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Borgia
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The Borgias or Borjas were an Italian noble family of Valencian origin remembered today for their corrupt rule of the Papacy during the Renaissance. They are in fact thought to be "history's first criminal family".
The patriarch of the family, Rodrigo Borgia (1431-1503), "became a bishop, cardinal and vice-chancellor of the church." He was later elected Pope, taking the name Alexander VI and kept that position for at least eleven years.
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Encyclopedia
The Borgias or Borjas were an Italian noble family of Valencian origin remembered today for their corrupt rule of the Papacy during the Renaissance. They are in fact thought to be "history's first criminal family".
The patriarch of the family, Rodrigo Borgia (1431-1503), "became a bishop, cardinal and vice-chancellor of the church." He was later elected Pope, taking the name Alexander VI and kept that position for at least eleven years. Other members of the Borgia family were Lucrezia Borgia and Cesare Borgia, daughter and son of Rodrigo Borgia, respectively. Among the many accusations against the Borgia family, some are of incest, adultery, murder, and scandal.
Members of the family
In popular culture
Film, TV and Comics
- The Tyrant: An Episode in the Career of Cesare Borgia, a Play in Four Acts (1925), by Raphael Sabatini.
- In the classic 1926 film Don Juan, John Barrymore, as Don Juan, fights the Borgias.
- Neil Jordan's proposed film Borgia and the Spanish-Italian 2006 film depict the life of the family. The family were also the subject of the critically-derided BBC series The Borgias.
- In Part 3 of the Doctor Who episode, City of Death, the Doctor makes a trip back to 1504 to visit Leonardo da Vinci to find out why there are 7 Mona Lisas bricked up in the basement of Count Scarlioni's Chateau in 1979 France. After he writes "This is a Fake" on the canvasses, he is discovered by a soldier who works for Captain Tancredi (aka Scaroth last of the Jagaroth, aka Count Scarlioni). While Tancredi briefly leaves to fetch instruments of torture to make the Doctor tell him why & how he arrived in 1504, the Doctor asks him, "You don't believe all that stuff do you? Jagaroth Spaceship.". The soldier replies, "I'm simply paid to fight, but when you work for the Borgias, you believe anything!"
- Alan Moore's comic book Promethea makes mention of a restaurant named Borgia's, in which five courses are served, followed by an antidote.
- The character of Pope Julius II in the film The Agony and the Ecstasy states that he is not a Borgia when presenting his plans to rebuild Saint Peter's Basilica.
- The Godfather Part III refers to the Borgias when Michael Corleone is in the Vatican attempting to receive a ratification from the Pope on a business deal owned by the Catholic church.
- The Third Man (1949) offers a famous quote, penned by Orson Welles for his character Harry Lime, in which he says: "Remember what the fella said: in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."
- The 1949 Prince of Foxes is Welles' vehicle more directly related to the Borgias; it is an adaptation of 1947 novel Prince of Foxes by Samuel Shellabarger. Orson Welles plays Cesare Borgia as the villain to Tyrone Power's hero, an artist-politico called Andrea Orsini. While Orsini's character is fictional and the film adheres to a romantic swashbuckling formula, the action's setting in the Borgia conquest of the Romagna region and the political machinations behind Lucrezia Borgia's marriage into the powerful d'Este family give the film a modicum of historical legitimacy.
- The Borgia, a graphic novel by Milo Manara and Jodorowsky, depicts the story of Borgia and his family. Three volumes have been published so far, the fourth is expected in 2009.
- Canterella, a graphic novel by You Higuri, depicts through historical fiction the drama within the family. The series is currently ongoing.
- The long-running NBC drama series "Law & Order" included a character named Alexandra Borgia.
- An episode of Star Trek, "The Man Trap," took place on a planet whose native flora included the highly toxic "Borgia plant."
- In the John Ford movie The Quiet Man, Michaleen Flynn (played by Barry Fitzgerald) said to Red Will Danaher's offer of buttermilk, "The Borgias would do better".
- In the film Serpico Frank Serpico jokes that the history of sheep dogs in his family goes all the way back to the Borgias.
- In the horror comic Hellblazer #243, it is stated that Alexander VI created a room in which anything done would not be considered a sin in the eyes of God, no matter how vile, for the purpose of raping young men. It absorbs so much negative energy from years of corrupt church officials using it to indulge in their every temptation that it becomes part of hell. Protagonist John Constantine destroys it with the help of a succubus that owed him a favor, in order to steal a gospel bearing his name from the Vatican Library.
- From the popular Vocaloid series, Vocaloid Kaito and Miku Hatsune sing an original song called 'Canterella' which is based on this family.
Novels
- Prince of Foxes by Samuel Shellabarger
- The Family by Mario Puzo
- Mirror, Mirror by Gregory Maguire
- Borgia by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Milo Manara
- The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, père
- In Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind, Ashley Wilkes states to Charles Hamilton and Scarlett O'Hara that Rhett Butler looks like one of the Borgias.
- "Cantarella" by You Higuri- manga with Cesare as the main character.
- Milo Manara, an Italian comic book creator, drew a comic book divided in three parts depicting the story of the Borgia family. The texts were written by Alejandro Jodorowsky.
- Borgia, the novel of a family by Klabund
- The Borgia Bride by Jeanne Kalogridis
- Silent Spring by Rachel Carson has a chapter entitled, "Beyond the Dreams of the Borgias"
- by
- The Antipope by Robert Rankin.
- The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli.
- The Shame of Motley by Raphael Sabatini.
- The Life of Cesare Borgia a non-fiction work by Raphael Sabatini.
- The Medici Seal by Theresa Breslin.
- De scharlaken stad - The scarlet city by Hella S. Haasse.
- In Arthur Conan Doyle's The Adventure of the Six Napoleons, Sherlock Holmes recovers "the famous black pearl of the Borgias."
- Borja Papa (in Catalan), by Joan Francesc Mira, is a fictional autobiography of Alexander VI.
- The Inimitable Jeeves , by P.G. Wodehouse, "a roll and butter and a small coffee seemed the only thing 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".
- Summer of Night by Dan Simmons revolves around a bell, which belonged to the Borgia family during the Renaissance period.
- Time Enough for Love by Robert A. Heinlein makes a humorous mention of the Borgia family's customs and historical relevance in the chapter appropriately titled Baccanalia.
- Cesare by Souryo Fuyumi is a manga about the Borgias with Cesare as the main character.
- In Fausts Leben, Thaten und Höllenfahrt by Friedrich Maximilian Klinger, Faust and Leviathan visit Rome during the Borgia's rule, witnessing many of the crimes and debaucheries committed by the family.
The Dutchess of Malfi by John Webster is possibly based on this family
Businesses
Munster, Indiana has a .
See also
- The Black Legend, a corpus of books and rumors spreading a bad image of Spain.
- Rappacini's Daughter - Nathaniel Hawthorne
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