"Lucrezia was indeed a woman who lived with violence and sudden death; and yet she never lost the laughing gaiety, the irresistible charm for which she was so admired in her time. She was, it is true, very much a pawn in the hands of her ambitious family, but yet, as a woman of grace and intelligence, she was also very much a person in her own right." — Lucrezia Borgia: A Study (1953) by Joan Haslip















