and in bad health. Cesare’s dominion at once began to fall to pieces; Guidobaldo, duke of Urbino, returned to his duchy with Venetian help; and the lords of Piombino, Rimini and Pesaro soon regained their own; Cesena, defended by a governor faithful to Cesare, alone held out. Pius III. died on the 18th of October 1503, and a new conclave was held. Cesare, who could still count on the Spanish cardinals, wished to prevent the election of Giuliano della Rovere, the enemy of his house, but the latter’s chances were so greatly improved that it was necessary to come to terms with him. On the 1st of November he was elected, and assumed the name of Julius II. He showed no ill-will towards Cesare, but declared that the latter’s territories must be restored to the church, for “we desire the honour of recovering what our predecessors have wrongfully alienated.” Venice hoped to intervene in Romagna and establish her protectorate over the principalities, but this Julius was determined to prevent, and after trying in vain to use Cesare as a means of keeping out the Venetians, he had him arrested. Borgia’s power was now at an end, and he was obliged to surrender all his castles in Romagna save Cesena, Forli and Bettinoro, whose governors refused to accept an order of surrender from a master who was a prisoner. Finally, it was agreed that if Cesare were set at liberty he would surrender the castles; this having been accomplished, he departed for Naples, where the Spaniards were in possession. The Spanish governor, Gonzalo de Cordova, had given him a safe-conduct, and he was meditating fresh plans, when Gonzalo arrested him by the order of Ferdinand of Spain as a disturber of the peace of Italy (May 1504). In August he was sent to Spain, where he remained a prisoner for two years; in November 1506 he made his escape, and fled to the court of his brother-in-law, the king of Navarre, under whom he took service. While besieging the castle of Viana, held by the rebellious count of Lerin, he was killed (March 12, 1507).
Cesare Borgia was a type of the adventurers with which the Italy of the Renaissance swarmed, but he was cleverer and more unscrupulous than his rivals. His methods of conquest were ferocious and treacherous; but once the conquest was made he governed his subjects with firmness and justice, so that his rule was preferred to the anarchy of factions and local despots. But he was certainly not a man of genius, as has long been imagined, and his success was chiefly due to the support of the papacy; once his father was dead his career was at an end, and he could no longer play a prominent part in Italian affairs. His fall proved on how unsound a basis his system had been built up.
The chief authorities for the life of Cesare Borgia are the same as those of Alexander VI., especially M. Creighton’s History of the Papacy, vol. v. (London, 1897); F. Gregorovius’s Geschichte der Stadt Rom, vol. vii. (Stuttgart, 1881); and P. Villari’s Machiavelli (London 1892); also C. Yriarte, César Borgia (Paris, 1889), an admirable piece of writing; Schubert-Soldern, Die Borgia und ihre Zeit (Dresden, 1902), which contains the latest discoveries on the subject; and E. Alvisi, Cesare Borgia, Duca di Romagna (Imola, 1878). (L. V.*)
BORGIA, FRANCIS (1510–1572), Roman Catholic saint,
duke of Gandia, and general of the order of Jesuits, was born at
Gandia (Valencia) on the 10th of October 1510, and from boyhood
was remarkable for his piety. Educated from his twelfth
year at Saragossa under the charge of his uncle the archbishop,
he had begun to show a strong inclination towards the monastic
life, when his father sent him in 1528 to the court of Charles V.
Here he distinguished himself, and on his marriage with Eleanor
de Castro, a Portuguese lady of high rank, he was created
marquis of Lombay, and was appointed master of the horse to
the empress. He accompanied Charles on his African expedition
in 1535, and also into Provence in 1536; and on the death of
the empress in 1539 he was deputed to convoy the body to the
burial-place in Granada. This sad duty confirmed his determination
to leave the court, and also, should he survive his consort,
to embrace the monastic life. On his return to Toledo, however,
new honours were thrust upon him, much against his will; he
was made viceroy of Catalonia and commander of the order of St
James. At Barcelona, the seat of his government, he lived a
life of great austerity, but discharged his official duties with
energy and efficiency until 1543, when, having succeeded his
father in the dukedom, he at length obtained permission to resign
his viceroyalty and to retire to a more congenial mode of life at
Gandia. Having already held some correspondence with Ignatius
Loyola, he now powerfully encouraged the recently founded
order of Jesus. One of his first cares at Gandia was to build
a Jesuit college; and on the death of Eleanor in 1546, he resolved to become himself a member of the society. The difficulties arising from political and family circumstances were removed by a papal dispensation, which allowed him, in the interests of his young children, to retain his dignities and worldly possessions for four years after taking the vows. In 1550 he visited Rome, where he was received with every mark of distinction, and where he furnished the means for building the Collegium Romanum. Returning to Spain in the following year, he formally resigned his rank and estate in favour of his eldest son, assumed the Jesuit habit, was ordained priest, and entered upon a life of penance and prayer. At his own earnest request, seconded by Loyola, a proposal that he should be created a cardinal by Julius III. was departed from; and at the command of his superior he employed himself in the work of itinerant preaching. In 1554 he was appointed commissary-general of the order in Spain, Portugal and the Indies, in which capacity he showed great activity, and was successful in founding many new and thriving colleges. In 1556, shortly after Charles V. retired, Borgia had an interview with him, but would not yield to his inducements to transfer his allegiance to the older order of Hieronymites. Some time afterwards Borgia was employed by Charles to conduct negotiations with reference to a project which was to secure for Don Carlos of Spain the Portuguese succession in the event of the death of his cousin Don Sebastian. On the death of Lainez in 1565, Francis Borgia was chosen to succeed him as third general of the Jesuits. In this capacity he showed great zeal and administrative skill; and so great was the progress of the society
under his government that he has sometimes been called “its
second founder,” The peculiarities which are most characteristic
of the order were, however, derived from Loyola and Lainez,
rather than from Borgia, whose ideal was a simple monasticism
rather than a life of manifold and influential contact with the
world. He died at Rome on the 30th of September 1572. He
was beatified by Urban VIII. in 1624, and canonized by Clement
X. in 1671, his festival being afterwards (1683) fixed by Innocent
XI. for the 10th of October.
Several works by St Francis Borgia have been published, the principal of these being a series of Exercises similar to the Exercitia Spiritualia of Loyola, and a treatise Rhetorica Concionandi. The Opera Omnia were published at Brussels in 1675. His life was written by his confessor Pedro de Ribadeneira. See also A. Butler’s Lives of the Saints, and the Breviarium Romanum (second nocturn for October 10).
BORGIA, LUCREZIA (1480–1519), duchess of Ferrara,
daughter of Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, afterwards Pope Alexander
VI.
(q.v.), by his mistress Vanozza dei Cattanei, was born at
Rome in 1480. Her early years were spent at her mother’s house
near her father’s splendid palace; but later she was given over
to the care of Adriana de Mila, a relation of Cardinal Borgia
and mother-in-law of Giulia Farnese, another of his mistresses.
Lucrezia was educated according to the usual curriculum of
Renaissance ladies of rank, and was taught languages, music,
embroidery, painting, &c.; she was famed for her beauty and
charm, but the corrupt court of Rome in which she was brought
up was not conducive to a good moral education. Her father
at first contemplated a Spanish marriage for her, and at the age
of eleven she was betrothed to Don Cherubin de Centelles, a
Spanish nobleman. But the engagement was broken off almost
immediately, and Lucrezia was married by proxy to another
Spaniard, Don Gasparo de Procida, son of the count of Aversa.
On the death of Innocent VIII. (1492), Cardinal Borgia was
elected pope as Alexander VI., and, contemplating a yet more
ambitious marriage for his daughter, he annulled the union with
Procida; in February 1493 Lucrezia was betrothed to Giovanni
Sforza, lord of Pesaro, with whose family Alexander was now
in close alliance. The wedding was celebrated in June; but when
the pope’s policy changed and he became friendly to the king
