The Rough and the Smooth: Writing about Women Who Behave Badly

The Vatican Princess: A Novel of Lucrezia Borgia

I make my living writing about controversial women in history. From Juana of Castile, known for dragging a coffin around with her, to her mother Queen Isabella, infamous for her sponsorship of the Inquisition, to Catherine de Medici, she of the Huguenot massacres and never a mother of the year, to Coco Chanel, who built a fashion empire with relentless ambition and collaborated with the Nazis, and, coming soon, the notorious Lucrezia Borgia, my choices of these women are deliberate. By and large, history is written by men; and women who behaved much like their male counterparts don’t receive the same historical “pass.” We judge them more harshly, for a variety of reasons. Therefore, I think it only right to give them their fair say. And in some instances, their behavior wasn’t quite what we assume.

Research for my books takes years. Each novel I write is the result of bibliographies that can exceed 100 volumes, plus numerous trips to places where my character lived, and digging through archives for new information. That said, I write fictionalized accounts. My books are novels, intended to illustrate the character’s emotional life, not a litany of facts. I try my utmost to not deviate from those facts, but anyone who has taken the time to research a subject will soon discover that the truth isn’t always so clear-cut. Disparate accounts, misinterpretation, and in some cases deliberate obfuscation are a researcher’s devils— unlike a non-fiction biographer who can say, “We don’t know what really happened”, as a novelist, I have to make an informed decision. It might turn out to be the wrong decision, but I still have to make it. My characters must know what happened: that is my job.

I’ve learned—to my consternation, at moments—that getting criticized for how I choose to portray a character comes with the territory. My leading ladies are well known names, so readers will come to them with their own preconceived notions of who this woman was. I don’t necessarily seek to change opinions but rather to present a plausible alternative. I think that with historical figures, as with most things in life, it’s important to consider all sides before taking a stand. Few people believe they are doing something wrong at the time they are doing it; we have to look at how they saw themselves. My novels present the character’s point of view. Written in first person, we experience her world through her eyes. Hence, Isabella might not have believed exiling the Jews was an anti-Semitic act but rather a necessary choice to safeguard her realm. Or Coco Chanel might not have thought that taking a Nazi intelligence officer to her bed to get what she needed was reprehensible. Hindsight is a historical luxury that those who are living in the given moment don’t usually consider.

I often disagree with my character. I am not her. I might write as her, but I have my own beliefs. The challenge is to not let my personality interfere with hers. I build her through obsessive research and numerous drafts; through communications with historical experts and consultation of available resources. In the end, my character is a fictional construct based on fact, but she’s still a creation. I’m not trying to change how we perceive her. I’m trying to write an entertaining story about a woman who loved, suffered, triumphed, and made mistakes, as we all do.

My latest novel about Lucrezia Borgia’s Vatican years is turning out to be perhaps my most controversial – which, I must admit, has surprised me. I hadn’t paused to consider that of course Lucrezia carries a lot of historical baggage. Yet as I researched her and her family, it became clear that most, if not all, she has been accused of remains unsubstantiated. The same, however, can definitely not be said of her family. Though they too have suffered from post-mortem calumny, the Borgias are villainous in history for a reason. They did what they felt they had to do to survive in a very vicious era; they had their excuses, but they still did it. After two weeks spent researching in the Vatican archives, after reading over fifty volumes on the family and their reign and after many heated debates over espresso with aficionados, I came away with the realization that the Borgias were indeed rapacious, determined to win at any cost, albeit if no better and perhaps no worse than other families of their time. Over a hundred murders can be attributed to the Borgias; but not one to Lucrezia. However, she was their centerpiece in an elaborate game of dynastic ambition. What’s fascinating about the Borgias is how little we actually know about their most infamous deeds— and this is where dragons await for the novelist. Were the Borgias as monstrous as it appears and, if so, was their monstrosity derived from a warped sense of familial unity? Could they only love each other, as contemporaries claimed? And did they bring about their own downfall because of it?

THE VATICAN PRINCESS is about family, not about the power politics of Renaissance Italy, though these come into play. It is the story of a young, relatively inexperienced girl catapulted into fame when her father becomes the pope, whose brothers are antagonistic, and whose own life is torn asunder as she faces opposing forces. It is about Lucrezia’s quest to find out who she is. The decisions I made in depicting her might not be the right ones, but they were informed decisions. Indeed, I had to leave out as much as I put in, because a novel is a finite amount of words and encapsulating the complexity and upheaval of Lucrezia’s youth could only be done judiciously. Is it a pretty story? No. Nothing about the world she moved in was pretty, except the architecture, clothing, and art. Is it entertaining? I sincerely hope so. The Borgias came to power in a lurid, decadent, and gorgeous time of history—the Italian Renaissance at its best and its worst. Rape, murder, and other evils were commonplace; Rome was deemed one of the most dangerous cities in Europe, and the Borgias added to the peril. Lucrezia’s father Pope Alexander, her mother Vanozza, and her brothers Juan and Cesare orbited her like malignant stars; and they too were as much a product of their upbringing and the era as she was. Had she been born a man, who knows what she may have done? But she wasn’t. She was the daughter, and cherished as such, but also manipulated and disregarded, as most daughters of these Renaissance dynasties were.

In the final say, my novel explores how family can define and bind us, and how loyalty to our own can be a curse. No one can reasonably argue that Lucrezia didn’t learn this much, nor that she became a survivor because of it. Her triumph is that she overcame it, despite the price she had to pay.