The Life of Cesare Borgia

On June 14, 1497, the eve of Cesare and Giovanni Borgia’s departure for Naples, their mother Vannozza gave them a farewell supper in her beautiful vineyard in Trastevere. In add...

The rule of Sixtus was as vigorous as it was scandalous. To say--as has been said--that with his succession to St. Peter’s Chair came for the Church a still sadder time than tha...

It is a little odd, considering the great affection for his children which was ever one of Roderigo’s most conspicuous characteristics, that he should not have ordered Cesare to...

The Sacred College consisted at the time of twenty-seven cardinals, four of whom were absent at distant sees and unable to reach Rome in time for the immuring of the Conclave. T...

In the autumn of 1500, fretting to take the field again, Cesare was occupied in raising and equipping an army--an occupation which received an added stimulus when, towards the e...

Between his departure from Milan and his arrival before Imola, where his campaign was to be inaugurated, Cesare paid a flying visit to Rome and his father, whom he had not seen...

You see Cesare Borgia, now in his nineteenth year, raised to the purple with the title of Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria Nuova--notwithstanding which, however, he continues to b...

Andrea Doria did not remain to make formal surrender of the citadel of Sinigaglia to the duke--for which purpose, be it borne in mind, had Cesare been invited, indirectly, to co...

The second campaign of the Romagna had opened for Cesare as easily as had the first. So far his conquest had been achieved by little more than a processional display of his arme...

On October 2 news of the revolt of the condottieri and the diet of Magione had reached the Vatican and rendered the Pope uneasy. Cesare, however, had been informed of it some ti...

It may well be that it was about this time that Cesare, his ambition spreading--as men’s ambition will spread with being gratified--was considering the consolidation of Central...

At the Consistory of June 19, 1497 the Sacred College beheld a broken-hearted old man who declared that he had done with the world, and that henceforth life could offer him noth...

Giuliano della Rovere, Cardinal of S. Pietro in Vincoli, had much in his character that was reminiscent of his terrible uncle, Sixtus IV. Like that uncle of his, he had many fai...

Vain were the exertions put forth by the Spanish cardinals to obtain Cesare’s enlargement, and vainer still the efforts of his sister Lucrezia, who wrote letter after letter to...

To the aid of France, which was hard beset and with whose arms things were going none too well, Cesare was summoned to fulfil the obligations under which he was placed by virtue...

By September 15 Cesare was back in Rome, the richer in renown, in French favour, and in a matter of 40,000 ducats, which is estimated as the total of the sums paid him by France...

King Louis XII dispatched the Sieur de Sarenon by sea, with a fleet of three ships and five galleys, to the end that he should conduct the new duke to France, which fleet was de...

We come now to the consideration of an event which, despite the light that so many, and with such assurance, have shed upon it, remains wrapped in uncertainty, and presents a my...

Although the House of Borgia, which gave to the Church of Rome two popes and at least one saint,(1) is to be traced back to the eleventh century, claiming as it does to have its...

Although Cesare Borgia’s conquest of Imola and Forli cannot seriously be accounted extraordinary military achievements--save by consideration of the act that this was the first...

Cesare left Cesena very early on the morning of December 26--the morning of Ramiro’s execution--and by the 29th he was at Fano, where he received the envoys who came from Ancona...

The coincidence of the arrival of the French army with the conquest of Urbino and Camerino and the Tuscan troubles caused one more to be added to that ceaseless stream of rumour...

In the hour of his need Lodovico Sforza found himself without friends or credit, and he had to pay the price of the sly, faithless egotistical policy he had so long pursued with...

By the middle of March of that year 1495 the conquest of Naples was a thoroughly accomplished fact, and the French rested upon their victory, took their ease, and made merry in...

The fever that racked Cesare Borgia’s body in those days can have been as nothing to the fever that racked his mind, the despairing rage that must have whelmed his soul to see t...

It really seemed as if the condottieri were determined to make their score as heavy as possible. For even whilst Paolo Orsini had been on his mission of peace to Cesare, and whi...

To return to the surrender of Faenza on April 26, 1501, we see Cesare on the morrow of that event, striking camp with such amazing suddenness that he does not even pause to prov...

Cesare arrived in Rome on June 13. There was none of the usual pomp on this occasion. He made his entrance quietly, attended only by a small body of men-at-arms, and he was foll...

Having driven Charles VIII out of Italy, it still remained for the allies to remove all traces of his passage from Naples and to restore the rule of the House of Aragon. In this...

During the past months, however, and notwithstanding the presence of the Borgia troops in the territory, the people of Faenza had been able to increase their fortifications by t...

At about the same time that Burchard was making in his Diarium those entries which reflect so grossly upon the Pope and Lucrezia, Gianluca Pozzi, the ambassador of Ferrara at th...