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52 of 60 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Did Martin Luther Know All This?, January 8, 2009
For the general reader, Italian history is difficult. British history, like American history, is about one country tied by one language. While these histories have religious and political strife they are very unlike the situation where city states and a religious superstructure vie for power. The many narratives and subnarratives, inclusive of the monumental art created at this time, make it hard for the general reader. A focused work like this is most appreciated.
I particularly liked that Hibbert brings us to Rodrigo Borgia within 10 pages. (I put down Perfect Hostage: A Life of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's Prisoner of Conscience because she was not yet born after the first 70 pages.) Another quality I liked was that the quotes from primary souces are translated using modern English.
The content is striking. It's hard not to marvel at how bad the Borgias were and how much they got away with. The Borgia Pope, Alexander VI, is 2 popes away from the Medici heir whose reign will have to deal with Martin Luther and his theses. It is clear that the Protestant movement was not the result of (only) Leo X, but found its roots in the extreme corruption, violence and perversion of faith in the Borgia period.
Another thing that is striking is the serenity and virtue ascribed to Lucretia, who seems to be unaware of the murderous qualities of her family, particularly Cesare. How can this child, most likely a product of incest by father and brother, twice a widow (once perhaps at the hand of her brother) and married off against her will and later a mother who burried children be the accepting, spirited and gracious person history records? Perhaps a forensic psychologist will someday read the records and explain Lucretia's true essence. She "takes to her bed" many times in stress, perhaps this is a clue.
The common people were vulnerable to terrorism from within and without. I exect most of the victims, who lost if not their life - their lives, in the wars and plots knew little of why their towns were being attacked. Whole towns, of presumably Christian people, were killed, maimed, raped and/or looted by the army of the Pope.
I highly recommend this book for the general reader. The material is interesting and well presented.
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26 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
16th Century Family Values, September 7, 2009
The Borgias are one of the fun families of the Renaissance. While probably not as bad as suggested in the original material, there is sufficient smoke to suggest some fire was going on at the Papal Palace. While the family produced two popes Calixstus III and Alexander VI, this book mainly focuses on the later as its central force. What we have is the unique situation of a pope with a family (highly irregular considering he was supposed to be celibate) whose interests he is all too eager to promote. This he did by playing off the powers of Naples, Milan, and France off against each other in order to get the best deal possible, sometimes with mixed results. Were this happening in the 21st century, one can imagine the premise for a good situation comedy or at least a bad nighttime soap opera (which it was in the 1980s).
The family consists of Pope Alexander VI, his son Cesare, his daughter Lucrezia, Juan, the favorite son. There is also Gulia Farnese, who managed to secure an appointment for her brother to be a cardinal because she happened to be the pope's "main squeeze," although that is another story involving yet another dynastic family in Renaissance Italy. During his somewhat short reign as pope (1492-1503) Alexander VI employed every delightfully despicable feature of Renaissance diplomacy to advance the fate of his family. The Borgias probably were unique in the history of the world to feature a relatively high body count at family reunions. Unlike the Medici, the Farnese, the Doria Pamphilior the Della Rovere, the Alexander's family did not stay long as high flying players in the game that was Italian 16th century power politics. While Machiavelli speaks glowingly of Cesare in `The Prince," he clearly did not have the abilities to sustain his family's standing once his father died. This is a feature of dynastic politics as the American electorate can well appreciate given recent events, the subsequent generations of a dynasty lack the edge and ability of the founder.
Upon the death of his father Cesare proved to be too cleaver by half (a mistake Alexander VI never would have done) by throwing the family's support in College of Cardinals to Giuliano Della Rovere (later Pope Julius II). Rather than attempt to further the ambitions of the Borgias, Julius typically moved to squash them. Julius II (my favorite pope, just as Cardinal Richelieu is my favorite cardinal) was the patron of Raphael, Bramante, and, most famously, Michelangelo was nobody's fool. Although subsequent generations of Borgias managed to find places in aristocratic and ecclesiastical spheres in France and Spain, the family was never to be what it was when Alexander VI was alive. Julius even when out of power was always a dangerous foe.
Christopher Hibbert is the author of numerous books dealing with British and Italian historical and biographical subjects. While this book does not add any new understanding of the Borgia family, it is a wonderful synthesis of the available material. This is well worth reading.
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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A fine biography of a very nasty Pope and his family (details), November 5, 2009
Christopher Hibbert (1924-2008) was one of England's foremost historians and clearly an expert in this realm of study. Among his numerous other works, he also wrote The House of Medici: Its Rise and Fall.
I was looking for a well-written biography of the infamous Borgias and Hibbert has provided it. Over the 328 pages he describes, in colorful prose, how the Borgia Family (in what is now Italy) came to power through the Catholic Church, their sexual antics, their propensity to murder even their own family members to either gain or maintain power, and their ultimate demise.
Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia, the father of Lucrezia) was the chief instrument of the Borgias and he never hesitated to engage in simony by selling red caps (Cardinal status) to bolster his support or even to simply expand his own personal notable coffers of treasure. He also had sired sons: Juan, Joffre, and Cesare, the latter of whom never ceased to invade fiefdoms throughout Italy, thus expanding the Borgia Empire.
Pope Alexander VI, at various points, took to arresting and executing cardinals, poisoning some of them, all to loot and pillage their homes of treasure. The "vacated" positions were then sold by the Pope to the highest bidder, "...men of dubious reputation...," being no barrier to his actions. Disappointed applicants who spoke out later were rewarded by strangulation using a garrote. Much of this wealth was used to fund Cesare's endless military campaigns.
The author pulls no punches on the details of the depravity and the gruesomeness of this demented but powerful family. The story becomes complex at times, as Hibbert successfully maintains a reasonable perspective of who is who's enemy at any given moment.
This book would have rated five stars with me had it even a few art illustrations of the principals. A simplified genealogy chart would have been equally helpful. Still, the story is well-told and I highly recommend the book.
Fans of this book would also surely enjoy the recently published: Murder of a Medici Princess.
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