peakingoranges asked, "hey, hey. give me your lucrezia feels pls."

LORD, STARTING WHERE? She was my Disney princess as a child, she’s my favorite arc on tv now, and between and forever after Lucrezia Borgia has been and forever will be my favorite lady in history.

Being into Borgia history requires constant archaeology; you’re never going to be able to stop chipping away at the myths. I was drawn in by the myths—Lucrezia Borgia, most famous black widow in history, the legacy all poisons and incest and debauchery in the holy seat—and was even further drawn in by the woman, who is oddly innocuous by compare in terms of behaviour but who has scads of power and strength and a real voice that comes through even the sparsest written histories. She’s not a virago or a woman writer; when it comes to the history, we don’t have that much that we can call purely hers, but she was wonderful to me because she was the heart of the family—this messy, ruthless family that loved its members so thoroughly from within—and she was in possession of both the Borgia acumen at its sharpest and a warm bright human streak that lightens the history as it happens. She was governor of Spoleto and Forligno, she outwitted Isabella d’Este’s spies, she held the holy seat; at the same time, she’s in the history as a girl, giggling in the balcony during mass. She loved her brother, she likely loved the husband he killed and she forgave him it; she outlived her family (the core family, sorry Gioffre but if they don’t care, I don’t care) and was the only one capable of mourning them. I love her because I love the family, I love her because she’s a clear personality in a meager record, and I don’t seriously begrudge any of the mythmakers—God knows I’m not going to protest more poisonous temptress stories—but I’m most attached to the woman, because even though she gets less primary literature than her brother or her father, she’s the clearest link to them as people, rather than legends in their own time. (I mean, Cesare’s mythos is pretty on point, and he had a hand in making it as it happened. BLOODTHIRSTY MURDERER CESARE BORGIA!—well, yeah, a bit. Brilliant wartime tactician; also, sociopath. Incidentally, you want to look at him as a person? Look to Lucrezia; it’s pertaining to her that you’ll find the only documented evidence the man had a heart.)

And that’s what I give the SHO series most credit for—for her, and for her and her brother’s relationship. That’s emotionally on point, and Lucrezia as written there is the most brilliant coming-of-age HBIC-ascendancy on my TV. I’m going to catch up starting tonight, and I’m already in a flutter about her in the Holy Seat. My queen. (When you’ve loved her all your life, you cut the show that writes her a bit of slack for ridiculousness and overly crimped hair, you know?)

2 days ago / 23 notes
#the borgias #lucrezia my heart