But in 1497 the pretensions of the Borgias had outgrown this alliance, and their public policy was inclining to relations with the Southern Courts of Italy.

Accordingly she was divorced and given to Alfonso, Prince of Biseglia, a natural son of the King of Naples.

When this man's father lost his crown, the Borgias, not caring to be connected with an ex-royal family, caused Alfonso to be stabbed on the steps of S.Peter's in 1501; and while he lingered between life and death, they had him strangled in his sick-bed, by Michellozzo, Cesare's assassin in chief.

Finally Lucrezia was wedded to Alfonso, crown-prince of Ferrara, in 1502.[1] The proud heir of the Este dynasty was forced by policy, against his inclination, to take to his board and bed a Pope's bastard, twice divorced, once severed from her husband by murder, and soiled, whether justly or not, by atrocious rumors, to which her father's and her brother's conduct gave but too much color.

She proved a model princess after all, and died at last in childbirth, after having been praised by Ariosto as a second Lucrece, brighter for her virtues than the star of regal Rome.
[1] Her dowry was 300,000 ducats, besides wedding presents, and certain important immunities and privileges granted to Ferrara by the Pope.
History has at last done justice to the memory of this woman, whose long yellow hair was so beautiful, and whose character was so colorless.