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Not Just the Tudors
Rise of the Borgias
00:46:08
Stories of incest, murder, and debauchery abound about the Borgias. But how true were the rumours?
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- [00:00]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Hello, I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb. If you'd like Not Just the Tudors ad free. To get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to historyhit. With a historyhit subscription. You can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my own on Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, Brilliant Rivals, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com subscribe.
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Hello, I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb, and welcome.
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Dr. Catherine Fellowes
To Not Just the Tudors From History.
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Hit, the podcast in which we explore everything from Anne Boleyn to the Aztecs.
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Dr. Catherine Fellowes
From Holbein to the Huguenots, from Shakespeare.
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
To samurais, relieved by regular doses of.
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Dr. Catherine Fellowes
Murder, espionage and witchcraft. Not, in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors.
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This is a story of unbridled ambition, absolute power, and shameful scandals. In the 15th and early 16th centuries, one family originating in Spain rose to exert its influence over Renaissance Italy. Their goals were audacious, to carve out for themselves a permanent duchy in the heart of Italy and to transform the papacy into into a hereditary monarchy. Their rewriting of the rules of power set them apart from their contemporaries and earned them many enemies. They were the Borgias. Their ascendancy was set against the backdrop of not only unprecedented artistic and cultural flowering, but also political fragmentation. The Borgias navigated this complex landscape using diplomacy, marriage alliances and military force to advance their interests. But their meteoric ascent was accompanied by scandal and rumor. Stories of incest, murder and debauchery swirled around them. But how true were the accusations? This month on Not Just the Tudors, we're stepping into the world of the Borgia dynasty to discover how they pushed at the boundaries of acceptable behavior for Renaissance rulers, setting new precedents in the use and abuse of power. We'll be looking at Cesare Borgia, the young cardinal who became a feared military commander. Lucretia Borgia, femme fatale or political strategist. And we'll be exploring one of history's most intriguing cold cases, the murder of Juan Borgia, found dead in the River Tiber. Joining me for this episode is Dr. Catherine Fellowes, whose doctorate examined the early ecclesiastical career of Rodrigo Borgia, later Pope Alexander vi. She's also published articles on depictions of Pope Alexander VI as the devil and violence in rome during the 15th and 16th centuries. Together, Dr. Fellowes and I will be considering the rise of the notorious Borgias to the pinnacle of European power. I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb, and this is not just the tutors from history hit.
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Dr. Fellowes, welcome to the podcast.
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Dr. Catherine Fellowes
Thank you very much for having me.
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Can we start with the first Borgia Pope, appointed in 1455. Tell us about him and how important he was to the rise of the Borgia family.
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Dr. Catherine Fellowes
Wonderful. So, I mean, the Borgia story needs to start somewhere. And Calixus iii. So the first Borgia pope is normally given quite short shrift in history, normally overlooked by his much more infamous nephew, Rodrigo, late Pope Alexander vi. So Calypso and the Borgia family, we sort of find it quite difficult sometimes to pin down where they've come from, their sort of heritage. There's a lot of mystery around it. They will claim that they have noble ancestry. Critics will claim that they are sort of the upstarts and usurped and abuse their way to the top of the social hierarchy. Calixtus, or, before he's appointed, elected to the papacy, is Alfonso Borgia. Probably best known at that point for being Bishop of Valencia. He was quite an erudite academic individual. He proved himself in the services of Alfonso of Aragon to the extent where he brought into his retinue as sort of a royal servant, a royal secretary. And he impresses so much on some of the legations that he goes on to that sort of. The papacy starts to get wind of how erudite and loquacious he is, and they think actually it's time to bring him into the carbonate. So he rises into the College of Cardinals at sort of a middle point in his life. He's quite elderly by the time that he's actually appointed Calypsous iii. He keeps quite a modest household in Rome. If anyone has been to the Coliseum, his titular church is just behind it. It's the beautiful Santi Quattro Coronati. Unlike some of his other compatriots, it wasn't sort of a big, lavish affair. He was a lot more sort of form and function rather than sort of status and sort of luxurious living. He finds himself catapulted in 1455 into quite a contentious conclave. Previous Pope Montan V and then sort of, you know, had died. And there was a bit of a power vacuum. There was a lot of Roman cardinals. And sort of a recurring theme throughout Borgia's narrative is overcoming the strength of these Roman cardinals, the Orsini or the Colonna. And so he enters the conclave sort of free of anyone thinking he would be elected. However, because of differing factors, both in Rome and on the European scene, he finds himself elected quite curiously. It's the idea he's a compromise candidate, essentially the College of Cardinals with a wealth of forceful personalities and opinions couldn't actually decide on any one. And what they do as they do later in 1484 is they pick somebody that they think they can mould and manipulate. He's quite elderly, he's quite sickly indeed. Many of his compatriots didn't think he'd last through his sort of papal ceremony and the all inauguration ceremonies.
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So to say he's a compromise candidate in some ways he's a buying time.
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Dr. Catherine Fellowes
Candidate very much so. It's until we can essentially get the right choice or things pan out in a certain way. Diplomatic tensions at east the situation sort of post schism and the problems with the admin Paisi ruled out quite a lot of French cardinals, as we'll see sort of later with some later popes. Diplomatic back backgrounds and the swings of change and fortune really helped shape some of the men who are elected to the college, but also those that find themselves lucky enough to sit on the throne of St. Peter's and if there's.
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
One fault that's levelled at his papacy it's that of nepotism. Most notably of course raising his nephew to the position of cardinal. But can you give me a sense of whether this was actually uncommon?
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Dr. Catherine Fellowes
Is very much common at this time fact to do otherwise is probably seen as something to be frowned upon. It is the charge or one of the most notorious charges that the Borgias face is Calixtus essentially jump starting Rodrigo's and one of his other papal nephews. But Rodrigo gets the main focus their ecclesiastical careers. Rodrigo had been studying at the University of Bologna and if we're led to believe the stories, had completed a doctorate in a year which having gone through the laborious process myself, it's quite remarkable that he manages to do this. But it's showing quite academic brilliance. So when Calixtus is elected, the first thing sort of papacy holders would do would be looking to advance the sort of status of their family. And he's got Calixtus two paper neckies that he brings into the College of Cardinals in his first set of creation. So the first appointment of cardinals that he makes bourgia's in his mid-20s at this point, so quite junior is a cardinal for just one year before he finds himself elevated up the hierarchy even further to the office of papal Vice Chancellor. Just to briefly outline what it is. It's the Pope's second in command. Essentially he's doing the legwork whilst the Pope is the visible representation. The Vice Chancellor is looking after Chancery. So all the documents very much the sort of day to day running of the functioning of the papacy. So there's a lot of sort of distaste about someone that's only got a year's experience in the Church now holding effectively the second most important office in Christendom. But even then he fits in a pattern that you can see throughout the 15th century. The previous holder the office, the Vice Chancellor, had also been a papal nephew. Francesco Condolma had been the nephew of Eugenius IV and future popes. Even Julius ii, Rodrigo Borgia's most sort of fierce nemesis, weaponizes and utilizes nepotistic appointments and is the beneficiary of nepotism himself from his uncle Sixtus iv.
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So it would have been strange not to be nepotistic. So we'll move on to Rodrigo in just a second. But before we do, what can you tell me about Calixus role in the Crusade against the Ottoman Turks after the fall of Constantinople, 1453?
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Dr. Catherine Fellowes
So the fall of Constantinople had sent ripples across Europe, Western Christendom and papacy itself. There's lots of stories about sort of, you know, the destruction of humanist community and that got fed back to Rome. Papacy and the Crusades go sort of hand in hand throughout the 15th century and there was a number of instances of councils, congresses. They're quite keen to use the word congress because of all the previous councils and the sort of the rapid, you know, the reputation that word had had. Calixtus falls into this trend, the story goes, the minute he's elected, the papacy does a survey of what sort of, you know, the wealth papacy and sees it, you know, where's it all been mismanaged. And he uses some of what he sort of scripts back on to kickstart his crusading and sort of fund. All the Gotlands down the Tymus and the main river in Rome are transformed to be sort of places where galleys and ships could be built in the hope that they could be dispatched not just against the Ottoman Turks towards the southern sort of part of Italy, but also up and towards Hungary, Serbia. There's a big concern about Belgrade in the 1450s and he's very much concerned about it. The only unfortunate thing which sort of links throughout is that Westman Christendom is so tired of crusading that there's little buy in. Most countries have had their own sort of upheavals. England and France have had the Hundred Years War, so they're not. They can't afford both the manpower, the time or the sort of Finances with it. These calls repeatedly fall on deaf ears, much to the annoyance of successive popes.
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So you've established for us that his nephew Rodrigo Borgia's become the Vice Chancellor of the Church. What did that mean for Rodrigo's wealth and his influence?
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Dr. Catherine Fellowes
So this is. I like to divide it on a sort of a thesis, followed these sort of key flashpoints where you could chart how did this all lead essentially to the morning of 11 August 1492, when he was elected unanimously. The office of Vice Chancellor itself was a particularly well paid. We don't have a concrete number. One of his contemporaries, Jacopo Guerrardi, says it might have been about 8,000 ducats a year. David Chambers, who's done a lot of work on Renaissance cardinals, says it might be a little bit lower. So actually the office itself, in terms of wealth, isn't particularly some lavish. The one thing it does open up is that he can claim whoever is holding the office of Vice Chancellor the money from vacant offices in sort of the chancery. And that is vast where in the 15th century, in a period of expansion of different offices. So the Vice Chancellor can claim revenues from this. It very much launches the rest of sort of the wealth and sort of. Yeah, the. Across Italy and Spain, in particular, this accumulation of benefices, of bishoprics and of fortresses. And it's these that over time, the experience that he's able to build grow in sort of numerical wealth, but also in strategic importance. Sort of starts off, we have a. A number from Calypsos. He gives him a small monastery which is worth 200 ducats, which would get him very much. And by the end he's got fortresses on the road to Tuscany that he can use as bargaining chips, potentially in conclave, if he so wished. And he's got places of significance like the Abiat Subiaco, which he uses a retreat quite a lot from the summer heat, and they're used quite proactively by him in conclaves. Again, this is very common. Cardinals would sort of try and use leverage to further their cause. So within a trend, he's not acting out of it.
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And you're talking there about political power within what we think of as Italy, but how did he establish political connections outside Italy as well?
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Dr. Catherine Fellowes
So the main focus being a Spaniard at Catalan. There's still, when I talk to people about the Borgia, is still an assumption. He's an Italian man. He, by the end they see him as one of his own, but he is Spanish and he's Catalan. The main way in which he establishes sort of connections is through a legation in the sort of early 1470s, so an authorised visit to Spain by Pope Sixtus IV, one of the first events of his pontificate, to try and gain support for this crusading ideal again. So Borgia goes for sort of year, year and a bit to sort of try and get support for the Crusade, but also he brings about the sort of marriage certificate for Ferdinand and Isabella, because they've been quite contentious about how closely related they were. And it's this legation which really broadens his network outside of Italy. So outside of Italy, it's Spain that is Borgia's target. He is sent there in 1472, the behest of Sixtus IV, as part of attempts by the papacy to gain support for the Crusade. And it's here where he builds this web of influence, both sort of higher up the social hierarchy, with sort of meeting the future sort of Ferdinand and Isabella, but also the princes, the kings, the bishops, the important religious figures that would later sort of help cement bourgier influence back in their native homelands. And it's a double forward one, because not only is it about your words and bringing the necessary dispensation from the papacy for the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella, but he also leaves, normally quite overlooked, a lasting cultural legacy in Valencia, where two of the artists are in his retinue, bring the Italian style of Renaissance painting to Spain in their decoration of sort of the vault of the cathedral. So there's a lasting presence there. And when sort of, we're looking at now at the 1490s, when sort of the marriage, Ferdinand and Isabella, all the sort of concerns calmed down, they come to the throne, they are very quick to send an embassy to Rome, and it's Borgia that sort of hosts sort of all the people that have come on their behest and there's big celebrations and there's quite cordial terms for a lot of it. But that does unfortunately change when he's elected Pope Alexander vi.
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So despite the fact he has this religious position, he didn't adhere to a vow of celibacy, did he? Can you give me some sense of how his longstanding relationship was viewed by members of. Of the Church and by the wider public? Indeed, of course.
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Dr. Catherine Fellowes
So this is one of the bits that Emery gets stuck into, because it's a bit juicy and a bit salacious. There are two women that define sort of Borgia's relationship with women, first of which is a lady called Vanoza. Fascinating Individual born in Mantua. We don't know too much about her early life. She meets Borgia when she's about 14, we think still trying to pin it down in sort of the chronicles that we have of Rome at the time and it's heard is responsible for sort of the birth of the four children Cesare, Lucrezia, Juan or Giovanni and Joffre. The little sort of younger Borgia that sadly doesn't feature as much in narratives and Borgias as it should. At the time it was not having to say common practice, but it would certainly not look out of place for clerics despite having a vow of celibacy to have a mistrix. Something that we might sort of think about in a different light with a modern lens that for Borgia changes when a new woman appears on the scene, which is Giulio Farnese. Whilst Spinozza had been sort of down in the shadows in Rome, she'd opened a number of successful businesses which is normally overlooked by historians. Giulia Farnese changes how the Church and the wider world saw Borgia as. As sort of breaking this very flaunting it vow of celibacy. At one point she's living, if not in the Vatican, we know, in a palazzo that has a passage that connects the two. She's living with Borgia's daughter Lucrezia and she's definitely seen out and about by a number of Romans exiting and entering the Vatican. And that's a transformative part of the narrative is this openly flaunting of the relationship. And it was weaponized by critics of the Borgias in the College of Cardinals outside. So the Roman families of the Orsini really take a hold of it despite the fact Julia is married to a member of the Orsini family. And there's quite derogatory terms that are thrown around. She's called Bride of Christ or the Pope's awe and very much is demonized. So just having very short lived she's not sort of throughout the whole pontificant actually retires around 14, the end of the 15th century, start of the 16th to her castle and lives out spend the rest of her days there.
- [18:25]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So you're redefining for us a lot of what it means to be a priest. So at this time it apparently involves nepotism and it's quite common also to involve breaking the vow of celibacy. So I'm beginning to think I might know the answer to this next question. But Rodrigo Borgia tends to be remembered as someone who sought to fulfill his personal appetites as well, as his political ambitions. But from your point of view, was he any more selfishly motivated than his fellow cardinals?
- [19:01]
Dr. Catherine Fellowes
I think rather than motivation, I'd flip the round and say, has he got more to lose than his compatriots? Yeah, but as I've tried to allude throughout the thesis and in my work, if you are not a Roman cardinal, let alone an Italian cardinal, the lambasting, the diatribes that are thrown your way are so unbelievably vast and numerous and that it's quite hard to escape that. So I think it's a case more he's got more to lose and I think he's acutely aware of this. He's quite pragmatic. I would say he's a pragmatic cardinal, probably better as a Vice Chancellor than he is as pope. And there's a whole sort of wealth of information that we can unpick with this. His long time sort of career pre the papacy gives him sort of the ample opportunity to see how different families navigate the choppy waters of being the Pope, being resident in Rome and being a resident of the Mansliv College of Cardinals. The one thing for Borgia is the Spanish heritage that really underpins all of this. There's a lot of anti Catalan feeling, not just in Rome, but in Italy as a whole. Despite the fact there's been a Catalan presence in Rome that predates Borgia. There's a hospital for pilgrims we know that was established, but there really is, particularly in 1455 and 1458 when Calixus dies, absolute unleashing of pretty horrible anti Catalan, anti Spanish feeling. Borgia manages to navigate it sort of when he's moving through the College of Cardinals. But when he dies in 1503, it does sort of start ruminating this idea of how did he navigate it, how has he lasted so long and did he overplay his hand was some of itself inflicted, but I think he had more to lose. He's certainly not as overt as some of his other compatriots in his ambition. I always flip it the other way and look at how ambitious Giuliana della Roverie or Julius II was, or how ambitious sort of the previous pope had been, Innocent viii, how flagrant he had promoted his case. So I think had Border got more to lose than was he more sort of, you know, motivated compared to his compatriot.
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- [23:24]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Okay, so we get to 11 August 1492, when he was, as you've said, unanimously elected by the conclave of cardinals as the newly titled Pope Alexander vi. Given what we know so far, why was he seen as a contender for the papacy at all?
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Dr. Catherine Fellowes
So the election is unanimous on the morning of the 11th of August 1492. And really it's a case of over 35 years bourgier and witnessed sort of five different pontificates. His uncle Calixus III, Pius II, Paul II, Sixtus IV and Innocent VIII. And he's meticulous, being sat, sort of waiting, biding his time, essentially thinking about how has all the previous families navigated these choppy waters. He's made the right connections that starts back in the 1450s, the 1460s, people like the Gonzaga family, the latest Schwarzeneggers of Milan. So he's been cultivating these very strategic friendships. The latter with Milan, with Ascagno. Swarza is particularly sort of the crux behind how the balance switches in 1492 in the conclave. So we've got friends in all the right places and he's good at being sort of not overtly clear at times which way it's going to go. So he plays quite a hand close to his chest. That longevity in the College of Cardinals and all the positions that he's held. So cardinal, vice chancellor, legate and dean of the college. So the most senior cardinals also allowed him to amass great wealth, great influence and a number of disposable tokens that he can use to sway the balance. What the longevity's also done is given his fellow cardinals that are gathered a chance to observe him. So what. What man are you going to get in Rodrigo? You're going to get someone who knows the inner workings of the College of Cardinals, Papal Chancery and other sort of facets of papal administration, government. You've seen someone who can operate on the sort of you developing world stage through his negation to Spain, and you've seen someone who's a patron. There's big emphasis on this growing idea of patronage. So you've got the whole picture. And the only other facet I can think really to add to this is cardinals entering the conclave. Got a choice. Do they want to continue in the same manner of the previous pontificate, or do they want to break away and try something new? And with sort of we have 1492 is starting to play itself out age of sort of discovery. The world vision was sort of expanding. Was Borgia sort of the most apt choice for this? Looking at sort of the background just with some of the other cardinals that are in there, he probably was the only person that was right for the job. He'd had a little bit of potentially a trial run in 1490 when instant VIII had fallen ill. But the two years in between where the worldview had changed had really allowed him to capitalize on this. And as a result, when all the ballots counted up, he is elected unanimously by his fellow cardinals.
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Now, his appointment came at a time of significant political changes in Europe. How important was it for him to reassert the authority of the Church? And how did he go about doing so?
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Dr. Catherine Fellowes
Very much so. I mean, it's a fractious state that he sort of inherits 1492, if you read Guicciardini, very much the world, Italians are very aware of, the world was changing. And we have to fast forward two years to the start of the Italian wars, where sort of we get French incursions into the Italian peninsula, targeted mainly Naples and their claim to Milan. But Rome gets caught up in the middle. Your troops have billeted in Rome. Rodrigo has to retire to Castel Sant'Angelo to take safety. He's also got the other sort of double threat that one of his cardinals, the future Julius ii, is really calling for France to help essentially overthrow Borgia and sort of is. Is at the head of the French army. So you get this very visible anti Borgia, anti Spanish feeling when the French troops arrive that sort of dominates, really, the rest of his pontificate, in a European sort of sense. So we get sort of France there. We've also got problems in the Italian city states themselves, notoriously, Florence, going through a period of great political change and the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and then this experimentation, really, with Savonarola, one of the other sort of individuals that has defined Rodrigo's papacy. So he's got problems on the sort of European stage, but also closer to home. And he's going to have to navigate it quite deftly, unfortunately, at times, the benefit of hindsight and does get it a little bit wrong. Savonarol is a different case about how sort of he deals with that France. He's quite lucky, at some respects, that after a while, the French kings tried to move away from this idea of trying to depose him. They just want to reclaim their territories. But it is a very fine line that he treads, and it comes at great personal sacrifice. Sort of the accounts we have, the turn of the 16th century, he's in a very low mood. He looks unwell, he's very tired, he's quite short with everyone. So it has a snowball effect, particularly French troops on Italian soil.
- [28:54]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And, I mean, let's take these aspects individually. So thinking then, about the internal conflicts between Italian city states, how much was he navigating a balance between the national interest and the personal interest?
- [29:12]
Dr. Catherine Fellowes
Maybe because it all deals with sort of the pacification of the Romagna and the Papal states, All of this gets blended into one horrible homogenous mass for him. He's got to keep one eye on sort of national interest. Quite precarious position at times. But also the personal interest has got a very ambitious sum in Cesare. And I know there's a later podcast dealing with sort of all his adventures around the Romagna and subduing it so they mutually inform each other, I'd say, with it. Pacifying Florence will take quite a lot of time. The Romagna, there's always going to be scuffles dominate sort of his pontificate there. And he does get enmeshed in quite a lot of this and finds it quite difficult to sort of withdraw from it.
- [29:59]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
I suppose one thing we just need to point out is here we've got a Pope playing an active role in events, not only defensively but offensively. Is this rare?
- [30:11]
Dr. Catherine Fellowes
So when I was thinking about this, I thought actually you only have to look really at his Successor or successor +1. Pius III has a very brief pontificate after the death of Alexander. The idea of politic Julius ii, the warrior pope, sort of, it calls to mind him actually donning armor and physically leading troops. But you get an even escalation of this idea about popes being invisible representation on the battlefield. He's present at the Battle of Mirandola and gets quite strong acclaim from his troops by his bravery. So we get this higher idea of not just a vocal participant in diplomatic discussions, but actually a Pope donning armor and leading or being a vanguard for his troops. You can also look back into sort of the 11th century. Pope Leo IX had also Don Garmond led troops who forged very much within this middle sort of section of it. So not dunning armor particularly, but those two examples show that popes could even go even further and actually bear arms. Again. V sort of, you know, one of the ideas that we, we sort of link to the papacy of, you know, being a pacifist or non aggressive individuals.
- [31:23]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And you mentioned Savonarola. So this is a religious reformer who's part of a sort of trend of increasingly virulent cause for reform. How did Borgia act against him?
- [31:37]
Dr. Catherine Fellowes
So in three different ways, essentially it comes down to if at first you don't succeed, try, try again to eliminate the opposition. He does offer him a cardinal's hat at one point, which not quite sure how that he thought was going to play itself out. Savannah Royal of Famous goes, no, I don't want this red hat of blood. It's not, it's tainted with so, you know, attempts to try and curtail my freedom and it's, it speaks to worldly corruption. There's a lot of diplomacy, so definitely handling from sort of the Roman side of it that fails. Savonarola's excommunicated and Florence itself is threatened by sort of interdict if it, if it keeps supporting Savonarola. And unfortunately it does for Savonarola, come down to his execution on 23 May 1498, where he's burnt publicly alongside two of his sort of compatriots. So death, diplomacy, the offer of a cardinal's hat, excommunication and then sort of when everything else fails and it's more the political elements that really has antagonized Borgia rather than the religious burnt in Florence.
- [32:49]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And we've mentioned his children a few times. Can we talk about how prominent they were to the establishment and consolidation of his power base, both through their marriages and through Cesare's promotion?
- [33:05]
Dr. Catherine Fellowes
So Borgia uses his children, we might think, quite unsympathetically, but similar to how secular monarchs might use them to sort of get from them a diplomatic sort of web of alliances across Europe, not just targeting Italy one or Giovanni is married to a Spaniard, Maria Enriquez de Luna. So we get sort of a link back to the homeland again. Lucrezia goes through sort of three marriages in her lifetime, all following the whims and trends of foreign policy objectives. At Alexander Rodrigo has firstly to Giovanni Sforza, the Lord of Pesaro, bit of a second rank sort of Sforza in that sense. He's not sort of the top Milanese branch of the family that is annulled on grounds of impotence on Sforza's behalf. But it's probably more likely that Borgia wanted a more advantageous marriage for Lucrezia. She's then married to the Neapolitan and becomes Duchess of Bisceli. Unfortunately, her second husband is assassinated, is killed and finally she becomes Duchess of Ferrara. And it's this timeless duchess which really, I think needs to change the narrative that we have about Lucrezia being his potential femme fatale. But actually there's a lot of evidence to suggest that she was very moderate, very sort of utilised well in Ferrara and exacted her role well. And then sort of last, you know, Cesare abandons the College of Cardinals, is married to Charlotte Dalvik. So we go to France again, so we can chart essentially where Borgia's worldview is going. And Joffrey is married, sort of the youngest Borgia to a Neapolitan princess. He becomes Prince of Squalaccio. So we call this web forming. So you used advantageously and perhaps where diplomacy wouldn't work, these marriage alliances might sort of step up and help support it. Cesare, whilst he's in the College of Cardinals, is but one example of sort of Borgia growing power and attempts to control it. And when he steps away from it, it's quite ill suited to it, as I'm sure you'll. You'll find out. It just means that the settler ambitions out in the Romagna and various sort of strongholds can be completed by Alexander.
- [35:50]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
The legacy of the Sporgio pope tends to be seen as unusually corrupt and avaricious. And in around 1500, there's a wood cut made in France depicting Pope Alexander VI as the Devil. This grotesque composite of claws, horns and teeth. How important do you think that imagery was to informing his legacy?
- [36:16]
Dr. Catherine Fellowes
It's but one idea, but it's a very handy idea that is weaponized both sides of the confessional divide by Catholics and by Protestants, to produce an image both visually in terms of this woodcut, but also on a much larger scale, just how unfit he was to have sat in the chair of St. Peter's this woodcut that's produced in Paris in 1500 years is still produced at the time where he's alive. So it's anonymous. So we have to read between the lines about who might have created it and why they might have done. The most likely idea why it was. It mirrors the times of, you know, the fluctuating relationships by Louis XII and 13th towards Alexander. And it speaks volumes. I think it's endearing, it's enduring. It was certainly, because this is one that people would hold. It could be manipulated. It's a woodcut that people would engage with, they would fold it, unfold it. And it is an age where the printing press had taken off. It could be replication sent out on a numerous scale, rather than sort of textual heavy words. This was an idea that could be played about with, could be discussed, and wouldn't be too unfamiliar to sort of the laity of the 15th and early 16th century. The image of the Devil was all around them in the churches and the artworks in Charter in Italy, through sort of the Blue angel in one of the beautiful churches in Ravenna, to Florence in the sort of Brancacci chapels and then Signorelli's beautiful frescoes in Orvieto. So this image of the Devil in the world wouldn't have been uncommon. And it's not an uncommon trope to sort of lambast the papacy either through devils or by sort of quite aggressive animal imagery. So it would have struck a chord with the laity then. And it is turned into a full sort of assault by later writers. Queen Raphael, Maffei, who sort of hearkens back to. But he's just so unfit to hold the office of papacy because he's been in league with the Devil, he's corrupted the chase, polluted religion. And it's this very dark strand, gorgeous legacy that is put forward and is carried on by successive generations of writers.
- [38:30]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And I'd like to think a little bit more about this with you, because, of course, if we See, something like this, we read it as symbolic rather than literal. How would it have been understood at the time?
- [38:42]
Dr. Catherine Fellowes
I think a mix of both. And you've got sort of a slowly growing illiterate population who would have, you know, read their biblical texts trapped on sort of, you know, defaming not just the Pope, but also other sort of senior clerics, so they've a greater understanding. And then one might sort of approach this with the idea as well of the Devil being present in the world. It's. There's a number of examples in the 15th century where ideas about the diabolic are played out on the streets of Italy. We get sort of reports from Bologna just before the turn of the century, about necromancy being sort of punishable. So it was. It was a visible presence there, so tangible for readers, people manipulating these images, that these. These were really sort of quite heavy ideas that would find representation in the world. A lot of his. It's growing even before he dies. And there's a number of stories about the Devil appearing on his deathbed that it brought forth and sort of given out across Italy. There's quite a lot of anti Borgia feeling that is gathering momentum during the pontificate. And even if they're not using the word devil, that it's something other than a. Something corrupting, something polluting, that then gets transformed with this idea of demonization and sort of representation in a number of different ways, none of which are good for Rodrigo, that have such permanence throughout the historiography of the Borgias.
- [40:12]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And do you think, in part it's anti Spanish sentiment as well?
- [40:16]
Dr. Catherine Fellowes
I think that underpins quite a lot of it. You know, the time that we're looking at the questions being raised about sort of religious, personal religious beliefs and sentiments and how sincere religious belief was with some Spaniards. So we've got the ideas of Convivienza about sort of Muranos, yet were they converting to Christianity to escape punishment or was there a genuine belief? And the word Murano is used quite a lot with Rodrigo. People throughout his whole lifetime doubted his religious background. And that's sort of one of the big charges it's leveled about he's so unsuitable to be elected to the papacy. It also builds into the narrative when he is Pope, he is a lot more tolerant of the Jewish population of Rome than some of his compatriots both in Spain and previous incumbents in the chair of St. Peter Sabine. So these ideas all sort of ferment, as you can pick it as sort of very strong Anti Spanish feelings violently as well. That's played out on the streets. Anti Spanish feelings. 1458, when Calixtus dies, Catalans across Rome have been persecuted. Looking out further into the Romagna, there'd been sort of very targeted attacks on any Catalans that had held sort of fortresses and they'd been killed. And then in 1503, when Borgia dies, there's a whole raft of anti Spanish feeling that is unleashed in Rome and it's stoked up quite nicely by the future Julius II sort of encouraged and found and finds even sort of greater representation and voice in Rome and Italy and then across the rest of Europe and Christendom.
- [41:55]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So anti Spanish, but also very much anti Semitic. I mean, the use of the word Murano as opposed to converso in itself is deeply antisemitic. So let's talk about his death. He died in 1503. It's in mysterious circumstances. What can you tell me about the events that caused both Rodrigo and his son Cesare to fall ill?
- [42:18]
Dr. Catherine Fellowes
So this is where we get a bit of a murder mystery again. There was a murder mystery with the death of his son in 1497. The story goes that he went to a banquet hosted by the Cardinal Adriano Castelsi and is poisoned, unfortunately, sort of for those that like a bit of a murder mystery, a bit of sort of a bad ending for Rodrigo, there's actually a week in between this banquet and his death. The more prevailing assumption is that it's some form of malarial fever. Summers in Rome, notoriously oppressive for our 15th century, 16th century cardinals. Most would flee the city. They would have retreats outside, whether it was cooler, clearer air. And the summer of 1503 is no different from sort of previous ones. It's very sultry. There's a lot of fever and malaria around. So it's more probable that Borgia. And for a while it looks like Cesare might succumb to it. It's through malarial fever. Doctors try insane life. There's very rudimentary attempts at medicine that they practice in the papal household. And unfortunately he does succumb. If that wasn't enough for him, the manner in which the burial and the funeral take place is just adding insults to injury. Hardly any of the cardinals are left in Rome, so he's attended by four cardinals. Normally a whole wealth college would be represented. He's hastily stuffed into a small coffin. He's quite a corpulent man at this point. So he sort of spills out. He's been quite. He's quite bloated. And they sort of try and smash the lid down. And there's some. There's some very unpleasant things that are reported that happen that can be smelt by his fellow cardinals. And it's all very inhumane, very. Quite an awful way to finish sort of his time as pope. Cesare lingers on. He does lose some important time that he could have used to bolster Borgia support in terms of their troops in and around Rome. He rallies. He tries to enact a series of dealings with the College of Cardinals to protect his position and that of Rome. Rome has got surrounded pretty much at all fronts. In 1503, you've got sort of a Spanish army coming up from Naples. French army is at Viterbo, so about 40 miles away. And Cesare has his own sort of band of men ready to join up with the Spaniards and potentially sort of thwart the French. So it's a tense time. And so the indignity that Borges was afforded at his funeral has also added to this quite lewd reputation that he gets towards the end in his life.
- [44:59]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
To finish, then, if something as fundamental as the nature of his death remains contentious, how do we separate the truth about the Borgia dynasty from its infamous mythology?
- [45:13]
Dr. Catherine Fellowes
With great difficulty. A book that was fundamental to my doctorate was by a historian called Orestes Ferrara. And it's got the beautiful quote that everything that has reached about the borders has come through a tissue of inaccuracies. So we have to approach it in a very diligent manner. We have to do sort of a lot of due diligence about who was written in some of these sources. So one of the big diarists at the time that you can pretty much gain a huge picture, significant understanding of Rome. Stefano in Fazura, on the one hand, is meticulous for describing events, but he's a virulent anti papalist, definitely anti Borgia, and being anti six as the fourth. So it's a case of reading through the lines very carefully about this, removing sentiment away from it and reminding ourselves they all had affiliations, all these diaries, these writers. It's about sifting through it. And that can go both ways. There's a lot of obviously virulent anti Borgia feeling in historiography that's endured sort of the span of time. But also there's attempts to rehabilitate him that have gone the other way, that have been so keen to whitewash his character that actually what we see is not the full picture. He's being the victim purely of Julius ii. And his concerted attempts to produce and foster this black legend. And we have to sort of sit in the middle, be quite careful about how we interpret information. What I try to do with him as well is separating children away from him to very much deal with him as an individual, and in my case, him as Vice Chancellor rather than as pope. And that's how I've tried to navigate the sort of shifting viewpoints, sympathies, or lack of sympathies. But it does remain an absolute uphill struggle, system, navigate, border historiography. What is real, what is fact, what has been overstated? Why was it overstated by contemporaries? And I think the only person that's done it successfully is the late Michael Mallet, whose study of the Borgia family remains. If sort of. I could recommend people pick up one of the comme of Borgias. His study of the family is. It produces, it presents all the information in a very emotionally sort of void way that you can get straight to the heart of the matter. And it's incredibly balanced.
- [47:38]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Well, thank you very much for starting us off on our journey, hopefully towards finding out something of the truth of the dynasty. Thank you, Dr. Fellowes.
- [47:50]
Dr. Catherine Fellowes
Thanks for listening to Not Just the Tudors from History Hit and to my researcher Alice Smith and my producer, Rob Weinberg. And do join me for the next episode in this series on the Borgias, when we'll be looking at the man who probably best embodies the Borgia legacy and its notoriety. Pope Alexander VI's illegitimate son, Cesare Borgia sat.