Renaissance Capitalist: New Research Answers Mystery About Illegitimate Daughter Of Pope

[Adsos Letter]

Source: Science Daily

ScienceDaily (Jan. 7, 2009) — In popular legend, Lucrezia Borgia, Duchess of Ferrara (1480- 1519), stands falsely accused of poisoning her second husband. Victor Hugo portrayed her in thinly veiled fiction as a tragic femme fatale. Buffalo Bill named his gun after her.

But new research by USC historian Diane Yvonne Ghirardo reveals that the only sister of Machiavelli's Prince was less interested in political intrigue than in running a business, undertaking massive land development projects that "stand alone in the panorama of early sixteenth-century projects, not only those initiated by women," Ghirardo says.

Forced by an economic downturn to cut expenses and become an entrepreneur, the illegitimate daughter of Pope Alexander VI would control between 30,000 and 50,000 acres in northern Italy within six years.

"This is a classic case of seeing only what you're looking for and not getting the whole picture," Ghirardo says of the centuries-old mystery surrounding how Lucrezia accumulated her vast personal wealth. Ghirardo notes that historians have long dismissed Lucrezia as stupida because no record exists of her collecting art or antiquities.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090107134631.htm

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

1. My favorite rumor is that she fired poisoned darts at passers-by when she was a child.

[Adsos Letter]

2. I love it!

I have had an interest in history most of my life (mom was a history teacher...I heard Bruce Catton stories since I was knee-high to a grasshopper), and after retirement I began some serious work on a Graduate degree (close-to finished now).

Well written history is a joy to my heart. :toast: