Lucretia Borgia is the most unfortunate woman in modern history.

Is this because she was guilty of the most hideous crimes, or is it simply because she has been unjustly condemned by the world to bear its curse?
The question has never been answered.

Mankind is ever ready to discover the personification of human virtues and human vices in certain typical characters found in history and fable.
The Borgias will never cease to fascinate the historian and the psychologist.

An intelligent friend of mine once asked me why it was that everything about Alexander VI, Caesar, and Lucretia Borgia, every little fact regarding their lives, every newly discovered letter of any of them, aroused our interest much more than did anything similar concerning other and vastly more important historic characters.

I know of no better explanation than the following: the Borgias had for background the Christian Church; they made their first appearance issuing from it; they used it for their advancement; and the sharp contrast of their conduct with the holy state makes them appear altogether fiendish.