Of Vannozza little is known. She was born in 1441 and was the wife of Giorgio de Croce when she first succumbed to the magnetic cardinal, to whom she presented four children, about whose birth and parentage there is no doubt whatever: Giovanni, born in 1474, married Doña Maria Enriquez, and was assassinated in 1497; Caesar, born in 1476; Lucretia, born in 1480, was first married to Giovanni Sforza of Pesaro, then to Alfonso of Aragon, Duke of Bisceglia, and finally to Alfonso d’Este; Don Giuffre, the youngest, was born in 1481. Mariana makes no mention of Rodrigo’s other children—Girolama, who died in 1483; Isabella, the wife of Pietro Giovanni Matuzzi; and Giovanni Borgia, Lord of Camerino, who was the son of Giulia Farnese.
Vannozza was simply a nickname for Giovanna, and Catanei was a common name throughout Italy. In numerous contemporary documents she is mentioned as Madonna de Casa Catanei. As she was able to hold the pleasure-loving cardinal so many years and secure from him the recognition of her children, various writers have seen fit, in the absence of other grounds for romance, to ascribe to her great physical beauty, force of character, and intellect. Her name does not appear in the list of public courtesans of Rome, and numerous guesses have been made as to her social status and mode of living; they are, however, neither probable nor illuminating. Her obscurity is proved by the indifference of the sonneteers and epigrammatists of the day, who, had she been at all conspicuous, would have made her notorious. Burchard mentions her only twice, once in January, 1495, when her house was sacked by the French, and again in connection with the supper that preceded the murder of the Duke of Gandia in June, 1497.
Although Rodrigo’s relations with Vannozza ceased about 1482 he continued to interest himself in her material welfare. Her husband, Giorgio de Croce, died in 1486, whereupon the cardinal, in order that she might not be without a home and a protector, married her to Carlo Canale of Mantua, a scholarly, but complaisant, individual who had been secretary to that great patron of letters Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga, upon whose death in 1483 Carlo had gone to Rome to enter the service of Cardinal Sclafenati.
Rodrigo, probably thinking that Carlo’s talents might be useful, selected him to be the husband of his widowed mistress; and avarice or ambition induced Carlo to acquiesce in the arrangement.
The nuptial contract was drawn up June 8, 1486, and to her husband Vannozza brought as marriage portion a thousand gold ducats and an appointment as sollicitator bullarum. The contract describes this as her second marriage, thus making it doubtful whether she was ever married to Domenico d’Arignano, who, Burchard says, “had been married by Rodrigo to a certain woman who had borne the cardinal a son, whom he had always maintained and recognised as his own, and whom he had made Bishop of Pamplona.”[12]
With the assistance of her cardinal lover she had amassed a considerable fortune, a part of which by her will she eventually devoted to the purchase of her soul’s salvation. She appears to have been a strong, coarse woman, penurious and avaricious. Records are extant showing that she was charged with stealing, through the agency of her paid servants, eleven hundred and sixty sheep from Ludovico Mattei in 1504, and she was found guilty. In 1502 a complaint was likewise lodged against Donna Vannozza de’ Catanei by Nardo Antonazzi, a goldsmith of the Regola Quarter, for refusing to pay for a silver cross he had made for her in 1500. The jeweller, however, lost his case.
Tomasi says that Vannozza was of ignoble condition and that she succeeded with the consummate art of the courtesan in dominating any one she wished to control, and that she was an insatiable harpy. The same writer states that Cardinal Rodrigo had spent his youth in cultivating his natural gifts with the aid of all the tricks and artifices known to the courtier, and that he was a perfidious, bloodthirsty, and voracious beast of prey, but one who knew how to insinuate himself into the favour of all men.
Such were the antecedents of Caesar Borgia, and if his parentage was bad the environment in which he grew up was worse.
Caesar, if we accept his father’s statement, was born in April, 1476, for in 1501 the Pope, in conversation with the Ferrarese ambassador, remarked: “The Duchess Lucretia will complete her twenty-second year next April, and in the same month the Most Illustrious Duke Caesar will be twenty-six.”
The father’s statement concerning the age of his children, which was promptly reported to Duke Ercole of Ferrara by the ambassador, is confirmed by various dispatches and letters, among which are two sent by Gianandrea Boccaccio to the same person February 5 and March 11, 1493, which are now in the state archives of Modena. These dispatches give Caesar’s age at that time as “sixteen or seventeen years.” He was, therefore, somewhat younger than has for a long time been supposed, and was not as old as his brother Giovanni.