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However, since the marriage contract between Lucretia and the young Centelles had been legally executed on the twenty-sixth of February of the same year, 1491, and was recognized as late as the following June, there is room for doubt regarding the correctness of the date; but both the instrument in Beneimbene's protocol-book, and an abstract of the same in the archives of the Hospital Sancta Sanctorum in Rome, give the last of April as the date of the marriage contract of Lucretia and Don Gasparo.
In so far as the age of Lucrezia is concerned, an error is not only possible, but has actually been committed by Saraceni. At least the age given in his letter is wrong by one year, as we know by a legal document drawn up in February of 1491 Lucrezia's contract of marriage with Don Juan Cherubin de Centelles. 2 A contract never executed.
The noble concerned was Don Cherubino Juan de Centelles, lord of Val d'Ayora in the kingdom of Valencia, and brother of the Count of Oliva. The nuptial contract was drawn up in the Valencian dialect in Rome, February 26 and June 16, 1491. The youthful groom was in Valencia, the young bride in Rome, and her father had appointed the Roman nobleman Antonio Porcaro her proxy.
His eldest son, Don Carlos, Duke of Gandia, married Donna Maddalena, daughter of the Count of Oliva, of the house of Centelles, and thus the family to which Lucretia's first suitor belonged, after the lapse of fifty years, became connected with the Borgias. The Gandia branch survived until the eighteenth century, when there were two cardinals of the name of Borgia who were members of it.
Before his accession to the pontificate, Lucrezia had been formally promised to a couple of Spanish grandees, Don Cherubino Juan de Centelles and Don Gasparo da Procida, who was a son of the Count of Aversa; but once in the Vatican, with the papal power in his hands, Alexander grew more ambitious, and looked for another alliance, which might give him an increased political power.
Lucrezia, the only daughter of Alexander by Vannozza, took three husbands in succession, after having been formally betrothed to two Spanish nobles, Don Cherubino Juan de Centelles, and Don Gasparo da Procida, son of the Count of Aversa. These contracts, made before her father became Pope, were annulled as not magnificent enough for the Pontiff's daughter.
In spite of the rejection of her first affianced, the Centelles family appears to have remained on good terms with the Borgias, for, later, when Rodrigo became Pope, a certain Gulielmus de Centelles is to be found among his most trusted chamberlains, while Raymondo of the same house was prothonotary and treasurer of Perugia.
We have already noted that Antonio was one of the witnesses at the marriage of Girolama Borgia in the year 1482, and that he subsequently was Lucretia's proxy when she was betrothed to Centelles in 1491. These facts show how closely and how long the Porcaro were allied to the Borgias.
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