La Madonna Borgia has been the victim of anti-feminine propaganda, occupying the rather unflattering role as Jezebel of the Renaissance. She may very well have led an extremely sexually liberated life for her time, as did most of her family, but she was also a fine poet, spoke several languages and in short, was that most viperous threat to male hegemony, a female intellectual. Her family were notorious in their day. Her father (a pope) and brother (a high born thug and murderer) chronically arranged her many marriages toward political alliances. She died shortly after giving birth to her fifth child at the age of thirty-nine.