Giovanni Borgia (March 1498 – 1548), known as the ''Infans Romanus'' ("the Roman child"), was born into the
House of Borgia
The House of Borgia ( , ; Spanish and an, Borja ; ca-valencia, Borja ) was an Italian-Aragonese Spanish noble family, which rose to prominence during the Italian Renaissance. They were from Valencia, the surname being a toponymic from the town ...
in secret and is of unclear parentage. Speculations of the child's parentage involve either
Lucrezia Borgia with her alleged lover, Perotto Calderon or
Cesare Borgia, or
Pope Alexander VI as his father. Cesare Borgia's biographer
Rafael Sabatini
Rafael Sabatini (29 April 1875 – 13 February 1950) was an Italian-born British writer of romance and adventure novels.
He is best known for his worldwide bestsellers: ''The Sea Hawk'' (1915), ''Scaramouche'' (1921), ''Captain Blood'' (a.k.a ...
says that the truth is fairly clear: Alexander fathered the child with an unknown Roman woman.
Pope Alexander VI issued two
papal bulls, both dated 1 September 1501, in each of which a different father is assigned to Giovanni Borgia. The second bull appears 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), 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.
Giovanni Borgia appeared as a companion of Lucrezia Borgia, who named him as her younger half-brother. Pope Alexander VI, in two
bulls excommunicating
Excommunication is an institutional act of religious censure used to end or at least regulate the communion of a member of a congregation with other members of the religious institution who are in normal communion with each other. The purpose ...
members of the Savelli and
Colonna
The House of Colonna, also known as ''Sciarrillo'' or ''Sciarra'', is an Italian noble family, forming part of the papal nobility. It was powerful in medieval and Renaissance Rome, supplying one pope (Martin V) and many other church and politic ...
families and confiscating their properties, was able to name Giovanni Borgia as heir to the duchy of
Nepi Nepi (anciently ''Nepet'' or ''Nepete'') is a town and '' comune'' in the province of Viterbo, Lazio, central Italy. The town lies southeast of the city of Viterbo and about southwest from Civita Castellana.
The town is known for its miner ...
, a property important to the Borgia family. Giovanni Borgia was also named duke of
Palestrina
Palestrina (ancient ''Praeneste''; grc, Πραίνεστος, ''Prainestos'') is a modern Italian city and ''comune'' (municipality) with a population of about 22,000, in Lazio, about east of Rome. It is connected to the latter by the Via Pre ...
on 17 September 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
Vetralla is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Viterbo, in central Italy, south of that city, located on a shoulder of Monte Fogliano.
History
Vetralla's dominating fortified position in the heart of Etruscan territories has been contin ...
.
He served as a minor functionary in the
Papal Curia and at the court of France.
He had three daughters.
Popular culture
Hella Haasse
Hélène "Hella" Serafia Haasse (2 February 1918 – 29 September 2011) was a Dutch writer, often referred to as the "Grande Dame" of Dutch literature, and whose novel ''Oeroeg'' (1948) was a staple for generations of Dutch schoolchildren. Her ...
constructed a
historical novel around the figure of Giovanni Borgia, ''
The Scarlet City'' (1952).
In the
fictionalized historical setting of ''
Assassin's Creed'', Giovanni Borgia is depicted as the love child of the star-crossed union between Lucrezia Borgia and Perotto Calderon, a courier who was secretly a member of the Assassins that were working to bring down the Borgias. Giovanni is born malformed and deemed likely to die in a few days, but is healed by
a powerful artifact. He is raised in the Borgia household, with Cesare Borgia posing as his father and Lucrezia as his aunt. To flee the life Cesare is grooming him for, Giovanni runs away to join
Francesco Vecellio
Francesco Vecellio (about 1475 – 1560) was a Venetian painter of the Italian Renaissance. He was the elder brother and close collaborator of the painter Tiziano Vecellio ("Titian").
Vecellio was born in Pieve di Cadore, in the Republic of V ...
, Calderon's understudy, in the Assassin Order. Thereafter Giovanni serves as an operative for the Assassins, having an affinity for artifacts of power. For example, in 1520, he poses as a chronicler on
Hernán Cortés's first voyage to Mexico (witnessing
the Night of Sorrow), where he obtains a
crystal skull
Crystal skulls are human skull hardstone carvings made of clear or milky white quartz (also called "rock crystal"), claimed to be pre-Columbian Mesoamerican artifacts by their alleged finders; however, these claims have been refuted for all of th ...
. In 1527, he encounters
Paracelsus and assists in the creation of a
philosopher's stone
The philosopher's stone or more properly philosophers' stone (Arabic: حجر الفلاسفة, , la, lapis philosophorum), is a mythic alchemical substance capable of turning base metals such as mercury into gold (, from the Greek , "gold", ...
.
In the 2011 television series
''The Borgias'', Giovanni is portrayed as the son of Lucrezia (portrayed by
Holliday Grainger) and a young
groom named Paolo, who is then murdered by her brother Juan, Duke of Gandia.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Borgia, Giovanni
1498 births
1548 deaths
Giovanni Giovanni may refer to:
* Giovanni (name), an Italian male given name and surname
* Giovanni (meteorology), a Web interface for users to analyze NASA's gridded data
* ''Don Giovanni'', a 1787 opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, based on the legend of ...
Illegitimate children of Pope Alexander VI