Francisco de Borja

Francisco de Borja y Navarro de Alpicat (1441 – 4 November 1511) was a Spanish cardinal, and the seventh of ten cardinal-nephews created by Pope Alexander VI.

Biography Borja was born in 1441 in Xàtiva, Kingdom of Valencia, from the Aragonese family of Ça Borja established in Valencia since 1239 by land granted by the Aragon crown, He became a canon in the cathedral chapter of Valencia.

After the election of Rodrigo Borja as Alexander VI, Francisco went to Rome, becoming a protonotary apostolic, and then the treasurer general on 20 September 1493. He was elected bishop of Teano on 19 August 1495 and retained the see until 5 June 1508, when he resigned in favor of his nephew of the same name. There is no evidence he was ever consecrated. Alexander VI elevated Francisco as a cardinal priest on 28 September 1500, in pectore and published his cardinalate on 2 October, adding the title of S. Cecilia on 5 October.

He later accumulated a variety of additional benefices: first as Abbot commendatario of the monasteries of San Vincenzo al Volturno and of S. Stefano di Sermo, then the diocese of Terracina on 19 August 1495 and then the metropolitan see of Cosenza on 6 November 1499.

He was made papal legate to Campagna in 1501, and left Rome on 22 June to retake Rocca di Papa and other estates of the Colonna for the papacy. In 1502, he followed Lucrezia Borgia to Ferrara for her marriage to Alfonso d'Este, and became tutor to Alexander VI's youngest son, Giovanni Borgia (Infans Romanus).