The History of the Church through 100 Masterpieces

The Period of the Borgias

The History of the Church 148 The Period of the Borgias Rodrigo Borgia’s career is quite simply prodigious. This nephew of Pope Calixtus III, born in 1431 into the high Spanish nobility, was made a bishop at age 18, a cardinal at 26, and finally ordained a priest at 37 years of age, nearly officiall married at 39, and then elected pope at the age of 61, with the name of Alexander VI. Politically, he was a grand prince. By diplomatic maneuvering, by arms, and also by gold, dagger, and poison, he consolidated pontifi cal power in an Italy swarming with French soldiery. He, as much as his son Cesare, was the inspiration for Machiavelli’s The Prince, the model of a ruler who was raised above the yoke of common morality by dint of his function. The escapades of his son Cesare—a cardinal at age 16 and then a peer of France—and of his daughter, the beautiful Lucrezia, married three times by the age of 21 (the first two husbands no doubt died from poisoning), as well as Rodrigo’s own mores, contributed to the execrable reputation of the Borgia family. Nevertheless, he was not a bad pontiff. He organized the evangelization of the natives of the newly discovered lands (which he had divided in advance between Spain and Portugal), and he restrained the abuses of the Inquisition, excommunicating Savonarola in Italy, and, in Spain, deposing the inquisitor Torquemada. It should also be remembered that his son Cesare hired, as a military engineer, a certain Leonardo da Vinci. Bartolomeo Veneto (active between 1502 and 1546) Lucrezia Borgia Regional Museum, Frankfurt-am-Main ...