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Fiametta

Fiametta Michaelis (1465-1512) was the lover of Cesare Borgia during his studies at the University of Pisa.

Biography[]

Fiametta Michaelis was born in Florence in 1465, and she worked as a courtesan (a prostitute). She eventually fell in love with Cesare Borgia, a student at the University of Pisa, and she did not charge him for her services, as she truly loved him. In 1492, she was impregnated by her lover, who visited her after he was sent to Pisa from Rome during the riots following Pope Innocent VIII's death. Borgia felt that he had broken a bargain between God and his father, Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, by impregnating a woman outside of marriage. When she gave birth to the boy, she decided to name him "Cesare", so that she could keep her husband's name close to him at all times. However, Cesare took the child and abandoned it on a cliffside to die, intending to keep his "purity". Fiametta hit him twice with a fire stoker after he refused to tell her where their son was, and an injured Cesare told her that their child was with God. Cesare later discovered that his son had been "saved" (his body was later discovered), but when he returned to Fiametta's house to tell her of his discovery, he caught her having sex with another man, and he left his lover behind forever. She died in Rome in 1512.

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