Words by Carla Passino
They are the most notorious family in Italian history. Their tale is one of power, fame, murders, bribery, sexual and political intrigue and (rumoured) incest. They are, of course, the Borgias.
Now the passions, politics and plots of sensual Lucrezia, violent Cesare and their scheming father, Pope Rodrigo, come to life in a book by the late Christopher Hibbert, Britain's foremost popular historian.
Hibbert, who died in December last year, was fascinated by both the Renaissance and Italy, and it is fitting that his last book would once again explore one of his favourite historical periods and one of his favourite countries.
Because make no mistake, his House of Borgia (published as The Borgias and Their Enemies in the United States) is as much a biography of the infamous family as it is a study of splendour and miseries of the Italian Renaissance.
Rodrigo Borgia became Pope in 1492, the year Columbus reached the Americas, the Moorish reign of Granada fell into Spanish hands, and Lorenzo the Magnificent died in Florence. The scion of a powerful Aragonese family, he plunged into Roman politics at an early age - he served in the curia under his uncle Pope Calixtus III and four papal successors - and took it to a whole new level of intrigue.
He started off by bribing the conclave to secure his own election - he sent four mules laden with gold to cardinal Ascanio Sforza, with the promise that he would get the lucrative position of vice-chancellor if Rodrigo became pope. Then he quickly lived up to his reputation as a ruthless, rapacious wolf by elevating his own children to power, while using them to shore up his own position.
So his bloodthirsty, vengeful but brilliant son, Cesare, became the papacy's military arm, and occasional murderer.
And Rodrigo's beautiful daughter, Lucrezia, was married off to the pope's allies du jour. First came Duke Giovanni Sforza of Pesaro, who later, when his marriage to Lucrezia was annulled, made allegations about her incestuous relationship with her father and brother--a story borne out of revenge, which, says Hibbert, "stuck" over time. Then came the Duke of Bisceglie, later murdered on Cesare's orders once he turned out not to be such a useful ally after all, and finally Alfonso d'Este, son of the powerful Duke of Ferrara.
But those days Italy was quickly becoming the playground of bigger powers intent on carving out kingdoms and fiefs up and down the peninsula. While the Pope indulged in libertine luxury at his Roman court--and had cardinals murdered and their goods confiscated to secure the money he needed to finance his lifestyle - Spain and France both cast a hungry eye over the country. Determined to secure his power, Rodrigo breezily changed sides from one to the other, and, although the French king Charles VIII entered Rome with his troops in 1494, the pope surprisingly managed to save himself, his seat and his wealth - and even get rid of some of his opponents in the process.
It is these internecine wars, but also the flourishing art and the corrupt but fascinating Renaissance society - the pitiable Rome where people look like cowherds while Michelangelo creates his masterpieces, or the violent Cesare Borgia who turns to Leonardo da Vinci's genius for mapmaking and weapons - that fascinate Hibbert, as much as the orgies, nepotism and greed of the Borgias.
He describes it all with a rich, pictorial, occasionally humorous prose--such as when he shows the cardinals hurriedly leaving the danger-fraught conclave summoned to elect Calixtus III's successor, "pleading the calls of nature."
Somewhat surprisingly, his pages slowly bring you to feel a repelled attraction for the Borgia's patriarch, Rodrigo, who may have been infamous but certainly wasn't short on courage (bordering on foolhardiness)--like the time when huge breakers threatened to sink the boat he was travelling on, but the Pope kept his stand on the poop, cried Jesus, made the sign of the cross, then told his sailors to get on with frying his fish supper.
All in all, this is a great book, worthy of the man that was once called "the pearl of biographers."
The House of Borgia by Christopher Hibbert (also published as The Borgias and Their Enemies). Please visit the link below.
