03 - Giovanni Borgia, 2nd Duke of Gandía. (part 3). cover art

03 - Giovanni Borgia, 2nd Duke of Gandía. (part 3).

03 - Giovanni Borgia, 2nd Duke of Gandía. (part 3).

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Giovanni Borgia, 2nd Duke of Gandía. (part 3). In literature. The murder occasioned the witty and cruel epigram by the contemporary Neapolitan poet and humanist, Jacopo Sannazaro about Pope Alexander VI. The poem plays on the apostolic title of the pope as fisher of men alluding to the scandal when his son's body was dragged from the river: Piscatorem hominum ne te non Sexte putemus / Piscaris natum retibus ecce tuum. Lest we do not think you are not a fisher of men, Sixth, you fish for your own son with nets. — Jacopo Sannazaro, Epigrammata. The most important Renaissance literary work remembering the event was a traditional Hispanic ballad (romance) entitled Muerte del duque de Gandía (Death of the Duke of Gandía). The original version was in all probability composed right after the murder, and belonged to the group of news-bearing ballads dealing with tragic contemporary events. The ballad survived in five different 16th-century printed editions. Even the oldest version, from a chapbook printed in Burgos around 1530, appeared more than thirty years after Juan's death, which suggests that the ballad had previously been transmitted by oral tradition for a long time. The remaining versions were included in chapbooks printed around 1540 in Valladolid and in Valencia around 1560, and two famous songbooks that appeared in Valencia and Granada (in 1573 and 1588 respectively). The ballad was apparently popular on the Iberian Peninsula, and retained its relevance for more than a century. Other ballads of this kind usually disappeared quickly from the press. The romance portrayed Alexander VI as a loving father worrying about his son, and later as an example of Christian charity who forgives the murderers and even absolves them. Juan is described as a young nobleman widely mourned by the papal court, who "did not deserve such harm", although some versions refer to his sins. The murderers remain unnamed although one songbook version claims that they have already fled beyond Lombardy. The main motif of the ballad is the finding of the body, which the text attributes to the same boatman who witnessed the murder. The rich clothing and the horrific wounds of the victim are emphasized. Although some researchers interpreted the ballad as anti-Borgia propaganda, a reading of the text does not really support such a view, in fact there is an obvious sympathy for the grieving pope and his murdered son. The oral tradition of the ballad died out on the Iberian Peninsula but lived on in the Sephardic diaspora. A very large number of versions in Judaeo-Spanish were recorded among the Jewish communities in the Eastern Mediterranean and in Morocco. In these late versions all the historical references to the Borgias and Rome were lost, and Giovanni Borgia was transformed into a "golden duke" whose corpse was discovered in the sea. In some versions he was murdered by a fisherman. In this way the murder of the Duke of Gandía became a Jewish folk tale. In fiction. The crimes and tragedy of the Borgias became a frequent literary topic during the Romantic era. The black legend was created by Renaissance pamphlet writers and chroniclers, but 19th-century poets and novelists made it widely known to the European reading public. From the beginning, the murder of the Duke of Gandía by his jealous brother was a crucial element. The fratricide was mentioned in Massimo d'Azeglio's 1833 historical novel, Ettore Fieramosca, a highly popular literary expression of Italian patriotism in the Risorgimento era. D'Azeglio made Cesare Borgia an antihero who, among his many other crimes, threw the corpse of his brother into the Tiber, "washed off the blood-stains from the pommel of his saddle, and disappeared in a dark lane". Nikolaus Lenau, one of the most important German poets of the Late Romantic era dedicated a song, "Vater und Sohn" to Giovanni Borgia's murder in his 1837 epic, Savonarola. The song describes an imagined late-night conversation between Alexander VI and his son, Cesare, during which he tells the pope that he killed his brother. The young duke is not sleeping in the arms of a prostitute, as his doting father thinks: Diesmahl hat eine alte, kühle, / Unsaubre Dirne ihn umfasst; / Er hält auf ihrem schlechten Pfühle vom Liebestaumel tiefe Rast. This time an old, cold, unclean whore has embraced him; and he is taking a deep rest on her bad pillows from the madness of love. — Nikolaus Lenau, Savonarola. The old whore Cesare is speaking about is the Tiber, and in this moment Alexander VI, the great sinner "is shocked to see that he has fathered an even greater one". The murder was recounted by Alexandre Dumas in his 1840 novel, The Borgias (although Giovanni Borgia is referred to as Francesco) which was published in his Celebrated Crimes series. One of Dumas' early historical novels, it was based on documentary research, probably conducted with the collaboration of Pier Angelo ...
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