The less bad Borgia

To misquote Ogden Nash: "How would you like to be up a dark alley with Lucrezia Borgia coming towargia." Well, a bit more so after reading Sarah Bradford's fine biography.

No other family has gone down in history as the living epitome of lust, perversion, violence and crime on quite such a scale.

To evoke them in contemporary terms you would have to think of something akin to a cross between the Kray brothers and the Beckhams, for the Borgias had their Hello! magazine side. They revelled in public spectacle and had a passion for fashion and showing off on a grand scale.

Compared with the rest of her clan, Lucrezia was pretty harmless, suffering from being cast by historians as the female equivalent of her notorious brother, Cesare. Sarah Bradford is not the first biographer to whitewash Lucrezia away from her customary role as a Hammer Films extra with a dagger in one hand and a poisoned chalice in the other.

However, she argues that earlier resurrections erred too far in the direction of recasting her as a dumb blonde caught up in she knew not what, whereas she emerges from this finely written and vivid narrative as a woman who was educated, who spoke and wrote four languages and had some taste in literature and music. The downside is that the truth about her makes her less fascinating than the fiction.

Dying in her 40th year, the first 20 of Lucrezia's life are a virtual vacuum. She was born in 1480, one of the numerous children of Pope Alexander VI.

The Borgias were a pushy Catalan family who emerged when Alexander's uncle was elected Pope Calixtus III. Like all Renaissance popes, Alexander's main aim was to feather his own family's nest, in the case of his favourite son, Cesare, by carving out a principality for him, and in that of his favourite daughter, Lucrezia, by marrying her dynastically up.

A woman's role was to play the part assigned her in the political power game. At the behest of her family, Lucrezia worked her way through three husbands, all the consequence of political deals to advance the Borgias.

Husband number one was a pay-off to the Sforza family who had backed Alexander's election as Pope. But Giovanni Sforza was soon recognised to be small fry and was disposed of on the grounds of nonconsummation, although by his first marriage he was the father of children.

Marriage number two was to an illegitimate son of the King of Naples. After he had served his purpose, Cesare had him strangled. Husband number three was the future Duke of Ferrara.