John Bond

“ Few women in history have exercised so great a fascination on her contemporaries and on later generations as Lucrezia Borgia, who only required wider opportunities to become a second Cleopatra. The figure of the pope's daughter between her terrible father and brother, in part their tragic victim, in part a seductive siren and lastly a penitent Magdalen, exercises a charm on the imagination by the mystery which surrounds her and in the obscurity of which guilt and innocence struggle for supremacy, while in the background stands the ever interesting spectacle of the Vatican. ”

“ The mother of the Infant of Rome must have been a woman who had extended her favors to both the Borgia, the pope and his son Cesare. This circumstance alone eliminates Julia Farnese as the possible mother of the boy. It has also been maintained that the pope in providing two putative fathers for the boy merely sought to shield his daughter Lucrezia, who gave birth to an illegitimate male child in the time between the annulment of one marriage and her entry into another. ”

“ However, the affection which they cherished for this child carried the pope further and induced him to issue the bulls by means of which the child was secured against any disturbance in his rights and properties.
Let us once more look at the phraseology of the second and confidential rescript: "If in future the child is found to be designated as the offspring of Cesare in any papers or acts the rights of the said child shall not suffer thereby." ”