From Hosting Orgies In The Vatican To Stealing Riches, This Pope Was The Most Scandalous In History

The Truth About Life Inside The Corrupt Borgia Family

Cesare Borgia, considered the most depraved and vicious of the pope’s children.

Pope Alexander VI was far from the only scandalous Borgia. Among his children, Cesare and Lucrezia were by far the most infamous.

After resigning as his father’s cardinal in 1498 — the only person in history to do so — Cesare Borgia participated in various military conquests across Italy. He later married into the family of French King Louis XII, another alliance forged by his father.

Cesare hoped this marriage would give him French support for his plans to take back control of the Papal States and perhaps even create a new Borgia state in Italy for Cesare to rule over himself. In 1499, Cesare led the papal army and French troops in a four-year campaign to do just that.

In battle, Cesare favoured devious sneak attacks and was ruthless even with his own people. In 1502, tired of serving Cesare, a handful of his commanders staged a rebellion. Unfazed, Cesare used papal funds to replace them with mercenaries, then sent word that he wanted to meet to reconcile. At the meeting, he executed his former trusted commanders.

Cesare’s hunger for power and never-ending machinations even earned him the admiration of Italian diplomat and writer Niccolò Machiavelli. In fact, Cesare’s scheming and naked ambition inspired Machiavelli’s best-known work, The Prince.

Known for his appetite for bloodshed, Cesare was even widely believed to have been behind the murder of his own brother Giovanni, though some historians now believe Giovanni may have been killed by a jealous lover.

However, when his father died in 1503, leaving Cesare without papal backing to continue his plans, he was forced to abandon his hopes of becoming an Italian prince.