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I was feeling a bit gloomy about how, in many respects, my life is only just beginning at 38.
Meanwhile, in an article I was reading for my dissertation, there was a reference to the early seventeenth century pop culture concept of Lucrezia Borgia, with a footnote about Actual Historical Lucrezia Borgia (aka Lucrècia). I don't think it actually listed her age at death, but I already knew what it was, and reading about her reminded me of everything that happened to and around her before her premature death at age 39. At that point, she had already outlived most of her brothers and one of her two sisters.
This isn't an "everyone was dying of old age in their 30s back then" thing, which is a wildly inaccurate take on the human lifespan (the greater likelihood of dying young =/= 35-year lifespan). Lucrècia died young. She struggled through years of difficult pregnancies, including after providing her husband with an heir, and eventually died a few days after delivering a daughter who also died. Sarah Bradford's biography observes that Lucrècia had essentially emerged triumphant over the incredibly complex and daunting obstacles she was faced with throughout her life as a political figure, navigating them all, only for childbirth to kill her as it killed so many other women.
In her life, Lucrècia experienced luxury on a scale that is unimaginable to most people today, or ever. This isn't meant to downplay that, but ... it didn't save her. She was at once influential, resourceful, and profoundly exploited throughout her life in ways that hinged on her gender and culminated in her death, only for her name to be trashed for hundreds of years afterwards. This isn't unique to her, or to her region of the world, or her time, even though there were culturally specific elements at work.
And for all the awful, shitty elements of my life thus far, I'd much rather be facing the beginning of life at this age than the end of it.
Meanwhile, in an article I was reading for my dissertation, there was a reference to the early seventeenth century pop culture concept of Lucrezia Borgia, with a footnote about Actual Historical Lucrezia Borgia (aka Lucrècia). I don't think it actually listed her age at death, but I already knew what it was, and reading about her reminded me of everything that happened to and around her before her premature death at age 39. At that point, she had already outlived most of her brothers and one of her two sisters.
This isn't an "everyone was dying of old age in their 30s back then" thing, which is a wildly inaccurate take on the human lifespan (the greater likelihood of dying young =/= 35-year lifespan). Lucrècia died young. She struggled through years of difficult pregnancies, including after providing her husband with an heir, and eventually died a few days after delivering a daughter who also died. Sarah Bradford's biography observes that Lucrècia had essentially emerged triumphant over the incredibly complex and daunting obstacles she was faced with throughout her life as a political figure, navigating them all, only for childbirth to kill her as it killed so many other women.
In her life, Lucrècia experienced luxury on a scale that is unimaginable to most people today, or ever. This isn't meant to downplay that, but ... it didn't save her. She was at once influential, resourceful, and profoundly exploited throughout her life in ways that hinged on her gender and culminated in her death, only for her name to be trashed for hundreds of years afterwards. This isn't unique to her, or to her region of the world, or her time, even though there were culturally specific elements at work.
And for all the awful, shitty elements of my life thus far, I'd much rather be facing the beginning of life at this age than the end of it.
