CHAPTER I
Genealogy of the house of Borgia—Vannozza de’ Catanei—Birth of Caesar Borgia—His youth.
The Spanish house of Borja, tracing its line back to 1035, claimed descent from Don Ramiro Sanchez of Aragon. A certain Don Pedro de Borja who died in 1152—the year in which Don Ricardo, a representative of the junior branch, removed to Naples—had a son, Don Ximenes Garcia de Borja, who was the founder of the senior line. His son, Gonzales Gil, was the father of Don Raymon de Borja, whose son, Don Juan Domingo de Borja, Lord of the Torre de Canals—who was living in the city of Xativa in Valencia in the fourteenth century—had by his wife, Francina de Borja, several daughters and a son Alonzo, the future Calixtus III.
As early as 1233 the Borja family had won fame, for in that year eight of their name had hurried to the support of Don Jaime in his war with the Moors, and by their bravery had secured a place among the Caballeros de la Conquista.
Numerous positions of honour were held by the Borja from that time forth, but the height of their glory was attained when Alonzo de Borja, who had gone to Naples in the train of King Alfonso of Aragon, was elected to succeed Nicholas V. as Pope in 1455.
Of the several sisters of Alonzo de Borja—who on his election to the Papacy assumed the name Calixtus III.—Catalina married Juan Mila of Xativa, by whom she had two sons, Cardinal Juan del Mila and Perot del Mila, whose daughter Adriana was the wife of Ludovico Orsini and the kinswoman and confidante of the future Alexander VI., the son of Doña Isabella de Borja, another of the sisters of Calixtus III.
Ever since the publication of Tomaso Tomasi’s “Duca Valentino” historians have repeated his statement that Caesar regarded Rodrigo Lenzuolo, or Lenzol, as his father—Riconobbe per padre Cesare Borgia, detto poi il Valentino, Roderigo Lenzolio.[10]
Gregorovius says that Isabella, the sister of Alonzo, was the wife of Jofre Lanzol, a wealthy nobleman of Xativa, and that she was the mother of several daughters, all of whom remained in Spain, and of two sons, Pedro Luis and Rodrigo; and that Calixtus III., the uncle, adopted these two nephews and gave them the family name; thus the Lanzol became Borgia, the Italian form of the Spanish name Borja.
If Tomasi, Panvinio, Mariana, and the later historians are correct in stating that Isabella’s husband was a Lanzol, their son, following the Spanish custom of uniting the mother’s family name with that of the father, would have been Rodrigo Lanzol y Borja and the descent from the Borja would have been through his mother only. But M. Charles Yriarte[11] conclusively shows that Rodrigo was Borja y Borja, doubly a Borgia, his father having been, not Jofre Lanzol, but Don Jofre de Borja y Doms, who married Isabella de Borja, sister of Calixtus III. Doms therefore was the name of Rodrigo’s paternal grandmother, and the shield with the three bands azure, which appears in all the arms of the Borgia, in all the monuments of the Este family, and in all Italian works on heraldry, is the escutcheon of the Doms and not of the Lanzol family, whose arms according to Fabrer were “azure with a sun argent in the first and or with a crescent argent in the second quarter”—a device which is never found in connection with the Borgia in either Spain or Italy.
The Valencian chronicle of the thirteenth century which says that: “the Borja to the number of eight hastened to Valencia to serve the king,” adds that “all, without exception, bore on their shields a bull on a golden ground.” Thus we find the Borgia arms clearly defined at this early date, and two hundred years later Calixtus III. used the same arms with a border of gules charged with eight oriflammes; finally Alexander VI. added to his escutcheon the arms of the Doms, his paternal grandmother’s family, three bands azure on a field of gold, which are the arms of Sibilla Doms, of Catalonia, wife of Rodrigo Gil de Borja, brother of Domingo.