Cesare Borgia, the illegitimate son of a pontiff, was the hero of “The Prince”
The Borgias. By Paul Strathern.Pegasus Books; 400 pages; $28.95. Atlantic Books; £25.
The Borgias achieved many remarkable things. They reformed and rebuilt Rome; they were patrons of geniuses such as Leonardo da Vinci; and they influenced the course of world events for centuries. It is, for example, thanks to a single Borgia ruling in 1494 that Brazil now speaks Portuguese, whereas most of South America uses Spanish. But perhaps the most noteworthy accomplishment of this noble Aragonese dynasty, which during the Renaissance produced two popes and many legends, is that it managed to bring disgrace upon the Catholic church. Then, as now, this was no mean feat; after all, previous bishops of Rome had rarely been as infallible as later dogma insisted.
Take Pope Formosus. In the ninth century he was exhumed, dressed in full papal regalia, put on trial as a corpse—and found guilty of perjury and violating the laws of the church. Or consider the exuberant Pope Paul II, who in 1471 expired from apoplexy apparently brought on by “immoderate feasting on melons”, followed by “the excessive effect of being sodomised by one of his favourite boys”. Or Pope Innocent VIII, who in 1492 is said to have spent his final days drinking blood drawn from three ten-year-old boys (who all died), and supping milk from a young woman’s breast. For health reasons, naturally.
Long before the rise of the Borgias, therefore, this was an institution well-acquainted with embarrassment. Yet as Paul Strathern shows in his new book, the family eclipsed them all. As a result, the 11-year reign of Rodrigo Borgia (Pope Alexander VI) is still, to many, “the most notorious in papal history”. Although not everyone agreed. When, some decades later, Sixtus V was asked to name his greatest predecessors, he offered St Peter—and Borgia.
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