The Borgia's

[dem bones]

Sir John Gilbert & Henry Anelay, "Prepare for death, Madam: Your hour is come!" 'Lucreza' Borgia imperilled in G. W. M. Reynolds, Faust: A Romance (John Dicks, Strand, n.d.)

George W. M. Reynolds - The Iron Coffin: (extract from Faust, A Romance, 1847: Margaret Armour [ed.], The Eerie Book: Tales Of The Macabre And Supernatural, 1898).

Mary E. Penn - Desmond's Model: (The Argosy, Dec. 1879).

Marjorie Bowen - Twilight: (God’s Playthings, 1912: Hugh Lamb [ed.], A Wave of Fear, 1973).

Harry Bailey - The Wolf of the Campagna: (Weird Tales, Feb. 1925.

August Derleth - The Philosophers’ Stone: (Weird Tales, June 1928: Peter Haining [ed.], Tales From the Rogue's Gallery, 1994).

August Derleth - A Dinner at Imola: (Weird Tales, April 1929: Peter Haining Murder on the Menu, 1991)

August Derleth - Prince Borgia's Mass: (Weird Tales, Aug. 1931: Christine Campbell Thomson [ed.], At Dead of Night, 1931).

August Derleth - The Bridge of Sighs: (Weird Tales, Sept. 1931)

Andrew Brosnatch

Arthur Edwards Chapman - The Borgia Ring: (Weird Tales, Oct. 1932)

August Derleth - A Cloak from Messer Lando: (Weird Tales, Sept 1934)

August Derleth - Lesandro’s Familiar: (Weird Tales, May 1936: Peter Haining [ed.], The Black Magic Omnibus, 1977).

Violet Van Der Elst - Sinister Caesar Borgia: (The Strange Doctor and Other Mystic Stories, 1945).

M. P. Dare – Borgia Pomade : (Unholy Relics, 1947).

Roger Zelazny - The Borgia Hand: (Amazing Stories, March 1963)

Julian Symons – The Borgia Heirloom: (Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Nov. 1987: Peter Haining [ed.], Tales From the Rogue's Gallery, 1994).

Robert Westall - The Borgia Mirror: (Ghosts & Journeys, 1988).

The Philosopher's Stone excepted, the Derleth shorts comprise the Chronicles of the City-States mini-series.

[helrunar]

Wow, love learning about all these. Sax Rohmer was fascinated by the Borgias; they are mentioned somewhat frequently in his various yarns.

Murder on the menu is a great title for an anthology.

Hel.

[dem bones]

I'm sure members of the family must have featured in other Penny Dreadfuls besides Reynolds'.

Mary E. Penn - Desmond's Model: (The Argosy, Dec. 1879). "Here we are, nearly at the end of our tour, and I have not yet found a model for my 'Lucretia Borgia.' If she doesn't turn up soon that great picture, which was to take the public by storm next May, will never be painting."

Frank Desmond and Thorburn, English artists travelling through Tuscany. When thhe summer heat takes its toll on Thornburn, the younger Desmond presses on ahead for their lodgings at San Giovanni-della-Rocca. He never arrives. It seems that, having taken a wrong turn, Desmond found his Lucretia at St. Giovanni-in-the-Vale. Bianca is the wife of Alessandro Morelli, the surly village innkeeper, whose unwelcoming premises, a decrepit farmhouse, stand on the site of the murder vault of a Carthusian nunnery.

Adragna

Roger Zelazny - The Borgia Hand: (Amazing Stories, March 1963) He believed the old tales, the weird tales ... They festered in his mind .... and he dreamed of how he would use .... how passionately he would use .... The Borgia Hand On Cesare Borgia's death, Satan claimed his hand, which he later grafted to the wrist of Napoleon Bonaparte as an experiment. Now a young Austrian painter requests he do the same for him ...

Arthur Edwards Chapman - The Borgia Ring: (Weird Tales, Oct. 1932). A brief story of a murderous thief who stole the poison ring of Cesare Borgia. Of course, when he broke into the home of Bernard Hamerstein, eccentric collector of rare and antique treasures, Slim Jim Hansard hadn't intended to frighten the old man to death. And how was he to know that, along with more recognisable treasures, he's swiped the lethal gold band once belonged to Rome's infamous, flint-hearted killer cardinal?

Very glad to have met with Desmond's Model. The other two are .... on the slight side.

Another newly scanned illo from Faust.

Sir John Gilbert & Henry Anelay, "Lucreza threw herself upon her knee before the young artist," G. W. M. Reynolds, Faust: A Romance (John Dicks, Strand, n.d.)

[𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr]

Jan 8, 2023 12:34:28 GMT dem bones said:

I'm sure members of the family must have featured in other Penny Dreadfuls besides Reynolds'.

J. H. Stocqueler. Lucretia Borgia, a romance of history. London: William Barth. 5 nos. 58 p. Published 1844

www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Lucretia_Borgia_a_Romance_of_History/A1YA5GBzq8oC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=J.H.+Stocqueler+lucretia+borgia&pg=PP1&printsec=frontcover

[𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr]

Sir John Gilbert did a series of impressive illustrations for the works of Shakespeare.

[dem bones]

Thanks Steve, Anna.

Here's what Misty has to say on the subject.

BORGIA - HOUSE OF HORROR

THE BORGIAS WERE WITHOUT doubt the most infamous family in Europe between the 15th and 16th century. Their era and their history, cloaked in mystery and intrigue, are linked closely with the Italian Renaissance in which riches, power politics and war, as well as art, all played an important part.

From humble impoverished beginnings in Spain, the Borgia forebears were to move to Italy and from Rome they built an empire, which for over three hundred years meant corruption and death. Politicians, state figures, even the Church, were to feel their deadly embrace. Cesare Borgia and his father Rodrigo were the most notorious, especially Cesare whose shady dealings in and out of his own court brought him immense wealth and respect. He frequently dressed all in black and padded quietly about his own castles listening for plots against himself. Many who crossed his path were to perish mysteriously or simply never seen again. Little evidence could ever be produced to implicate the Borgias, for those who dared speak out against them met a similar fate. Lucrezia, a strikingly beautiful woman, was a major pawn in Cesare's plans, which often involved marriages of convenience to further the family's power. Her short life, which over the years made her a legend, became a web of slander and fantasy. She was married three times and Cesare probably killed one of her husbands. She was frequently supposed to have poisoned many of the family's enemies on her brother's orders.

Her first marriage was to set a pattern for scandalous gossip throughout Italy. Giovanni Sforza, did little to enhance or further the Borgia image, so a divorce was sought. While the affair was dragged through the courts and the Church, Lucrezia took a lover, Pedro Calderon, who did not heed warnings to abandon the highly dangerous courtship. Sforza was lucky, after lengthy negotiation, his parting with the Borgia family left him a fairly wealthy man. The unfortunate Calderon was to suffer a hideous fate. Legend has it that he spent the rest of his life in one of Italy's worst prisons, but hearsay has it that he was either drowned in the river Tiber by Cesare's henchmen, or stabbed to death by Cesare himself when in one of his frequent rages.

Lucrezia, meanwhile, had fled Rome in fear, seeking sanctuary in one of the many convents common to Italy at the time. Her influence on the nuns because of her reputation caused many to discard their vows and to seek the lifestyle on the outside world that she obviously represented. The fate of her other husbands and countless lovers over the following years are varied and colourful, but without doubt some of the latter met a violent end either by Cesare's hirelings or by his own hand. The sword, the rack, imprisoned or poisoning were the instruments of destruction.

In time Lucrezia's beauty began to fade. She was to have five children in eight years and retreated further into the Church. Cesare was to die, in battle in Spain raging in Europe, at only 32 years of age. Lucrezia's health was to fail after the delivery of her sixth, but still-born, child. At 39 her life was over. Like the bulls, which were part of their coat of arms, the family blood-line was violent, passionate and unpredictable.

THE END

Misty Annual,1980

[𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr]

Convents in Italy were filled with noblewomen in Lucretia's time, as their families used them as dumping grounds for unwanted daughters. In seventeenth century Venice there were fifty nunneries and thousands of nuns. The families didn't want to pay the dowry of a daughter's marriage, and also it was harder to find decent husbands for some daughters, so even though they had to pay a convent dowry it was cheaper than a marriage one and the family was free from the burden of the daughter. This meant that nunneries were full of women who didn't have a strong calling to God and so there were constant complaints by figures of church authority that convents were lax in morals, there were even complaints about fashionable clothing, and the wearing of low-cut dresses.

[Swampirella]

Jan 9, 2023 12:31:50 GMT 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr said:

Convents in Italy were filled with noblewomen in Lucretia's time, as their families used them as dumping grounds for unwanted daughters. In seventeenth century Venice there were fifty nunneries and thousands of nuns. The families didn't want to pay the dowry of a daughter's marriage, and also it was harder to find decent husbands for some daughters, so even though they had to pay a convent dowry it was cheaper than a marriage one and the family was free from the burden of the daughter. This meant that nunneries were full of women who didn't have a strong calling to God and so there were constant complaints by figures of church authority that convents were lax in morals, there were even complaints about fashionable clothing, and the wearing of low-cut dresses.

The same was true for many European countries around that time and the UK.

[helrunar]

I love the art in that Misty spread. Brilliant. Thanks Dem!

I suspect that version of the lives of Cesare and Lucrezia may be somewhat fanciful, but I really wouldn't know. I believe there have been books intended to "rehabilitate" their respective reputations in recent decades. There may have been one of those "boutique" television series with lavish costumes and luridly anachronistic scripts--I can't recall now.

"Laudanum reeks in the stewed macaroni"--Hermione Gingold on the topic of the Borgias:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnyRlcakhxo

Although it is borderline as a topic for the Vault, I can't resist mentioning the late Baron Corvo's colorful account, Chronicles of the House of Borgia (1901). He may have been the original apologist for this powerful, endlessly intriguing (in every sense of the word) clan.

cheers, Hel.