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Giovanni Borgia

Giovanni Borgia, 2nd Duke of Gandía (c.1476–1497) was the son of Pope Alexander VI a member of the House of Borgia. He was the brother of Cesare, Gioffre, and Lucrezia Borgia. Giovanni, commonly known as Juan (or sometimes, Joan), was the eldest of the Pope's four children by Vannozza dei Cattanei.

Giovanni married Maria Enriquez de Luna, the Spanish betrothed of his deceased older half-brother, Pedro Luis, in September 1493. He was made 2nd Duke of Gandia, Duke of Sessa, Grand Constable of Naples, Governor of St. Peter's, and Gonfalonier and Captain General of the Church.

Giovanni and Maria had three children: twins Juan de Borja y Enriquez (known as Juan Borgia), who became the 3rd Duke of Gandía, and Francisca de Jesus Borja, who became a nun at a convent in Valladolid. The younger Juan was the father of Saint Francis Borgia. Their third child, Isabel de Borja y Enriquez, was born after her father was killed. She grew up to be abbess of Santa Clara in Gandia.

He was murdered the night of 14 June 1497 near what later became the Piazza della Giudecca in the Ghetto of Rome. He was last seen alive when he was leaving from a feast that his mother had in his honor at her villa with his other siblings Cesare, Lucrezia, and Gioffre, Gioffre's wife Sancha of Aragon, their cousin Juan Borgia Lanzol, and Vannozza's husband, Carlo Canale, all in attendance. The next morning his horse came back without its rider and with one of the stirrups cut. He was reported missing. A search party found his body in the Tiber with his throat slit, and about nine stab wounds on his torso. His grief-stricken father launched an intensive investigation into the murder, only to end it abruptly a week later. While the Orsini family had ample motive to kill Giovanni, it was later rumored that his own brother Cesare Borgia had him murdered.

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