Italy is the chessboard on which the Borgias play their difficult political game, and Lucrezia finds herself to be a pawn in their unscrupulous alliances: imposed as wife to Giovanni Sforza, Count of Pesaro, to Alfonso d'Aragona Duke of Bisceglie, and finally maneuvered by Pope Alexander VI and his brother Cesare, she lands in Ferrara at only 22 years of age, already in her third marriage to Alfonso d'Este.

Lucrezia Borgia is surrounded by an aura of slander derived from her family's dubious reputation, so much so that over the centuries she is turned into a ruthless poisoner. Already in Lucrezia's period, chess gives the queen the ability to move in all directions: in the chess metaphor reworked by Carlo Bertinelli within the dramaturgy of the Animated Visit "Il Ritratto di Lucrezia" the mutations of her soul are followed, making her go from "black queen" to "white queen," in a slow spiritual transfiguration during the Ferrara period.

Alessandra Brocadello, the teatrOrtaet actress who impersonates Lucrezia, gives warmth and intensity to the Duchess's inner tension, the struggle between luxury, power, passion and the desire for silence and peace that she seeks in the spiritual oasis of Corpus Domini, the monastery of the Poor Clares where she will be buried. Around her - interpreted by Carlo Bertinelli - Ludovico Ariosto, Cesare Borgia, Alfonso d'Este and Pietro Bembo, will come to life in the evocative places of Este Castle.