That Rodrigo Borgia was Caesar’s father there is no doubt. Rodrigo as cardinal, and later when Pope, always acknowledged and treated him as his son, lavishing unbounded parental affection on him and striving in every way to advance his material interests, as he did those of all his kinsmen and children. One of the most striking traits of the Borgia family was their exaggerated affection for each other and their unbounded sense of family solidarity. Even Pope Calixtus III., who has not been accused of sacrificing his office wholly to his kinsmen, saw fit to bestow the cardinalate upon several of them. If Mariana is correct in stating that Rodrigo’s eldest son Don Pedro Luis, first Duke of Gandia, who was born in 1467, was the child of Vannozza de’ Catanei, the cardinal’s relations with this woman, which lasted about fifteen years, began when he was about thirty-five. Of Vannozza little is known. She was born in 1441 and was the wife of Giorgio de Croce when she first succumbed to the magnetic cardinal, to whom she presented four children, about whose birth and parentage there is no doubt whatever: Giovanni, born in 1474, married Doña Maria Enriquez, and was assassinated in 1497; Caesar, born in 1476; Lucretia, born in 1480, was first married to Giovanni Sforza of Pesaro, then to Alfonso of Aragon, Duke of Bisceglia, and finally to Alfonso d’Este; Don Giuffre, the youngest, was born in 1481. Mariana makes no mention of Rodrigo’s other children--Girolama, who died in 1483; Isabella, the wife of Pietro Giovanni Matuzzi; and Giovanni Borgia, Lord of Camerino, who was the son of Giulia Farnese. Vannozza was simply a nickname for Giovanna, and Catanei was a common name throughout Italy. In numerous contemporary documents she is mentioned as Madonna de Casa Catanei. As she was able to hold the pleasure-loving cardinal so many years and secure from him the recognition of her children, various writers have seen fit, in the absence of other grounds for romance, to ascribe to her great physical beauty, force of character, and intellect. Her name does not appear in the list of public courtesans of Rome, and numerous guesses have been made as to her social status and mode of living; they are, however, neither probable nor illuminating. Her obscurity is proved by the indifference of the sonneteers and epigrammatists of the day, who, had she been at all conspicuous, would have made her notorious. Burchard mentions her only twice, once in January, 1495, when her house was sacked by the French, and again in connection with the supper that preceded the murder of the Duke of Gandia in June, 1497.