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Episode details

Radio 3,12 Dec 2021,31 mins

Lucrezia Borgia's music

The Early Music Show

Available for over a year

Hannah French seeks the real Lucrezia Borgia through the music she knew and loved, in conversation with Professor Laurie Stras of the University of Huddersfield. Lucrezia Borgia (1480-1519) has had an appallingly bad press, but pretty much everything we think we know about her is wrong: she may have been the pope's daughter - hardly her fault - but she almost certainly didn't do any of the really nasty things she's been accused of – incest, murder etc. The real Lucrezia was a highly skilled administrator and a patron of the arts and music who sang, loved dancing, and employed some of the best composers and performers in Italy.

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