House of Borgia

But Alexander VI died suddenly in 1503, and his son's career was stopped at the same time by illness.

After the brief pontificate of Pius III, August to October 1503, Cardinal della Rovere, the enemy of the Borgias, was elected pope as Julius II, 1503-13, and Cesare soon found that his conquests had only increased the papal power.

Julius II was determined to continue the Borgia policy, though from other motives, and to win back everything that could possibly be claimed for the papacy.

In particular, he desired to wrest the three cities in the Romagna, Faenza, Rimini, and Ravenna, from Venice.

He ordered Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and was a friend and patron to Raphael.

Julius has been called the savior of the papacy and the curse of Italy, and both these descriptions are true.

He saved the papacy by completing the work of the Borgias, but he did it at the expense of Italy.

When he wished to recover Ravenna, Rimini, and Faenza from Venice, he joined Louis XII, Ferdinand, and Maximilian in the League of Cambrai, 1508.

How about you, Kate?

I would like to go sit down to a meal being served at the height of the Renaissance to the Borgia pope, uh, Pope Alexander.

The most food-centric book I ever wrote was, um, set about around the Borgias, and it was about, um, the, the heroine actually is the cook in the household of the Borgia pope's mistress, Giulia Farnese.

And that was specifically because I was reading Bartolomeo Scappi's wonderful opera, you know, his, his compendium of Renaissance recipes, and I learned so much from that.

And I ended up thinking, "I wonder who taught him to cook." Whenever it's these, you know, very male-centric, famous male chefs nowadays who they say, they're asked, "Who taught you to cook?" It's always a woman.

I came across her because I was writing about

Lucretia Borgia, who you probably have heard of.

Yes.

I have.

Lucretia Borgia.

Now, actually, Lucretia Borgia has been done over by history and I wanted to rehabilitate her.

So I was writing a novel about the Borgia family.

And in a marriage that Lucretia makes, she marries into the Este family.

welcome to the saint of the day podcast a service of good catholic and the catholic company join us each day as we share the story of a unique saint in three minutes or less today's saint is saint francis bourgeois saint francis bourgeois who lived from 1510 to 1572 was born in spain to a noble family the son of a duke On his father's side of the family, he was the great grandson of Pope Alexander VI, one of the notorious Borgia popes, and on his mother's side he was the great grandson of King Ferdinand of Aragon.

Francis joined the Spanish court of King Charles V at the age of 18, married, and had eight children.

In 1539 he experienced a profound religious conversion which caused him to renounce the pomp of the royal court, yet he continued his life of public service as the Viceroy of Catalonia.

Escribió sobre la sífilis en 1490.

Mirá, ¿eh? Describiendo todos sus síntomas: úlceras, hinchazón, eh, eh, en fin, le dedicó esa obra a César Borgia, que, bueno, que se había pescado la, la sífilis.

Torella conoció y estudió la enfermedad.

Dicen que Borgia se la agarró por las visitas que le hacía a una dama.

Bueno.

Bueno.

Chairman.

Yes, Miss Borgia?

I say that we should all give pause to think about this, uh, Santa Claus.

He is the man behind the scenes, the symbol of what Christmas means.

Ain't I murdered several dozens, poisoned uncles, aunts, and cousins? Don't my work right here in Hades make me first among the, uh, ladies? Men of virtue all have cussed me.

I am sure that you can trust me.

Of that we haven't a particle of a doubt, Miss Borgia, and I'm sure we all have nothing but kind feelings towards you, but many a times a woman spy, alas, adores her victim.

Dames make poor ambassadors.

Ghastly.

A roll and butter and a small coffee seemed the only things on the list that hadn't been specially prepared by the nastier-minded members of the Borgia family for people they had a particular grudge against, so I chose them and Mabel hopped it.

Well? Said Bingo rapturously.

I took it that he wanted my opinion of the female poisoner who had just left us.

The king did not call a general council to depose the pope, but made a treaty with him instead.

The pope agreed to surrender some of the papal fortresses, to give a cardinal's hat to Brissonnet, bishop of Saint-Malo, the low-born favorite of Charles, to hand over to the French king Jem, the sultan's brother, whom he was keeping a prisoner, and to allow his own son, Cesare Borgia, to accompany Charles as hostage.

From Rome the French king marched on Naples, and once more his enemies melted away before him.

Alfonso II abdicated in favor of his son Ferdinand and fled to Sicily.

Finally in December, the great captain utterly defeated them on the Garigliano, and early in fifteen oh four they withdrew from the kingdom.

Gonzalo de Córdoba had won Naples for Spain.

During these years, Alexander VI and his son Cesare Borgia had been unscrupulously pursuing their policy of adding to the papal dominions and creating the states of the church into a great secular power for the Borgia family.

But Alexander VI died suddenly in fifteen oh three, and his son's career was stopped at the same time by illness.

He's gone through all 13 of the Italian Zoroastrian bloodlines, all of them.

Conti, Este, Doria, Medici, Chigi, Somaglia, Gaetani, Aldo Brandini, Farnese, Orsini, Breakspear, Borgia, Colonna, and that's the last one.

Then he does one video to tie up how the two are kind of fighting each other.

And that was maybe about two years ago at this point.