed braggart, a fanatical papist. Alexander made him
Bishop of Andria and Governor of the Romagna. In 1497 Hieronymus, then
in Cesena, composed a dialogue on Savonarola and his "heresy concerning
the power of the Pope." The kernel of the whole thing was the
fundamental doctrine of the infallibilists; namely, that only those who
blindly obey the Pope are good Christians.[70]

Porcius also essayed poetry, celebrating the magnificence of the Pope
and Cardinal Caesar, whom, in his verses on the Borgia Steer, he
described as his greatest benefactor. Apparently he was also the author
of the elegy on the death of the Duke of Gandia, which is still
preserved.

Phaedra Inghirami, the famous student of Cicero, whom Erasmus admired and
whom Raphael rendered immortal by his portrait, doubtless made the
acquaintance of the Borgias and of Lucretia through the Porcaro.