Nikki K

Well actually I think Giulia is not really portrayed like she was historically on any of the shows. Borgia keeps the timeline definitely better. The Borgias is totally off to fantasy land by now, only the names are the same.

I hated HATED the bloody baby and that it gave her reason to want Juan dead. So bloody stupid I wanted to bang my head against the wall so badly. It was such a dumb and blatant plot device it made me cringe. So bloody horrible. The baby really killed the show for me next to Cesare whinging all the time and the historical inaccuracies.

DGSAFDMD

Nina.... but the baby is the cutest

Nikki K

It's the most horrible plot device ever. I wish Juan had dropped it for real. I hope we won't have to see it so much next season.

hollidaygraingerfan

Actually, sorry to desagree on you Nikki, but I think the baby really shows a more soft side of The Borgias, it's family, and as Rodrigo says, family is all, family maters. I think if they removed it completly it would be like family doesn't matter, or at least the youngest ones lol

Nikki K

Oh that's fine, no worries. But I cannot agree with how it was done at all - showing the baby around publicly made no sense whatsoever. I think the writers really really screwed that up. I mean - apart from the fact that Lucrezia most likely didn't have a child at that time at all - historically nobody would have married her again had it been known she had a child out of wedlock and they just screwed the Sforza over with those impotence charges so basically showing the baby around and for Lucrezia to cliaim it as hers made no sense, basically showed the whole world that she is an adulteress, it would have been total social and political suicide: Nobody would have married her after that and she would have been useless as pawn in her father's politics and that's why I cannot agree with any of the storylines involving the baby publically. Next to the fact that it made Cesare look so weak and like Lucrezia's whipped lapdog, killing Juan over the cute little baby. In my opinion that really screwed up any good chances for me to ever see him as "the dark prince". Sorry. I really despise what the writers did to the show this season and that was one of the main screw ups. What you said is not wrong - the importance of family but that should have been done in private because everything else is politically intolerable. Even Rodrigo knew that in reality and I do not understand how the writers could **** this up so completely. It made me despair. So no, I'm not saying remove it completely but I'm saying keep it out of the public and that baby was front and centre the whole season to play on the viewers sentiments with cutsie moments and that is what I could not stand.

hollidaygraingerfan

I don't recall her showing off the baby outside their house, or did she? But I get your point!

Nikki K

Point one - Rodrigo carried the baby around and Ascanio Sforza was in the room, that was in one of the first few episodes.

Point two - she was at the market with the baby.

Of course all that doesn't necessarily scream it's her baby (although it kind of does) but then the baptism and the party afterwards - that was pretty public, or when Juan came home and she she was in the room with heaps of folk and cardinals having the baby on her lap. At one point she raised the baby up and presented him basically as her son. I thought these things were just too much. Had they stuck with the little moments like her and Rodrigo with the baby on the balcony, with Cesare and her rocking the cradle, with Vanozza picking the child up etc. that would have been fine (although to me still too much baby) but fine - no problem with that. It was the publicity that bothered me most of all. So see, I do agree with you, to show family ties and affections, the fact that Vanozza stated in the S1 finale that they loved their children to a fault etc. -- that would have been good but not parading the baby around in public. That's all I was saying.

Like this moment:


Source: seven devils all around you.

totally okay by me. But again - see my point here: In season 1 they were hiding her in a nunnery and she was hidden from the audience when testifying against Sforza to conceal her pregnancy. So this:


Source: Je danse avec les Dieux

presenting the baby as hers to the whole court made no sense at all.

BL.Arinna_1982

I do agree that there is no sense in this.

hollidaygraingerfan

Well if historically no one was suposed to know about her baby, so yeah the baptism probably was enough, I do like the small scenes like you said. But historically, does anyone know about how the child lived? If with Lucrezia or someone else? I mean without the wikipedia stuff 'cause I really don't trust much on that lol

It's just pure curiosity, 'cause either way he was illegitime.

Nikki K

Well according to Volker Reinhardt's book on the Borgia, a historian who is rather distant and objective in my opinion, it wasn't likely that Lucrezia had had a child at this time and if she did that the child lived. It is accepted now that Giovanni was actually Rodrigo's son by an unknown woman. The reason why he drew up the first bull claiming it to be Cesare's child is simple: After all Cesare was not married at the time, so that was acceptable. The bull declaring it to be Rodrigo's son was only opened/drawn up later in order to secure Giovanni's inheritance. At the age of three Rodrigo gave Giovanni the duchy Camerino. Of course that didn't help much, after Rodrigo's death Giovanni had to flee with Cesare and others from Rome. Together with Lucrezia's son with Alfonso Bisceglie he was placed under the guardianship of Cardinal Cosenzas. The two boys lived in one household and after the demise of the Borgia there is evidence through bills etc. that Lucrezia paid for their tutor, Baldassar Bonfiglio. After their expulsion from Rome, little Rodrigo and Giovanni lived in Bari with their aunt Sancia and her sister Isabella. They remained under the latter's care after Sancia's death. Later in 1506 Giovanni lived on the island of Capri, most likely at the residence of the Pio, the family Lucrezia's cousin Angela had eventually married into. In 1508 Giovanni was back with Sancia's sister in Bari as again bills indicate that Lucrezia paid for a new teacher and some books for the two boys. From 1512 to 1517 Giovanni lived with Lucrezia in Ferrarra, where he was introduced as her half-brother. However he and his servants got into some brawl and killed some of Lucrezia's husband's servants. Obviously that was not well received by either Alfonso or Lucrezia. So his aunt gave him a recommendation letter and sent him to the French court where she hoped he would get a position. Nobody wanted his services there though and Lucrezia's recommendations weren't really worth anything, so he returned to Rome in 1519 and vanished from the radar until in 1530 he tried to get back his former duchy of Camerino which was reigned by the Varano by then. Even asked the Holy Roman Emperor and his uncle Alfonso D'Este for help in the matter, however, pope Clement VIII rejected his claims and even forbid him to ever broach the matter with the Varanos again. In his letters to the pope Giovanni called himself a domicellus romanus principalis which indicates that he held a position in the Vactian at that time. He died in 1547 which is known from a letter to Lucrezia's son the Duke Ercole II d'Este of Ferrarra in which the Ferrarese ambasssodor wrote that Gionvanni died in Genoa and left a few thousand ducats in Valencia, a vineyard and two horses in Rome and that these possessions should be passed on to Juan's children and Cesare's two illegitmate children Girolamo and Camilla.

sourburst

Please add me?

PhoenixRising

You've been added, Jade.

Lucresiare

I didn't even know there was an L/P thread You went far in the old pages Jade

BL.Arinna_1982

Yeah, we were even talking should we change this thread to Lucrezia and all OTHER men in her life. And by OTHER, we mean everyone else than Cesare.

sourburst

I like her with Paulo I think we should leave this one as it is. She loved him and he was with her for 2 seasons. I think that if you do other men it should be another topic as they were mainly flings that lasted no more that 2 episodes. They were all so hot though!