Cheap Biography - Lucrezia Borgia - Pretty Poison (Video) (Lucrezia Borgia) Price

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A favorable look at one of history's most maligned women
A product of the Italian Renaissance, Lucrezia Borgia's name has been synonymous with evil for over half a millennium, but this video reveals little truth to the scandalous stories associated with her name. She was certainly an unusual woman, the illegitimate daughter of the man who, when Lucrezia was 11, became Pope Alexander VI. Actually, I learned as much about late 15th century Italy as I did Lucrezia Borgia in this documentary. It is hard to imagine a Roman Catholic cardinal with three illegitimate children becoming pope, but of course the history of the papacy throughout the Middle Ages is less than sterling. Borgia deeply loved her father, and he loved her. It didn't stop him from using her as a pawn in his own political manipulations for power, however. She was to be married, in fact, at age 11, but her father's plans changed when he became the pope. At age 13, she did become a bride, but the marriage was doomed from the start. I was shocked to learn that the pope, like many fathers of brides in that era, attended the wedding night ceremonies (behind a sheet) to make sure that the marriage was consummated. This becomes quite ironic given the fact that Lucrezia's father soon had the marriage annulled. This move was the impetus of the gossip and scandal that would hang over Lucrezia forevermore, as her first husband responded angrily and accused his wife of having an incestuous relationship with her father. The pope's enemies took up these charges and added new ones: by age 16, Lucrezia was supposedly a depraved young woman who poisoned her enemies with arsenic, even bearing a special ring equipped with a tiny needle for subtly delivering the poison.

Lucrezia's life went from bad to worse when one of her brothers was killed; the murder was never solved, but another brother, Cesare, was suspected of the crime. At 16, Lucrezia was married to a son of the king of Naples (another politically motivated marriage); this immediately became a true love affair that produced a child but ended rather quickly when an assassin murdered her husband (again, suspicion fell on her brother Cesare). A third marriage was arranged soon thereafter, and Lucrezia was forced to leave her son behind and move a considerable distance away from Rome to live with a family that shunned and disliked her. She had a platonic love affair with a poet but eventually found happiness with her husband, dying during the birth of the couple's sixth child. She was greatly mourned by her husband and the people of the area.

According to this video, there is basically no truth behind any of the awful scandals and accusations that have tainted the name of Lucrezia Borgia all these many years; the historians interviewed here identify her as an extraordinarily unfortunate but by no means an evil woman. Unfortunately, the documentary does not cover as much material as it could have. The dark deeds committed by her brother Cesare and the lascivious nature of her father, Pope Alexander VI, are not explored in detail, there is no mention of charges that Lucrezia had incestuous relationships with two of her brothers, and not a hint is dropped about a rumored pregnancy during Lucrezia's time in a convent after the end of her first marriage (of course, there seems to be little truth to the charges of incest and early pregnancy). Frankly, from what I saw here, I cannot understand why this woman has been treated with such malevolence over the years; any search for evil in the Borgia family should focus on her brother Cesare and, to some degree, her father, Pope Alexander VI. It is a credit to Lucrezia that she remained loyal to family members who used and abused her for their own selfish reasons. With so much information left unexplored, this interesting look at the life of one of history's most maligned women seems, in the end, to be a little less than definitive.

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Renaissance femme fatale or wronged woman?
Excellent installment on the life and times of the dazzling and beautiful but much-reviled Lucrezia Borgia--daughter of the Pope, sister of Cesare, Duchess of Ferrarra, patron of the arts, wildly rumored incest committer, believed murderess and master manipulator. Wow. But was she really a vixen hell-bent on the attainment of material and political gain or a political pawn? This documentary goes in-depth to uncover the true individual behind all the propaganda that was part of an intense anti-Borgia movement during her life and has persisted successfully to this day, and reveals a young lady caught up in the intrigues and corruption of both her close-knit but ruthless family and the fueding factions of Italy than the scheming siren image embedded in history. She was born the only daughter of four children--including Cesare, who would go on to his own infamy--to Rodrigo Borgia and his mistress Vanozzi Catonei, and had a pampered upbringing living with her mother the first three years with constant visits from adoring Rodrigo. She then lived with her father's aunt Adriana de Mila, who oversaw Lucrezia's education in all matters and brought her up intensely proud to be a Borgia and of the illustrious Spanish heritage they descended from. Her untainted and relatively uneventful life changed overnight when Rodrigo became Pope Alexander VI through bribery and used his new stature to arrange three purely political marriages for Lucrezia. At 13 she was married off to 26-year old Giovanni Sforza, Lord of Pesaro, but belatedly finding a better match Rodrigo annulled it by falsely citing impotence--an act resulting in the start of Lucrezia's infamy when her humiliated and furious husband vengefully claimed the Pope wanted Lucrezia to himself, as well as for her brothers Cesare and Juan. Fanning the flames was her alleged pregnancy at 18 by Pedro Caulderon, a handsome young lad who was soon murdered, most likely on Cesare's orders--people believed it was not Pedro's child, but rather Rodrigo or Cesare himself. Her great love was the devastatingly handsome 17-year old Alfonso of Aragon, a nephew of the King of Naples and her second husband, but their perfect match came to a violent end when during her 6th month of pregnancy, he was brutally murdered by Cesare's orders. The third and final union for the distraught, grief-stricken widow was with Alfonso, Duke of Este, whom she would bear four children, and who soon inhereted Ferrarra, the grandest of all dukedoms, and as Duchess of Ferrarra Lucrezia established herself as a renowed patron of the arts. Scandal again erupted when her lover Ercole Strozzi, a young poet, was found gruesomely murdered--leading many to believe Lucrezia or Cesare(again!) was responsible. On top of losing husbands and lovers she was devastated when favorite brother Juan was viciously killed by orders of (again!!!) their brother Cesare, due to his raging jealousy over the Pope favoring Juan. In addition, her legendary but licentious father died and Cesare fell ill. Lucrezia's short but controversial life came to an end when she died in childbirth at 38, and though she spent her last years immersed in religious study and charitable works, history only remembers her as a murderous and monstrous manipulator. In reality the truth was much different and less sensational--in awe of and intensely loving of and devoted to her legendary but ruthless father and brother Cesare, if anything she was guilty of allowing herself to become their political pawn through her passivity and acceptance of their crimes and her full knowledge of her husband's and lover's murders on Cesare's command. Though no saint, Lucrezia Borgia was a passionate, tender and intelligent young woman who had the bad fortune to be born into an unscrupulous and depraved family--as a result of guilt by association, her reputation suffered enormously.

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Pretty Poison, it must be good.
I haven't actually seen it but hell, any movie called Pretty Poison with Lucrezia Borgia must be good, Right? I give it 5 stars. Now where's my 50 bucks.