...the 16th century saw a rash of popes with children. The warlike Julius II, Michelangelo's famous patron, fathered three daughters while he was a cardinal, while Paul III and Pius IV had four and three children respectively before their elections as pontiff. Earlier, the 10th century Lombard historian and Bishop of Cremona, Liutprand, told salacious tales of the fathering of Pope John XI by Sergius III with a 15-year-old girl. But the record for papal fatherhood seems to have been set, unsurprisingly, by Alexander VI, the Borgia pope, who had four children (including Cesare and Lucrezia) with his aristocratic mistress Vannozza Catanei when a cardinal, and a further six others, some allegedly born during his pontificate. Priestly childlessness was purely an ideal, not a way of life, in the Vatican for decades.