Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: July 2, 2025
This much is certain: the husband was sometimes in the city and at others traveling about in the territory of the Church and in her interest." The ambassador, however, never mentions the name of this man, which, however, Infessura says was Domenico d'Arignano. Ippolito d'Este and Alessandro Farnese were made cardinals the same day.
Infessura states in his diaries that Roderigo desiring later as Pope Alexander VI to create cardinal his son by her, Cesare Borgia, he caused false witness to be borne to the fact that Cesare was the legitimate son of one Domenico d'Arignano, to whom he, the Pope, had in fact married her. Guicciardini makes the same statement, without, however, mentioning name of this d'Arignano.
It was said by Infessura, and has since been repeated by a multitude of historians, upon no better authority than that of this writer on hearsay and inveterate gossip, that, to raise Cesare to the purple, Alexander was forced to prove the legitimacy of that young man's birth, and that to this end he procured false witnesses to swear that he was "the son of Vannozza de' Catanei and her husband, Domenico d'Arignano."
Already has this been touched upon in an earlier chapter, here it was shown that Vannozza never had a husband of the name of d'Arignano, and it might reasonably be supposed that this circumstance alone would have sufficed to restrain any serious writer from accepting and repeating Infessura's unauthoritative statement.
As dowry Vannozza brought her husband, among other things, one thousand gold florins and an appointment as sollicitator bullarum. The contract clearly referred to this as Vannozza's second marriage. Would it not have been set down as the third, or in more general terms as new, if the alleged first marriage with Domenico d'Arignano had really been acknowledged?
2 D'Arignano is as much a fiction as the rest of Infessura's story. This Giorgio della Croce was a Milanese, under the protection of Cardinal Roderigo, who had obtained for him a post at the Vatican as apostolic secretary. According to some, he married him to Vannozza in order to afford her an official husband and thus cloak his own relations with her.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking