Rodrigo Borgia was elected Pope on August 11, 1492 and retained the papacy until his death in 1503. He most likely bribed his way into gaining the papacy. His elevation in status allowed him to elevate his illegitmate children as well. The most famous of these children being Juan, Cesare, and Lucrezia. Juan was murdered shortly after his father became Pope - probably because of a sexual liasion with the wrong woman. It is Cesare and Lucrezia who have perhaps received the most infamous reputations over history. Although Lucrezia was probably just trying to survive in a very public and sometimes hated family she has been painted over the years as a poisoner, a murderer, and a witch. She was married three times with her first marraige being dissolved on the grounds on non-consummation despite the fact that her husband's first wife had died in childbirth. Her second husband was killed on the orders of her brother Cesare - partly out of jealousy. She had numerous love affairs, and it often represented as a loose, amoral woman. Cesare was said to be the "most handsome, dashing, and desipicable" of the Borgia family. He father made him a Cardinal in the church at 18, but when he realized he was a better soldier than clergyman he became the first person in history to resign a cardinalcy. Cunning and ruthless, he almost succeeded in taking over all of Italy, but eventaully had to give up when his father died which, combined with unfornate circumstances of his own, forced him to yield all the power he had gained. Rumours of the family being murderers (which, to be fair, Cesare was), and well as rumours of incest between Lucrezia and her father and Lucrezia and Cesare are still popular today.

Both Cesare and Lucrezia are often mentioned throughout literature as examples of cruelty, cunning, and licentiousness. In Lady Audley's Secret when Lady Audley is contemplating what it is to be evil she mentions, "What pleasure could have remaied for Lucretia* Borgia and Catherine de' Medici when the dreadful boundary line between innoncence and guilt was passed, and the lost creatures stood upon the lonely outer side?" (252). Lady Audley seems to believe that once that line is crossed there is no going back, no regaining that innoncence, and as a result she must, like the two women she mentioned, continue on down the path of evil. 

This allusion to one or all of the Borgia family is not uncommon in literature, and it is important to realize what these people have come to stand for in modern literature. Over the years they have become less like real people and more stock comparisons or references that represent the worst of humanity.

*Lucretia is the English version of her name

Sources: "Were the Borgia Really so Bad?" by Alexander Lee and Cesare Borgia: His Life and Times by Sarah Bradford