Though remembered as one of Italy’s noble families during the Renaissance, the Borgias actually came from Valencia in the kingdom of Aragon, Spain.
The family moved to Italy upon Alfons Borja’s election to pope, and changed their name from Borja to the more Italian-friendly Borgia.
- Alfons de Borja, who ruled as Pope Callixtus III during 1455–1458
- Rodrigo Lanzol Borgia, as Pope Alexander VI, during 1492–1503
Among his deeds was ordering a posthumous re-trial for Joan of Arc, which found her innocent of heresy.
The Retrial of Joan of Arc, also known as the “nullification trial” or “rehabilitation trial”, was a posthumous retrial of Joan of Arc authorized by Pope Callixtus III at the request of Inquisitor-General Jean Bréhal and Joan’s mother Isabelle Romée.
The purpose of the retrial was to investigate whether the trial of condemnation and its verdict had been handled justly and according to ecclesiastical law
Investigations started in 1452, and a formal appeal followed in November 1455.
The inquisitor’s final summary of the case in June 1456 described Joan as a martyr and implicated the late Pierre Cauchon with heresy for having convicted an innocent woman in pursuit of a secular vendetta.
The court declared her innocent on 7 July 1456.
Still, Callixtus III did have one vice: nepotism.
He named his nephew, Rodrigo Borgia, cardinal in 1456. Rodrigo was a skillful politician, and it didn’t take him long to accumulate enough wealth to rig a papal election.
He was named pope in 1492, taking the name Alexander VI.
That two of the Borgias would become Pope, and several others cardinals, was a little ironic to some: according to several rumors, the Borgias were in fact Jewish.
It is still unknown if the rumors are true, but their actual genealogy was clouded by several dubious claims of links to a former claimant to the crown of Aragon who, in fact, had no children.
For the next 1000 years the continuity of the Church of Rome provided a semblance of stability as Europe sank into barbarism.
By the dawn of the Renaissance, however, the mission of the papacy had been corrupted by the conflict between its sacred duties as the Vicar of Christ and its temporal responsibilities as head of the Papal States.
This was not the papacy’s finest hour.
Pope Alexander VI epitomizes this corruption.
Born as Rodrigo Borgia in Spain in 1431, he was elected Pope in 1492, an event that spawned rumors that he had spent a considerable fortune bribing the appropriate Cardinals to assure his success.
The new Pope loved the good life. He sired at least twelve children through a number of mistresses.
Few, could fairly criticize Alexander VI for his dalliances.
It was widely accepted that Vanozza had also had a fling with Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, who would himself become Pope Julius II.
Therefore, Alexander VI made no secret of his affairs both before and during his reign as pope.
Nor did he deny that he was the father of his children. His chief mistress, Vannozza dei Cattanei, bore him four: Cesare, Giovanni, Lucrezia, and Gioffre.
The most famous of his offspring were his son Cesare, noted for the murder of political rivals, and his daughter Lucrezia who was married off to a number of husbands for political gain.
Though Cesare was said to be the most barbaric of the Borgia clan, he became both a military leader and a cardinal–two incompatible, but very influential positions.
Cesare was well-connected among the artists of the Renaissance and by all accounts, a very handsome man.
He hired Leonardo da Vinci to be his military architect and engineer in 1502.
While under Cesare’s employ, da Vinci had total freedom to inspect and direct any construction project, in any lands under Cesare’s control.
Before Cesare Borgia’s wild lifestyle caught up with him, leaving him ravaged by syphilis, he was known to have sensual parties at the Vatican, where guests would be encouraged to make use of the “fifty honest prostitutes” who had been invited.
The Banquet of Chestnuts, as it was known, was a massive feast and sexual marathon that took place in October 1501.
The pope himself was said to be in attendance, and prizes were given to those who could “perform the act most often with the courtesans.”
Eventually, after Cesare Borgia’s debaucherous lifestyle caught up to him, he was so ravaged by syphilis that he was forced to wear a mask over his pockmarked and scarred face.
In the year 1499 alone, Cesare ordered the executions of a Spanish constable, a soldier-captain, and a bishop, among others -possibly for sport.
Politically ambitious and not above lies and treachery, it wasn’t long before the Borgias became rivals of Italy’s other noble families.
These included the Medici, as well as the della Rovere and Sforza families.
Eventually the Pope turned on her after she refused to let her son be married to his daughter, a woman named Lucrezia Borgia.
Now if you know anything about Lucrezia Borgia, you’ll know that this was a pretty wise move, but the Pope just didn’t seem to get it.
Sforza
He gave her lands over to his son, a total bastard named Cesare Borgia, all the same. Caterina responded by writing the Holy Father a venomous, hate-filled letter, which she doused in poisonous liquid designed to kill the Pope when he read it, but it didn’t pan out.
When Caterina’s son was taken and tortured in front of her by the Borgias to get her to capitulate, she raised her dress , showed vagina and screamed. she could still make 10 more sons.
Cesare’s rise to power might be described as Machiavellian -indeed, Niccoló Machiavelli is said to have based his masterpiece, The Prince, on the young Borgia.
Machiavelli worked as a diplomat in the service of the Florentine government.
In 1498, at only 29 years old, he was appointed as the head of the Second Chancery, which put him in control of the city’s foreign relations.
His number-one concern was the potential return of the Medici family—the most infamous power brokers in Renaissance Italy—who had been ousted from Florence in 1494.
Machiavelli oversaw the recruitment and training of an official militia to keep them at bay, but his army was no match for the Medici, who were supported by Rome’s papal militia.
When the Medici retook Florence in 1512, their first order of business was to fire—and, just for the heck of it, torture—Machiavelli.
In 1503, when Machiavelli was struggling to fortify Florence against its enemies, he turned to the ultimate Renaissance man, Leonardo da Vinci.
Machiavelli used his power to procure commissions for Leonardo and even appointed him Florence’s military engineer between 1502 and 1503.
Machiavelli was hoping to harness Leonardo’s ingenuity to capture Pisa, a fledgling city-state which Florentine leaders had been eager to subdue for decades.
However, Cesare wasn’t the only murderer of family in the family.
On June 14, 1497, Giovanni Borgia, brother to Cesare and Lucrezia, was found with his throat slit and about nine stab wounds in his torso.
His father Pope Alexander VI launched a full-on investigation before abruptly stopping it a week later, and some suspected Giovanni was murdered by the youngest Borgia, Gioffre, for sleeping with Gioffre’s wife.
Lucrezia was considered just as lustful and murderous as the rest of the Borgias.
Not only was she involved in several affairs, some said the conspicuous ring she wore was hollow, and that she used it to slip poison into the drinks of unsuspecting guests.
Pope Alexander VI was in constant need of money – to support his lavish life style, to fill the coffers for his political bribes and to fund his various military campaigns.
In 1493, Alexander VI issued the Inter caetera, which granted Spain many lands in the New World. It also demanded Catholicism “be everywhere increased and spread, that the health of souls be cared for and that barbarous nations be overthrown and brought to the faith itself.”
Spanish explorers interpreted this as permission to murder and enslave indigenous peoples, forming a basis for the colonialism and racism that continues to affect North America to this day.
The sale of Cardinalships and indulgences were also a major source of cash.
An indulgence was a written proclamation that exonerated – for a fee – the individual (or his relatives) from punishment in the after-life for sins that had been committed, or in some cases, may be committed in the future.
Fourteen years after his death, the corruption of the papacy that Alexander VI exemplified – particularly the sale of indulgences – would prompt a young monk by the name of Martin Luther to nail a summary of his grievances on the door of a church in Germany and launch the Protestant Reformation.“. . . the Pope felt unwell.
“Johann Burchard was a Papal Master of Ceremonies from 1483 to his death in 1506.
His responsibilities at the Vatican included oversight of protocol and procedures for official ceremonies.
He kept a detailed diary of his experiences that provides an insight into the papacy of the Borgias.
He was present at the death of the last Borgia Pope:
“On Saturday morning, August 12th, the pope felt unwell, and at about three o’clock in the afternoon he became feverish.
Fourteen ounces of blood were taken from him three days later and tertiary fever set in.
Early on August 17th, he was given some medicine, but he worsened and at about six o’clock on the following morning, he made his confession to Don Pietro Gamboa, the Bishop of Carinola, who then celebrated Mass in His Holiness’s presence.
After he had made his own communion, he gave the pope the Host as he sat in his bed and then completed the Mass.
The service was also attended by five cardinals – Serra, Francesco Borgia, Giovanni Castelar, Casanova and de Loris of Constantinople – to whom His Holiness stated that he felt ill.
At the hour of Vespers he was given Extreme Unction by the Bishop of Carinola, and he expired in the presence of the datary, the bishop and the attendants standing by.
Don Cesare, [the Pope’s illegitimate son] who was also unwell at the time, sent Michelotto with a large number of retainers to close all the doors that gave access to the pope’s room.
One of the men took out a dagger and threatened to cut Cardinal Casanova’s throat and to throw him out of the window unless he handed over the keys to all the pope’s treasure.
Terrified, the cardinal surrendered the keys, whereupon the others entered the room next to the papal apartment and seized all the silver that they found, together with two coffers containing about a hundred thousand ducats.
.At four o’clock in the afternoon, they opened the doors and proclaimed that the pope was dead. In the meantime, valets took what had been left behind in the wardrobe and the apartments, and nothing of value remained except the papal chairs, some cushions and the tapestries on the walls.
Throughout the whole of the pope’s illness, Don Cesare never visited his father, nor again after his death, whilst His Holiness for his part never once made the slightest reference to Cesare or Lucrezia [the Pope’s illegitimate daughter].“Burchard and a colleague dress the Pope’s body and leave it in a Vatican courtyard.
We rejoin his story that evening as he enters the city of Rome accompanied by an armed guard:
“I returned to the city after eight o’clock in the evening, accompanied by eight of the palace guards, and in the vice-chancellor’s name I ordered Giovanni Caroli the messenger, on pain of losing his office, to go with his fellow messengers to inform all the clergy in Rome, secular priests and monks alike, that they must assemble early next morning at five o’clock in the papal palace for the funeral procession from the Sistine Chapel to the Basilica of St Peter’s.
Two hundred tapers were prepared for those who would assemble for the pope’s funeral.
Next morning, I had the bier brought into the Sala del Pappagallo and there set down.
Four confessors recited the Office of the Dead as they sat on the window-frame with their hands resting on the pope’s litter, which was supported by paupers who stood at hand gazing at the body [it was customary to pay paupers to attend funerals].
I placed a folded mattress on the bier and covered it with a fine new pall of bright purple brocade into which had been woven two new designs carrying the pope’s arms.
On this we laid the body of the pontiff, with three of the cushions to support him and the old tapestry again as a coveting.
We placed the pope in the Sistine Chapel, whither came the monks of the city, the clergy of St Peter’s and the canons bearing the cross.
These carried the body from the chapel straight into the middle of the Basilica.. . . As soon as the procession halted in the Basilica, the bier was placed towards the end of the building, but it proved impossible for the clergy to begin the service with the words, ‘Enter not into judgement.’
They therefore started the response, ‘Free me, 0 Lord,’ but as they were chanting, some of the palace guards seized the tapers. The clergy defended themselves, but stopped chanting and fled to the sacristy when the soldiers began to use their weapons.
The pope’s body was abandoned.With the help of three others, I took hold of the bier and moved it into a position between the high altar and the papal seat so that the pope’s head was close to the altar.
There we shut the bier in behind the choir. The Bishop of Sessa, however, wondered if the ordinary people might not climb up to the body there, which would cause a great scandal and perhaps allow somebody who had been wronged by the pope to get his revenge.
He therefore had the bier moved into the chapel entrance between the steps, with the pope’s feet so close to the iron door that they could be touched through the grill.
There the body remained through the day, with the iron door firmly closed.After dining, the cardinals appointed for the task and with the aid of the Chamber clergy made an inventory of the valuables and the more precious movable goods that had belonged to Alexander.
They found the crown and two precious tiaras, all the rings which the pope wore for Mass, the credence-vessels for his use in celebrating and enough indeed to fill eight coffers.
Amongst all these things were the golden vessels from the recess of the apartment adjoining the pope’s bedroom about which Don Michelotto had known nothing, as well as a small cypress box, covered in strong cloth and containing precious stones and rings to the value of about twenty-five thousand ducats.
There were also found many documents, the oaths of the cardinals, the bull for the investiture of the King of Naples, and a great number of other bulls.
In the meantime, the body of the pope had remained for a long time, as I have described, between the railings of the high altar.
During that period, the four wax candles next to it burned right down, and the complexion of the dead man became increasingly foul and black.
Already by four o’clock on that afternoon when I saw the corpse, again, its face had changed to the color of mulberry or the blackest cloth and it was covered in blue-black spots.
The nose was swollen, the mouth distended where the tongue was doubled over, and the lips seemed to fill everything.
The appearance of the face then was far more horrifying than anything that had ever been seen or reported before.
Later after five o’clock, the body was carried to the Chapel of Santa Maria della Febbre and placed in its coffin next to the wall in a corner by the altar.
Six laborers or porters, making blasphemous jokes about the pope or in contempt of his corpse, together with two master carpenters, performed this task.
The carpenters had made the coffin too narrow and short, and so they placed the pope’s miter at his side, rolled his body up in an old carpet, and pummeled and pushed it into the coffin with their fists.
No wax tapers or lights were used, and no priests or any other persons attended to his body.
Though their position as Italy’s foremost aristocratic family waned, the Borgias maintained prominence well into the 20th century, especially in Ecuador.
There, several descendants of the Borgias became notable poets, artists, and activists.
One even became president!
References:
Burchurad’s account appears in: Burchard Johann, At the Court of the Borgia, Geoffrey Parker editor and translator (1963); Chamberlin, E. R., The Fall of the House of Borgia (1974); Manchester, William, A World Lit Only by Fire: the medieval mind and the Renaissance : portrait of an age (1992).