9 JULY 2005, Page 17

Bembo and Borgia

From Sarah Bradford

Sir: Ian Thomson, in his review of Gaia Servadio’s Renaissance Women (Books, 25 June), makes two factual errors. He asserts that ‘when Lucrezia Borgia’s affair with Bembo drew to a close in 1519, the lovers’ “storm-tossed souls” had come to rest at very adult ports-of-call; cardinalship for Bembo, motherhood for Borgia’.

In fact, Lucrezia Borgia died in 1519, her affair with Pietro Bembo had ended in 1505, and Bembo only became a cardinal 20 years later in 1539.

Sarah Bradford London SW6